Three Friends

Earlier that night...

While the town was returning to their homes to rest for the night, the skyline bathed in a light orange, Hunter was unsure of what to do. He could return to the aquarium for the night and sleep, but it wasn’t quite night yet, and he still had several questions about the plants he had found.

Retracing his steps, he came to the library, and while the giant tree was quiet and dark, there was a light on in one of the windows on the upper floor, likely a faint candle given it’s slow flickering. Assuming that someone was at least awake enough to be up and about, or at least not asleep, Hunter decides to try and ask about perhaps doing a bit of late studying.

Walking up to the door of the giant tree, he finds that it is locked. For the time being, he ponders if perhaps it’s a little too late for a public place to be open. Nevertheless, someone was inside and he didn’t think he would be a bother, as long as he stayed quiet and left without taking anything. Knocking on the door a few times, he gets no response. After waiting patiently for several minutes, he decides that he must not have been heard and so he should try again in the morning.

A few idle thoughts cross his mind as he walks around town, the darkening sky revealing small twinkling lights overhead. Hunter was used to this sight and it felt rather comforting having some aspects of the world being the same as he was accustomed to. It really was an interesting world, but the amount of things he didn’t know about this place brought a slight... tension to his bearings. He wasn’t nearly as knowledgeable about this place as he’d like, and that put him at a severe disadvantage.

So many questions, but nobody to ask until morning it seemed, since the whole town has been shrouded in night and a silent stillness fills the air. Looking back at the library and seeing that one faint light still on despite all the other buildings being dark. Continuing his idle trek, Hunter comes across one of the tireless iron golems idly wandering around town. The large, bulky shape of its body casting a lengthy shadow on the ground, Hunter pondered how he could make the most of his first night. He didn’t feel tired at the moment, and he was sure that if he kept looking around he’d find something he could do now that he couldn’t in the daylight.

His mind went back to his crops. They weren’t mature enough to harvest, and so the Mandrake who normally had to be harvested at night would not have developed enough to be useful, and he realized that his crops, without proper lighting, likely wouldn’t grow very well in the woods that were so dark, even during the day.

He didn’t have any mutandis, or eggs to make some with, so Glintweed was unavailable... he’d have to find some other way. His mind wandered from one solution to the next as he idly continued down the path he had chosen at random. Finally deciding that he would likely need to build a fire, he thought about how to go about building one. He’d need stone to stand around the fire to prevent it from spreading, and some wood for fuel.

Sighing as he continued thinking about his problem, it all stemmed from the root of him needing tools and materials. He’d have to, for the most part, start from the very beginning. He began looking around the Town, wondering what he could see that might be useful. He could always make crude tools out of wood, but they always felt so uncomfortable to him. He’d much rather see if he could find a place he could buy a few tools that were already made.

But he’d need the local currency for that, and he wouldn’t have any money until he turned in his collection of plants to Shady in the morning. Unsure of what to do with his free time and lack of money, he decided he might as well find a place to gather more plants. Even if they turned out mundane, he’d at least have learned a few things about the local flora, which was his entire goal.

With nothing else to do, Hunter begins looking around for any odd-looking or otherwise noteworthy foliage. Finding little more than grass and such, he decides he’d probably have to continue searching around the forest in order to find something worthy of reproducing. Though the Everfree was surely dangerous this late at night, he decided to check around the outskirts of town and hopefully find something special that the ponies didn’t bother dealing with.

Walking off the road and heading in a direction he identified as ‘east’ by the position of the moon, eventually finding himself near the border of the Everfree again, the town bordered on this side by a shallow, clear stream.

Hunter thought a bit about the stream. Looking closer he found that the flow of the water was relatively calm and with a bit of modification, would be perfect for growing Water Artichoke. Taking some of the seeds from his robe, he began trying to till the earth underneath the water and prepare it, though his efforts were lesser than he remembered. Come to think of it, it was the same in the forest. His results were passable but not ideal and he had originally blamed it on the nature of the forest... but here, it seems he’d need to put a bit more effort into farming in this world.

Setting his hoe to the side, Hunter knelt down and began digging at the streambed, hoping to rearrange the dirt. He wasn’t sure what exactly was wrong, but clearly the dirt needed some ‘help’, and after a few moments, the usual stream of dirt-brown energy travels up his arm and into his storage, that intangible inventory all their kind have.

A quick inspection of the energy show it to be a normal cube of dirt... and a Ball of Mud? That’s new... and completely useless to Hunter. Sighing, he discards the ball on the riverbank and returns the Dirt to its original place at the bottom of the little stream. He notes that, indeed, digging up the dirt had changed it slightly, made it more akin to the dirt he was familiar with and, once replaced and tilled easily, the underwater soil gladly accepted his seeds. He’d have to remember this trick for his garden back in the forest, as even though he didn’t know what the exact problem was, he now had the solution to his earlier problems.

Deciding that he may as well let the artichoke grow, he returned his attention to the forest. It didn’t have a trail leading into it from this end, and he figured that if he was going to encounter anything new, it would definitely be along the path less travelled. Or the path nonexistent in this case. Sure it was dark and dangerous, but the blade he had gotten from Slendy would likely help deter any minor troubles at the very least.

“Hunter! You there?! I’m lost...again” Slendy calls out from the nearby forest-edge. Hunter calls back with assurance of his presence and, following where he heard the voice coming from, ventures into the forest to find his friend.

“Hey, where are you? And have you seen any creepers?” Slendy calls back.

“No.” Hunter replies calmly, still following the voice. “I have not. Have you?”

“No, I haven’t either, is this world bugged?” Slendy asks.

The concept of Peaceful worlds, places of utopian safety, is not an unknown concept to the people of the Minecraft world. Indeed, they figure primarily in the dominant ‘religious’ movement, speaking of the Alphane era, wherein all were gods, onwards to the Betacian period of great upheaval and change. But to end up in one is like ending up in heaven; impossible while alive, and there’s no doubt Hunter is still alive, given his time fleeing for his life.

Hunter hums to himself, thinking about the lack of mobs. It was very interesting that he hadn’t seen any, but nights of going out, armed with an Arthana and the goal of returning with rare drops ending with not a single mob found was, though rare, something he experienced enough to call it ‘bad luck’. “I thought it was just an Unlucky Night. Either that or everything was hiding to prepare an ambush.”

“Right? I thought I would at least run into a skeleton or spider, but I’ve found nothing, I’m a little disappointed to be honest.” Slendy admits as he leaves the forest, coming into moonlit view.

Hunter nods. “Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing I’m not sure, but I know this place has predators, and as such, we may still have to be careful. The thought occurs that perhaps this world has its own dangers, not ones we are familiar with.” after his musing, Hunter continued towards Slendy, and looking around the forest edge to see if he could spot a landmark he might recognize. Finding none and realizing he and Slendy were absolutely in a place neither had traveled before, he gave a small smile of apology. “Come, let us be lost together.”

Slendy looked around. “... we should get compasses.”

“I’m afraid I have neither spare iron, nor redstone with which to make one.” Hunter informed his friend. “We have two options from here. We may wander inside the forest and try to find our way, or stay outside and walk along its edge until we come across familiar territory.”

“As someone once said, if you’re going to do something, might as well over do it! So let’s go in the forest.” Slendy answers.

“Well, in that case, you may need this.” Hunter says, handing Slendy back the diamond sword. “Just in case.”

“Worst case scenario, I spawn TNT, and blow our enemies to bits.” Slendy says.

“Considering your... aim, that would indeed be the worst-case scenario, yes.” Hunter replies, sighing at Slendy’s quickness to leap at chances to be destructive.

“Alright, enough talk, time to....” Slendy inhales, ”Adventure!”

Hunter takes a cautious look around to make sure nothing had awoken angrily at Slendy’s outburst, and, readjusting his robe around his shoulders, begins walking into the deeper parts of the forest, the light of the moon quickly fading behind the thick canopy of trees. Finding plants, let alone their way, would be difficult at best.

“It is getting harder and harder to see due to these trees, can I blow them up now?” Slendy asks.

Hunter frowns, “I think we might do better to chop them down instead, so that their wood does not go to waste.”

“Okay, got a spare axe with you?” Slendy asks looking at Hunter.

“No, but assuming you have your command block, I could.” Hunter says.

“Oh, right, doy! I’ll just spawn them, give me a second…” Slendy says as he fiddles with his block, eventually spawning two diamond... axles. “Crap, let me try again.” Slendy tries yet again but only manages to spawn gold axes this time. “These should work, right?”

Hunter nods, taking one and putting it away for the time being. He could still see well enough and he could simply use his bare hands as a last resort, opting to save the axe for later should it become useful.

The two begin to bash at the wood, finding the same strange properties to the trees as Marcus would later in the morning, and puzzle over it as they work. Quickly and efficiently, the two clear a sizable chunk of the woods out, razed almost to the ground. In the process, they also revealed two interesting plants and a few dozen assorted fungi.

The two flowers are a single bloom that looks like a crescent moon, and is pointed like a sunflower at the moon above, easily plucked and still pointing diligently at the celestial body even when moved around or rotated.

The other is more sinister-seeming, a blanket of black fog surrounding it, only a few inches high. The fog perfectly obscures the ground, but the flower itself is like a rose-shaped hole into the depths of space.

Looking at the fogged plant with interest; he considered taking it like he did the first one, but thinks better of it after a second thought. Rather than simply plucking the plant from the earth, Hunter begins digging at the dirt around the plant and dexterously unrooting the rose-like flower, to make the picking process much easier.

The flower, connected to an extensive root system, comes up with the block of earth it was on, gripping the ground tenaciously. The dark fog rolling off the flower seems chillingly cold, but not painfully so. It is, in fact, only mildly unpleasant, like being stuck outside unprepared on a clear, cold night.

Storing the flower and deciding to get a name and explanation later, Hunter continues to lead Slendy through the woods as they slowly create a small path of cut trees, the logs being converted into the usual ribbons of energy and stored for later.

So paired, the two make their way towards the campsite, much better equipped to find their way between them than alone, collecting a large amount of the wood along the way. Hunter, as well, notes that none of the branches, covered in leaves, are decaying into nothing yet, and there’s no Saplings at all to be found.

That last part is more concerning than anything else so far.

He would have to inquire about that in the future, as he knew for a fact he’d need Exhale of the Horned one soon after he sets up his oven for cooking saplings into fumes. Deciding that fretting about the admittedly very major issue now would do no good, he resigns to asking Shady Leaves in the morning. If she didn’t know, it’s likely that the library had what he needed. If all else fails, Slendy might be able to assist.

The friends find their way back, arriving in the small clearing without further incident, though wolves of varying kinds howl in the far distance, catching Hunter’s attention briefly. There’s movement in Marcus’ tower, and the young man sounds busy. Other than that, there’s a relative dearth of interesting things going on in the dark forest; there isn’t even the sounds of monsters in the distance other than the wolves, and those are far away.

Hunter, for his part, heads over to his garden and, using his newfound knowledge of how to prepare the local soil, begins renovating it and, in little time, has a fully-tilled area waiting for various seedlings. Without much else to do and deciding that time is best spent on work now to make way for later relaxation, Hunter works late into the morning on tending his plants as best he knows how, leaving the more... local flora to be planted later once he had more information on how to care for them.

In the light of the fading moon and the coming sun, his garden seemed fairly prepared. Hunter nods to himself a job well-done and heads for the aquarium to rest for a few hours.