Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Making Friends or well... Friend

In the morning at the familiar crack of dawn he sat up and immediately ate some bread and steak. It always struck him as odd how the steak always stayed the right level of warmth to enjoy at all times.

Regardless he swallowed his food and got up needing to go and handle his next issue of long term food supply. When he was clearing out his area there was a disturbing lack of animals. His only guess is these Ender-Wolves may have hunted and killed them like how wolves back home would hunt and massacre every sheep they saw.

Getting out of his home and stepping out the fort he looked around with a sigh. But before leaving he decided to first check his inventory.

Inventory:

[Equipped - 4/4]:

Diamond Helmet

Diamond Chestplate

Diamond Leggings

Diamond Boots

[Inventory - 16/16]:

Golden Apples x 3

Potion of Strength IV

Potion of Regeneration II

Potion of Healing IV

Steak x 15

Bread x 6

Coal x 32

Oak Planks x 16

Diamond Axe

Diamond Pickaxe

Shield

Diamond Sword

Bow

Arrow x 1

Torch x 16

Bucket

Sighing he hated how little he could hold. The Villagers may not be able to hold as much variety or make as many items but they had much better skill in using less material to create and could hold so much more. He found he could only hold approximately sixteen blocks of any building material, thirty-two of any item, sixteen for food and not much else.

He would have to clear the grass in the area and hopefully get some seeds. He made a chest and kept them there but everything else was important to be on hand. But after spending nearly six months by his count in the Deep Dark as he dubbed it, his existing supplies were thin. He could not afford to maintain his netherite armour or blade that eventually wasted away during the early days of the expedition when the Warden tore through his equipment and his life with ease. The fear of crawling into a small cave away from that moss as he shoved food and potions down his throat still harrowed him.

Potions were a resource he used constantly; they provided the fastest and easiest consumption. It was much easier to drink than chew with a shattered jaw after all. Yet he never died. Always barely surviving on an inch of vitality. Feeling like his heart was in his throat with fear. That fear never left and he never wanted to die but he also kept persisting.

Moving through the forest and lighting torches there was the growl of creatures around him yet none too close or approaching so he ignored them for now.

Now he thought about it: the fact he can build without most things falling to gravity was a thought or the fact everything seemed to stick together. These were little convenient bits of his life he never considered as he strolled through the forest. Then again he had seen weirder things from magicians with evil spirits to teleporting fruits. His capability to deny gravity in his structures was not much to all of that. Yet he was still baffled when the Ender-Wolves successfully tore into his home, that never happened before…besides the doors but regardless, monsters besides Creepers or Endermen never showed any capability on the Surface of affecting the terrain. Then again one just blew up and the other was a kleptomaniac. Lamenting over the time he lost a beacon to an Enderman that ran away with it still irked him.

Moving through the shadowy forest he was surprised to only see those Ender-Wolves watching him curiously from the edges as he got out of the forest and was greeted by a river. Taking a bucket of water back he decided to head back quickly running through the path marked by the ever burning torches and taking a quick bite of food every now and then he excitedly began to dig up some dirt. But when he tossed the water expecting it to settle and fill the hole it was absorbed into the soil and became podzol…

"That's never happened before?" He squatted down and prodded it as it squelched. "Is this like the Nether? But there was water. I just can't place it? Do I have to manually pour water over my crops?" He prodded the squelching and muddy soil before wiping his hand clean off onto his armour. "Judging by the water it seems that a bucket of water might wash away the crops so I'll need to be careful watering them."

Once he was finished rambling he got to building a small fenced area and struck the ground with a hoe. Tiling the soil took some time but afterwards he went through the forest breaking grass and getting some water for his new wheat farm. Once it was done he smiled.

"Hopefully this starts to grow in a few days." With that he went back into his home and stored some equipment before deciding to begin his next project, a mine.

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A couple months passed by as he fell into his routine of watering his crops, harvesting wood, exploring some of the general area and making his little watchtowers.

Killing those Ender-Wolves really had been his only way to solve boredom as new creatures, even one that looked like a golem tried to fight him. As well as some large silverfish or dragon looking creature nearly thrashed his home. They only ever dropped experience but never any items for him to use.

Besides that he found an odd issue that everything in this dimension worked differently. While he was mining he got stuck with the cave collapsing on his head and he hastily dug himself out before it became his grave. It seemed that mining would require him to either build support structures or replace the walls with his blocks. His blocks after he processed them still abided by their ability to ignore gravity but other than that the rest would still collapse. Yet as he dug he found some odd glowing crystals as he dug and some common ore. But not diamonds or the sort even as he kept going. It became a fruitless task to dig deeper so he cleared out a cavern around some of the glowing crystals he found and stored them in his chests.

However due to the lack of diamonds his equipment was soon growing more damaged without a hope of a repair. So after he eventually had to say goodbye to the shattered equipment he stored the fragmented gear in case he found a smith and moved on to using iron equipment. Thankfully he had an anvil and he could make string from the large spiders he fought. They looked similar to the Ender-Wolves but were much similar to what he was used to…besides the webbing they spat. But finding he could grab it and forcefully pull it out of the spider and it would process to string he had done that for an entire night before it faded into smoke on its own from the strain of being used like a dispenser for hours on end.

But what broke his usual flow of his life was the appearance of a child. At first he was just sitting on his watchtower when he saw a kid running into the clearing being chased by a ton of those Ender-Wolves. Rushing down he slaughtered them as the kid ran behind him terrified.

After they poofed into smoke he took a better look at the kid in front of him. It was a small child dressed in black and red, well he said small because they were about half a block shorter than him. In their hands however was a peculiar item that looked to be a large hoe donned in black and red.

The child coughed awkwardly which helped him refocus on them as he looked at them.

"Ah, are you alright?" He seemed to have recalled he should check if they were alright.

"Umm, I'm al-" They were cut off by a hiss as the adrenaline had faded and it dawned on them that there was a gaping hole in their side. The blood drained from their face as she seemed to go still as the blood trailed down their clothing. Looking at him they seemed terrified.

Hastily he pulled a golden apple which brought a moment of shock to them as he thrusted it into their mouth.

"Eat quickly." He said in a firm but gruff tone as his voice was rough from the couple months lacking use.

Confused, they nodded and bit into the apple. The sweet flavours bursting in their mouth brought them delight if how quickly their eyes shone and colour returned as they devoured the whole thing.

Better yet was the awestruck gaze they possessed as they watched their would rapidly heal. Yet he shook his head.

"Kid, finish the apple or you won't heal properly." He looked at them amused as they ate the rest.

Exhausted he watched as they suddenly seemed to begin falling so he caught them in his arms and lifted them.

"Careful, you nearly fell." He chuckled.

The child had a slight blush of surprise but even in their moment of weakness never let go of their hoe. "T-Thank you…"

He felt how weak they were and decided to help them out. "Is it okay if we go to my house? You feel like you're built like a bundle of webs."

"Okay, Mister." They replied meekly, still hugging their hoe tightly.

There was a slight pause at the end of their words which most likely was for him to give his name. But how could he tell them a name if he had none. Getting to the house they looked confused glancing around as he set them on the bed. The only soft surface in his home.

Building the courage they looked at him with that quizzical look. "Mister…why is your house so blocky?"

That brought him a confused look. Of course it was blocky, everything was made of blocks! He knew for a fact he did make it at least look organic, adding arches and making sure to add details to the building. He was quite proud yet she still called it blocky of all things.

"What do you mean?" He said in a genuinely hurt and flabbergasted tone.

"It's just everything is made of cubes like an old school video game." They replied a little startled by his reaction.

Now that was a new string of words. "What's an old school video game?"