Journal – Xib
By Nathaniel Schrader
[]
8th
I'm not sure what to write, haha. It's taken me days to figure out how this place works, a week and a day, and now that I have my own book to record my life in… I'm not even sure what to say. Starting at the first day would be best… to explain this all.
Upon the first moment of my awakening, I realized that there was something very wrong. The world was made of cubes, blocks. The sky overhead gave way to clouds of squares, composed of patterns entirely unbelievable, the sun itself a simple polygon with only four sides. Everything in the world was… is… here in this place, made of cubes. Rock, gravel, dirt, the trees, the leaves on the trees… everything is composed of blocks! My own person, even, is currently nothing more than a set of blocks. Every joint bends as if breaking away, but no pain is had, nothing to signify my decomposition or signs of injury. I feel normal, yet I know that this is far from the case. I cannot remember how I came to be, or anything of my past. I simply know that I awoke upon a beach, within a small bay, a mountain composed of multiple types of visible blocks to the north.
When I first awoke, I was not sure what to do, and I really am not still, but regardless… I could only remember my name. Xib. That is all I could truly remember… that and that I am a Xi. Only my name and the name of my species… that's all I had, upon first opening my eyes. My hands dug slightly into the sand, like a resistant fluid that simply gave way temporarily. As I gained composure, I dragged my claw across the sand, nails digging into the soft ground. The sand cracked, nearly all around as if part of a solid object! I immediately took my hand back, sitting up and falling quickly onto my butt as I sat, gazing at the world before me. Blocks… jagged, solid, radical… blocks, everywhere, beyond the blocky hills and, behind me, making up a blocky island, made of blocky sand and grass and dirt. What had happened to me? I thought.
The first thing I did, naturally coming to me as a creature used to climbing up black cliff sides made of obsidian and ash, was climb. I dug my claws into the dirt wall near me, composing a gently-sloped mountain, reaching a peak of grass, sprinkled with trees. Observing the plains beyond and the mountains beyond them, dotted with oak trees and a few birch trees, there was a world of unspeakable, uncertain beauty. I could not understand why… but I felt compelled to explore. But first, my sane mind reaching a pinnacle of acknowledgement… I realized that I had not known what trees were. Somehow, someway, I simply knew what a tree was and what classified it further. Back on Xivsus, there were no trees, and there wasn't gree grass, and there certainly wasn't a blue sky or vast ocean with soft sand but… I knew what all these things in this place were.
Quite simply, horror set into my mind. I had no idea where I was, I could not remember anything, knowing about things I was sure I had never seen before, and there were terrible pink monsters everywhere. They oinked at me, snorting, like fat rolls of mutilated flesh, without shell or protection. I quickly tore one of their cube-heads off and threw it away as it faded into a red mist, simply vanishing as two objects popped out of its corpse, two "raw porkchops," as the voice in my head said. I fell back up against a tree, terrified by the phantom meats and the lack of a carcass. I was so uneager yet curious; it was maddening! Eventually, I brought myself close to them. Almost by magic, the two units of meat came at me and faded into my being. I was panicked and felt my carapace all over, terrified that the meats were going to burrow out of my being like horrid parasites. They did not, much to my prolonged terror.
I'll admit… I wandered around stupidly for hours. Soon, however, I found my first cave, a gaping hole in the earth that simply did not make sense to be there. Gazing into the abyss… I realized that I was better off avoiding dark places. I noticed movement from within, and a humanoid shape, moving about and groaning. The word "humanoid" made little sense to me, even though I knew the definition and the implication, but I also knew that I cared not to venture into such dreaded places. The creature met my eyes, its hollow black holes in its head as foul as the drooling mouth below. I quickly left. Retreating back to the place I had awoken, I found myself with a sun nigh to resting, approaching a peach-colored horizon. Fear overwhelmed me. I could not understand why, but I knew that light was my friend in this wretched place. I quickly tore into the side of the same mountain I had climbed earlier, my claws cracking and removing the dirt as it broke away in blocks. The pieces piled into me, disappearing as the meats had, but I wasn't in the mood to care to understand how that worked.
My vision was dark as I felt a new material against my hands, solid rock in my way, simple and gray in color. I recoiled as my claws scratched it, and yet it did not hurt. In examining my hand for injury, I was perplexed by a simple square on the top of my hand, hollow and light. It gave off no light, but it was very visible and semi-transparent. On my other hand was another square, identical. I looked between the two, finally tapping the one on my right hand. A grid of nine total squares emerged around it, appearing in front of my face and slightly to the right, composed of the same light, framing squares, the upper left and two occupied. One contained those porkchops I had obtained, a small number "2" in the same square. In the next one over were the dirt blocks, a number "22" within the range of the cell. So this is where they went! I believed it quickly enough as I selected the dirt blocks with a twitch of mental thought, the blocks appearing in my hand! They were small as I held them, but, as I tried placing them on the ground behind me, they resumed their normal size. I was bewildered, but glad somehow. I placed the blocks over the entrance into the dirt tunnel I had made, sealing me from the outside world. It was pitch black and quiet, but I could see slightly and I felt immensely safer. Before I knew it, I felt myself falling asleep.
In short, I learned quickly of staying in seclusion. It was a lot safer. The next day, I encountered ghastly creatures, like "spiders" amongst the places I had visited, clinging to the darkness. They would not attack, and I had no intention on attacking them, either, but I knew that they were dangerous. It was the way they looked at me walk past them. No… It was when I saw another, entirely profane creature when I realized that the light was my close partner. Four legs, standing tall… green and sharp, dotted with pale mint and gray colors… and a face. Not just a normal face, I mean the creature I had seen in the crevice had a face, too, but… no. Not like this. It looked as though it was in a state of perpetual sorrow, eyes wide open, its mouth curved downward in a crooked scowl of sadness. I did not let it see me, for the haunted feeling in my heart told me to avoid it. I did so without question.
Knowing of the ability of my right hand, I tested the left. 3 sets of grids, composed of 9 squares each, appeared in front of me, empty. Above them and to the upper left were an empty four, and to the right and above was a simple 2x2 box with another off to the right. I wasn't sure what this was, but I felt that the 3 sets were storage, and the upper left set was something yet unknown. The upper right… seemed rather important, I could say. I could not place the feeling, but I felt almost one of destiny as I glazed over it with a finger. They were vital somehow.
It was not until my dreams during a nap later on that bequeathed me a great secret. I envisioned a tree. I awoke, simply confused by the strange illusion. I wondered if it was because I napped under a tree that sparked the reason for the dream, but I had a feeling that there was something more. My hand brushing the oak for a moment, I began to claw at it painlessly as the tree block cracked. Eventually, it broke, just like everything else, and, almost shocking me, the rest of the tree simply hovered, even with a part of its base missing. I had noticed a similar occurrence earlier with dirt; gravity was a fickle theory on this planet. I persevered in pummeling the trunk until I had the entire collection of wood in my collection. Gradually, the blocks composed of leaves simply vanished, sometimes dropping a "sapling." I gathered up everything I could and brought the wood from my "Active Inventory" ( my right hand's ability, as I shall call it from now on ) and into the storage of my "Passive Inventory" ( AI and PI, my left hand's ability, as they shall be referred to ). I tested the storage, making sure I was correct ( turned out I was ), and then tested the line of squares in the upper left. Seemingly, I could not place the wood blocks into this set. However, when placed into the 2x2 grid, I found a most exciting revelation! As I place the stack of wood blocks into the grid, a new block appeared in the "result" box, "wooden planks." I was so excited and curious, I took the planks out, taking as many as I could until the wood ran out. Each wood created 4 of these new "planks," and I now totaled at 20 wooden planks. This "crafting grid" allowed me to create new objects by placing items into it, and I was now thrilled. I immediately shoved my wooden planks into the grid, only to find the result square empty. Intrigued, I fiddled with it, filling the different places within the grid with the planks. Eventually, and to my great joy, a new object created upon filling the entire grid with wooden planks, a "crafting table."
I'd continue on here but I'm afraid that the sun is setting for now. I'll resume this later, when I reach home.
-X