Chapter 2

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[Alert: Potential supplement detected

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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