Wilber mined happily along, humming tunelessly to himself. He was a loner, meaning he didn't live with the villagers, but that was fine. Wilber's mind was full of plans for what he would do with the Redstone he hoped to find today, and for how his next section of tunnels would be laid out. Wilber didn't know that these minutes were the last he would spend with the calm delusion that he was the only sentient being in this world.
The villagers were NPCs, which meant that they didn't think, they didn't talk, and the only things they were capable of doing were running from zombies and ripping Wilber off. They weren't sentient. Far from it, actually.
Wilber mined through some stone and came face to face with a single sand block. Strange. Wilber shrugged. He mined the stone block above it, then he pulled out his shovel and had it raised in anticipation of digging through the sand when it happened. The sand block changed shape, becoming a girl.
She had long, sand coloured hair, and her eyes and skin were that same colour. She was wearing a dark green t-shirt and jeans, and she was just a bit shorter than Wilber. She looked up at him, and Wilber realized that he was frozen in shock, his shovel still raised over his head and his mouth open. He tried to say something, but the most he could do was squeak.
"Can you put that down, please? You're making me really nervous." Said the girl. Wilber lowered his shovel. "Who…" He managed to say. The girl held out her hand, but Wilber was too scared to shake it. "I'm Sand." She said. There was a pause, and then she continued. "I guess that deserves an explanation. Could you lead me out of this place, please?"
Wilber managed to remember to close his mouth, and then he led Sand out of his branch mine. He climbed up the ladder to the top of his main shaft, and in his room at the top, he sat down heavily on his bed, staring at Sand.
She sat down carefully on Wilber's chair, and she looked at him, seemingly waiting for him to say something. "How…?" He asked. Sand sighed. "Why me?" She asked nobody in particular. Then she said "It's a long explanation, and I have to start at the beginning to get to how I got into your mine. Do you mind?" Wilber didn't say anything.
Sand sighed again. "Everything -mobs, blocks, water and lava- has a… a spirit of sorts, called an Essence. Essences are people like me." She looked at Wilber to see if he was getting it. "I am the Essence of sand. How I got in your mine? Essences have certain powers, and one of them is to teleport to wherever something that they are the Essence of is. We can also turn ourselves into what we are the Essence of." To demonstrate her point, Sand suddenly blurred into a sand block.
As she blurred back, Wilber squeaked "Why?" Sand sighed again. "We need your help." Wilber stared at her. He took a deep breath. "Could you… explain?" Sand nodded. "One of us, Villager, had a violent row with Stone, another Essence, about a week ago, and she left when we all asserted that Stone was right. Villager is excellent at overreacting, and she is preparing to declare war on the lot of us. You are the only player in the world, so we need you to help."
Wilber was freaking out. Sand could see that, and she suggested that he go to sleep, since it was late anyway. Wilber didn't protest, and soon he was asleep.
"Is that what's taking you so long? You're letting the Player sleep?" Wilber woke slightly to hear a voice. He remembered everything, but that wasn't Sand's voice. "He couldn't take it. If I'd dragged him out, he would have collapsed or something." That was Sand. The other voice was older. Male.
Wilber opened his eyes and rolled over to look at the table. Sand was standing beside it, and in Wilber's chair was a man with grey hair, and -oddly- dark grey eyes. He didn't look very friendly, and he gave Wilber a look like something was his fault.
Wilber sat up, and Sand gestured to the man, saying; "Player, meet Stone. He's impatient that we get going, so could you please wake up?" Wilber sat up, and immediately Stone rose out of the chair. "Well, come on, boy." He said.
It was early morning out, and Wilber followed Sand and Stone outside. Stone turned to the younger… Essence? and said "I'll get everyone down to the fort. You get Glass and Sandstone and Cactus and Player and meet us all there." Sand nodded. "I'll get Enderman, too. You know he won't listen to a word you say."
"Player?" Wilber asked, as Stone teleported. "You." Sand said. Then she walked towards the edge of the plains biome, towards a desert Wilber knew a bit. As they walked, Wilber kept turning it all over in his mind, trying to find a way to accept it. Finally he decided to say; "My name's Wilber. Not Player." "Right." Sand said. "But you're almost -not quite, but almost- an Essence too. Because you represent Players here." Wilber nodded, and then he saw the desert, and new questions appeared in his mind. "Who are… Sandstone and Glass and Cactus?"
Sand smiled a bit. "You'll meet them soon enough." The sand crunched under their feet as they entered the desert biome, and soon Sand stopped. "Come out, sister." A girl appeared, taller than Sand but with the same hair and eye colour. She was wearing a dark purple shirt and skinny jeans.
"Sister," Sand said, "We're meeting." Sandstone looked at her, then at Wilber. Her mouth twisted into a sneer. "They sent you to get the player? Ugh!" Sand sighed, and at that moment, two other Essences appeared. One was a small boy with dark green hair and cactus-coloured eyes. The other was a girl so pale that Wilber would have sworn she was almost clear.
The clear girl had her arms around the green boy's neck, and she detached herself and ran up to Sand. The clear girl hugged her tightly, and Sand turned to Wilber. "This is my daughter, Glass." She said. Seeing Wilber's expression, she added; "Spiritually, at least. Essences don't have children."
The green boy had walked up to Wilber, and he was eyeing him curiously. Then he put one hand on Wilber's arm, and Wilber jumped away as he took damage. "I- I'm assuming you're Cactus?" He gasped. Cactus nodded.
Sand sighed, disentangling Glass from around her waist. "We're meeting at the fort. I'll be meeting you there." Glass sighed, and one by one, she and Sandstone and Cactus disappeared. Sand smiled slightly, then she turned around to face Wilber. "Uh." He said. "Who… who's next?"
"Enderman." Sand said. Then she turned slightly, facing in the direction with the most hostile mobs, cupped her hands around her mouth and yelled "ENDERMAN!" There was a flurry of purple snow, and an Enderman appeared beside Sand. It blurred and became a boy with straight black hair, pink eyes, and a sour expression. He almost disappeared into the night, because he was wearing all black, but he was muttering to himself.
"…not my loss, what do I care? They can all take their…" Enderman muttered. Then his head snapped up and he glared at Sand. "What?" He snapped. "We are meeting in the fort." Sand said levelly. "It's about the Villager issue." Enderman's eyes briefly flashed, and then he teleported away. Wilber caught him talking to himself again before he left. "…but no, they've got me answering their every stinking call…"
"Uh. He… he's not very nice, is he?" Wilber asked a bit tentatively. Sand shrugged. "Well, we're not very nice to him, so we kind of deserve it. Come on." She said, holding out one hand to Wilber. He cautiously took it, and there was a peculiar sensation of weightlessness, then he was standing in the middle of a room.
"Right." Sand said. "Are we all here?"