The trader steps forward and smiles as he feels the cool air of the air-conditioned cabin wash over him. I chuckle as the man learns of creature comforts that I doubt he could learn of anywhere even in this remixed version of Minecraft.
“This feels… wonderful, my new friend.” The trader tells me, his words lightly accented with an accent that vaguely reminds me of the brand of Italian-Americans who, on TV, live in New York City. I smile at him and ask him to take a seat. He quickly obliges me, and in moments he is sitting across from Eliza. He glances furtively at her, but is careful to keep his gaze lowered. She is not oblivious to his nervous attention, and slyly smiles at me when the man isn’t looking.
“So, friend, my name is Joaquin. I can see that you have traveled a great distance. What can I do for you?” I ask the man, causing him to look at me excitedly and for his body language to relax a bit.
“Oh, Joaquin, it is not what you can do for me but what I can do for you!” He says, smiling at me all the while. My name sounds a bit funny coming out of his lips, but I don’t make that aspect of my impression of him visible on my face.
“My name is Arabas and I’m a wandering merchant, I travel the lands buying and selling goods, and I was delighted to find someone this far away from any villages.” The merchant exclaims, causing me to smile brightly. There are many implications in his words that I catch and that excite me.
I figured that there were villages in this… island, region, continent, landmass, or whatever this part of the world is. The beach stretches farther than I can see with the naked eye, and the plains and the forest both go on for miles in the directions they are in. Whatever landmass I am in, it is not a small one. One plausible reading of the trader’s words would suggest that my hunch is correct… The fact that he exists at all, and is here, is interesting to me since this is not a video game, and thus he was not “Spawned” like wandering traders are in Minecraft. That said, if nothing else he confirmed that villages DO exist, somewhere in the world.
“I have many intriguing wares for sale, and I’d be delighted if you’d peruse them at your leisure.” He adds, a bright smile on his face. I nod at him and tell him that I’d be delighted to browse his wares and he grins at me as he asks to head to his companion to gather some of his inventory. I grant him “Permission” to go and retrieve his wares. He quickly gets up and as he does I glance at Eliza and we both quietly laugh.
“The poor man is terrified of me!” She says, speaking the language of the civilization that sponsored the settlement she was raised in. We’ve taken to calling her language “End-Speech”. I smile at her and shrug.
“I think he’s a bit braver than you give him credit for. He sat still while in your presence and didn’t flee.” I remark and she considers my words before conceding my point with a nod.
“True. He is outside right now, excitedly thinking of how you’ll undoubtedly have riches beyond measure. He thinks we’re rich!” She says, with a curious confidence and specificity that makes me look at her with an inquisitive expression on my face. I watch her skin lighten a touch when she realizes what she said, and she hastily corrects herself.
“He thinks YOU are rich.” She says, and I inwardly chuckle when her remarks do not address the cause of my curiosity in the slightest. Still, I feign satisfaction and I allow her to feel as though she has averted my suspicions.
The curious woman’s quirkiest habit is what she just did. At time she’ll say something positively bizarre like that, as if she can read minds, but for some reason she’s never said anything to that effect about Rebis or myself…
The man reenters my home, a broad grin on his face as he steps up to where Eliza and I are sitting and he places a rug on the floor. On the rug are an array of curious items, mostly different pieces of armor and assorted tools fashioned from different materials, though that’s not all that’s there… Occupying a different spot of the rug is some red powder, arranged in a single large pile.
I recognize the stuff immediately and don’t bother to try and hide my interest. The powder is an invaluable item in Minecraft, the potent engineering component known as “Redstone Dust”. The mere sight of it is enough to excite me, as even as a decently casual player I understand the impressive potency of redstone dust in the right hands.
“I see you’ve stumbled across an intriguing item…” I remark as I stare openly and covetously at the dust. Both Eliza and the trader are openly amused by the look on my face as I study the dust and begin to imagine what the stuff could be capable of in my hands.
“Ahh yes. I’ve taken to calling it ruby dust, though it doesn’t actually come from rubies.” The trader tells me, causing me to chuckle.
“How much would you like for it?” I ask, as I turn and look him in the eyes. He studies me for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he scrutinizes me and I watch him attempt to evaluate my worth.
“Well, friend, I normally only deal in emeralds.” The trader informs me, but I hear the word “Normally” and I can hear the subtle capitalization of it. That word is doing a lot of heavy lifting right now. I watch his eyes narrow as he considers what to say next, his own shrewdness revealing a lot about himself.
“But, we’re new friends now aren’t we?” He asks as he locks eyes with me. I allow him to think for a second before I begin to smile shrewdly myself.
“If you deal in emeralds… I actually have some.” I remark. The man’s eyes widen in delight as he hears my words, and at the same time there is a subtle micro-expression, a flicker of doubt that crosses his face for a nanosecond. His skepticism would, normally, be warranted but I am actually… kind of telling the truth.
I glance at my inventory, doing so without actually making any physical gestures, and I study its contents. As a merchant, some of my powers are curiously capitalistic things with two notable examples being “Nickel and Dime” and “Reclamation”. With “Nickel and Dime” I can convert currency from one type of currency into another type of currency, and with “Reclamation” I can destroy things and transform them into currency. Both abilities are actually kind of busted in terms of how hilariously strong they are, but in this setting they lose a lot of their raw power.
Minecraft is so damn desolate that many merchant powers seem less than useful here, however in this moment this combination of powers is a heavy hitter. I ask the merchant how many emeralds he’d want for the redstone dust and I begin to transform some of the sticks I’ve gathered into fragments of emeralds. The man considers the question for a moment before he tells me that he’ll give me the pile for five emeralds.
I glance at it and I sense my perk-altered brain estimate that the pile must amount to probably five or six “Blocks” worth of redstone dust as it matters for my inventory. I quickly convert the fragments of emeralds I’ve made into full, complete emeralds, ten of them in fact, and I give half of them to the man. He happily accepts my offer, and smiles at me I as I take the dust and cause it to vanish, entering my inventory.
“Ahh, I love the sound of a deal being struck. Joaquin, you are a good man!” He tells me, with a bright smile. I chuckle and smile brightly at the man, and while I don’t know if I’m a “Good” man, I can tell that he feels quite satisfied with our deal. I smile as I feel the possibilities that naturally arise in this setting when someone has even a bit of redstone dust.
“Arabas, you are a skilled trader. I’ve been in this area for a month and though I know that I can find ‘Ruby Dust’ if I go down deep enough, I also know it’s dangerous to go in search of it. You must either be a talented prospector or a skilled haggler to get your hands on this stuff.” I tell him, causing him to beam at me. My words, which are quite sincere, seem to have touched on a bright spot for him quite naturally.
“Ah, my friend, this is simply the product of me making a few good deals! Still, it warms my heart for my talents to be recognized. I greatly appreciate your kind words. Are you interested in anything else I have to offer?” He asks me, and I take a beat to study the rest of his wares. I consider purchasing some of his tools, as the subtle glow of the items leads me to realize that they are enchanted gear, but I ultimately shake my head.
“Sadly, the ruby dust is the only thing that I must have. Still, I strongly encourage you to mark my location on your map. I would love to see you in the future.” I tell him, and his expression drops a bit but doesn’t really falter. He quickly accepts my words and is quick to promise that he will return with more items in the weeks to come. When the man leaves I turn to Eliza and smile at her.
“Do you… know what this is?” I ask, as I allow some of the redstone to appear on my hands. She shakes her head at me, and I chuckle.
“I think you might like this. Let’s go and experiment.” I tell her, causing her to giggle and get out off the couch. The two of us quickly leave the cabin, joined by the rest of my normal retinue, and in minutes all of us find ourselves deep in the bowls of the workshop-mine.
Ahead of Eliza, the Guardian, and I is a wall, which marks the place where the mine ends. It is currently well-lit thanks to a system of torches, which primarily serve to keep monsters from spawning.
“So what this dust does is… Well, it kind of acts as a substitute for electricity.” I tell Eliza, causing her eyes to widen. I begin to place a line of the powder on the floor in front of me. Eliza watches me intently, curious to see if what I’ve said is actually true.
I reach into my inventory and I manipulate some of what I possess using my powers to form new things. One power I use for the first time, due to how inefficient it is, is a remarkably potent ability dubbed “Universal Bartering” to transform a number of emeralds into glowstone, a potent block located in The Nether. The problem with this perk is that even though it’s one of the ones I am currently training using “The Magic Of Living”, it is still deeply inefficient. For even a single glowstone I need to sacrifice ten emeralds, which is a not fun expenditure. I then expend some of my redstone, using “Fast Food” to transform some of the redstone dust and the glowstone into a nifty object known as a “Redstone Lamp”.
I reach out and put the lamp right beside some of my powder. Eliza looks at the thing curiously, while we hear the soft sounds of the mannequins distantly working in other parts of the mine. I grab a lever, something I made on the way here, and I affix it to the lamp. I then hit the lever, lifting it from the off position to the on position, and watch as it makes the object light up, casting a soft red glow on our surroundings.
“Whoa! And is that a redstone object?!” Eliza asks, referring to it by the nomenclature I told her some people use for it while we were walking here, and I nod at her as I retrieve the lever. The light shuts off when I pull the lever off of it, and I smile as I place the lever on the ground next to some of the powder I laid out earlier. I then hit the lever again, and the object lights up once more, making Eliza laugh in delight.
“Redstone! Now that’s amazing stuff.” She exclaims. Right now she is handedly the happiest I’ve ever seen her.
“Are you… into technology?” I ask, as I look at her with a smile on my face. She beams at me and nods.
“I loved the technology of the Ouroboros! We had stuff that was… well, it was LEAGUES ahead of stuff in this world, but even this is amazing.” She says, reverentially. My smile widens as I look at her and study the details of her surprisingly human face.
From a distance she is almost indistinguishable from other enderpeople but up close… Up close Eliza has a soft, feminine face. She has full lips and high cheekbones, and her facial expressions can be almost intimidatingly beautiful. When she’s happy like this she seems remarkably human, and it’s because when someone properly contextualizes her existence as an enderperson, coupled with the knowledge of how this setting’s version of enderpeople came to be, she IS human. In the ways that matter she is a human being.
“We had the most marvelous technologies Joaquin. We had flying machines, and the most important places were connected via teleportation pads. Oh what I’d give to go back, even just once more…” She says, softly. Her voice softens as she speaks until her last words are almost inaudible. I look at her curiously and decide to ask a question that I’ve long been curious about.
“You know I’ve been wondering… If you were raised in a time-loop how did you age?” I ask her, causing her to laugh softly. She raises her hand and gestures for me to look at it. I watch as a ring, a loop of a strange, almost plastic-looking, material appears on her finger. The material is soft pink in color, and it almost reminds me of some earthly medicine from my… past life, back on Earth.
“This is how. This is a ‘Modular Ring’. These rings were commonplace in the Ouroboros and this particular type of ring served a specific purpose.” She begins, and I watch as she grows unfocused and untethered to the present, her eyes filling with a wistful longing.
“Modular rings are the creations of figures with ‘Aspects’. ‘Aspects’ are a type of… power, for lack of a better term. People with them, like my grandfather, could create modular rings, and we used them for a range of purposes on the Ouroboros. This one is one that was given to all children, and pregnant women, who lived in the Ouroboros. It allowed us to be partially out of synch with the time-loop, enough for us to grow until we hit a certain age, and then stop. For pregnant women it allowed them to go through a pregnancy, and also minimized the negative health effects of a pregnancy while it was worn.” She explains, as she smiles and I watch her eyes fill with a number of memories.
“My grandfather had an aspect, but he never really told me what it did. The main way he flexed the power of the aspect he possessed was in the creation of modular rings. Creating a new one was difficult, but once one existed he had some means of replicating them over and over.” She says, and she looks troubled for a moment.
“I do want to go back to the Ouroboros. Someday. I miss my old home.” She says, as she focuses on the present.
“But I… I can’t win against the dragon. Not alone.” She utters, aware of her apparent inability to defeat such a monstrous foe. I put a hand on her shoulder and smile.
“Now… Why are you thinking you’re going to be going alone when you face it?” I ask, causing her to smile at me as she turns and hugs me.
“Hey… Don’t say that so lightly you fool…” She tells me, but the tone in her voice does not suggest she is mad, despite her words. I smile and hug her back.
“I’m not saying it lightly.” I tell her, sincerely. It’s true that I want to see her home, and have a chance to study her tech, but we have grown close over the last month and having a goal to strive towards would be nice… She tightens the hug, pulling me close and up against her chest.
“I… I can’t ask you to come with me. Not for this. It’s too dangerous.” She says, her words containing truth and also opportunity.
“If you want me there… If you want us there… All you need to do is ask.” I counter, leaving the choice up to her. I want her to be the one to say it. I want her to want us to be together when she faces down that beast.
For a moment I think about what it’d be like to be there. To be in The End and to be facing… it. Minecraft’s final boss. The Enderdragon. A creature who is so vastly powerful that it has enslaved an entire dimension, brought a continent-sized region to its knees. I am momentarily lost in the thought of standing before it, sword drawn, ready to cut it down and save a world. And then I refocus.
“Someday. Someday we’ll be there, in front of it. Freeing a world, together,” I tell Eliza, causing her to smile gently at me. “At least, if you want us to be.” I add, smiling as I look back at her. Eliza is quiet and her face is serene as she studies me.
“I… I might just you up on that offer. Someday.” She says. I smile at her and repeat the singular word back to her. She laughs and I do the same thing. I grab the goods I have placed and I study the scene around us.
“You know… If we’re gonna save your home, save a continent, we need to properly prepare.” I tell her, and she nods sagely at me.
“We’re gonna need better stuff than this.” I say, as I point to my own gear, my well-constructed templar’s armor, and she laughs lightly.
“I agree. I’m gonna need armor.” She says, saying that for the first time. I look at her curiously and offer to make her some. That elicits a smile from her and she asks me if I’d want payment in exchange for my work. I consider her offer, and ultimately decide to broach a topic I’ve wanted to ask her about for a long time, almost the whole time I’ve known her.
“Would you… Would you be opposed to teaching me about your tech?” I ask, causing her to begin to laugh. She laughs for a full minute, before telling me if I make her some armor and maybe some other equipment she’ll teach me all I want to know. I smile the widest and most sincere smile I’ve smiled in the time since I arrived in this world, and I tell her that it’s a deal. She approaches me with her arm outstretched, and I reach out mine in return. She grips it with surprising strength and I return the favor, before we both grin at each other.
For the first time I consider offering her something special. A way to gain some facsimile of my powers.
In my inventory there are a number of objects, a pocketwatch, a cookbook, a crown, and other things that if I loan them to people they can freely gain versions of my own powers. If I let Eliza use my powers we’d have a much, much easier time against the dragon. It takes me a second to decide against such a strategy, for now, but I do decide it’s worth keeping in mind for the future and just in case.
I steel my gaze and lock eyes with Eliza. To my surprise she doesn’t look away, and instead returns the gaze. Her eyes are soft and filled with curiosity as she studies me. I think something in her impression of me has changed.
“If we’ve any hope of ever defeating the dragon that took over your home, we need a plan. And we need allies.” I tell her, causing her to nod.
“Do you have one in mind?” She asks, and I shake my head. She nods sympathetically at my gesture. I do, however, grin mischievously, after a few seconds of shaking my head.
“But I can begin to put one together. For now, we’re in no rush. Let’s focus on getting you some personalized equipment, and on getting us what we need to even begin to piece together how to return to your home.” I tell her, which makes her happily nod at me.
A few weeks ago she told me that when her world appeared on the surface of this world she leaped off of it and fled. She confessed then and there that she doesn’t know how to return, but she did say that she knew that her people built citadels deep underground throughout this world in the ancient past and that those places had teleportation devices synced to The End. We just need to figure out how to get to one… And, thanks to meta-knowledge, I know just how to do that. But I need to let Eliza arrive at that conclusion independently. It’s… gruesome, or at least it would be to her, so I need her to piece that one together on her own. So for now, I just need to keep her company and make her gear before we begin planning further.
And like that, time begins to pass once more. All of us now armed with further motivation and with dreams of our own begin to train harder, gain more experience, and envision brighter days ahead. Before I know it another week has passed, and then week, before I find myself in front of Eliza and Rebis and the rest of our retinue, deep in the mines once more.
Ahead of us is a door I made a few nights ago. I made it to mark that we had stumbled across a pre-existing mineshaft during a routine expansion of our mine and to mark that the area ahead was not to be explored alone.
All three of us, Eliza, Rebis, and myself, have new equipment on and determined looks on our faces as we study a door leading into a small, well-lit room. On the other side of it we hear the soft, distant sounds of roaring monsters echoing across walls made of thick, packed stone.
New creatures accompany us, including a cat made of water, a wolf with fur as dark as midnight, and a bear clad in armor made specifically for it. The creatures are Rebis’s sheele, and two of my items that I only began to make use of recently, one I possess due to my nature as a dimensional traveler and the other I possess because of my nature as a bard.
I approach the door and smirk as I push it open and stride onto the pre-existing mineshaft. I’m ready for a new adventure, and so are my friends.
Thanks for the chapter!
(Hmmm...you know,if she hugged him,his head would be smushed against her chest....based on the endermens height in-game. Also,he could create an eternally lit city for the humans. The City of Dawn has a nice ring to it,eh?)