Part 31: New universe is terrifying.

Zwingittty.

I felt a strange pulling sensation, and there I stood again in the glass portal, looking out at the desert.  But things were subtly different.  The light, for one - the shadows were sharper and deeper.  The horizon was farther... as I looked, a distant mesa-topped mountain began to resolve itself.

And there was no sign of Boxter.  I'd left him behind.

Welp.  Time to go find another horse.

I looked back toward the mountain where I'd built last night's shelter-cave.  It was still there, a slot three blocks high and two blocks wide through which I'd ridden Boxter the horse just moments ago.  But that was in a different, parallel universe.  And hopefully this one held pegasus.

OoooOOOooo.... crisp shadows!

 I had barely left the portal when I noticed another thing that was different: snakes!  There were snakes in this new universe!  All of different colors, red, black, and green.  I approached them carefully, sword ready.  From close up, they appeared not to be single creatures, but sequences of cubes that followed closely behind one another like some strange colonial organism.  Occasionally the curve of the snake would twist, and whiplash would send the end cubes hurrying to catch up with the rest of the animal.  When I approached even closer, the snake-creature reared up to meet me.  I backed off.

Will they hurt me?  I think they might hurt me.

 And there was something in the air, swooping and hovering: brightly-colored dragonflies!  They seemed to offer no harm, but buzzed the landscape in a prismatic sort of way.

Lucky action shot.

Not far away were two more new sights: some fat black flies, and a tortoise.  The flies scattered lazily when I approached, and I inspected the tortoise, which didn't look too scary.  It wasn't doing much of anything, and only looked up at me in a quizzical manner.

Tortoise!

On an impulse, I right-clicked on the tortoise.  Apparently right-clicking is the tortoise inversion operation.  The tortoise ended up on its back, frowning distinctly, with its little cubic legs in the air.  I'm not a mean person - I right-clicked again to set the tortoise back upright.  (But I did flip the second tortoise over briefly as well, chiefly because I found it strangely amusing)  I wonder what purpose tortoise inversion serves.  Can you do this to any animal?  I've only ever tried right-clicking bunnies, and they end up on your head with their little bunny paws hanging down over your eyes.  What happens if you right-click a lion?  I must say I've never tried it.

Tee-hee!

 During my northward progress I kept my eye out for another horse to tame, so I could continue my journey as I had originally intended.  The closest thing I saw was a horsefly.  I should have tried to put the saddle on it, just to see.

I would love to see a screenshot of someone saddling and riding one of these.

 By the time night drew near, I hadn't found any sign of a horse, so I decided to dig a shelter for the night, and continue my search in the morning.  I found a stone mountainside and dug a hidey hole.

I blocked it up with glass, and to pass the time, began to shuffle through the gravel in my pockets, looking for more flints.  The night began to fill with sounds.  Unusual sounds.  Creepy sounds.  Terrifying sounds.  Not only were there growls that sounded like lions, but there were strange squeals, and howls, and at one point a chorus of what I can only describe as human voices shouting something like "Hey, cut it out!  Cut it out!"  (What the heck?  What the heck?)  And then something very nearby started making a guttural, back-of-the-throat "a-a-a-a-a" sound.

I'm not sure if a bigger window would have been more or less scary.  And gravel looks odd now.

I began to dig a mine, but since I was high up on a hill, there was very little chance of me finding something useful like iron, and I realized my main purpose was to get away from all those scary sounds.

Drawn by morbid curiosity, I returned to the window.  There was something there.  I brandished my specially sharpened rock and edged forward.

I have a rock.

 It was a rat.  Small.  Cute.  I had just begun to relax when another one joined it, black with creepy red eyes, and then another one fell from somewhere above and transformed itself into a dead rat.  An actual dead rat item.  And strangely, I was starting to feel a little hungry, and dead rat sounded kinda tasty.

A jumble of whisker, rat, and dead rat.

I busted out the bottom panel of glass so I could get at the dead rat.  The rat with the creepy red eyes rushed in and started biting me.

 I whacked it with my sword until it also transformed into a dead rat.  Apparently one-block holes are no longer safe, for shelters.  At least, not at ground level.

By the look of this screenshot, I'd climbed partway up the wall to get away from it.

 I wondered if the brown rats, with their normal black eyes, might be all right, and maybe it was just the red-eyed ones that were evil.  Then the brown rat made a rush for my ankles, answering that question.  Shoot.  All cute little rats are dangerous.

That wasn't all.  None of my screenshots show it, but during the night away on the far shore, I saw a large lumpy broad-shouldered human form moving slowly.  It was large.  Very large.  I don't think a human on horseback is the largest thing in Minecraft anymore.

As night drew to a close, the terrifying noises continued, now chiefly hair-raising howls, and something periodically going a-a-a-a-a.

And then as the sun rose, something arrived at my very front door.  It seemed to be a wolf.  And it wasn't interested in the juicy dead rat that bobbed enticingly beneath its nose.  It wanted me.  Maybe it wanted to be friends?

 Somehow, I didn't think so.

N...n....nice doggy?

 And just as I had resigned myself to an early-morning wolf battle, I saw a flash of something green in the background.  Something BIG and green.  Was... was that a scorpion?  An enormous green scorpion?  It moved into position beside the wolf before I could get a good look at it.

And ominously, neither wolf nor possible scorpion fought each other, as I had been used to Mo'Creatures predators doing.  They were focused intently on me instead.  Maybe they weren't of the same murderous ilk as the constantly-battling lions, bears, and foxes.  Maybe they would be my friends.

Somehow, I didn't think so.

This is going to be interesting.

And something was still going a-a-a-a-a-a-a....