Part 34: How to get a pegasus

The black mists slowly cleared from in front of my vision, and I blinked.  I was back at the portal again.    And the light had relaxed back into familiar blocky crispness.  My hunger meter was gone, and my health meter was back at full.  Away to the left, I heard the neighing of a horse.

There's even the creeper, right where I remembered it.

"Boxter?"

"Oh, you're back, are you?  Had lots of fun in the other world, did you?"

I glared at him.  "I ran into... difficulties."

"I did warn you," he said, with an knowing horsey look on his pixellated face.  "Out of curiosity, was it the tigers?"

"I don't want to talk about it."

I mounted back into the saddle, and we set off northward.

Good old Boxter.

There was the mountain we'd stayed in last night, and which I'd seen in the parallel universe.  Instead of being covered in snakes, it was covered in safe, harmless pigs.  We circled around to the right-hand side of the mountain, where the landscape looked more gradual.

Soon we were following a coastline that I'd recognized from my trip in the parallel universe - somewhere around here had been a tortoise that I actually kinda missed a little.  We started climbing the mountain, to avoid a lion that was hanging out near the coast.

"So, did you find a pegasus?"  Boxter asked as we climbed.

"I didn't even see a single horse," I said glumly.

"Well, did you at least see a zebra?  You can't find a pegasus without one of those."

"What?  Why would I need a zebra?"

"Well, if I remember correctly, in that universe, you've got to tame a zebra first.  And a regular horse as well.  And if they, um, get along, there will be a baby eventually."

"A pegasus comes from breeding a zebra and a horse?"

"No, no, that would be silly," Boxter said.  "Obviously that pairing results in a zorse."

"What do I do with the zorse?  Can they fly?"

"Of course not.  Well, not unless you give one an Essence of Darkness."

"What's an Essence of Darkness?"

"It's made from an Ender Eye, a Heart of Darkness, and a potion bottle.  You mean to tell me that you went into the other world without knowing all this?  Expecting to just come across a pegasus?"

"... yeah.  What's an Ender Eye?"

"The eye of an Enderman."

"Let me guess: they're fearsome and rare."

"Yeah.  They teleport."

"Yikes.  And the Heart of Darkness?"

"You get that by battling a bathorse at night underground."

"Fearsome and rare?"

"Yep."

"Ok, supposing I got this Essence of Darkness thing made... what would I do with it and the zebra horse thingy?"

"You'd give it to the zorse, and it'd transform into a bathorse."

"Wait, I thought I had to kill the bathorse."

"You did.  Now you have to tame one.  They fly at least - you'd like that."

"So there's no pegasus in the other world, only bathorses?"

"There are pegasus.  To get one, next you have to fly the bathorse up above the clouds."

"And then it becomes a pegasus?"

"No, then you have to give it an Essence of Light."

"How do I craft an Essence of Light?"

"From an Essence of Darkness, an Essence of Undead, and an Essence of Fire."

I laughed hollowly, and nearly drove us off a cliff.  At the last minute we swerved from the ledge - was that a dungeon down there?  This sandy landscape sure was geometric and difficult to navigate, and I was going to have some trouble getting down off of this mountain.  Oh.  It was the same mountain we'd been on earlier, and in trying to find a safe path down, I'd gradually turned away from northward.

Feeling quite dumb, I tried to remember how we got down off the mountain last time.  I took a wrong turn, and we ended up teetering on a narrow ledge with steep dropoffs on both sides.

And once again, I forgot till now about the strategy of trying to collapse the sand-mountain to make a more gradual slope.

I panicked, and we ended up falling off the ledge - fortunately, toward the water side.  We landed in the water, but took a lot of falling damage.  I'm not sure whether this means that water doesn't cushion a human-horse combo from falling damage, or that I'd only managed to mostly fall in the water.  But it looked like falling into water was unfortunately a strategy I couldn't rely on in the future.

Ow.

Hauling out of the water, I dismounted to eat a health-restoring pork chop.  Then I continued around the side of the mountain, and - yep, there was the portal.  This was right back where we'd left earlier today.  How embarrassing.  But it was getting toward nighttime, and I knew that at least there'd be a ready-made shelter waiting in the side of that mountain.

Arriving at the cave, I prepared to dismount, and -

to dismount, and -

to dis... where was Boxter?   I had only just now noticed that I wasn't currently riding a horse.  Kind of an odd mistake to make, I know.

Oh, look.  A portal.

Now very worried, I retraced my steps.  What had happened?  Had Boxter slipped away at some point?  Had a lion eaten him out from under me?

Uh-oh, uh-oh

Finally I found him in the valley where I'd stopped to eat a pork chop.  "Clip clop, clip clop," he said, making coconut-shell-clomping motions.  "Forget something?"

"Shut up,"  I said, and climbed in the saddle.

Words fail me.

There was the usual go-round at the entrance to the cave, where I attempted to ride Boxter into the cave over a two-block-high barrier, only to remember that when I'd built the cave, I'd failed to make the entrance high enough, and earlier had the exact same problem.  After a slight bit of head-bonking damage, a remodel of the cave entrance, and a quick race to beat Boxter to the entrance of the cave (this time I manage to block it off ahead of him), we were both safely in the cave for the night, and not a moment too soon.

At this point, I was not yet breathing a sigh of relief... still have to block up the rest of the entrance.  But at least now Boxter can't go racing off into the moonlight.

"Don't you want to know how to make an Essence of Undead and an Essence of Fire?"  Boxter asked.

"...Okay.  We've got all night.  How do you make an Essence of Undead?"

"You need rotten flesh and a Heart of Undead."

"Rotten flesh is from...?"

"Zombies drop rotten flesh in the new world."

"Instead of feathers?  How random.  And what drops a Heart of Undead?"

"Undead horse.  They're fearsome and -"

"Rare.  Got it.  And Essence of Fire?"

"For that, you need flame and a Heart of Fire."

"Heart of Fire is from...?"

"Nightmare flaming scary horse.  Found in the Nether."

"Fearsome and rare?"

"I actually don't know, on that score.  But you'll have some trouble getting flame."

"Why?  Don't I just need a flint and tinder?"

"Close.  You need to defeat a fire ogre."

"What on earth is a fire ogre?"

"Big smashy guy who can bash his way through stone."

"I think I met one of th-"

"And then he sets the stone on fire."

"...Okay, you know what?  I'm not going back to that other universe.  Ever.  There are pegasus here - I've seen one, and I have faith that they still exist.  And an endless journey into the north still sounds more doable than that crazy scavenger hunt through the depths of the caves and the fires of the Nether."

"Don't you want to hear how to actually capture a pegasus in the other world?  You just need four more flames, and a diamond, and some gold..."

I climbed back down into the mine I'd built on the previous night, and continued digging my way toward the bottom of the earth.  Toward dawn, I found a small clump of coal blocks, and I don't want to know exactly how many because I have a sad feeling they'd not make up for the coal I used in all the torches.

Welp, back to the mines.

Daylight came at last, and we were greeted by the sight of a cow dangling its udders in front of the window.  Sigh.  I'm never going to be the big-time, fearless kind of Minecraft player who battles Endermans and giant flame ogres and rides bathorses into battle.  I'm the kind of Minecrafter who forgets whether or not they're actually riding a horse at the moment, and who gets moo-ned by cows.

Udderly ridiculous

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....

Part 30: The Portal

In the morning I set out to build the portal that my horse Boxter had described, the one that might bring me to the alternate universe where pegasus still survived.  But first I had to deal with a creeper problem.  I dealt with it in my usual way: by running terrified from my shelter, waving my sword, and then turning around to fire madly at anything that might be still chasing me.  

At first when I looked at this screenshot, I thought it was a lion.  Green creeper + red ouch = brown.

I built the portal and looked back to find that the trouble had not ended.  There were bears and lions and creepers up on the mountain and - oh no, oh no! - a lion at the very door to the shelter where Boxter was.

Aaaaaaa!

I raced back and slew the lion, hoping that I wasn't too late.  Fortunately, Boxter had stayed well back in the shelter, and the lion was either too big, too stupid, or too slow to get to him.

Phew

That disaster averted, another loomed, in the form of a bear about to land on my head.

Augh!

A flurry of arrows put an end to that one as well.

If the bears are all already carrying fish with them, why do they feel the need to attack horses?  Are they trying to make some sort of surf and turf?

Finally I collected Boxter and we rode to the portal.  At the portal I stopped.

"Boxter... that portal design is too small for horse and rider."

"You think I'm going through there?  You're out of your mind.  I've heard there's tigers and worse."

"Wait, you mean you're not coming along?"

"You bet your sweet pixels I'm not."

The portal

I dismounted sadly.

"But before you go, if you wouldn't mind..."  Boxter motioned back behind us, where yet more predators were lurking.  This time it was two lions, menacing Boxter's pig friend.  One last volley of arrows, for old time's sake.  And then the valley was safe once more, at least temporarily.

Where are all these things COMING from?

"You really want to stay here?  With nobody to fight off the predators?"

"What makes you think traveling with you is any safer?"  He had me there.  Between my crazy mountain-climbing and my propensity to attract lions and exploding creepers, I might well be more of a hazard than a help.

We exchanged our farewells, and Boxter headed for the horizon, while I turned to face the portal.

Well, here we go.

Zwwwiiiiiiingitty