chapter 9 Quietude and Paranoia

Marcus woke with a start, looking around in confusion before he noticed he was in the small glade his... their home was now situated. He stands, brushing off his clothes, before heading for his tower. He needs to get together materials, especially if he’s planning to teach the young unicorn the ways of true magic.

Something stops him though, a feeling of unease. He glances around the glade, deep shadows ringing the brightly lit interior. His brows furrow, trying to piece together why the peaceful, pleasant area, with its faintly chirping birds, is making him so unsettled. He’s seen and done to himself unspeakable things - so why is this carefree field making him nervous? It hits him after nearly a minute of nervous shuffling towards the door of his keep:

There’s nothing dangerous out there.

No zombies had come to try devouring him in his sleep, no creepers had tried to seed their spores on a freshly-mangled corpse, no spiders had tried to make a meal of him, nor skeletons to turn him into a pincushion... and if the sun’s position is any indicator, he’d been asleep for awhile, long enough for it to be just about dusk.

His eyes blink, glowing a vivid red-orange as he looks into the darkness, expecting to see a veritable horde of patient, murderous cadavers, instead being greeted with dense but healthy undergrowth and a minor patch of toadstools unlike any he’s used to finding. Though, he would be forced to admit he doesn’t actually know the difference between toadstools and mushrooms, if there even is a distinction.

This far into the woods, dark as they are, there should be undead moans filling the air, and the clacking of animated bones; and yet... there is nothing but the occasional, rather melodious tune sung by a bird of some variety. If there were indeed even a creeper around, their mere presence would have surely frightened away any smaller creatures.

There’s no chittering, slithery-sounding steps of eight chitin-clad legs travelling through the undergrowth, nor the more distinctive thuds of the giant spider’s even larger cousin, rare as they are.

The only thing potentially hostile that he could even recall being near their camp were the Silverfish, who were sleeping, or waiting, but would not move unless their stony homes were disturbed. It was very unnerving, but the mere knowledge of the presence of the miniscule beasts eased the tension just a bit, by having some of the fear having a specific origin, rather than potentially coming from any angle possible.

He stepped inside, eyes returning to normal as he looks over the decently-lit interior. Speaking to himself, he mutters, “I need to make an axe, get some wood, gather materials for paper... at least I don’t have to start with mere iron for my wand cap.” He begins looking through the pre-made chests throughout the building, seeing if there’s anything that was generated into them when Slendy created the tower.

The closest he finds is a loaf of bread in an item frame, and a few item frames on a set of storage chests, indicating one is for dirt, one for wood, one for cobblestone, and one for... fence? He’s not sure what to think of that last tag.

Taking the log and the cobblestone from the frame, he sighs. “Well... I guess I need to go punch some trees and get wood that way.” he comments, looking out a window. “... but it’s dark out. Damn...” he says, and sits back on a couple of wool blocks with signs on them, pretending to be a bed. “Well, at least I’m rested.”

Morning comes, and he shifts in place, having been pulling apart the solid log pillar in the center of his house all night, a small assortment of stone tools now arranged in front of him on the workbench. “Alright, good enough for me-” A sudden hiss erupts from behind him, and he lunges to the side in reflexive terror, spinning about as he rolls back to his feet, dagger in hand, to lunge at the cree-

He looks around his workshop, heart hammering in his chest, the room uninhabited save by himself, and he slowly breathes a shaky sigh of relief. He leans back against the cool stone walls, and tries to relax, the thundering in his breast like the maddened beating of a war-drum.

Wiping his eyes, he begins to gather up his new tools, those being multiple shovels, a couple axes, a trio of pickaxes, and a single stone sword, the blade crude but serviceable. He straps one of each tool to himself, pick at his side, shovel and sword on his back, and axe in hand as he heads towards the dense trees, intent on chopping a few to the ground. A few swift smacks with the stone-headed axe and a meter-tall segment of the oddly skinny log pops free - and the whole tree above him comes down, startling and surprising him.

He gapes in confusion at the tall, oak-like tree that has just been toppled by him, muttering a faint epithet. “What, by Notch’s holy apples, was that?!” he whispers in awe. He’d never seen a tree act like that. Even those crazy metallurgists, the Tinkers, had axes that simply took the entire tree down in one fell stroke, not this... madness of falling treetops.

“Still,” he considers, “It certainly makes the top of the tree easier to get to.” he makes quick work of the tree, getting far more logs than expected from it and collapsing them into the thin bands of energy that enters his inventory. The work is exhausting, but only because of its tedium, and he grows steadily more irritable as he goes through one strange, collapsing tree after another, unable to find a single Sapling among the scattered branches - which linger for an unnaturally long time, still there when he finally decides to leave.

The next thing he needs, he realizes, is a bucket to transport water to and fro. But for that, he’d need iron, and... well, mining just isn’t very interesting to him. Nothing but gray walls and darkness, an endless sense of something being around every corner... it’s no place for a researcher.

Lost in his thoughts, he barely notices that he’s walked most of the way to town, his legs carrying him through the woods carelessly in search of something to engage his mind... though the trek is halted when he finds himself stepping with a squelch into a thick patch of mud and clay. Looking down, he beams happily as he recognizes the material, despite the odd coloration from his perspective. Whipping out the wand he’s used to, he activates the dark green focus and begins to churn and remove the abundance of clay from the riverbank, gouging out an unsightly tract through it. He almost leaves it, too, but decides to cover it over with a layer of dirt, though that still looks out of place, with its crisp edges and corners, but he just shrugs and writes it off as an idiosyncrasy of the local area.

Wandering away from the riverbank, he heads into town once again, blithely ignoring a small patch of tilled ground further upstream. Or, rather, he fails to notice it, too intent on his goals of finding someone interested in the further clay tiling he has to see it.

Walking around, he eventually finds himself in a marketplace, surrounded on all sides by the ponies. Shifting nervously in place, he tries to find a spot to set up and begin hucking his wares, but a curious sense of claustrophobia begins to overcome him, and he can’t seem to escape the press of bodies all around, even though he stands head and shoulders above even the largest of them.

They weren’t malicious, far from it. They, after a brief adjustment, greeted him. Waving and smiling at the newcomer. As if... as if he was one of them or something. Beckoning him like a Siren to become one of them, join the crowd of almost-too-happy ponies and... the thought scares him. There were too many. Everywhere he looked there were more of them.

Beginning to hyperventilate, he beats a hasty, nervous retreat, face flushed with shame at being driven out by such a warm welcome. Ducking hastily into a narrow alley and ignoring the concerned looks all around, he sits down in the empty passage, head in hands and trying to convince himself it’s not so bad.

Suddenly, he felt something odd, a faint pressure on his knee, and he peeks out from his cage of fingers. A small pony child, with a powder-blue mane and purple eyes, was standing in front of him, looking concerned. “A- are you okay, mister?” the child asks.

He draws a slow, shuddering break and closes his eyes again. “No... no I am not...” he whispers, quiet enough the child doesn’t hear what he’s saying. “I will be fine.” he says more clearly. The lie is transparent even to the child.

“Well... whenever I’m sad, I usually just cry until I’ve thought enough about why I’m sad and... usually I’m less sad after that.” The filly offers.

“I don’t cry.” he says, stiffly, face still hidden by his hands.

“Then... what do you do when you’re sad?” the child asks, not comprehending the idea of refusing a specific emotion.

“I don’t get sad.” his voice is turning waspish.

“Why not?” The unnamed foal asks, honestly curious.

“B-because only the weak get sad. It’s a flaw to excise.” he says, sounding a bit more pompous.

“A flaw to what? I don’t know... a lotta words...” The child admits. “But even big-ponies cry, my mommy does sometimes whenever I get sad.”

He looks down at the filly, spreading his hands and looking ineffably ancient for a moment before chuckling. “It means to remove or pull out. Like if you get a splinter, it needs to be taken out so it doesn’t hurt anymore.” he explains. Teaching the small pony makes him feel a little lighter, somehow.

“Oh... well, why do you wanna get rid of sadness? I mean, it’s not fun, but... it’s just something everypony does, right?”

“Yes, but I want to be better than everyone, and then make everyone better as well.” he explains, relaxing as he moves to a more common criss-cross sitting style.

For her part, the foal is confused and just has trouble understanding the idea of trying to be ‘better than everyone else’ and then want to make everyone else better after. To her... “That kinda sounds like you want everypony to be the same... but your way? I dunno, that sounds... weird.”

“I suppose it does sound a little odd,” his admission does make him put on a thoughtful tone and visage, “but what I mean is that I wish to make myself better to prove I can do it, and then share that with everyone else.”

The little filly is not very impressed with the re-wording. “Oh.” a silence follows.

The pair lapse into silence. “Thank you.” he speaks up, quite suddenly.

The filly tilts her head in confusion before realizing that, by talking with her, he didn’t look sad anymore. “You’re welcome!” She pauses. “What are you gonna do now that you’re better?”

“Uhm... I’ll probably find somewhere else to try selling from. I need to make some money.” he says. “You wouldn’t happen to know anybody who needs a better roof, by any chance...? He asks leadingly.

“Uh... No, I dunno that many ponies. But if you need money, my mommy and I sometimes make little thingies and ponies buy ‘em from us ‘cause they say it’s cute... What can you make?”

A blink as he considers that. “Well, I can make quite a few things, but I don’t know if any of it would be ‘cute’. World-shatteringly powerful, yes, but not ‘cute’.”

“Like what?” The filly asked curiously.

“A Sword of the Zephyr - it’s a blade that can allow its wielder to fly, throw enemies to the ends of the earth, and even launch allies high into the air!” he says, grinning broadly. “I can also make golems able to fight off the most powerful of enemies, and I’ve been tinkering around with a crossbow design that can shoot magic bolts.” A pause. “Oh, drat, I’ll need to start that research all over again...”

“...I don’t know if ponies would buy things like that.” The child replies, and as the sun starts to get lower, a mare’s voice is heard of in the near-distance. Calling for a ‘Cotton’ to come back. The filly next to Marcus nods in the direction of the voice. “Mommy wants me. G’bye mister.”

“Goodbye, child.” he says, smiling faintly. He stands up in a far better headspace than before, and looks around. Maybe he can find someplace near an alley like this to sell from; he could easily set up translocation spaces once he’s more settled in. He’ll need a more dedicated infusion Focus, but he doesn’t think that’ll be too difficult to acquire once researched.

Focussing on the quiet all around, muffled hustle and bustle at the far end of the alley, he gets to work hunting for a more effective location to set up a place to advertise his capabilities.