My Minecraft Pony

Chapter 9: When Mud Attacks

Twilight

I nudged the sleeping figure gently with my foot.
"Adam. Wake up."
"Noo..." moaned Adam, sprawled on the surprisingly comfy bed of leaves we had all slept in.
"Adam..." I sighed.
"Here," Jason offered, and walked up to Adam. He swiftly slapped the flat side of his iron sword on Adam's back.
"AH!" He cried, startled, and scrambled to his feet. "JASON!"
Jason shrugged. "'Morning," he said passively.
"Oww," Adam groaned, rubbing the spot on his back where Jason had slapped him. "Dude, how does that hurt? You're wearing armor," Ty pointed out, walking over to the scene. "We all are."
Adam glared at him. "I still felt it!"
"Okay guys, so today we just keep heading west?" Mitch asked everyone, looking up at the sky where the square sun was rising slowly.
"Yeah, we should collect food too," Applejack said with a glance at me.
Okay, I got shot in the arm. Okay, it sorta hurt a lot kind of. Okay, I had to eat rotten flesh. But I wasn't helpless!
"And maybe there's still some spiders down there that we could collect string from to make bows," Ian added, dangerously peeking over the edge of the treetop.
"And skeletons burning up that'll leave arrows behind," Jordan said thoughtfully.
"Shall we head down?" Rarity asked.
"Be careful," Fluttershy warned as Rarity began to climb down the makeshift stairs of leaf blocks and down the vines.
Everyone followed one by one, and eventually we were all on the jungle floor again.
I was instantly alert, looking for any movement in the undergrowth, but all was quiet.
"Everything must have despawned," Bodil said, looking around.
"West!" Pinkie declared happily, bouncing off in one direction.
"That's south," I called.
"West!" Pinkie called again with the same enthusiasm, going west this time.
●※●
"Look, I think the jungle's ending!" Rainbow called. I perked and saw that the trees did seem to be thinning out ahead.
Everyone eagerly picked up their pace, until the dense jungle undergrowth wore away into dark, moist grass. Ahead the land was relatively flat with many ponds and lakes covered in lily pads, and some short trees with long thick vines dangling from them scattered across the area.
"Eeew!" Rarity complained as the muddy grass squelched under her iron boots.
"Blech," Jerome said, scrunching his nose. "Swamp biome."
"They're not too bad," Quentin told them, eagerly looking out at the land in front of us.
"Yeah, but...you're a fish," Ian pointed out. Quentin shot him a glare. "I'm a Mudkip. Mudkip. Mud." He bent down and picked up a handful of mud in his hands and tossed it at Ian. It splattered against his iron chestplate.
"Hey!" Ian called out in protest, picking up his own handful of mud and throwing it at Quentin's face.
"Thank you," Quentin said through a face full of mud. Ian rolled his eyes and smiled as everyone began to continue on forward.
Quentin didn't move until Ian was a couple feet ahead of him. Then he turned around and wiped the dripping mud off his face. "Blah." I chuckled as he ran to catch up with us.
The swamp was pretty boring compared to the jungle. At least we killed the occasional herd of pigs or cows that we saw so we had food (Fluttershy standing as far away as possible).
It wasn't until Jason suddenly fell through the ground that things got interesting.
Everyone stopped in their tracks.
"Jason?!" I called out surprisedly, standing at a hole in the ground that had opened up where he had been standing moments ago.
"Where did he-AH!" Applejack asked, taking a step towards the hole, but she was cut off as the mud beneath her feet gave way and she fell underground, too.
I peeked over fearfully, not daring to take a step, bus saw only blackness.
"What's going on?!" Ian asked with a note of fear in his voice just as Bodil let out a yelp of surprise as he fell through the ground right next to him. Ian took a step cautiously away from the hole until he suddenly fell through as well.
"Nobody move!" Ty called out. Everyone obeyed, looking around, wide-eyed.
"Where did they all go? How far do you t-think they...fell?" Fluttershy asked fearfully.
"This is so weird!" Adam exclaimed. "I've never seen anything like it!"
"M-maybe there's only a thin layer of mud over a large cave here," Quentin reasoned shakily. "The ground's just unstable."
"Ah!" Rarity yelped as the ground gave way under her.
"Everyone try to get to a tree! Climb the vines!" Mitch exclaimed.
I instantly whipped around to face the nearest tree, and carefully made my way over to it, expecting the mud to give way under me any second.
My hand was inches from the vines when suddenly I was plunged into shadows. I cried out in surprise, but I was already engulfed in darkness.
I sat there, frozen with terror, as I fell deeper into the blackness for what seemed like hours, but could only have been a minute or two.
Edit?! I called desperately. No response.
Edit! Where are you?!
Nothing.
What happened to him?
I tried calling out for him a few times, practically screaming in my head desperately until-
SPLASH.
I was plunged into freezing cold water.
Gasping and shivering, I rose to the surface quickly. The ice cold water wasn't that deep. Everything was pitch black. I yelled in protest and surprise as cold bony hands grabbed me and hauled me out onto surface.
I realized with dread I had dropped my diamond sword sometime during the fall-probably impossible to find it now. Everything was pitch black down here, but I could hear the shuffling of feet up ahead and next to me as whatever was grabbing me-and not letting go-led me somewhere in the darkness.
"Who are you? What are you doing? Let me go!" I cried and tried to break free of their grip. I failed and was rewarded with a sharp kick in my side. I drew in a breath painfully.
"Quiet!" An unearthly voice next to me hissed as we continued.
"Twilight?" Applejack's voice called from somewhere up ahead.
"Where are we?" Bodil's voice echoed nearby.
"Said QUIET," the voice next to me demanded again. It sent chills up my spine.
"Maybe Sleep Potion work," a similar hissing voice suggested from somewhere ahead.
The last thing I remembered was the sound of glass breaking, and something being splattered across my face.