My Minecraft Pony

Chapter 7: Mining and Crafting

Mitch

WHAM.
"OW! $@%#!"
I sighed as Rainbow Dash held her hand and yelped in pain.
"When I said punch the tree, I didn't mean to literally beat the crud out of it," I explained, looking away from the tree I was collecting wood from with my fist.
We were all deep in the large forest near the prison, gathering materials, and you ALWAYS start off punching trees in minecraft.
Rainbow glared at me, still clutching her hand tightly. "Then how do you punch a tree?" she snarled. "Watch," I told her, and turned back to my tree. I steadily beat my hand against the bark, not so hard that it hurt but not so light so you still heard the steady bump-bump-bump of my fist against the block.
Rainbow watched intently as the block began to crack until it minimized and became a smaller version that I could pick up and carry with me.
"What...?" she asked, and tried punching her block again, mimicking my moves. Soon she had broken the block and picked its smaller version up eagerly. "Awesome! I did it!" she declared happily.
A couple trees away, Pinkie was hovering around Bashur, talking so loud and fast I could hear her from here.
"What are we getting wood for?!" She asked for the third time.
"Uh, crafting tables," Bashur said while he collected wood.
"What are we gonna craft on the table?"
"Tools."
"Ooh! What tools?"
"Pickaxes."
"Wow! What..."
Their conversation went back and fourth like that for a while, until everyone had enough wood. I quickly made a crafting bench and placed it on the grass for everyone to use. Soon everyone had a wooden pickaxe, after having to show the girls how to craft them.
"Where now?" Applejack asked.
"The mines," Jason replied, and made his way to a small opening in the ground that probably led down into a large cave system.
"What are we mining for?" Rarity asked, her eyes alert with interest.
"Probably just iron to make better tools and armor. Maybe we'll find diamonds if we're lucky."
We all followed Jason down into the mines. Since he and Jordan were still wearing their warden armor and still had their warden swords and bows, they were already fully equipped, but were mining anyway to help everyone get full armor.
"Okay, how about we all split up, just collect some stone first. You can make a stone pickaxe, which can mine iron," I said, pointing to some pale brown flecks in the stony cave walls that was iron ore. "Then craft a furnace to smelt your iron. Just get some coal along the way to heat it up. Coal isn't too hard to find here."
Everyone nodded, and spread out in the cave. I went over to mine three blocks of stone. I placed down the crafting bench again, made a stone pick, and mined the iron ore I had pointed out earlier. After collecting some more iron in the vein, some coal an stone, I had a furnace cooking enough iron for a helmet.
I decided to go deeper while it smelted, and went down a cave I had seen only a few people head down before. Along the way, I collected a few pieces of iron someone had missed on the roof of the cave.
"How much iron do you have?" I heard Ian ask someone from deeper down the cave, his voice echoed across the walls.
"Uh... ten," I heard Ty reply.
"I have seven," Applejack reported.
"Twelve!" Twilight declared happily.
I turned the corner down the cave and saw the four of them spread out, mining at different spots on the walls of the large open cave I had walked into.
"Hey doods," I greeted, and headed toward another tunnel at the far side of the open cave that looked untouched.
Going down the cave, I could feel heat and noted that lava must be somewhere nearby. Better be careful.
I stopped a couple times to mine at some coal and iron along the way, until I had about ten pieces. I heard footsteps coming from behind and turned to see Twilight heading down the same cave tunnel. She didn't seem to notice I was there as she passed by. Curious, I followed her. She was going down farther in the cave, and it kept getting hotter and hotter until she made a left at a fork of two caves. I followed and found that we were in a large, open cave, bigger than the one where Ty, Ian and Applejack were. There was a large lava pool at least ten blocks apart. Twilight ignored the bubbling hot lava and made her way over to a wall dangerously close to the hot pool. I watched warily as she mined at the empty stone determinedly, until I caught a gleam of bright blue-could that be? Twilight mined a little longer, then put down her iron pickaxe and stepped away from the wall and the lava with four shining diamonds in her hands.
"Uh, Twilight?" I asked her. She jumped, not realizing I was standing there. "Mitch!" she sighed. "You scared me! How long have you been down here?"
"I followed you down. You walked right by me and didn't notice. Now, how did you know those diamonds were there?!" I asked, pointing to the bright gems in her hands.
She smiled proudly and put the diamonds away, picking up her pickaxe again. "Edit told me! There's no more diamonds here, though." and with that, she headed back up the way we came.
This 'Edit' thing is getting kind of creepy, I thought.
●※●
We were all back on the surface of the forest. We had been lucky with perfect timing. When we had went down into the mines, there had been no mobs because it was sunset when we went in, so the mobs spawned in the surface. Then, when we came back up the sun was rising, so the mobs despawned.
Everyone had their furnaces cooking their iron. Besides Twilight's four, Quentin had found two diamonds as well, and he happily held a brand new diamond sword in his hand. Twilight made two diamond swords, took one for herself and placed the other on the crafting bench. "Anyone want the extra sword?" she offered. "Ooh, can I have it?" Ty asked her. "Sure," she replied, and handed him the sword.
Everyone was now equipped with full iron armor, besides Jason and Jordan, and everyone had an iron sword besides Twilight, Quentin and Ty. (since no mobs spawned, we hadn't been able to make bows and arrows yet.)
"So, um, what now?" Fluttershy asked. She looked completely out of place decked in iron armor and holding a sword shyly, but since she had come here she had seemed to relax a little and had become a bit more talkative.
"Now, we have to gooo......east?" Adam asked, looking at Twilight. "West," she corrected.
"What's west that we have to go to? The portal?" Rarity asked. Twilight paused for a moment. "He doesn't know exactly where, but Edit knows that the portal is west," Twilight said.
I was still a little wary on the whole 'Edit' thing. Of course I believed that it was real, especially after Twilight's diamond-finding feat, but something about this mysterious voice just seemed a little...weird. I don't know.
"Then let us head west!" Jerome declared, and we all set off, fully stacked and ready for anything.