Author's Note: This fic includes the mods Thaumcraft, Botania, and Blood Magic. You don't need to be familiar with them to enjoy the story, and I will be putting the more important stuff as exposition in the story or in the author's notes. In addition, I'll be playing fast and loose with the versions, so some stuff from 1.12.2 Blood Magic and 1.7.10 Blood Magic will both be features, for example. Lastly, I'd like to credit OnTheCobb's My Craft for providing inspiration for this fic. My Craft is a great fic and OnTheCobb has my utmost respect.

Disclaimer: I don't own Minecraft. If I did, I'd add a built-in modding API.

At first, there was peace. The Thaumaturges, scholars of the energies that made up the world, stayed in their towers studying their magics. The Followers of Gaia, who lived in harmony with nature, drew an arcane energy known as mana from their mystical flowers, which they harnessed in a wide variety of magical devices. The Way of Flowing Blood, the reclusive blood mages who hid within their ominous ziggurats, conducted their strange rituals. But the blood always hungered for more, and eventually the peace was broken.

The Way of Flowing Blood destroyed the Followers of Gaia. Mana was not as well-suited to combat as the demons and blood-fueled spells of the blood mages. In under a year, all traces of the magic of mana were wiped from the face of the planet

Then the hundred-year-long war between the Thaumaturges and the Way of Flowing Blood began. Neither side could gain an upper hand until a massive blood altar was built under each of the major scholars' towers. Armed with ritual daggers, the Thaumaturges were slaughtered, as a losing mere drop of blood spelled their doom. All but one Thaumaturge died, and their works were destroyed.

The one Thaumaturge that didn't die wore robes of Ichorium, said to be the blood of gods. This one scholar single-handedly destroyed the Way of Flowing Blood, reducing their ziggurats to rubble and burning their libraries. But he had already succumbed to the madness that plagued his order, and as the last blood mage died, he sealed himself in an eldritch dimension, far away from the land of humans.

Thus the ancient magics were lost to the ages…

[?]

Around me was endless, inky blackness. No matter where I turned, there was nothing to see. With no landmarks to go to, I picked a direction at random and started walking. Or tried to, anyway. I felt no sensation in my legs, or any of my body, for that matter. Did I even have a body in this void? How did I end up here, anyway?

I attempted to access my memories, but I drew a complete blank. I could remember nothing of my past, not even my name. I knew things, such as math, but I didn't remember going to school. This was a problem.

Understatement of the century, I thought to myself. Being trapped in a void with no memories was far more than a "problem". It was only a matter of time before I went insane or died of thirst. At least I needed a name to go by. Something to go on my tombstone, which would presumably float here in this void as well.

Locus404. Place not found. That would be a decent placeholder for my name until I could actually remember what it was supposed to be.

Can someone help me?" I called. "My name is Locus404!"

I heard no response but the sound wind rushing past me. Why did I think that there was anyone else nearby in the void?

Wait. Wind? There had been no wind the entire time I was in that blackness. In fact, the world was actually rather bright now. Too bright, as though I was shining a flashlight in my eyes after spending several hours in a pitch-black room.

That was a rather accurate metaphor, considering that was almost exactly what had happened to me.

Below me, I could vaguely see some trees and water, and I realized I was falling. I screamed in a manner most certainly not reminiscent of a young female child as I plummeted toward the ground. My screams were then abruptly cut off by the ground making an impact with my body.

"I groaned as I sat up. "Okay, who the hell decided to drop me from the sky?"

Whatever had sent me here gave no response.

[Locus404]

Today had not been a great day. First the void, then falling from the sky, then breaking half my limbs, as well as the fact that I was in what most people call "the middle of nowhere". Or perhaps more accurately, in the middle of some random forest that seemed to be made of cubes for some unknown reason. Whoever made this place had a sick sense of humor.

In frustration, I punched one of the trees. Surprisingly, my (oddly cubical) fist didn't hurt a bit, but the wood splintered under the force of the blow. Were all the trees in this world some cubical variety of balsa, or was I just extremely strong? And how did I know how strong trees were supposed to be, anyway?

I sent another punch at the tree to make sure it hadn't been a fluke. The wood splintered further and began to break apart. Cubical chunks of wood flew off the tree at the point of impact and then disappeared. Was everything in this world cubical? Did the laws of physics still apply to this world? Gravity was probably still in, but conservation of mass? Conservation of momentum? I filed those under "test later" and resumed pummeling the tree.

A few strikes later, the bottom cube of the tree broke and in its place floated a tinier version of the block. It flew into the toolbelt I was wearing (for some reason) as I got close to it. Somehow, I knew that the block was Oak Wood. Oddly enough, the rest of the tree was still floating.

I guess gravity only applies to people here, or maybe wooden things are exempt from gravity, or… gah! There's no way I can figure things out on such limited information. I'll just punch down the rest of this thing and figure out what to do with it later.

The toolbelt was another weird thing. I hadn't even checked what I was wearing until the wood had teleported itself onto my belt. A quick inspection of my clothes revealed that I was wearing a blue collared shirt, grey pants, a toolbelt with eight slots, and a backpack. For some reason, I couldn't open the backpack, but I could will things from my toolbelt to the backpack and vice versa. I couldn't remember putting on this stuff, but then again, I couldn't remember anything before the endless void.

One flurry of punches later, I had five oak wood on my toolbelt. The leaves of the tree began to disappear, and the ground was soon littered with Oak Saplings and a couple of Apples. I replanted one of the saplings and pocketed the apples and the rest of the saplings. Was the oak wood mislabeled somehow? Could this tree actually be an apple tree? Or did oak trees now have apples?

Screw it. I wouldn't get anywhere if I kept questioning the rules of this world. From this point forward, I was just going to accept the weirdness as a fact of life. In fact, I'd embrace the weirdness, and make it a part of myself! I'd become part of this world's craziness!

Was that even a good thing?

I shelved that line of questioning for later as I tried to figure out how to use the oak wood I'd gotten from the tree. The metaphorical shelf had to be getting rather full at this point.

At first, I tried splitting off some bark from the wood, but instead, the whole thing came apart into four perfect cubes of wood in a way that made no physical sense whatsoever. I now had four oak wood and four Oak Wood Planks… somehow. Whatever. The instantaneous creation of these planks was just going to be another fact of life.

Did this process work in reverse? Could I smash together four planks and get one block of wood back out of it? It was worth a try. I had a feeling that I had limited inventory space, and carrying around planks was much less efficient than full blocks of would.

Instead of forming another block of oak wood, the four planks converged into a Crafting Table. Now I was getting somewhere. With this, maybe I could make myself tools! Like an axe or a saw or something!

I set down the workbench and began experimenting with the wood. One wood in the center yielded four planks. One plank in the center gave me a wooden button. Was "crafting" the thing I'd done with the wood beforehand? This table was far easier to use than my bare hands, though, so I'd stick with it for now.

I turned the rest of my wood into planks and then began experimenting with how the planks could be crafted together. Relative position on the table seemed to matter, as two planks arranged horizontally gave me a Pressure Plate, whereas when they were arranged vertically I got four Sticks. The absolute position of the recipe didn't seem to matter too much, and soon I had eight sticks and nine planks. I then experimented with combining sticks and planks until I had a few tools at my disposal: an axe, sword, pickaxe, and shovel. I ran out of wood before I could try to make a hammer, but this seemed to be the right way to survive in this world.

The sun beat down on me overhead as I chopped down more trees for more wood to experiment with. It had been morning only a few minutes ago, but perhaps days passed quickly on this world. Maybe I was on a small rotating planet, or the sun orbited the earth here, after all, gravity clearly didn't apply to everything.

Either way, I didn't have much time to waste. I created more planks and sticks and began to craft them together.

I didn't manage to make any new tools besides a wooden hoe, which I probably wouldn't be using anytime soon, but I did get a fair amount of fences and signs. Maybe I could use those once I finally built myself a house.

The sun was now inching lower in the sky, and given the rate it was moving, I probably didn't have enough time to build myself a decent shelter. Instead, I used my pickaxe to dig out a hole in a nearby hill. I didn't have a door, so I stuck a block of dirt and a fence on top of the dirt to make a makeshift window. If everything else here was as strong as I was, a basic wooden door wouldn't do much to stop them from getting in.

As the sun set and my man-made cave became dark, I hollowed out more of the hill until my wooden pick broke. In addition to the cobblestone and dirt, I also managed to get some coal from a group of black-speckled rocks and some granite from weird red ones. The granite didn't seem to have much use, but the cobblestone could be turned into tools with the crafting table. The stone pickaxe I made was faster and sturdier than my old wooden one, and given how common stone was, I had a feeling I'd be using it for quite a while.

The coal-bearing rocks had also dropped some strange green orbs when I destroyed them, but I couldn't find the orbs anywhere in my toolbelt or backpack. They seemed to have flown into my arm. Curiously, I glanced down at it and saw two images superposed upon it. One was a line of ten hearts, presumably representing my overall health. All the hearts were still remaining. Below the hearts was a green bar, partially filled. Did the orbs flow into the bar? I mined another chunk of coal, and, sure enough, the bar filled a bit more as the green orbs flew into it.

I then checked my other arm to see if it had a status image. I squinted my eyes in the dim light and saw that it had a line of drumsticks, most of which were full, but the two closest to my torso were empty. What could these possibly represent?

As if in response, my stomach gurgled. Hunger it was, then. I hadn't eaten throughout this oddly short day, and I had done quite a bit of physical labor. It made sense that I would be hungry. I munched on one of the two apples I'd picked up earlier that day. After a sufficient number of bites, the entire apple disappeared, core and all. Checking my hunger bar, I saw that it had been completely filled. The apples in this world must be really nutritious.

The dark of the room was starting to get to me — it was like being in that endless void again — so I tried rubbing the coal on some sticks to make a fire. I partially succeeded, as I now had four torches, but although they produced light, the flames weren't hot at all. Weird.

I set one torch on the floor of my cave house and started digging further with my stone pickaxe. My stomach growled, but I ignored it. I could get food in the morning, and the days passed pretty quickly here. I had no idea what lurked in the dark, but I had no desire to be mauled by a pack of this world's equivalent to wolves.

Seeing as it was night, the best thing to do would be to get some sleep. Tomorrow would probably be another day of strenuous work, and I would have to secure a source of food soon. I found the comfiest patch of stone in my hobbit hole and lay down on it.

I was woken up the next morning not by roosters or sunlight, but by pained groans and rattles coming from outside. A peek out the window showed several green-skinned humanoids as well as a few bony white humanoids burning in the sun. Zombies and skeletons, perhaps? It wasn't inconceivable.

I waited for the monsters to finish burning and then knocked out the fence gate and dirt block that formed the "door" of my hole. I gathered up my crafting table and walked out to a brand new day, my sword at the ready in case some zombie was hiding behind a tree in ambush.

As I walked through the woods, I noticed several items floating on the ground where the mobs had been. The zombies had dropped some Rotten Flesh, as well as a single Carrot, while the skeletons dropped Arrows and Bones. I didn't know what rotten flesh or bones were for, but I pocketed them anyway in case they had some sort of crafting usage.

I cut down several more "oak" trees, and collected another apple, but it was pretty clear that this wasn't a very efficient way of getting food. Hunting might be better, and there was one group of pigs oinking away just beyond that group of trees…

It was time to test out the effectiveness of my stone sword.

In just two quick slashes, the first pig disappeared into a puff of smoke and left behind two Raw Porkchops as well as some green orbs. The rest of the pigs gave similar results, with the number of porkchops varying between zero and three.

As the green bar in my arm filled, I got a vision of a crafting recipe: eight cobblestone blocks, with an empty slot in the middle, would make a furnace. With that, I could cook my meat by slotting it into the top and putting fuel in the bottom.

My head swam as I came back to reality. The green bar now had a large number "1" over it. This number must represent the number of visions I would receive from it!

I couldn't keep calling this thing "the green bar". I would call it… my experience, or EXP for short! After all, filling it would grant me a flash of otherworldly experience to help me out in survival!

I quickly crafted a furnace from the cobblestone I'd gotten from my hobbit hole and began cooking my meat. I then started to go hunt some more for more EXP, but paused. I'd need a way to find my furnace if I got lost. A beacon of some sort would work rather well, but I didn't exactly have a way to make one.

I did, however, have quite a bit of cobblestone. By placing a block, jumping on it, and then placing a block next to it, I created a two-block-wide pillar, capped off with a torch. I mined the non-torched column of blocks to get down safely, then went off to hunt, satisfied that I could find my way back.

As I passed by a group of rather short "oak" trees, I noticed that part of the underbrush seemed to be moving. As I looked more closely, it seemed to be a plant-like creature. It walked on four legs, but had no arms. Its face was in a permanent frown, and it's square black eyes showed no emotion.

Strange flora (or was it fauna? I could never keep those straight.) was not exactly surprising after the whole zombies and skeletons thing, but this was still kind of out there. It didn't seem to be doing much of anything, just walking towards me menacingly.

I pointed my sword towards the bush creature threateningly. The thing didn't acknowledge my implicit threat or slow its walk, and kept moving towards me in a steady, unflinching walk. As the walking hedge neared me, I slashed it with my sword and jumped back as it started to hiss. As soon as I was outside a certain range, it stopped hissing and began walking towards me again.

That hiss must be the start of some sort of attack. If it only did it when I was close, that meant that the range was rather short. Thus by knocking the bush creature back with my sword and then moving back, I could effectively "break" its simple method of attack.

I repeated the slash-and-jump back process three more times. On the third repetition, the bush monster vanished into dust, leaving behind few orbs of EXP and one piece of gunpowder. The hissing I'd heard from its attack was probably some sort of fuse… which meant that that bush thing was a suicide bomber walking bush!

Why did I ever expect anything reasonably normal from this world?

As I gathered the EXP, my bar filled again, and I gained another vision: five gunpowder and four sand, arranged in a checkerboard, would produce TNT, a red-and-white block that would explode when lit on fire. That could potentially be useful for mining or creating holes, or maybe blowing up a large crowd of monsters… the possibilities of explosives were endless.

There was a lake with a sandy beach nearby, so I pulled out my stone shovel and began digging up the beach. The shovel ripped through the blocks easily, and as I dug apart the previously picturesque beach, I noticed that the sand, unlike wood, dirt, and stone, was affected by gravity. My theory of "selective gravity" was correct after all!

After a bit of digging, I had thirty sand in my backpack, and so I set out to hunt more suicide bomber bushes.

Some hunting later, I managed to kill three or four bomber bushes, depending on how you count. The fourth had exploded just as I was at the edge of its explosion range, and hadn't given me any gunpowder. Thankfully, the second bomber bush had dropped two, giving me just enough to try out the TNT recipe. I did, however, get enough EXP to gain another vision, this one of a wooden door. That could be useful later once I wanted a more permanent shelter, but for now the makeshift "door" was fine.

The sun was now high in the sky, and I needed to find a place for the next night's shelter. I headed back to my torch pillar and picked up the cooked meat from the furnace. As I walked, I munched on a succulent piece of pork. There was a nice rock face in the distance, upon which I could see some more coal ore. I packed up my crafting table and furnace and started the walk.

[?]

"I'm telling you, there was a Creeper explosion over there!" I said.

"Fine, fine, let's go check it out," my partner in crime finally complied. "He'll no doubt have had an emerald on him, and that means Boss'll be happy with us tonight!"

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's find the noob or what's left of him and get his stuff!"

[Locus404]

After several minutes of travelling towards the rock face, I spotted a glint of metal between the trees. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the metal formed two humanoid shapes who were moving towards my location. They weren't burning like the zombies, nor did they walk unflinchingly like the bomber bushes. Instead, they moved as a human would, and I picked up bits of chatter that sounded like English. They were, without a doubt, armored people.

I stepped from my place behind a tree and placed myself in their line of sight. The two armored figures turned and walked towards me, then stopped a few meters away. Over their heads, I could make out some lettering. The first one, who wielded an iron sword, had the name "Zekir" over his head, while the other one, who used a golden axe, bore the name "Willam_Tell".

"Hello, I'm Willam_Tell, as you can see, but you can call me Willam. My associate here is Zekir. And you must be Locust404, right?" the one labeled Willam_Tell asked.

"Ah, it's Locus404," I corrected.

"That's a bit weird. Why name yourself nonsense like that?" Willam said.

"'Locus' is Latin for 'place' and '404' means 'not found'."

"Pretentious much, are we?" Zekir growled. His voice was much deeper than I'd expected.

"Eh, don't be too hard on the guy, there've been like a billion people here already. All the good names are probably gone by now. I mean, someone else took 'William_Tell', so I had to Name myself this weird version."

"Fine, fine, let's just get on with it. We're guides who patrol this forest, looking for Newbs to help out. We'll help you out… for a small fee, of course."

"Would you mind answering a couple of questions first?" I asked.

"Sure," Willam said. "Ask away, Locust-man!"

I sighed. Was this going to be a common occurrence?

"First question," I said. "Where's the nearest town?"

"Oh, just a bit south of here," Willam chirped happily. "It's not super big, but it's in a rather large clearing and the wall's quite something for a town this far out in the Protectorate of Green, so it's hard to miss."

"Thanks," I said. South was in the exact opposite direction of the rock face. "I think I can manage to find it on my own, though. Nothing out here's been really that dangerous during the day, besides those bomber bushes. Thanks for the offer, though."

"Bomber bushes… oh, you mean Creepers! Yeah, they can be nasty if you get too close, but they're not the worst monsters that the night has to offer. Have you ever heard of Witches? Or Endermen?"

"I'll be fine," I said. These two were like overly aggressive door-to-door salesmen. "I'm not interested in anything you're selling, got it?"

"Friend, let me tell you something very important. There are bandits in these woods. In fact, I've seen one quite nearby. You'd be much safer with an escort," Willam said.

"Again, I'm fine. I shouldn't have any trouble spotting a bandit if they wear armor like you guys."

"Allow me to explain something," Zekir said, raising his sword. "You can go to one of two places. You pay us, and we take you to Oakenshire. You don't pay us, and we'll send you somewhere else."

"Again, I'm good." I said, slowly backing away. "I don't have much on me you'd be interested in anyway, just some stone tools and cooked meat."

"Then I guess you're going… TO HELL!" the swordsman shouted, jumping at me. Now I got what he meant. He and Willam were the bandits that Willam had been talking about! How could I not have seen it earlier?

I rolled away from his strike and began sprinting to the south. Armed robbery probably wasn't a thing in civilized towns here… I hoped.

Behind me, Willam and Zekir were in hot pursuit, their armor making a clanking sound as they chased after me. Despite the fact that they were in full plate, they didn't seem to be slowed at all. Maybe they chased people through the forest as part of their morning exercise routine.

I zigzagged between trees and jumped over small trenches in the ground, hoping to throw off my pursuers. Every time I looked back, however, they seemed to be gaining.

As I sprinted through the woods, I periodically checked on my hunger bar. It was steadily going down, and I would need to eat soon, but the bandits' hunger bars were hopefully going down at a similar rate. I was completely full when I'd started running, so I figured I could outlast them if necessary. Sure enough, after quite a bit of running, Zekir stopped to chow down a piece of meat while Willam continued to sprint towards me.

I led Willam around a hill where Zekir probably wouldn't be able to find us. I just needed to lead him into a trap of some sort, and then I was home free to make my way to Oakenshire.

Willam lunged at me with his axe as I slowed down. I instinctively held up my sword to block, and gold met stone with a shower of sparks. The two blades ground against one another for a moment, before the gold slowly started to bend under the pressure. In a flash, the golden tool broke into splinters and a lump of metal.

Willam blinked at the loss of his weapon as I munched on a steak to refill my hunger meter. Before he could pull another weapon from his toolbelt or backpack, I went on the offensive, slashing at him with quick sword strikes.

Though he managed to dodge the opening strikes, my relentless attacks prevented him from forming much of a defense. Through the glimpses I caught of the hearts on his arm, I saw that his health was going down, albeit slowly.

"Ow, shit! Quit hitting me! Seriously, gimme a minute to get a weapon ready! Time out! Time out!"

I ignored Willam's pathetic attempts at stalling and continued hitting him with my sword. With luck, I'd be able to finish this before Zekir found us. Two against one wasn't something I wanted to happen, especially when I was outgeared.

Finally having had enough, Willam began to run. I considered giving chase, but it was going to be night soon, and I didn't have to deal with monsters and two bandits. Instead, I started searching for a nearby place to find some shelter.

[Willam_Tell]

That bloody newb. That goddamn good-for-nothing bastard named Locus404 had humiliated me, snapped my rather expensive golden axe, and forced me to retreat. Me! One of Boss's most trusted with months of experience! Had nearly lost to a bloody noob with no more than two days post-spawn!

Zekir was probably rather disappointed in me, and I'd get a rather long and boring scolding from him when he found out. That bloody swordsman with a stick up the arse was barely two years older than I was and had only been working for Boss for a few months more than I had, but he took every bloody chance he could to remind me of how I'd screwed up and fallen for basic trick x, y, and z.

I'd show him. I didn't need his bloody help to hunt down the bloody newb. I had a perfectly serviceable iron pickaxe in my hand, and that would make a bloody fine weapon, no matter what that stick-up-the arse would say. New weapon in hand, I ate some baked potatoes (unfortunately, Minecraftia hadn't figured out how to make chips yet, a bloody shame) and set off in the direction the newb had run off in.

And who would I find not a minute into my search but Zekir?

"Ah, Willam!" he said in that insufferably smug tone of his. "How goes the newb-hunting? I see you've switched out weapons. Did your precious golden axe happen to break?"

"That bloody twat of a shopkeeper sold me a defective axe! He claimed that it had magical properties, and yet it bent in half to that newb's stone blade like it was made of bloody butter!"

Zekir chuckled. This was never a good sign, as it would be followed by a very dry explanation of how I'd fucked up. "Sometimes, I forget you're not a newb yourself, Willam. Seriously, everyone knows that gold is less durable than wood, but highly sought after because of its extraordinary enchantability. And are you holding an iron pickaxe, for god's sake? Get yourself a proper weapon, not something that would be used by a desperate newb."

"Go fuck yourself, Zekir." I growled. I wasn't in the mood to deal with his bullshit, and besides, I didn't have the iron to make a sword. "A pickaxe will work fine for now."

"Don't be childish, Willam," Zekir chided me in that annoyingly calm tone of his. "We want to succeed at catching this newb. He could be halfway to Oakenshire by now, and we've just been standing around arguing. Now put your pride aside and make yourself a sword."

"I… don't have the iron," I mumbled.

Zekir sighed and brought his palm to his face. "Sometimes, I wonder how Boss tolerates your near-constant idiocy."

"It's because I constantly get amazing results," I said, smiling. The sun was setting, and with the light level decreasing, I could see a glimmer of torchlight and a telltale lack of coal ore within a nearby cave. "Look, there's a cave over there with some light in it. The newb is probably there and it probably contains enough iron for me to get a sword."

Zekir looked where I was pointing. He squinted, trying to see what I had seen. My eyesight was one of the sharpest Boss's entire 'newb escort service', and he knew it. "That looks like a… promising lead. There is a good chance that there is a newb there, if not the newb. Let's go."

I could tell from the way he gritted his teeth that he was annoyed that I, once again had managed to deliver results when he couldn't.

[Locus404]

As the sun was going down, I found a small cave and lit up the mouth with torches. To throw off the bandits, I added a wall of granite next to some of the granite that was in the wall and moved a few blocks around to make it look "natural". It was probably impossible to find me at this point, but I still kept my furnace away from the "door", as its crackling could be heard from a fair distance away.

My food supply was beginning to run low, and I would need to hunt the next day if I wanted any more. The problem was that hunting wasn't exactly quiet, and those two would find me pretty easily if I decided to hunt in the woods that they knew pretty well. I needed a better plan.

Oakenshire was south of here, and the cave did lead south as best I could tell. If I followed the cave and dug my way out, I could slip into the town while the bandits were still searching for me on the surface. There was quite a bit of coal down here, and I still had enough wood that I could create many more torches and stone pickaxes. There were also some beige-speckled blocks, which turned out to be iron ore. I created a pickaxe and sword out of the iron, as well as a shield, whose recipe I figured out courtesy of gaining another level of EXP.

Sword and shield in hand, I explored deeper into the cave and began my trip to Oakenshire.