Remove ads

Pocket System

Reader mode
Now I am kind of sad that there are no food mods here.
John clearly needs at least the Salty Mod and possibly the Eat the Eggs Mod.
Yes, those are among my favourite simple mods to use. :V
 
I'm a bit concerned that Minecraft 'world controls' exist, somewhere, in this setting. And, given enough motivation/inspiration/luck John's System will be able to get at, analyse, and consider manipulating these controls...

That's (maybe) just about OK, but generalising that to a way of 'getting at' the settings for later, more conventional, worlds might make the powers of a fully-trained Amberite over a Shadow (world) they have full command of look... amateur. Reality hacking? No, World Hacking!
 
...i'm not sure if its just something with this story, but you can get both ancient debris and netherite scraps in bastion remnant chests in vanilla minecraft, the chance goes from like 5-6% chance to 13-14% chance to have ancient debris in one of the three types of chest able to be found in remnants.
 
I was just rereading some chapters then I had this idea stuck in my head thinking how cool it would be to read John's perspective on The Amazing World of Gumball. All those rejected characters living in the same dimension could be interpreted thru the system scan and the utter chaos that follows.
 
Remove ads
Get out of hell.
  • Threadmarks
    • Steve winced at a distant scream, still staring at the sudden hallway. "But HOW did you make this? We've only been here for a few minutes!"

    The impossible plant boy shrugged. "I Collected all the stuff from here to WAY down there, then used a modified version of the way you put blocks down to lay out the cobblestone and torches."

    John waved at the new path. "It seemed easy enough and you were distracted at the time."

    Steve glanced back at the seemingly infinite hallway. "But… I mean…" How? This was the Nether! You couldn't do ANYTHING here without SOMETHING going wrong!

    The kid began walking down the brightly lit tunnel. "Let's get going, I want to move away from here soon if possible. Something felt me shift stuff around and whatever it is feels really tingly and may be conceptually dangerous to think about."

    And all was right with the Nether as Steve quickly caught up with the kid walking down the endless tunnel. "Something bad?"

    John shrugged. "Maybe? My Scan is refusing to look too closely until I recover more, and that doesn't seem to be a good thing. Also, a bit off topic with a slight side issue: What is up with the bones?"

    Huh? "Bones? Any skeletons or Wither skeletons that die here tend to have their drops despawn pretty quickly."

    His companion glanced at him. "They seem to be rib cages? Just many blocks tall each, like for some sort of giant creature or monster." John seemed to focus on something. "Seems to be a sort of fossilized bone too, even though fossilization normally involves bones getting replaced with rock over time and THESE Nether Fossils are made out of REALLY strange stuff."

    Steve blinked. "I have no idea what you are talking about."

    John pointed. "They are mostly over there, half embedded into the Soul Sand valley. Don't see them much elsewhere."

    Oh shit. "There wasn't a valley of Soul Sand in that direction. Not three months ago, at least."

    John paused… Then flinched. "Ah. And the whatever-it-is seems to be coming from over there."

    They both began to walk a bit faster.

    When a wall of solid cobblestone began to fill up the tunnel behind them with every few steps, John didn't even twitch and Steve didn't say a single Notch-damned thing.

    Point is? They were both going THIS way now! A long way this way.

    Eventually John seemed to relax and Steve assumed the worst was over. "We good?"

    He nodded. "The thing seems to have been distracted eating some sort of flying… Oh, those Ghasts you mentioned earlier. It's eating those. Or merging with them. Or something."

    Close enough. "Right, all THAT aside: We are looking for Ancient Debris. Should be in the densest wall segments, maybe, and possibly near the bedrock layers at the top and bottom of this place. Hopefully."

    Unless some miners somewhere had a better system and was keeping it secret to cash in on the endless emeralds of profit, most of the searching methodology for this stuff was superstition and folk tales. "I think some people said it is more likely to spawn near areas where Soul Sand can't form? Because it drains the energies needed to make it?" Maybe.

    John blinked. "Oh, well we need to go this way then."

    The wall to the right f̥̙͈͓l̝̪̺̟i͕̖̭͕̻̬c̘̣̹̫k̙̰̲͓e̬͈̯̖re͍̤͓̮͙̗̫d͇̠̗̤̜̙ and exposed a suddenly existing cobblestone hallway.

    …Well alright then. "Let's go. The less time I spend here, the better."

    That got him a surprised look from the kid. "Really? But I wanted to Scan all the stuff here!"

    Hell no. "Anything you want we can trade for using Ancient Debris ore. Or just the Netherite Scrap itself, since almost no one ever manages to have the equipment to successfully silk touch the ore without damaging it."

    Besides, he HATED it here. The mental claws of the Soul Sand, the whatever-the-hell was in the walls, this NEW monster that they had fled from, and the never ending endlessly spawning ghost babies of infinite screams and exploding fireballs.

    Fuck it. "Thankfully for my needed potions I can grow more Nether Wart by bringing out a few blocks of Soul Sand, and I'd rather trade half a dozen chests of junk for anything else I require if it lets me avoid coming back here."

    John blinked, then shrugged. "Well, as long as I get to scan stuff I guess it doesn't matter."

    They walked a bit before the boy spoke up again. "What is Nether Wart?"

    Not sure. "A sort of blood colored plant or pustule or something, only grows on Soul Sand. Doesn't just show up randomly either, you can only get some by searching nether fortresses around stairwells, they got a sort of garden thing going on. Heard you can also find it in the courtyards of housing ruins found within bastion remnants, but haven't ever seen that myself."

    John seemed off put for some reason. "A bloody 'plant' that only grows on a block of literal tormented souls?"

    Yep. "Freaky stuff, yeah. Needed for most potions to brew though."

    The kid shook his head. "Maybe. When we start trading for stuff, get me potion samples and I'll see if I can skip the whole 'leech Soul Sand for blood fungus' stage entirely. That sounds gross and would probably have my sister freak out."

    Sister? "You didn't mention you had family here?"

    The kid nodded. "She can't dispose of her bodies safely like I can, so she's still recovering from our last trip. Considering how fragile this world is, I'm just going to bring her out when we get to the next one. Especially because this place is a bit harsh for bodies not crafted out of Essence."

    Steve didn't know how to handle ANY of that. Change topic, moron! "So anyway, we just need to find one Ancient Debris, you make sure you can convert other stuff into it, then we can make a new Nether Portal back to the other side and forget ANY of this happened."

    The wall flickered as a cobblestone stairs suddenly existed. "We need to go up a bit now. I found something that seems to resonate with this entire area, and it might be what we are looking for." John glanced at him. "Is it alright to just make a new Portal with our old one still operating?"

    Steve climbed up the steps. "Yeah, not an issue. Just like how building a portal in the overworld generates a gate over here, the reverse is also true. As long as they aren't too close together, we should have a quick exit and can begin heading back to where we started on the other side."

    Seeing the confusion, he explained. "Every block here is like eight blocks of distance back in the overworld. At least, horizontally… Doesn't seem to be true with vertical distance for some reason. Anyway, build two portals too close together and they will end up using the same exit gate on the other side. But uh…"

    He glanced back at the sealed cobblestone wall being built behind them. "That won't be an issue here. Hell, we may have a bit of a hike just to get near my base after this, depending on how far we need to go."

    John hummed. "Another twenty blocks or so I set up a chamber. Anything I recognize, I Collected… Everything else I left behind. Only seems to be a few blocks in size though."

    Some part of Steve wanted to mention how impossibly easy this trip had become. Or how it felt like cheating to just walk straight up to something 'Unknown' and see what it was without a single swing of a pickaxe.

    The rest of his everything was still chanting 'NoGhostBaby' on loop however, so if John wanted to wander a few blocks and pluck the most valuable ore from the ground like a miner with Notch-level luck and blessings, then fuck yes: Let's get the fuck out of the Nether now, please, thank you.

    The stairs ended at a cobblestone room.

    Floating in the middle? Two slightly darker blocks Netherrack. Ones with what seemed to be pulsing tree rings on top and bottom, a material that seemed to be slightly too h͔͕͙̫̘̺̝e̤̙̖a͖̣̠v͕y̼̙ and maybe too c̹̼̫̺͖͚l͎̰͖o̸ś̗̻̞̙̬̲e͈̺̯͇̼ and… Was he falling?

    John clapped! "Well, here we are! Right? It seems to be right. Only two though. Meh, that's more than enough I guess."

    Was he falling forward towards an endless distance, only held back by the frail grasp of gravity and the belief that he hadn't already fallen?

    The already burdensome heat in the air, so hard to breathe, seemed to weigh down his lungs and press his shoulders with an unknowable heft, as the mass of time leaned harder upon his spine the more he observed this impossible material and…

    "You alright?"

    AHH! "What the HELL is THAT!?"

    John blinked. "I uh… I think it is Ancient Debris ore? Yes?"

    He pointed at the seemingly innocent material. "Why is it pulsing and… It seems to pull me in and…"

    The kid nodded. "Yeah, the Essence in this area would normally get all messed up and mixed and stuff if you mined your way into it like normal… But we sort of just removed the materials surrounding it instantly without disturbing anything."

    John walked forward as if the reality warping material was just mildly interesting. "Kind of a neat effect, isn't it? Probably why it forms in the first place, the way the Essence in the area swirls in like this and compresses in this energetic nexus like this. The effect should get less intense without the support of the surrounding material though, after a while."

    Steve was done with this. "Can you Scan it?"

    He nodded. "Already done. The passive Scan version at least… Can I collect one of them?"

    Unseen eyes began to burn into his spine.

    Nope.

    Completely done with ALL of this. "Take them both, I do not care right now." He moved to one side and began placing obsidian and grabbing his flint and steel to light the gateway.

    John was set aback. "Are you sure? I mean, thanks and stuff, but I thought you said…"

    Portal frame done, a flick of the flint and steel to spark the purple shimmering gate into existence. "Grab the ore, fill ALL this place up with cobblestone, and then come through so we can quarantine the shit out of EVERYTHING ON THE OTHER SIDE. I'm out."

    Then the purple portal finished pulling him to the other side and away from the pull of that forbidden ore.

    ~~~Pocket System~~~

    John blinked at the newly formed Nether portal. "Huh. Well… Alright I guess?"

    But if he was going to do this, he'd do it right.

    [[Pocket.]]

    In a disturbingly large range in every direction, blocks and mobs and lava source blocks and more v̳a̞̜n͇i̗̺̮̱͚̠͟s̗̬͍̦h̩̲͎̜̗͘ͅe̬̦̼̥ͅd͎̼̪͍̣.͍́

    Before any of the strange things he could see in the distance could move, he shifted focus.

    [[Fill.]]

    The distant and silent o̡̯̞̫̬̥b̲̤̭s̟̗̥͈͞ȩ̟̬̘r̛̘̣̤v̹͙͡e̘r͏͉̥̰̱̳̜͈s͙ could no longer be seen as cobblestone filled up everything.

    Well, everything but John himself and the portal.

    He was gone before the lava limbs and blood roots finished tunneling through the material.

    ~~~Pocket System~~~

    John blinked on the other side, the air now breathable by lungs and an undefined weight gone from his shoulders. "Damn you work fast."

    Steve didn't even pause, placing blocks of solid iron in a growing mass around the portal. "NopeNopeNopeNope…"

    Huh. Maybe he should help. "I'm just going to break down the Nether Gate, alright?"

    More and more iron blocks were being placed down. "NopeNopeNope MOVE! I need to seal that area NOW!"

    EEP! "Yeah, no problem! Let me just…"

    [[Pocket.]]

    Steve just picked John up and tossed him to the side, already filling up the gap where the obsidian portal had been with even more iron. "NOPE! NopeNopeNope…"

    Ah well… "I'll just leave you to it then?" Steve certainly seemed to have things in hand.

    Leaving the frantically building man behind him, John took a moment to look around. Some sort of desert biome, so mostly sand in all directions.

    Neat! Scan all this. Non-destructively, of course.

    [[Confirmed.]]

    Oh, the System was actually responding again instead of directly injecting memories of interaction into his brain?

    [[HOST is no longer exposed to compromising entities. Security protocol levels de-escalated.]]

    That uh. That sounded pretty serious.

    [[Host is NOT recommended to return to 'The Nether' at this time.]]

    Meh, that shouldn't be a problem. They already got a sample of Ancient Debris ore, and it was some pretty good stuff!

    Just like how Redstone Blocks were the best resource to convert energy type materials into and Emerald Blocks most efficiently stored 'valuable' materials, this Ancient Debris seemed to be perfect for containing Concepts for some reason.

    Wonder if there was a better alternative than Emerald Blocks for just storing up raw Essence?

    [[Bedrock is uncollectable by natives, but theoretically can be found at the boundaries of local dimensions. Possess infinite durability and immunity from damage, material is evaluated as a potential long term storage solution for raw Essence that would outperform the Emerald blocks currently being utilized.]]

    Right, there had been that top and bottom layer of 'resistant' junk back in the Nether just when he was trying to grab all that stuff and go. It had struck him as odd that ANYTHING in this place could so easily shrug off his Pocket's ability to Collect stuff, but he hadn't wanted to leave Steve alone too long since he seemed a bit stressed…

    So that had been Bedrock, huh?

    [[Host is NOT recommended to return to 'The Nether' at this time.]]

    Oh hush you worry wart, we won't go back there. Steve says he can get what we need by converting material into Ancient Debris ore anyway. Besides, there should be Bedrock in this place too, right?

    [[On average, HOST would need to descend 60-64 blocks from the surface.]]

    See? That wouldn't take long. "Hey Steve, I'll be right back, alright?"

    There was now an Iron block mountain that was still growing in size as Steve frantically built outward. "NopeNopeNope…"

    Uh.

    He'd be fine.

    Right, let's go collect some Bedrock! WOO!
     
    Last edited:
  • Threadmarks
    • For a second there with the ribcages being mentioned I thought it was the entity from the Xianxia portion of Adam's Adventure... the Bone Walker or something, the one with conceptual poison and the eye and whatnot.

    Also yes, the Nether is a freaking madhouse hellhole and no one really enjoys it much.
    Not that the End is much better, but at least it's slightly safer. The overworld got safer with the lighting update but got less safe in the depths because of the addition of Deep Dark.

    The title... Saints Row: Gat out of Hell, anyone?
     
    John: "Steve?"
    Steve: "Yeah?"
    John: "An unknown is breaking thru the blocks where the portal was?"
    Steve: "NOPE!NOPE!NONONONO!"

    Will John get a Rez Totem?

    ... Is he going to Super Mario next?
     
    H: Yeah, anyone with any sense only does stuff in the Nether because they have to. Not because they want to.
     
    Did… did someone make a Terraria boss into a Minecraft mob? Conceptually terraria entities are most certainly made of terrifying stuff with weird implications. I don't think that ribcage-kraken was a reskinned Wall of Flesh (wall of bone) though, it could have been any other boss.
     
    The Dude said:
    But... My infinite Mat farms are in the Nether...
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    The top of the Nether is a great place to be;
    Nothing spawns until you place blocks and then you can just control what spawn by choosing blocks, light levels, and biomes. Plus like it was noticed in the chapter, the Nether is not 8x smaller than the overworld vertically, so you can link Nether roof portals to the overworld.
    Gold farm + Piglin bartering farm is a must on the "roof".
     
    Reader mode
    You must login or register to reply here.
    Remove ads
    Back
    Top