What Was the Legend of the Mobtrocity

Mayor Butter Gamer, the supposed authority figure of Derp Village, gazed out into the morning sky, watching a couple Mobtrocity dropships soar above the cloud layer. He munched on his loaf of bread and wondered when he was going to be free of this village. He hated it to the core. Everyone in the village called him a useless geek, even his own guards and Water, his iron golem. He thought about packing up and leaving the town for good to start a new life involving culinary goods, but he was bound by a contract with Millstown to stay in Derp Village until another mayor replaced his position. Sadly, the locals wanted him to be the mayor, but they were too closed-minded to even accept any educational ideas or suggestions. The locals continued on with life, constructing crappy walls out of clay and sticks and slapping weeds on a sandwich and calling it lettuce. It was the same reason the village was so poor, backwards, and ignorant, yet even the highest authority figure in the town had no control over this issue and anything that could end it.

That all changed when a lone figure walked through the destroyed gate. The guards guarding the gate slept beside the gate, not paying any attention to the possibly dangerous figure. The figure slowly walked around the town and eyed the different buildings and structures. It cocked its head at some and shook its head at others, usually either baffled or displeased form the lack of architecture.

The figure walked into the only stable home of Mayor Butter Gamer. It opened the door, catching the attention of the mayor. What he noticed was something that either made him relieved or worried of the near future. Great, another one, he thought to himself. Please let it be as smart as the last ones. Just give me that.

The figure he was watching was a lone pegasus mare. It wore a gray coat and a blond mane and tail. It was the usual height for a pony, not too big or too small. It carried no armor or weapons, possibly nothing else either. Seven bubbles presented themselves as its cutie mark, something that Mayor Butter Gamer could not understand. Its irises were the same color as its mane—blond. The only off-putting feature about the mare was its eyes. The mayor could tell it had an easily noticeable walleye in one of them. This confused him a little, but he shrugged it off as he greeted the mare.

“Welcome to Derp Village,” Mayor Butter Gamer declared to the mare. “I’m Butter Gamer, the mayor of this village. If you have any questions, please ask. I have many answers.”

“Can you tell me where I am?” the mare asked the mayor.

The mayor looked out the window a second time before answering her question. He kept his tone as welcoming and nice as possible. “You’re in the world of Minecraftia, and you’re on the continent of Bercotta. I already told you that the town is Derp Village.”

“That’s odd how this place is named after me.” The mare glanced around at the different items in the house.

“Named after you? Care to tell me your name?”

“It’s Derpy Hooves, but nopony really calls me that anymore. Also, what is with your town? I’m not a carpenter or anything, but I don’t think houses are supposed to look like that.”

The mayor struggled to keep a smile as he remembered the idiocracy he ran. “Oh, right, the town. Do you mind if I let out some steam?”

Derpy nodded and waited for something to happen.

Mayor Butter Gamer stopped smiling and slammed his loaf of bread on his head. “The entire town is full of village idiots! Everyone here eats with the back of their spoons and forks, think the sky is purple, and can’t count to what’s on their hands! I’ve tried and tried and tried to make them somewhat good at, anything, but they wouldn’t listen! They tell me, ‘Oh, stop being such a geek and let us do our work.’ Well, why don’t you stop placing sticks in clay and calling it a solid foundation! I can’t take these people! I can’t take them!”

Derpy watched the mayor flail his arms around and grumble about his suffering. “I never knew that you were treated so badly. Is there anything I can do to help?”

The mayor was now sobbing in his folded arms. “You could try to knock some sense into them, but good luck with that. They’ll blow you off like what they did to me.”

Despite Mayor Butter Gamer’s statement, Derpy decided to do just that anyway. She exited the house and looked closely for someone she could talk to nearby. She noticed two construction workers, or who seemed to be two construction workers, placing random clay blocks next to an uneven clay wall. She walked up to them and tapped one of their shoulders.

“What it is?” The worker turned to face Derpy, but his disgruntled face melted away as her eyes mesmerized him.

“Um, I don’t want to be rude to you, but I think you should be using stone for the wall, not clay,” Derpy stammered from her own nervousness. The worker didn’t immediately reply or react.

The worker suddenly bowed and jumbled a few words out of his mouth. “Stone I’ll use.” The worker gave an awkward frown to Derpy. “Stone is what?”

Derpy looked around and noticed the cobblestone as the foundation for Butter Gamer’s house. She pointed a single hoof at it. “That’s stone. You get it from the ground.”

“Do you mean weird dust junk under grass?” the other worker asked.

“Can you show me what you’re talking about?”

The worker took out a stone axe and dug straight down until he hit stone. He tapped the stone with his axe. “This stuff!”

Derpy walked over to the hole and glanced at what the worker was talking about. “Yes, that stuff.”

One of the locals walked over to the workers and waved at them. “Hey Pillow, how are you...” The person’s words trailed off as he noticed Derpy’s eyes. His eyes grew wide, and he suddenly bowed down to her. “In all of my life, I never seen something that can see everything! You must be a god!”

“Wait, a god?” Derpy cocked her head at the bowing person.

One of the workers turned his head to her. “Your eyes split. You see in all ways and everything.”

“So, I’m a god because of my eyes?”

“Yes. No one has all seeing eyes except for you. You must be god then.”

Derpy began to make a few conclusions. “If I’m your god, does that mean I’m also your ruler?”

“Yes.”

Derpy had no idea how to handle this news. She was now the leader of Derp Village despite her nonexistent desires of becoming one. The people were now hers to command, and they did not care what they had to do for her. As long as what they did made her happy, they would do it for her.

Mayor Butter Gamer noticed the unusual reaction of the people towards Derpy. He checked the situation through one of his windows. The crowd of village idiots plastered a long gone smile on his suffering face. He reached into his chest and pulled everything that he needed out of it. He then walked out of his house and towards the front gate.

Derpy noticed Butter Gamer and turned to him with a baffled stare. “Where are you going? I thought you were supposed to stay here.”

“I am!” he hollered from the gate. “I’m going to take a well deserved break for a while. Whenever you finally set these people straight, I’ll come back and be their mayor again. Are you okay with that?”

Derpy took a few seconds to respond. She also shouted just in case the mayor couldn’t hear her. “If you’re going for a break, sure! I’ll get you after these people are smart again!”

“Thank you, Derpy. You’re a good person. Er, I guess it’s pony for this occasion.”

Mayor Butter Gamer walked through the broken gate, leaving Derpy with the locals. Most of them bowed to her and called her a god. The ones she told to do a few things did them as precisely and carefully as they could, despite their lack of experience or intelligence for them.

}———————————————————————————————————{

Twilight Sparkle gently rolled around in her bed. As the sun crept up from one of the house’s windows, she felt more and more awake with every new sliver of yellow pixels. She felt wide awake after a few more seconds. She crawled out of her bed, surprised to find her armor still on her body and not set aside. She stretched her body for a second and yawned to drain all of the sleep from her mind. She then looked over to Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. They both were crawled out of their beds and readied themselves for the new twenty minute day. Pinkie was much quicker with her preparations, though.

“Good morning, Twily!” Pinkie chirped over to Twilight. “Ready for more adventure?”

“I’m just surprised that this all wasn’t a dream,” Twilight responded, not answering Pinkie’s question. “We’re still in this weird world?”

“Of course we are! We don’t have a way back to Equestria yet.”

Gingerbread walked into the house through the front door. He immediately turned to the trio of ponies. “Are you three ready to go to the Universal Graveyard?”

Pinkie turned to Gingerbread, keeping her warm smile. “Why don’t we try that amusement park that Ty was talking about?”

It’s not that big. You’ll still have plenty of time if you visit the park.

Gingerbread shrugged. “Sure. If that’s what you three want, then I’m perfectly fine with it.”

Pinkie hopped in the air and cheered with glee. In less than a second later, she sprung from the air to Norgray’s front gate, waiting for the others as she continuously hopped in the air. The other two ponies walked over to Gingerbread with their swords ready.

Are we going now?” Twilight asked. Gingerbread only nodded in reply and walked out of the house. The duo followed him through the clay streets and to the gate. Once they reached Pinkie, she sprung from the gate to the odd structure in the distance. Gingerbread and the two other ponies kept following her until they reached the structure and gave it a through examination.

A looping minecart track snaked around in a medium sized pool of water. It twisted around a small functioning lighthouse, rolled up a small stone brick arch, and curled around inside a U-shaped tunnel. A giant wooden villager head hung from the tunnel’s right side with a couple small shaky movements per minute. Its eyes were emeralds, and its nose was bigger than the ponies and Gingerbread. The entire head itself was much, much bigger than the original scale, as one block equaled one pixel on the villager head. Four minecarts sat between the lighthouse and arch. The first two were regular minecarts, the third one was a minecart with a chest in it, and the last one was a minecart with a furnace in it. They all sat in an idle state, not moving a single pixel in any direction.

So, there it is. It’s something if anything. Have as much fun with it as you can.

Pinkie decided to be the first to test the strange ride. She hopped into one of the two vacant minecarts, nudging herself and the minecart a couple pixels forward. She glanced at each minecart and gave a small frown to them. “Isn’t this supposed to be moving on its own?”

“The furnace in a minecart is able to move the minecarts,” Gingerbread answered as he stepped into the shallow water. “All it needs is some coal to activate it.”

Pinkie shifted her gaze directly at the chest behind her. She flipped the top open and dug into it. She rummaged through several pieces of coal and took a few out of the chest. She then hopped over to the furnace and slapped a few coal pieces into it. Before it started moving the minecarts, she hopped back into her cart and waited for the ride to start.

Does anyone else care to join her?

“I guess I could join,” Gingerbread admitted. “I’m curious on what this thing is anyway.”

Gingerbread fell into the water and climbed into the vacant minecart. The minecart chain accelerated until it reached a quick but reasonable speed. It rolled over the arch and into the U-turn tunnel. Pinkie squealed in delight and waved her front hooves around. Gingerbread could hear her loud screams since she was right behind him. The minecart chain eventually rolled out the darkness in the tunnel and turned right to the lighthouse. It looped around it in a twisty yet blocky fashion and returned to the starting rail. It kept traveling the same path over and over again, steadily draining Pinkie’s excitement and Gingerbread’s care for the ride. The furnace soon lost its fuel and slowed the chain down. After about a few more seconds, it had too little power to move the chain up the arch. The chain stopped right behind the arch and rolled four pixels backwards.

“Well, it was fun for the first few runs,” Pinkie admitted. “That ride gets dull pretty quick.”

“It almost feels like my ears are peeling off my head,” Gingerbread groaned as he covered his right ear with one hand.

Fluttershy looked over to the minecarts and back to the approaching Pinkie and Gingerbread. “Do you want to go again, or no?” Gingerbread shook his head, and Pinkie put a hoof to her chin and tapped her left hind leg a second. She also replied with a swift shake.

“Alright, let’s go to the Universal Graveyard.” Twilight turned away from the group and walked aimlessly. She slowed to a stop in seconds. “Wait, where is it anyway?”

See that big stone brick tower over to your left? That’s the graveyard.

Twilight turned her head and saw the tower Ty mentioned. An iron railing and cobblestone wall connected to the tower encased the adjacent graveyard. A single gate in the wall blocked by another soul door sat on the east side of the graveyard.

Gingerbread walked around Twilight and headed for the graveyard’s entrance. He took out the Dead Key and smacked the soul door with it. The souls melted into the ground and revealed a small section full of gravestones, signs, and identical roses in pots. The trio of ponies noticed the opened gate and hustled over to Gingerbread. All four of them entered the graveyard with caution.

The first thing they felt was the awkward, dead touch of the grass. It was gray and crusty, giving no feeling to Gingerbread yet giving a sickly feeling of crunchy, dry paper and stringy, sticky dirt to the ponies. Rapid fear flooded Pinkie Pie’s mind once she felt a bone in the dirt. Even though she wanted to gallop far away from the graveyard at that moment, the gate denied her urge by locking itself with a soul door, trapping her with her friends and the dead ground.

Pinkie shivered a little as she accidentally cracked a brittle tibia. “Girls, I don’t like this.” Her voice grew squeaky and creaky from her subtle shaking and chattering. “This place is too creepy for me.”

“Well, I don’t feel very happy about standing here, either,” Fluttershy responded with a calm yet shaky voice, “but there shouldn’t be anything bad here, right? It is just a simple graveyard. It’s not like a few zombies will come out of the ground or anything, right?”

Ehm, you might want to reconsider that. We’re following Miencraftian rules, not Equestrian rules. In this world, the dead still live on.

As Fluttershy’s body shuddered and neared Pinkie for comfort, Gingerbread examined the gravestones and the signs on them. “Larry Jillin, he died of boredom. Well, that sounds possible.”

“How do you die of boredom?” Twilight questioned as she walked over to the grave. “That’s not possible.”

Tell that to Larry and Kenny. They both died of boredom.

Twilight turned to another gravestone and narrowed her eyes at its sign. “Sharkie Jam, he died by failing a test? How do these things happen?”

Don’t worry, they keep getting better.

“Holdin Guarde, he used to be an adventurer,” Gingerbread snickered at another grave. “Really, Ty? Gary Wilber, he died by being nuked. I wonder how mad someone must’ve been to nuke just one person. Pylon Tesla, he was killed to death, because that can happen.”

“Hey, one that makes some sense!” Twilight blurted. “Ty the Traveler, the four legged things ended it. What four legged things?”

It would spoil the surprise if I told you.

Pinkie zipped over to the gravestone and analyzed it. Fluttershy was still clinging onto her side. “Four legs, four legs, aha! You mean creepers, right? They have four legs!”

Nope.

“Hmm, something from this world that has four legs. No clue.”

Twilight walked over to another grave and inspected it. “Randy Jearl, he died by a Tree Guardia-Ahh!”

A rotting arm crawled out of the grave and grabbed twilight’s left foreleg. She smacked the arm with her Little Burner, setting it alight and forcing it down into the ground. The arm let go of her and flailed around until it stopped moving and dissipated into smoke. More arms from three other graves ripped out and pulled three zombielike corpses out of the ground. They wore ragged shirts and jeans, and some parts of their bones were visible. Their eyes glowed blue, the same color as the mummies from the Temple of the Lost Tombs. They released a chorus of groggy groans that slithered out of their open mouths. Once these Risen escaped the clutches of their resting places, they shambled towards Pinkie and Gingerbread.

Gingerbread sliced one of the Risen in the chest three times. It responded with a smack to Gingerbread’s face and another on his chest. Pinkie spun into the other two and struck them with her stone sword. They soared back into a stone brick wall before regaining their senses and staring straight at her. She hopped over to the Risen and diced their heads with her sword. They both collapsed as Gingerbread’s Risen took a fatal blow to the leg. All three of them dissipated into smoke and left some rotten flesh and experience behind.

Fluttershy hyperventilated and holed up herself in a corner behind a grave. She shivered and held out a shaky stone sword to defend herself. “Are they gone? Is that it?”

“Maybe,” Pinkie guessed as she sucked up a pool of experience points. “We should check the graves next time before they surprise us like that again.”

Twilight checked the untouched graves around her. “There’s no movement. Maybe we’re done here.”

“By the look of that door over there, we are.” Pinkie pointed to a melting soul door that led into a structured dirt mound.

The quartet funneled themselves through the one by two blocks entryway and into another area inside the dirt construct. Acacia logs supported a nine by nine by four blocks area containing eight more graves. A plus sign hole covered by black stained glass gave a dim light from the open sky from the middle of the ceiling. Two more soul doors were in the area, both of them refusing to budge.

By the time Gingerbread entered the area, five more Risen—one of them wielding an iron shovel and another one wearing leather armor—dug themselves out of their graves and faced him. Twilight took out her magical bow and shot at the leather clad Risen three times in the chest. It stumbled backwards a little and kept shuffling towards Twilight with three new arrows sticking out of its body.

Two unarmed Risen waddled over to Gingerbread and smacked him with their rotting arms. He backed away and hacked at one of them, almost killing them, but not to where they were less of a problem. The two Risen walked up to him again and unleashed another round of smacks, lowering Gingerbread to a fifth of his maximum health. Pinkie gave the killing blow to the injured Risen, and Twilight sliced through the other one’s chest with her Little Burner. Once Gingerbread regained a tenth of his health back, he slammed down two killing critical hits on the second Risen.

The leather clad Risen shuffled over to Fluttershy—the closest target for him. He swung his arms in her direction and missed once she panicked and flew around him. The corpse felt a stabbing pain as it noticed a stone sword stuck into its chest. The Risen fell to the ground and degenerated into smoke. Fluttershy, the one who stabbed the corpse, almost cried over what she had done. “I’m so sorry, but you can’t hurt my friends! I don’t have any other choice!”

The iron shovel wielding Risen, along with an unarmed partner, cornered Fluttershy again. She swung her sword involuntarily into them, but it was deflected by the end of the shovel. She stumbled backwards into an acacia pillar and recoiled from the corpses’ disgusting bodies. Twilight Sparkle heard Fluttershy’s small squeals and shot two arrows into both of the Risen. They shifted their attention to her and growled a couple unintelligible curses at her. She fired two more into them as Fluttershy flew next to Gingerbread. The Risen began their small journey to Twilight as more and more arrows stabbed into them. When they finally got to her, she smacked both of them back with her Little Burner, killing them both in two fiery hits.

With the area now free from dangerous monsters, Gingerbread resumed to doing what he wanted to. He was reading more graves. “Ember Uliva, she died by math. Another death that I want to question so badly.”

Pinkie Pie shuddered before she read the grave she had out loud. “Terabite Annual, he was ground to death. That’s just horrible.”

Some of these people had bitter endings to their lives, and some had odd endings. It’s pretty much how a graveyard works.

Twilight turned her head to the other three as she pointed a hoof to another grave and munched on an apple. “This one is pretty weird. Clyde Dyed, he died in dye. There’s no way that this grave can actually exist. That is too much of a coincidence.”

Yet it does. Try to disprove it if you want to make any sense of it.

“On second thought, maybe I’ll just accept the grave for now. Trying to disprove it’s existence will involve too much desecration and studying to where we’ll lose track of our quest.”

The two soul doors melted away and revealed two more rooms. The bigger soul door behind the group led to a smaller room with two graves and a dirt staircase. The other room was nine by eight by four blocks, and it contained only four graves in it. More light from the sky shone down from a two block wide hole in its ceiling.

Two more Risen emerged from the smaller room. One brandished an iron sword with sharpness I, and the other wore a chainmail helmet and chestplate and held an iron shovel. They both shimmied out of the room and to the quartet, ready to attack whenever they wanted to.

A single blue eyed skeleton in the other room emerged from a grave along with four squirming silvery creatures much smaller than a block. They had black eyes and short, fat bodies that squirmed around on the floor like fish in water. The creatures squirmed towards the group, and the skeleton prepared a shot with his bow and quiver of arrows.

Gingerbread sprung over to the two Risen and slashed both of them with his stone sword. He gave a few more slashes until they struck him enough times to force him on the brink of death. Twilight focused on the skeleton firing arrow after arrow at her. Three of the five pierced her body, and the two others lodged into her mane and tail. Once she fired a couple arrows back, they struck the skeleton and crunched open a few deadly cracks in its bones. The skeleton fell apart and dissipated into smoke.

The four squirming creatures found their way to Fluttershy. On normal circumstances, Fluttershy would have been passive to them. However, this was no normal situation, and these were no normal creatures. The sheer sight of them forced her to jump in surprise. The creatures hopped onto her and bit into her body. She tried her best to smack them off before they could cause any terrible injuries. Twilight, now free to attack whatever she wanted to, used her levitation abilities on the creatures and pulled them off Fluttershy’s body. She then threw them into an acacia log and galloped over to them. She stabbed her Little Burner into them as precisely as possible. After missing ten times and almost slashing the entire ground with a burning sword, she killed the four creatures.

The two Risen returned to the fight as they inched towards Pinkie. The armored corpse kept himself in the front and acted as a meatshield for the armed striker. Pinkie spun around the Risen and decapitated the armed corpse with one blow. She then backstabbed the armored Risen thrice, killing him with an ending groan. Pinkie sucked up the dropped loot and experience, including the halfway to falling apart chainmail chestplate.

Gingerbread took out a steak and chewed it in two seconds. “Huh, these monsters are getting tougher. If I’m correct, I don’t think a zombie is supposed to take ten hits from a stone sword.”

The reason is because you’re dealing with a new rank of undead. Just so you know, these enemies aren’t going to stay weak and frail forever. If you think you’ll be able to take down zombies in two hits from a diamond sword, I’m here to say that you are dead wrong! As what some, unusual, people say, git gud.

“That’s right, everypony!” Pinkie barked loud enough for the sleeping corpses to hear her. “If you collect all of these things these meanies are dropping, you can get strong enough to ignore them! Until then, find more loot!”

“That’s a lot of humans who died in a factory,” Twilight mused, completely ignoring Pinkie’s words.

Gingerbread walked to her and checked the four new graves she examined. “That is a lot of people, if four is a lot to you.”

“Wait, what do you mean by that?”

“What if I told you that four million people died in a factory?”

Twilight’s face contorted into wide eyes and a gaping frown. “Then I’d be horrified! How can so many die?”

“I can tell you that there were people that I heard of that killed way more than ten million. Try to wrap that around your head.”

Twilight’s voice lowered as she spoke to herself. “Equestria’s population in ponies doesn’t even reach up to a hundred million. That’s over ten percent of all of Equestria slain by one human. How can somepony kill that many?”

“With wits and people,” replied Gingerbread.

The two by two soul door in the room with four graves melted away to reveal another area outside of the dirt construct. Eight more graves—four of them open with three Risen and one skeleton—were evenly spaced in the nine by nine by four blocks space. The skeleton wore full leather armor, one Risen wielded an iron shovel, and another one wore a single golden helmet.

Twilight fired a volley right into the skeleton. It felled after only eight arrows and at the same time that the three Risen entered the dirt construct. Gingerbread fought the unarmed corpse back with a stone sword, and Twilight smacked the other two back with a stroke from her Little Burner and another from her Defense Sword. She then covered them in more arrows until Gingerbread finished off his Risen. He then charged into the other two and killed them with a few hits.

Gingerbread glanced at the graves for a second. “Oh goodie, more crazy graves to read. Let’s start with this one.” He snickered a little as he read the grave. “Yellow, he died of stupidity. Oh, that’s a good one.”

“Mike Dean,” Twilight started, “he died by not liking his name. That’s actually a pretty nice name. Why did he not like it?”

Bullies, perhaps? A clever bully can turn anything into a mocking name. I have an example right now. Kike Bean.

“Oh, that’s horrible!” Gingerbread laughed a little to himself with a pinch of regret. “I never knew you had that side!” Twilight simply glanced at Gingerbread, completely baffled by what the name even meant.

Pinkie popped out of a nearby pot and glanced at another grave. “Charles Ridson, he died by his own cooking. Come on, it couldn’t have been that bad, right?”

Is the type of bad you’re thinking about overcooking a cake and still having it raw bad?

Pinkie donned a frown of disapproval and huffed at the grave. “No baker can ever do such a terrible thing without trying to be horrible at baking! Shame on him!”

A bony hand grabbed Pinkie’s left hind leg from the grave. She shrieked and kicked it back into the ground. The hand re-emerged and clamped onto the crunchy ground, sluggishly pulling out a partially rotten skeleton with a filthy baker’s hat and a torn cooking outfit. It held a rusted cutting knife in its left hand. The baker stared directly at Pinkie with its purple eyes and tightened its grip around its knife.

”How dare you insult me like that, feeble living?” the corpse rasped at Pinkie with a shaking hand of bones. ”A good baker never insults another’s culinary art! You will pay with blood!”

The corpse swung its knife at Pinkie with a surprisingly fluid and quick stroke. It missed, but it was too determined to stop at that stroke. The baker swung again in her direction, tearing open a small cut on her left cheek. Twilight fired three arrows into its side, but it refused to face her or show any pain. It instead grabbed Pinkie by the throat and placed its knife next to her heart.

The corpse gnashed its shaky words at Pinkie a second time. ”For being such a mean-spirited baker, I’ll make an equine cuisine out of you!”

Before it could stab her and end the fight, Gingerbread slammed his sword into the baker’s head thrice. It lost its grip on Pinkie as Twilight smacked it with her Little Burner. Pinkie then regained her senses and sliced the corpse’s bony face haphazardly. It took another two strikes from Twilight’s sword to kill the baker.

As Fluttershy hugged and comforted Pinkie, Twilight glared at her with a disapproving frown. “Respect the dead, please. In a world where things come back to life, try not to insult anypony who has passed on.”

Pinkie laughed nervously as she bit into an apple. “I think I learned that lesson right when that thing woke up.”

A one by two soul door to Pinkie’s right melted away and revealed another room inside a dirt construct. It was eight by five by four blocks with four graves and more acacia logs in it. More light from a two blocks wide hole in the ceiling shone down from the sun and into the room. One of the graves unleashed not a Risen or skeleton but eight more of the small creatures from earlier. They swarmed up and piled themselves through the doorway and to the quartet.

Twilight smacked a few of them with her Little Burner. Gingerbread had as much difficulty hitting the creatures as Twilight did. They both felt some irritation from the creatures until all of them were dead and smoky.

Eager to read more graves, Gingerbread rushed through the doorway and into the small room. He noticed that one of the graves’ pots contained a blue orchid instead of a poppy. He walked over to the grave and read the words written on it. “Ginger...”

His voice stopped right there. He stared down at the grave in slight confusion and disbelief. Once he got the courage and voice to continue his reading, he did so with an unusually shaky voice. “Gingerbread, he was murdered by Pinkie Pie. That’s, very unsettling.”

“What’s unsettling?” Pinkie asked as her head appeared from the doorway. She trotted next to Gingerbread and sat down next to him. She silently read the grave with widening eyes and a disappearing smile. Her heart almost stopped beating once she reached her name. “I, I killed Gingerbread? How is that possible?”

“Maybe its a coincidence?” Twilight hoped as she walked into the room, unable to resist overhearing the small conversation.

“If it is, then it’s a really big one.”

“Foreshadowing?” Gingerbread suggested with a confused shrug. “Maybe Pinkie kills me later on for some reason.”

I think it’s safe to go with that for now.

“Well, whatever reason it is, I won’t let it happen,” Pinkie declared as her eyes watched Gingerbread. She then turned to him and wrapped her forlegs around his chest. “I won’t hurt you no matter what happens. You’ll always be a friend to me.”

Quite quick on making him a friend, aren’t you?

“Well, why wouldn’t I? He’s pretty nice when he wants to be.”

A one by two blocks soul door on the other side of the room melted and revealed another open area. Two more of the small creatures squirmed into the room and directed themselves toward Pinkie. She sliced both of them twice with pinpoint accuracy. They flipped over and dissipated into a couple experience orbs.

“What are those things anyway?” Twilight asked as Pinkie took the experience.

They’re called silverfish. Unlike the harmless variant, these ones like to burrow in corpses or stone walls.

“They’re also a pain to fight,” Gingerbread grumbled. “They drop almost nothing, get in your way, and are so tiny.”

Well, there’s many more where that came from. You are in a graveyard after all.

Once Fluttershy entered the small room, the quartet continued along to the next one. It was composed of two seven by six by three blocks sections connected by a small one block strip with acacia log beams. The area was outside like some of the ones earlier. Three graves for each section sat in the area. Skeletons rose out of two of them, ready to shoot their arrows at anything. One of them wore an iron helmet as a bonus.

Twilight aimed her bow at the armored skeleton and fired multiple times. Pinkie hopped over to the other one and circled around it, bashing its ribs and skull into bone meal wi every passing quarter of a second. Only a few seconds later, the skeletons fell apart from the damage.

“Reynold Clarke, he died by imitating a man,” Gingerbread stated as he read a grave. “It makes sense when you think about it. Maybe someone caught him and attacked him for it. Who knows.”

“This one is weird,” Pinkie admitted as she stared at another grave. “Yesman Noman, he died by saying no. Did he just say no, or did he say no to something that he shouldn’t have?” Pinkie gave a shrug and looked down at the grave’s bottom. “Hey, mister Noman, how exactly did you die?”

There was no response, just the flower’s soft movements through Pinkie’s words. However, the two by two soul door far to her left melted away and revealed another open room with four graves and a pathway to the stone brick tower. It also contained another soul door that melted away on its left. Only a single unarmed Risen crept out from the graves and pursued the quartet. Gingerbread hacked it to death with ease.

Twilight walked through the other doorway as the rest of the group followed her. She found a wooden table and some chairs, an ender chest, an anvil, and a small store operated by a villager with a black apron, pale skin, and onyx eyes.

“May I help you?” the villager asked to Twilight, the first one to approach him.

Twilight maintained a friendly smile. “I actually have the same question to you. Is there anything you need?”

“Yes. I have this book that the librarian of Norgray needs back. I borrowed it for a special occasion one of my friends had a month ago. Since I’m too busy watching this place for any escaping monsters, I cannot give it to them. May you?”

“Sure. Just give me the book.”

The villager pulled out a black and charred book with unintelligible scribbles on its front. The pages in it felt crusty and ancient, but something that caught Twilight’s eye more than that was what resonated in the book. She felt a dark presence around the book, a presence similar to Equestrian dark magic. The book almost oozed with the presence, sickening and worrying Twilight a little. She placed it in her inventory and smiled back at the villager again. “Thank you. I hope you stay safe.”

The villager nodded as the group left the small room. Once they returned to the outside, Gingerbread caught another glimpse at the graves. “Huh, there’s been quite a few people who died by unknown rainbows.”

“What do you mean?” asked Fluttershy.

“I read a few of the graves in Norgray, and one of the people there died by an unknown rainbow. That’s kind of a weird way to go if you ask me.”

“Well, we did see a lot of different deaths that were unusual, but three people having the same one is possible,” Twilight added. “Maybe unknown rainbows strike at random in this world.”

Well, they are called unknown for a reason.

Twilight turned her head to the stone brick tower. “I guess that is our destination, right?”

“Definitely,” Gingerbread answered. “Come on, let’s storm that place real quick.”

The quartet walked over to the entrance to the tower. The two by two soul door melted in front of them to reveal a dark and musty interior. A few bundles of cobwebs on the walls and some dead bushes in pots on the floor dotted the curving hallway, and a couple stone slab plates settled next to the walls to cover the coffins under them. Some of the plates were shifted to the side to allow entry into the coffins they revealed.

“It’s too dark to see anything,” Twilight grumbled as she squinted her eyes. “Let me activate a spell real quick.” Twilight’s horn radiated with purple, but nothing happened a second afterward. She tried again and met the same result. “Oh, right. I lost almost all my magic once I came to this world.”

“Let me help you out, Twily!” Pinkie took out a torch from her inventory and gave it to Twilight. “Hold this. It should give enough light for us to see.”

Twilight took the torch with her magic and levitated it in front of her. “Thanks, Pinkie. Now, let’s go.”

The quartet began their trek through the darkened halls. Their first encounter was three silverfish that crawled out of a partially closed tomb. Gingerbread sliced them apart and took their experience. After the group turned right into another section of the hallway, a Risen and a skeleton climbed out of two opened tombs. The Risen skidded towards Pinkie first. It met a stone blade to the jaw five times and three arrows to the torso after it reached striking distance to her. When the Risen collapsed on the ground, the skeleton fired an arrow at Fluttershy. The arrow pierced her chest and induced a tiny bit of bleeding. Twilight retaliated with a couple arrows paired with some magic blasts. The skeleton fell and cracked apart from the last blast.

The group kept traveling and fighting until they curved into a ladder. Gingerbread climbed it first since he was used to ladders. Pinkie went second, using the same crawl that she used for the giant jungle tree’s vines. Twilight imitated Pinkie, and Fluttershy used her wings to fly through the hole made for the ladder.

The next room shared some similarities with the first floor’s hallways. It was yet another hallway with cobwebs, dead bushes, and tombs. Gingerbread swatted a few more hostile silverfish as he led the group through the hall. Just like the first hall, the group faced a few more Risen and skeletons. Even though the monsters inflicted a few injuries, Gingerbread and the pony trio completely recovered from them in a few dozen seconds.

The quartet reached another ladder and climbed it. Three small spiders nipped and bit Gingerbread once he reached the next room. When Pinkie entered the room with him, she swung her sword at the spiders in near unison with Gingerbread. The spiders dissipated into smoke only a second later.

Once Twilight and Fluttershy entered the room, the contents of the room revealed themselves. Of course, there were cobwebs and dead bushes, but there were also a few stone tables with stone chairs. In the right half of the room was a two by two doorway into another hallway. Three Risen, one wearing a full set of chainmail and holding an iron sword, entered the room through the doorway. They faced the group and prepared for battle.

“I’ll go for the armored one,” demanded Gingerbread. “You three should go for the others.”

Gingerbread slashed his sword into the armored Risen’s side. The corpse pushed Gingerbread back and swiped its iron sword at him twice. It hit Gingerbread only once, but the strike was enough to deal a third of his health. Gingerbread struck the Risen again before backing away from another strike. It inched a little closer to him and swung again, missing from a sudden dodge. Gingerbread ran behind the corpse and struck its head three times. The Risen turned around and punched him backward as it prepared for another strike. Gingerbread blocked the incoming blade with his sword and pushed it back at the Risen. He sliced it two more times, one in the head and one in a leg. The corpse groaned in pain and prepared for another futile strike. Gingerbread dodged the strike and stabbed the Risen three more times. It fell to the ground, collapsed into smoke, and dropped its flesh and partially broken chainmail armor.

The two unarmed Risen first aimed for Pinkie Pie. She slashed both of their chests twice, backing them away a little. The Risen threw their fists on her and slammed a few bruises and minor cuts into existence. She dodged the second round of punches and sliced one of a Risen’s legs. They turned to her while Twilight fired a couple arrows into their heads. Twilight kept this up as she approached them with a Little Burner ready. They unleashed another round on Pinkie as Twilight put away her bow, took out her Little Burner, and sliced into both of them. The Risen soon found themselves ablaze and near death. One final stroke from Pinkie felled both of them.

The quartet regrouped and mended some of their injuries. Pinkie chomped an apple while Gingerbread waited for his regeneration to fix his body.

“This graveyard isn’t as bad as I thought it’d be,” blurted Pinkie. “Maybe this obsidian block will be the easiest to get!”

“I wouldn’t count on it,” warned Gingerbread with a worrisome tone. “Saying something like that can jinx us badly. Trust me, it’s bound to happen.”

Not my fault some people like to say how easy a situation is.

The group continued through the doorway with a new worry in their minds. They faced a few more silverfish, two more spiders, three skeletons, and two Risen along their way through the dark halls. Eventually, they stopped in their tracks when they saw a bright light and a nasty obstacle.

“There’s the outside,” Fluttershy started with a hoof pointing to a ladder, “but, there are so many cobwebs.”

“How are we going to get past that?” Twilight kept herself away from the cobweb mass. “I don’t think anypony here wants to breathe in spider silk anytime soon.”

“Simple, we destroy it.” Gingerbread slashed down at a piece of the cobwebs, destroying it with one strike. Fluttershy winced a little at first, and she winced a little more after Pinkie began cutting down the webs. In about eight seconds, the entire area was free of webs. The group then made their ascent up the ladder and back into the outside.

The group found themselves on a roof of the tower. To their right stood the last unexplored section of the mausoleum. To their left lay the expansive view of Sparker Plains, Norgray, and the distant sea. A doorway leading to the rest of the tower was on their right about a dozen or more blocks forward.

A giant red slime hopped onto the roof and in front of the quartet. It gave the pony trio a scare, but it failed to phase Gingerbread. He simply took out his sword and smacked the slime away. It split into three smaller ones after another set of slices. Pinkie and Twilight aided him in dispatching the slimes, but Fluttershy was still a little reluctant, especially once the slimes split into tinier, safer variants of themselves. Twilight prodded these ones over as Gingerbread punched them into slimeballs.

The group continued along into the next section. It shared the same look and darkness as the recent hallways, and it conrained the same Risen and silverfish variants occupying it. The group annihilated the monsters and moved along to the next roof. A Risen struck Gingerbread once he made it to the next roof, so he slaughtered it with several strikes as payback. Two easy to kill skeletons and a normal sized spider in the next dark room waited for the quartet. Those three died from arrows and swords, allowing the group to move along to the next room. They eliminated the three Risen and four silverfish residing there and reached yet another roof. This process somewhat repeated itself as the group climbed up to gradually shrinking rooms, roofs, and amounts of monsters.

The quartet finally reached the last roof with a single chest on it. Gingerbread decided that he was the one best fit to take whatever was inside. What he found was, of course, the sacred obsidian block, but something else hid inside the chest as well. Gingerbread took out a glistering melon slice gilded with a gold shine on its rind. He examined it with an awkward face for a second.

“The Melon Slice of Happiness?” Gingerbread questioned to himself. “What even is this?”

It’s a very valuable artifact. It belongs to a special someone in Sparker Plains, so you’ll have to find them.

“Is this like a special element thingy like those special objects that became keys?” Pinkie asked as she stared at the melon slice. “Do we have to do another round of friendship tasks for this?”

I doubt it. This thing is more like a collectible than a key.

“Maybe one of the humans in Norgray knows about this thing,” Fluttershy proposed. “We could ask them about it and find out what they know.”

“That can allow me the time I need to return this, eh, I’m going to call it a tome.” Twilight shuddered as she felt the strange book shake in her inventory. “I can’t wait to get rid of this creepy thing.”

“I’ll look for a special chest or some other thing that this melon goes to!” Pinkie chirped. “I Pinkie Promise that no crack in Norgray will be unexplored!”

Well, everything there sounds reasonable. Gingerbread, what do you think?

Gingerbread shrugged in response. “I’m fine with it. As long as this doesn’t become some pointless scavenger hunt, it’s okay.”

“I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen,” Pinkie assured. “I mean, we can’t save the world if we’re busy collecting random stuff!”

Gingerbread took the lead on descending the tower. The group had no resistance during their journey out of the Universal Graveyard. This occurred for two reasons. One was that there were no restless enemies left to fight. The second was that the Risen still in their tombs and graves wanted the group to leave as soon as possible.

Once the group returned to the great expanse of Sparker Plains, Gingerbread faced the pony trio and held out one of his hands. “May I have your mob loot so that I can sell it at the mobile shop?”

All three of the ponies willingly gave all of the mob loot they had. Twilight wanted to be rid of the remains of bodies, Fluttershy decided that holding onto body parts was not a good idea, and Pinkie playfully vomited her mob loot at Gingerbread. He took the loot and ran to the nearest mobile shop. He first exchanged the mob loot for twenty-six dollars. He then bought chainmail sets for everybody except for Pinkie, setting the price at thirty-six dollars. He continued to buy three stone swords for twelve dollars, twenty steaks for five, and a weak potion of regeneration and another one of strength for ten dollars. Once he obtained everything he wanted, he returned to the ponies and gave a sword to Pinkie, a set of chainmail to Fluttershy, and both a chainmail set and a sword to Twilight. He kept the remains to himself.

“Alright, let’s get going,” politely demanded Gingerbread. “It’s getting close to dark.”

And so the quartet traveled their way to Norgray to do what they must: deliver a book, return an artifact, and find six more MacGuffins.