And someplace weird she is.

There's a dragon. There are strange tall black humanoids. There are towers. The weirdest thing, though, is that everything seems to be entirely right angles--the terrain, the beings, even her form.

S╎ᒲ⚍ꖎᔑᓵ∷⚍ᒲ 𝙹⎓ y⍊ᒷℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ᒷ joined the game

A being appears in front of her.

<DreamXD> The End is off limits. Visiting the End is against the rules of the server.

And then she is somewhere else-- a forest, it looks like, though everything is still cubes.

< S╎ᒲ⚍ꖎᔑᓵ∷⚍ᒲ 𝙹⎓ y⍊ᒷℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ᒷ > Oh҉ ńo͜, ͟Į'm͟ ͝s͠o͢rr͜y͟! I͟ did͠n͜'t͢ ̢k̴now̶.

< S╎ᒲ⚍ꖎᔑᓵ∷⚍ᒲ 𝙹⎓ y⍊ᒷℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ᒷ > Wai͞t̸ ìs͢ thát—̵t̵ha̵t͠'̢s͠ ҉re̷ferr͜i̸ng͠ to̧ ͡my n͝aḿę, tha͟t's t̕er͟r͜ib̸le!̕!! I̕ ͝h͠àt̕e͞ ̸it.

< S╎ᒲ⚍ꖎᔑᓵ∷⚍ᒲ 𝙹⎓ y⍊ᒷℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ᒷ > O̵k̸a̸ỳ no ̧ho̡l͝d ǫn I ́c̵an—̢There! That's better. I don't even know why it was doing that.

The being disappears.

<ItsFundy> WHAT

<ItsFundy> WHAT

<ItsFundy> WHAT

< S╎ᒲ⚍ꖎᔑᓵ∷⚍ᒲ 𝙹⎓ y⍊ᒷℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ᒷ > That's a very accurate summary!! Hi, are you a person, you seem like you might be a person, HI PERSON!

<ItsFundy> yes i'm a person

<Ranboo> wait, are you a person

<Ranboo> also how do I pronounce your name

< S╎ᒲ⚍ꖎᔑᓵ∷⚍ᒲ 𝙹⎓ y⍊ᒷℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ᒷ > I am! And I have no idea, I'm trying to figure out how to change it to something less. ... This.

< S╎ᒲ⚍ꖎᔑᓵ∷⚍ᒲ 𝙹⎓ y⍊ᒷℸ ̣ ℸ ̣ ᒷ > Oh! Oh I see! Okay hold on.

<Yvette> There we go! That's pronounceable, right? :D?

<Ranboo> yup

<TommyInnit> VC2

<TommyInnit> VC2

<TommyInnit> VC2

<TommyInnit> VC2

<Yvette> Pardon?

<TommyInnit> you heard me bithc

<Ranboo> welcome to the dream smp i guess

<Yvette> Technically speaking no I didn't, and furthermore while I did perceive that, I didn't understand it. Thus the 'pardon.'

<Yvette> Also? Rude.

<TommyInnit> yo aur e annogying

<TommyInnit> goodbye

<BadBoyHalo> hello OwO

<Yvette> I imagine someone like you would find me so, yes.

<Yvette> Hi! :D

<Yvette> Goodness, this is very exciting, how many people are even here??

<Ranboo> uuuuuuh about 30 i think

<Yvette> SUCCESS! Sort of! Sort of success! Okay so where are you, people that have not been rude to me, can I come see you?

<Yvette> I have no idea where I am.

<Awesamdude> what are your coordinates?

<Yvette> How... do I check.

<Awesamdude> you just have to think about it, it's a little unintuitive at first but you'll figure it out

<Yvette> Okay. I'll give it a shot, thank you.

XYZ: 53.500 / 64.000 / -101.500
Block: 53 64 -102
Chunk: 5 0 10 in 3 4 -7
Facing: west (Towards negative X) (66.2 / -.06)
Client Light: 15 (15 sky, 0 block)
Biome: taiga

Targeted Block: 43, 65, -97
spruce_log
axis: y
#logs
#lava_pool_stone_replaceables
#spruce_logs
#mineable/axe
#logs_that_burn

Targeted Fluid: 43, 65, -97
empty

Wh...at.

She has no idea what any of this is. While she could ask, she's curious and wants to figure it out on her own. It's an interesting problem. Targeted block is... what she's facing, she's facing a tree. A spruce log. The numbers after it are probably its coordinates, right? What happens if she looks down at the... block below it? Is that why everything is cubes, everything is divided up into blocks?

XYZ: 53.500 / 64.000 / -101.500
Block: 53 64 -102
Chunk: 5 0 10 in 3 4 -7
Facing: west (Towards negative X) (66.2 / -.06)
Client Light: 15 (15 sky, 0 block)
Biome: taiga

Targeted Block: 43, 64, -97
grass_block
snowy: false
#valid_spawn
#lush_ground_replaceable
#enderman_holdable
#bamboo_plantable_on
#mineable/shovel
#dirt

Targeted Fluid: 43, 64, -97
empty

Aha! Progress!

Okay, and if she takes a single step to the left, do the numbers at the top change? Because those seem like her coordinates.

Yes! The XYZ changes to 53.686 / 64.000 / -101.125 . Nothing else changes.

<Yvette> Found it, thanks! 53.686 / 64.000 / -101.125

She's now at 53.300 / 64.000 / -100.931. So she's not perfectly lined up with the X or Z axes.

Well that makes some sense, she's not a perfect cube. However cubelike her current form seems to be. She makes a (somewhat literal) mental note of which direction is which, and turns ninety degrees to verify that it isn't based on which way she's facing, it's an overall factor of the world itself. Relatedly, if she hops, the middle number will change, right?

When she turns, the "Facing:" changes, as does everything after "Targeted block:", but the XYZ does not. If she hops, the middle number does indeed change! It increases to 65 point something, it's hard to pick out exactly how high she gets.

Neat!

…

Okay now she’s going to mess with it. She bets she can change those numbers, since they’re referring to where she is. Can she change the middle number to 65 and thereby teleport one block up?

Yes.

"Hey-- whoa, you're floating, how are you doing that?"

Talking! Real actual talking!! Yay!!

The person standing before him is a... silhouette that looks out onto a starscape. She moves, and even waves at the person before her, but the starscape doesn't. It's like looking through a cutout to another world.

"Hi! Oh, I am, aren't I. Oops. I expected gravity to put me back. I changed one of the coordinate numbers to see if I could."

...Wow. Okay.

"You-- you changed one of the coordinate numbers?"

"Yes? ... Is that against the rules? Actually is there a list of rules somewhere, I already broke one by accident."

"--Against the rules--it's not supposed to be possible?

Um. The rules are-- no breeding villagers, no iron farms, no going to the end. Theoretically no stealing, no murder, no griefing, but those aren't enforced so nobody listens to those."

"Wow, okay. I don't... even know how I would farm iron, it's a metal, not a plant. And breeding villagers sounds, uh." She pauses and tries to come up with words. "... Morally reprehensible and furthermore gross??? The rules about stealing and murder are just suggestions? And what is griefing."

"--Griefing is like... pranking someone's builds? Putting a mustache on a statue, setting their house on fire, that sort of thing. Where are you from?"

"Oh. Uh. Earth? Actually do you know where that is, I have been trying to get back and I don't know how!"

"...We share a border with SMP Earth, it's where Wilbur and Phil came from, but I'm pretty sure I would have heard of you if you were from there."

"I was not nearly as inexplicable and terrifying when I lived there, I'd have been very easy to miss. A border? ... Is SMP Earth made of cubes?"

"...Yes?"

"Then... no. Wrong Earth. I come from a place that is not cubes."

Their conversation is interrupted by a teenage boy running up to them. The nametag over his head indicates that he is TommyInnit. "HOW OLD ARE YOU."

"I'm 24, Tommy, you know this."

"Yeah well I wasn't asking you I was asking the new person."

Oh. It's this person.

"Wow. Hello to you too. Nice to meet you, I'm Yvette," she sniffs, irritated. "I don't know. I was 15 when I was eaten by an eldritch book and teleported to another dimension and turned into whatever-I-am. And I didn't count since because it was depressing. It's been a while."

"Were you born before or after April 9, 2004."

"Before."

"....Wait that's what Ranboo said too. Are you trying to trick me?" He eyes her suspiciously. "That means I'm older than you, right?"

"Is April 9, 2004, your birthday?"

"Yes."

"Then, no. That is not how math works."

"Oh. Well, yes it is. I solved math the other day so now math's my bitch."

"... Also not how math works. You do not solve math once and then have it solved forever, just like you do not say a sentence and then have written every book ever."

"I did that too! Do you want to read it."

"Tommy, you are not showing Yvette How To Sex."

"Then how will she know!!!! It's important, Sam."

"Honestly, I'm kind of impressed that you haven't lost it yet."

".....................................actually Yvette I will not be showing you How To Sex even though I totally wrote it and it was the best book ever and sold more copies than anything else because I am like a god."

"Good. I'm attached to my IQ points and I feel like interacting with any media of your creation would put them in jeopardy, so. It's better this way."

"It's true, every time anyone talks to me I take all their IQ points for my own. That's how I do all the 9000 IQ plays."

"I think you're missing a decimal point somewhere near that '9,' but. Sure. Whatever makes you happy."

"What? Me? No. I can't be missing anything, I solved math, remember? Plus, I killed Dream once, and everyone knows he has 1000 IQ, so mine's gotta be higher."

It's such a pity that her rectangular cube form can't rub the bridge of her nose, because this is the sort of thing that requires reacting physically. Instead she'll just. Put her hand on her face. There. Hand: face.

"... Okay. You've done it. You've outsmarted me. You've figured out my clever ruse, and how I am definitely younger than you even though I was born before. You are very clever, congratulations."

"Thank you." A very small gray cube that he's holding makes a noise at him; he makes a face and runs off to talk into it.

"So, uh, now you've met Tommy. It's... good to see him doing better."

"He was worse, before?" she asks, horrified.

"No, I mean-- he seems... happy. Happier, at least.

...It doesn't matter. I was going to offer to show you around the server, if you want."

"Oh. That'd be very nice, thank you." She gets the impression from this person's tone that Tommy has Been Through Some Shit, which. ... Now makes her feel a bit bad about picking on him, actually. Even if it was very easy and fun. "... I'm glad he's happier, anyway."

"Yeah." Walking!

They reach a rectangular portal; the frame is made of obsidian, and the portal glows purple. "This is the portal to the nether hub. It's kind of scuffed, but." Shrug.

Yvette is polite enough to teleport herself back one block down, so she won't be walking on air ostentatiously.

When they get to the portal, she peers at it with fascination!

"Nether hub. Through a dimensional portal. Why have a hub in another dimension?"

"...It's faster to get around in the Nether, so there's a lot of paths in it to portals in places that are further away."

"I see. And it all corresponds accurately to, uh, whatever dimension this is? Or does it get weird?"

"It's on a 1 to 8 ratio, so every step you take in the nether corresponds to 8 steps in the overworld. That's this dimension. Other than that, it's all a perfect correspondence."

"That's cool. Weird! But cool."

"I think so too. We can go in the Nether or I can keep showing you around the Overworld?"

"Nether, please!"

Nether hub! It's... kind of ugly, honestly, but it sure does have a lot of paths leading away from it.

Point. "That way leads to Phil and Techno's place, that way leads to Snowchester, that way leads to the Guardian XP farm. I think a few of these still lead to where Tommy was exiled, but they might have been taken down, it's been a while."

"I have no idea what an XP farm is, or those places or those people, but okay! I will probably go look at everything I can find eventually. Is everyone, er. Friendly?"

She suspects 'no,' but. She will be hopeful.

“…Depends on your definition of friendly. Like, the egg cult definitely thinks they’re being friendly. And if you don’t like pranks then you won’t like most of the people on the server. Most people are… most people are okay.

You use XP to enchant things, and an XP farm is a way to get a lot of XP, although I guess that might not have… come up, for you, if you can just change the numbers. I could tell you who lives in Snowchester but I expect those names wouldn’t mean anything to you either.”

"No, probably not. There's an egg cult? That's such a weird thing to be a cult of."

“Yeah. —It’s not a normal egg, it promises you your greatest desire and it changes you, warps your personality and feelings. It’s… not good.”

"Wow. Uh. Do. You guys need help with your egg cult and the mind control egg at the center of it? Because that's alarming."

“They were defeated pretty badly recently, but we haven’t been able to actually destroy the egg. I certainly wouldn’t say no to help, but I want to be clear that you’re not… obligated or anything, you’re still new here.”

"I want to verify that it is actually as bad news as you're making it out to be before I go full eldritch abomination on it, but. Mind control is wrong, people are not puppets, et cetera. I wouldn't be obligated to put out a fire in my neighbor's house, but it sure would make the neighborhood nicer, and keep my own house from being burned down, you know?"

“I don’t disagree, but that’s… a bit of an uncommon attitude here. With both metaphorical fires and actual ones.”

She shrugs.

"Well, I think that's dumb. So. Egg cult! Actually, what are their tactics and how does the egg's mind control work, is there a way I can definitely avoid being mind controlled while still investigating them? I bet I can play dumb and walk right up to them and ask them to please tell me all about egg-Jesus, something something I want to understand the culture of the people around me and make friends."

“We don’t know where they are right now. They tried to kill everyone, got killed back, they’re currently… somewhere? But they’re not recruiting like they were before, because they know they’ll be murdered for it.  

You can spend quite a bit of time around the egg without getting mind controlled—it’s a bad idea but you can do it—mostly the cult’s tactics are just to imprison people with the egg. The egg’s tactic, like I said, is mostly promising you whatever you want.”

"Mm. All right. Well, I already know what I want, so. It's not like what it's going to promise will be a surprise, if I do talk to it."

She sounds... sad, and a little bit bitter.

“You’ll probably be fine then. If you got trapped with it for multiple days, maybe I’d start worrying, but that seems incredibly unlikely.”

"Quite. Though uh, please don't mention to anyone that I can mess with my own coordinates. Since I expect that knowing I can teleport will make me look like less of a tempting victim."

“I can do that.”

"Cool, thanks." Bounce, bounce. "... I am now absolutely plotting to look as tempting of a recruit as possible, I was thinking live by myself in the middle of nowhere and make it publicly known where I live and easy to get to me?"

Yvette sounds excited, like this sounds fun.

“I think it really depends how long they stay away from everything. I don’t think it’ll be particularly hard to get them to recruit you once they’re not hiding, but, well, they’re hiding. It might be a better idea for you to try to destroy the egg without involving them. Be careful if you do try, though, if you try to damage it it has a tendency to damage you back.”

"Do you know where the egg itself is?"

“Yes. —It’s in the overworld and this is the closest portal to it, if you want to see it before seeing other things, or we can wait until after.”

"... Nah. Let's start with the egg. Otherwise I'll be distracted by it instead of actually thinking about the tour."

"Alright." Then they can step back through the portal. They walk along a path for a bit, pass through a building, take a left, walk along the path for a bit again, and then Sam jumps into a hole in the ground.

Hole in the ground! She’s a bit nervous. Down she goes, though.

There’s water at the bottom; landing doesn’t hurt at all. 

Down a hallway and into a room…

…Full of red vines and lit up in orange. 

At the center is a large red egg. 

She sucks in a breath through her teeth. It's... not exactly like her, but it is definitely in the same vein as her, and she knows what it is.

"You should not be," she hisses, horrified. "How dare you, to use the power you have for this!"

I can help you find your way home if you help me. 

“What’s it saying? I don’t understand it.”

"The expected empty promises. Help you use people? No. The thing I want more than to go home is to still be someone my family could love, and you can't give me that!"

Okay she is now going to get to trying to figure out how to kill it. Can she... uh. Actually the spruce log she looked at, when she first figured out how to find her coordinates, it had a tag (or something) called #logs_that_burn. She would like to see if she can pick a bit of this fucking egg to turn flammable.

Sure, but it’ll just switch itself back as soon as she does. 

That's promising, though! The fact that it's switching it back means that this is in fact a vector to hurt it. Probably.

"How does someone start fires?"

“Flint and steel. Or lava.”

"Lava!" she repeats, delighted. "That sounds like it's a fluid!"

Okay, she can change the block to flammable and the fluid to 'lava' at the same time. Does that set it on fire?

Yes. 

…But then both the lava and where the lava touches becomes a different block, crying obsidian. (It’s black like obsidian, but it oozes a glowing purple.)

"Rrrrgh," she growls. Can she.... just directly change the blocks to whatever it is she perceives when she looks at empty air?

Oh it does not like that. She can do it but every block she removes hurts her like she’s getting stabbed. 

"Ow," she says, and then she laughs. Is it just pain, or is her vessel in this world a little more broken?

It is in fact more broken. 

Heh!

Well, that's easy to fix, isn't it. She made this body, she can just put it back together again.

And then she can start turning more of this thing's blocks to air. It'll hurt every time, but that's fine. She'll put herself back together every time.

(She's giggling all the while. It may or may not be a little unsettling.)

What if it hurts her faster and more. 

If it isn't capable of entirely erasing this vessel from existence, just breaking it a little, then it doesn't matter. She'll just keep at it.

It’s not, in fact, powerful enough to erase her from existence. 

When she makes all of the egg proper into air, she can feel the lessening of power in the room. It’s not entirely gone, but it’s much, much weaker. 

If she gets rid of all of the rest of the red material in the room—it doesn’t even hurt—she’ll feel it be gone.

She'll be very thorough. No part of this thing gets to keep existing. It is offensive.

"... I think that got rid of this foothold," she says to her guide, when it's all gone. "I don't know if it's dead, though. And I don't know if this undoes what it's done to the people it's affected, I'd have to see them to know."

“…So are you some sort of god?”

"Hell if I know. If I am, I want to be a benevolent one."

“…I guess that’s all we can hope for.”

"Yeah. So! Are there any other ominous and obviously bad entities that need handling? I could get a streak going."

“…Not that I know of. 

Do you know how to bring people back to life?”

"Uh. Nnnnno. I might be able to? But I haven't been interacting with anyone besides myself since, uh, here, so. It's not like I would know."

Sam deflates, just a little. “And it’s not like we can kill someone to try it on, yeah. …We could try it on an animal, Dream can bring animals back, but I don’t know if it works the same way.”

"I can do mad science with animals for the sake of bringing people back to life. What are the, um—the names floating over their heads, of the dead?"

“There’s only one dead person right now, as far as I know. It’d be jschlatt.”

"Okay. Well. I'll go looking for them and see if I can bring them back as proof of concept. Unless they're a person that really needs to stay dead? For some reason??"

“…I guess he doesn’t need to stay dead?” Sam doesn’t sound particularly enthusiastic about the idea, though. 

"... I'll ask other people before trying anything. And give a warning first."

“Sure. Quackity, maybe, Quackity knew him better than most people. I can give you a list of people who might know more?”

"Sure, that'd be great, thank you!"

“Quackity. Tubbo. Fundy. Maybe Wilbur, maybe Nihachu, maybe Ponk.”

"All right, I'll remember." She makes a note of them. In her head, because that's the best place to keep things, and it's not like she has memory problems. "Then I guess there's nothing in the way of finishing the tour, if you don't mind? I'm curious about what this world's like."

“Of course.” On the way back out of the egg room: “This is the spider XP farm, if you do end up needing XP for anything you can just hang out here killing spiders. —This is a water elevator, you can go up it without having to climb stairs, although I guess you can just teleport up. We should backtrack, we passed some things on the way here.”

“Just teleporting everywhere sounds boring, honestly. And I absolutely want to see what a water elevator does! Be right back.”

Accordingly, she’s going to go into it. She keeps track of her current coordinates to teleport back once she’s done.

Water elevator: you go in the water, you go up. Her Y coordinate, predictably, increases. 

She teleports back to where she was and then tries to figure out how it works. Does all water work like this? Or is something else going on?

Well, there aren't really any other nearby columns of water to test if all water works like this, though she could probably change that if she wanted to.

"Do you want me to explain or do you want to try to figure it out on your own?"

“Hmmm. Give me five minutes to figure it out and then explain if I don’t get it? All water doesn’t do this, right, I could test it by making water but that might make a mess, so.”

“Not all water does this, no.” 

She nods, then observes the water. There are… bubbles. Going up. Quite regularly, in fact. Is there something at the top or the bottom that’s causing those bubbles?

There’s nothing at the top. The block at the bottom, if she checks, is called “soul sand”; its tags are #soul_fire_base_blocks, #soul_speed_blocks, #wither_summon_base_blocks, and #mineable/shovel.

Getting to look at the bottom takes a lot of teleporting to fight the current sending her up, but she manages it! That’s neat. She pops back out, next to Awesamdude.

“Is it the soul sand at the bottom?” she asks.

“Yup. If you put a magma block at the bottom it pulls you down instead.”

“Really! That’s strange, I would have thought it’d be the opposite. But I suppose physics don’t work at all like I’m used to.”

“I’d be interested in talking about how you’re used to physics working sometime.”

“Sure, though I’m missing a lot of local context for proper comparisons. But the thing I’m thinking of is that heat rises, in air and I think also water. So a block that caused heat would logically make the current go up. … Not as much as this, admittedly. Honestly I’m a little confused that the water elevator doesn’t run out of water, but. It seems like that’s because they’re water blocks, and they stay where they’re put. Which makes a weird sort of sense, but it’s not what I’m used to at all.”

“They’re all water source blocks, too— that means you can pick them up and put them down with buckets. If you put down a water source block they’ll flow down and outwards, and then there will be multiple flowing water blocks but only the one water source block.”

“Really!” She sounds delighted. “That’s so bizarre and charming. Your weird world is cute. I’m going to want to see how that works, but I want a proper test location so I don’t break anything I don’t mean to.”

“Sure. …We should probably finish the tour first.”

“Yeah. I’m very easily distracted.”

“It’s alright, you’re not even close to being the most distractable person here.” Up the water elevator!

She giggles, then follows.

“This is Punz’s house.” Point. “He’s with the egg cult. Or… was, maybe? Either way.”

“Potential egg affiliate,” provides Yvette, brightly.

“Yeah.” Walking! “This is the Prime Path, it’s the main path—it’s also religious, kind of, if you want to promote yourself then this is a good place to do that.”

“Ohhhhohono that is not happening, I do not want to be worshipped. Ever.”

“…I wasn’t particularly assuming you did.”

“Yeah, no, sorry for being jumpy, just. Brrrr.” She shivers. “I consider declaring myself to be an omnipotent god-empress or something a bad end. And people worshipping me sounds… lonely and unfulfilling. So. Uh.” She gives a little awkward shrug.

“…Do you think that’s a likely bad end for you?”

“… I don’t know. Maybe. It depends on the environment, I guess? I have a mouth and I have a temper and I am very opinionated on how people should be treated. And I have more power than I know what to do with. So. Maybe.”

“Alright. That’s… Good to know.” Across from Punz’s house: “This is the museum, Eret built it.”

“Sorry for being existentially terrifying,” she says wryly. Then she looks at the museum. “Oh? Museum of what?”

“Just the server. There are maps, historic builds, things like that.”

"Oh, cool. Can we detour to go look inside, then? And why do you call this dimension 'the server'?"

“Sure. And the server isn’t really this dimension—if you walk for long enough you’ll be in a different server, and that’s definitely not a different dimension, but lots of the Nether is part of this server even though you have to go through a portal to get there.”

Inside the museum is:

- a van with an on-fire hot dog on top

- a black brick wall

- a collection of maps

- two rooms with buttons in them; one is also made of black bricks and has chests in it, while the other is stone and has signs on the wall

- a flag

- what appears to be one wall of a brick house

"... Huh. Then I guess I don't understand the distinction."

She is very confused by a lot of the museum's contents, honestly. Except the maps, the maps are straightforward. She'll look at and memorize all of the maps.

Are there explanatory signs on any of the rest of the stuff?

Nope. 

"I am absolutely missing the significance of all of the objects in this museum," says Yvette, brightly. "All of the history is just going in one ear and right out the other without anything sticking whatsoever. Except the maps, the maps are good."

“The camarvan is where Wilbur founded L’Manberg—that’s a country, or at least it used to be—it had walls around it, that’s what the wall is a replica of. That’s L’Manberg’s flag, as well.”

"Oh! ... Used to be a country. What happened to it?"

“Dream, Technoblade, and Philza. And a lot of TNT.”

"Ah. Okay. And TNT is explosive and... presumably they blew an entire country up. Wow. Why?"

“They never wanted it to exist in the first place.” Sam shrugs. “Also I think Dream has fun with that sort of thing.”

"Wow. Okay then."

“Yeah.” Sigh. “Nobody died that time, if that makes you feel better.”

".... Yaaaaaaay?"

This is, quite possibly, the most unenthusiastic yay of all time.

“Yeah.” He doesn’t sound enthusiastic either. 

"Yeah," she agrees. "... So uh. Where are we on this map, then?" There is, quite unfortunately, no 'you are here' sign.

He points to the gray building on the map that the author of this thread has helpfully circled in red for you.

"Oh, we're right in the middle of things, cool. And the big path through the middle of thing is the Prime Path?"

"Yeah. And the black grid here" --he gestures to the black grid down and to the right of the circled building-- "is where L'Manberg used to be."

"Oh." This 'oh' is different than her last one. Much more sad, and, well. There's not much she can say in response to the destruction of a nation, is there. ".... what's the grid?"

"It's an obsidian and redstone setup, I can go into details but I don't even know if you know what redstone is-- it's how Dream rained the TNT on them."

"I absolutely do not know what redstone is. Rained TNT. On them and their homes." Sigh. "But at least no one died. … Can we talk about... less sad things for a bit, please? I have a daily maximum of sad that I let myself have and I think I've reached it."

"Sure. ...You probably won't want explanations of the rest of the stuff in the museum, then.

I guess the community house is fine." He points at the brick wall. "That's a replica of a wall from the community house, which was the first building made on the server. It's been blown up a couple times too, since it was first created, but it's been rebuilt, I'll show it to you on the tour."

Yvette snorts. "I'm glad it was rebuilt after... being blown up a couple of times. Is that just kind of a theme, here? Stuff getting blown up sometimes?"

"Yes."

"Wonderful."

She sounds less than thrilled. Or impressed, she also sounds less than impressed.

Shrug. "I mean, even when people aren't doing it on purpose, there are always going to be creeper explosions. --Oh, you might not know what creepers are. I'm a creeper, but most creepers aren't sentient, they're more like animals. And they explode if they think they're being threatened."

"... That is a deeply confusing biology. Uh. ... Also that's just kind of heartbreaking, that they explode when they're feeling threatened. Now I feel bad for them. How did, you, er, gain sapience or sentience or whatever it is that makes you different from them? Is there a way I can avoid freaking them out??"

"People can look like all sorts of animals? It's like how Fundy's a fox and Antfrost's a cat but that doesn't mean that most foxes or cats are more sentient than other animals. ...Foxes and cats are small and quadrupedal and make noises but not very language-like ones and they seem like they have simple preferences but-- not complicated ones, not self-awareness, you can't communicate with them, that's what I mean when I talk about animals as a category separate from people. ...Speaking of cats, cats are probably your best bet? Creepers don't like cats--in general, I mean, I personally don't mind them, I don't like them but I probably mind them less than Tommy does--so they'll stay away from you if you have a cat nearby."

"We have cats and foxes where I'm from. Getting a cat would keep creepers away and keep them from dying in terror at me? Huh. ... Maybe there's a property I could copy over from the cats, like I did for making the egg's blocks flammable. That seems more reliable than carrying a poor cat around everywhere I go."

“There are cats at the hotel, we can check when we visit.”

"Okay! Thank you. ... If I take on the properties of a cat I'm mildly tempted to give this form cat ears."

“That’d be cute.”

Cat ears!

"I agree," she says, sagely. Then the cat ears disappear again. "But not until I am properly taking on a characteristic of a cat! It'd be false advertising."

That elicits a laugh. He has a nice laugh. “—Now that you’ve got a map you can decide where to go next, if you want, or you can ask about the different places on the map.”

Awww! He should laugh more, he seems kind of sad underneath the stoic front. “Hotel for the cat! And then I don’t think I’m very picky. I mostly just want to wander around and meet people, really.”

“That’s down the prime path away from the community house, then.” Hotel! As promised, there are a few cats. There are also signs declaring it the BIG INNIT HOTEL (property of TommyInnit).

The hotel itself is neat, but she knows what she's here for. She's here for the cats. Okay, cats, do you contain any obvious properties that she can copy over onto her vessel?

Nothing obvious, unfortunately. 

“Hmmmm. Nothing obvious to copy over, I’m afraid. And it’s just cats that creepers keep away from?”

“Pretty sure. Sorry.”

"Oh no, my insane power doesn't come with an instruction manual or easy buttons to press to get the complicated things I want, what a surprise. I have never dealt with this before. Nooo. Definitely not." She smiles (though it's hard to tell, because she's a silhouette) and then shrugs. "It's okay. I'll just have to look at lots of different critters to figure it out, no big deal. Thanks, though."

"Good luck. Anywhere else you want to go on the map, or should we just keep going this direction?"

"Just keep going this direction, please!"

“Okay. This is Skeppy and BadBoyHalo’s mansion—they’re egg cultists—and past that is the prison.”

"The prison? Who runs it, and does it contain anyone?"

“I’m the Warden. There’s only one prisoner.”

"Oh. Who's the prisoner?"

“Dream.”

"Ah. Okay. For blowing up the country?"

“No. He was going to kill Tubbo and put Tommy in the prison. It was this or killing him, and—he can bring people back to life. So.”

"Ohhhhh. Thus why you want to know if I can bring people back to life. ... If I can does that mean you'll kill him?"

“I don’t know. Probably. It would be nice to have as an option.”

"That's... fair, I suppose. Is he that dangerous?"

“Yes.”

"Lovely. Any relation to DreamXD?"

“No, thank prime. Just—styled after. He’s not a god, he just… wants to be.”

"Wow. ... If I ever talk to him he's going to immediately attempt to leverage me for power. Isn't he."

“Probably.”

"Nnnnnhhhh." She shakes her head, irritated. "Well, not looking forward to that."

“You don’t have to visit him if you don’t want to.”

"I know, I just expect I'll talk to him at some point. Maybe to ask him about resurrection, though I kind of get the impression he won't help with that at all."

“He won’t, no. But it’s admirable of you to try.”

She shrugs, then looks away.

"Thanks."

“It’s true.” They walk a bit further; the prison is huge, easily the biggest building Yvette’s seen yet, and primarily made of blackstone bricks. “That’s the prison. There isn’t really anything past it this direction. The tunnel to Snowchester is nearby, or we can backtrack to the community house and go somewhere else.”

She is tactful enough to not tell the warden of the prison that she thinks the giant black box is ugly as sin, but she definitely thinks it. Most of the server is kind of ugly anyway, so. It'd just be impolite.

"Hmmm. Snowchester, then somewhere else? ... Hey now I wonder if I can teleport other people, save us the trip back."

“That would be convenient. Or if you could teleport  to people, that would help too—unless you can make soul speed boots? The tunnel to Snowchester kiiiiiind of requires them.”

"I don't know what those are, I'd have to see them to know if I could just make them. Uh, let's find an animal that is not someone's pet to test teleportation on, I am uncomfortable jumping to directly testing it on a person."

“Here’s mine.” He takes off and drops on the ground a pair of glowing-purple boots. “And sure.”

She peers at the boots. Those don't look too hard to copy and remake, really.

There is a little popping sound when the new items come into existence, but that's the only tell at all.

"Got it. My powers are such bullshit," she snorts, picking up the spare set of boots and putting them on, inspecting them critically. Then she gives a little hum and the boots appear to disappear. "That's better. Maybe if I decide to look like a person instead of a starscape, but while I'm looking like a starscape I kind of want to commit to my aesthetic."

“Fair enough.” On the way to the tunnel to Snowchester they encounter a chicken, if she’d like to test teleporting. 

Yep! She teleports it one block into the air to see if this damages the chicken in any way.

Nope!

"That worked okay, and the chicken seems fine. May I test with you and move you, uh, a block to your left?"

“Sure.”

He gets teleported one block to the left. He feels none the worse for the wear.

“That worked fine.”

"Cool, so I can just bring us back and save the trip." She bounces a little, pleased.

Sam responds by repeatedly crouching and uncrouching. “Sounds good.”

"Onwards, then!" she says, brightly.

The tunnel to Snowchester is full of water and what she’ll recognize as soul sand. With her new boots, it’s also fast.

So that's an interesting effect that she wants to study and recreate, but more importantly:

Wheeeeeeeeee!

Indeed!

Snowchester is a small snowy village. It seems to be mostly empty, although there’s one person there— a teenage boy in a fluffy jacket, with burn scars covering his face and arms. He waves to Yvette cautiously. 

She waves back!

"Hi! I'm Yvette, I'm new here."

“I’m Tubbo. Nice to meet you. …Why do you look like that?”

"Nice to meet you too. Uh. This is the default form my vessel took when I sent it here. Usually I make it look a bit more human, but even the humans here look kind of strange to me. It'd be weird to make a version of myself that fit the aesthetics of this world, and I kind of like the starscape theme, when it's next to..." Is it rude to motion to Sam? It is probably rude. She won't, then. "Well, I got the impression that weird people are welcome here? Is it too unnerving?"

“Nah, it looks cool. It’s all… two-dimensional? It’s kind of trippy. I like it, though.” 

"Aw! Thanks."

“For sure.” 

“I’ve been shown around by…” Oh, son of a bitch, she never asked his name. She knows his username, but that’s not the same thing. She looks at her guide beseechingly. “Sorry, I forgot to ask what you’d like me to call you by?”

“You can call me Sam.”

“Okay, thank you! Sam has been showing me around.” Pause. “… I hope you weren’t attached to the mind control egg, by the way.”

“Nah. It made me cry once, that’s about it.”

“Oh! Well, let me know if you see any sign of it anywhere at all, please. I got into a fight with it and I would like very much to have succeeded at killing it.”

“Sure. Congrats on the win, by the way.”

“Thank you! It was physically painful but only caused minor damage to my vessel!”

“D’you need some food? I have some, uh, baked potatoes.”

This is a strange non sequitur, but okay. “No thank you, eating is only recreational for me. Not actually required.”

“…Oh.” He holds himself a little differently, at that. Warier. “So you’re a god?”

Oh. Uh. Apparently that makes him scared of her, which. Is fair enough, really.

“… Maybe? I’m a bit uncomfortable being described as such but I wouldn’t actually know if I am or not.”

“…Alright.”

“Sorry for being existentially terrifying, I uh. Can’t really help it. I can go, if you’d rather?”

“Nah, it’s fine. If you’re anything like XD and Drista, you could just teleport anyway, so.” Shrug.

“Your preferences about personal space still matter even if I can teleport. … which I can.” Cough.

“If you want to see Snowchester, that’s fine by me. Not much to look at, though. Everyone’s moved out.”

“Oh. Sorry. It’s a pretty town, anyway.”

“Eh, it’s fine.” Shrug. He glances at Sam, then back to Yvette. “You said you can teleport, what else can you do?”

"I don't actually know the full extent of my powers in this set of dimensions." Or, actually, the others that she usually hangs out, but at least she knows the extent of her powers better, there. "I can copy items and change blocks."

“Whoa. Can you make bedrock? Can you break bedrock? Can you make spawners? Ooh, can you make shulker boxes—one second—“ Tubbo runs into one of the houses, comes out with a black chest, and puts it on the ground. “Can I have a shulker box, it’d be really cool.”

"I... don't know what any of those are, sorry."

Also she's a little uncomfortable being directly asked for stuff.

“Aw. Okay.”

"But if you have any disturbing entities threatening the safety and sanity of everyone on the server, hit me up, I kind of want to make a streak after my fight with the mind control egg."

“Nah, I don’t think so. Thanks though.”

"Mhm!" She gives a little wave and then wanders back to Sam, because she likes him more. Mostly because he didn't... immediately attempt to leverage her insane powers for his own gain. And he's just been really nice and calm and helpful.

"Ready to go back?" she asks him.

“Sure.”

She teleports back first (she perfectly remembers all of the coordinates she wants to) so she can verify the coordinates she'll be teleporting him to, and then teleports him after her. They're back outside the hotel.

"Okay! Now the other way?"

“Sure.” Past Eret’s museum: “That’s Church Prime, but I know you aren’t religious, so we can just keep going if you’d rather.”

“Please. Though now I’m curious, what’s the main religion here?”

“Twitch Prime.”

“Huh. What’s it about?”

“Getting more attention from the watchers, mostly? Same as YouTube, really, they’re just different audiences.”

“The watchers?”

“—Oh, does your world not have them—they’re invisible and insubstantial, they can’t affect the world, but they can watch through your eyes if you invite them to, that’s why they’re called watchers. Sometimes you can communicate with them—I don’t mostly, but I know Phil’s watchers will sometimes send him crows with messages, and Tommy prays a lot? They can’t do big stuff or anything but they voted in the elections. They usually like you more if you’re funny or important, and if they like you enough, you tend to… matter more? I’d bet you would be popular with them if you streamed—that’s what it’s called when you invite them to watch—especially after destroying the egg.”

"... Huh. That's strange. Is this like being able to know coordinates and stuff?"

“Kind of, I guess. What did you think I meant when I talked about religion?”

"Uh. My home tends more towards monotheism towards an all powerful creator god, that no one has met and no one can talk to, but who wrote a book one time. And sometimes people start cults where they get everyone else to agree they're a god and to do everything that they say and hang onto their every word or some such. So, one of those."

“Oh. We don’t really have that. Just, y’know, the viewers. We also have an all-powerful creator god, I guess, that’s basically what DreamXD is, but we don’t really… have… religion…? about him. And Drista’s a god, and Foolish is kind of a god, but nobody does everything they say, it’d be weird if they did, they’ve got powers but they’re basically just people. The egg cultists do—did—whatever the egg said, I guess, but they’ve got other things going on. Church and the path and most of the stuff we call religion is more about trying to get popular with the watchers.”

"Huh. All right. I might try streaming at some point, I suppose, if I'm ever feeling lonely."

“It can be good for that, yeah.”

"Right. But I don't expect to, er. Care very much about getting a lot of watchers. Actually, that sounds kind of high pressure and stressful."

Shrug. “Depends on the person. Some people don’t stream at all, some people are really religious. As long as you’re polite about it when people are advertising themselves it’s not a big deal either way.”

“All right. Is there a way to tell when other people are, er, streaming?”

“I mean, you can ask.”

“This is true. It just seems… I don’t know, polite. For everyone that’s streaming to inform each other.”

“People usually mention? But I did say that you’re not the most distractable person here, it’s pretty common to just forget.”

“Well. All right.”

She sounds vaguely unhappy about this fact (and that’s because she is), but she’s not really unhappy with anyone in particular about it. Just the system itself. This feels vaguely like anyone could be recording her at any time, which. Does not sound fun.

Well. They can keep walking. 

“This is the community house.” It’s a square building, two stories tall, floating on a lake; there are paths leading away from all four sides. 

“Oh, cool. I like that it’s floating on a lake.”

“Yeah. —Forward is Eret’s castle, right is Las Nevadas, left is Ponk’s area. Or we can go through the nether to Foolish’s summer home, or to the area in the Arctic where Ranboo and Philza and Technoblade live.”

“Probably save the Nether trips for later. One of the other places? I’m not picky about which, though I guess I lean more people over less. For efficiency in introducing myself.”

“Las Nevadas, then.” They can take a right and start heading that direction! It’s towards the nether portal, but Sam just walks around it and keeps going. 

She trails after him, of course! She is a good little starscape duckling.

It’s pretty obvious when she arrives at Las Nevadas. There’s a giant sign and a lot of buildings. 

“Hey! Hey Sam— oh! Hello Yvette, I don’t think we’ve met, I’m Quackity.” He has a scar extending from his eyebrow to his chin, and a few of his teeth are replaced with gold. “Good to meet you, man.” He bounces up and down a little. 

Clearly the polite thing to do is to bounce back at him! Bounce, bounce. “Nice to meet you too, Quackity! We haven’t, I just got here. Sam is giving me a tour.” Then she frowns, but it’s not like it’s easy to tell she’s frowning. “… Why is your desert not a desert?”

“We terraformed it. Mountains don’t work as well for making a tourist destination. Gotta have a skyline, you know?”

“Fair enough,” snorts Yvette. “… It… has a sort of aesthetic similarity to a place in my home, actually. Las Vegas.”

“Well, there’s more snow than meadows here. That’s good to know, though. You’ll have to tell me more about your world, see if there are any similarities.”

“… sure,” she says, sounding very hesitant and sad.

“—Or you can come see Las Nevadas! Lots of stuff to see, right? It’s still under construction but hey, I can still show you around if you want! And you can meet the citizens. I think Purpled’s busy, but Fundy and Foolish are around, and Slime might be too. And you’ve already met Sam.”

“That I have,” she agrees with a little laugh. “Sure, I’d love to meet them. Uh, first though, I got into a fight with the mind control egg. If you see any sign of it anywhere at all please let me know.”

“She destroyed it.”

“I destroyed every part of it that I could find!” she corrects, immediately. “It might not be completely destroyed. And if it’s not, I want to fix that. This is the sort of thing to be thorough about.”

“—Still, that’s great! That’s fucking awesome, Yvette. Wow. Sounds like you were a bit more successful than I was, then. —I tried to blow it up. Didn’t work. Tried again, got them to retreat at least, so, that’s something. Sure, yeah, I’ll let you know if I see any vines.” Las Nevadas has a fountain, a casino, a strip club, what is basically just a useless building but looks very reminiscent of a gas station, a tower, a restaurant, a theater, another tower (this one’s a replica of the Eiffel Tower), a bridge for weddings, and two houses (Purpled’s and Fundy’s).

“Thanks! I’d been planning to, uh, think about it a bit more and try to understand more of the problem before meddling, but then I actually saw it and. … I regret nothing.”

The bridge for weddings is charming, and she says so! Generally speaking Las Nevadas is also a lot nicer looking than the server she’s seen so far, which is nice.

“Aw, it’s cute. I like it,” she pronounces, after she has seen most of it.

“I’m really glad! I’m really glad. I’ve really been trying to make a nice place on this server, y’know. Sam built most of it, though, so don’t give me all the credit.” He laughs. “Also, Wilbur, you can stop hiding now.”

A man with a white streak in his hair steps out from behind a corner. He bows dramatically to Yvette, sweeping one arm out. “Wilbur Soot, at your service.”

“… are you though?? That seems like a lot of responsibility to put on someone you just met,” she says. “Oh, I mean, uh, hi. I’m Yvette. Nice to meet you. Please don’t be in my actual service that would be awkward.”

“Well, I don’t have to be if you don’t want me to be, but I figured it’s a decent enough display of good intent. It’s nice to meet you as well, Yvette! It’s so lovely meeting new people, don’t you think?”

(Quackity is still smiling, but close-lipped, and it looks significantly more strained.)

Why does she feel like this entire conversation is a trap. She feels like this entire conversation is a trap.

“… yes? But it does depend on the people. And I’m objectively terrifying.”

“That’s good! Or, well, it’s good for you. Makes you harder to hurt. Not as good for the people around you, maybe, but that just makes it more important for us to get into your good graces, no? —I’m sorry, I’m overwhelming you, aren’t I? Ranboo and I can make you a burger, free of charge.”

“No, no, please, I insist. She’s visiting Las Nevadas, I can get her a complementary meal.”

“Isn’t your restaurant still under construction?” Wilbur asks, and Quackity glares for a moment before his pleasant smile appears back on his face. “And besides, you already got to show her your country! Surely you’re not feeling threatened by a tiny burger van?”

“Boys, boys, you’re both very pretty,” she says in a deadpan, “Now please stop socially fighting for my attention, it’s creeping me out.”

“Aw, you think I’m pretty?” He winks at her. “Sorry, sorry, we’ll cut it out.”

“Lead the way, then, Wilbur. You know, I haven’t actually tried one of your burgers yet.”

She is unaffected by the wink. It helps that everyone is all weird and blocky and not really registering as possible romantic partners to her, so.

“Thank you,” she says placidly. “And yeah, sure, I can have a burger.”

Then they can go to the burger van!

The burger—or, well, two pieces of bread and a steak—is served to her by an 8-foot-tall teenager who’s half black and half white with glowing green-and-red eyes. He’s incredibly polite and also visibly anxious.

Awwwww baby. She knows what it’s like to be anxious! She’s immediately sympathetic.

“Hi!” she says brightly as she takes her burger. “I’m Yvette, nice to meet you. In person, I mean, instead of just confusing you with a name of gibberish.”

“I’m, uh, Ranboo. I guess you already knew that? From chat and also, uh, my nametag. Um. Nice to meet you, Yvette? Yeah. You seem… cool?” (Now that he’s closer, she can see that he also has raised purplish streaks under his eyes.)

“Thanks! You too.” Burger nom. It might be a little unsettling to see an apparent cutout to a starscape take a bite out of a burger, but. It seems to be a perfectly ordinary bite. “This is good, thank you! … also if you or Wilbur see any sign of the mind control egg, I’ve made it my personal mission to erase it from existence entirely, so.”

“Oh. Okay, that’s good to know. It’s, um, probably good that someone is doing that. …I assume you’ve already been shown the room it’s in? Unless it’s moved or something?”

“I have! Sam showed me.” Burger nom. “It’s safe now, I got rid of all of it that I could find.”

“Oh! Oh wow. That’s, um, that’s really cool.” He is just going to put a grass block on the ground. “I’ll, um, go now? Unless there was anything else you wanted to ask me, or if you wanted another burger or anything?”

“No, sorry to keep you.”

She’s not sure why he put a grass block on the ground, but. Okay. Sure.

Ranboo half-bolts back to the burger van. 

“Love that guy. He’s a good kid.”

Quackity gives a neutral sort of hum and takes another bite of his burger. 

“He seemed like he was going to vibrate out of existence out of sheer anxiety.”

“That’s pretty much his default state, yeah.”

“That sounds really stressful. Poor guy.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with a bit of neurosis. Fear keeps you alive, right? Better to have too much than too little.”

“Mm,” she hums, noncommittally. She has another bite of her burger. She doesn’t think she likes this Wilbur person.

“Bit of a bold claim coming from you, Soot.”

“Hey, I’ve changed, haven’t I? I’m a new man.”

Is every sentence this person says loaded? It really seems like it!

“I think I’m missing a lot of context,” she muses.

“Wilbur Soot over here” —Quackity gestures in Wilbur’s general direction— “was dead. For months. So, not the best person to get advice from about staying alive.”

“I’m alive now.”

“Sure. Not because of anything you did, though.”

“You were dead?” she asks, suddenly interested. “And Dream brought you back? What was that like?”

“…Bad. The afterlife, it runs on a different timescale, right? One day here is one month in limbo. It’s personalized, too—for Tommy it was just a void, right, no color, no feeling, almost total sensory deprivation other than the sound of my voice. For me it was a train station. Except the train never came. Until, thirteen years later, it did.”

“… shit. I’m so sorry.” Burger nibble. “… I might be able to bring back the dead. I’ve never tried it. It’s just Jschlatt that’s still dead, yeah? I’d like a proof of concept, but I also don’t want to bring back an evil overlord or whatever, and the whole thing seems politically charged, but. If he’s suffering, that… changes things.”

“Schlatt and Mexican Dream, yeah. Honestly, the thing I’d be most worried about with reviving Schlatt is that he’ll just drink himself to death again and then you’re in the same situation as before.”

(Quackity goes stiff at the mention of Schlatt.)

“Mexican Dream? I thought my only option for mad resurrection science was Schlatt.” She looks at Quackity and winces. “And I get the impression he sucked?”

“Yeah. …He’s my, uh, ex, I guess. But it’s not like I never dabbled in mad resurrection science, so, hey, go wild.” Quackity leans back, very deliberately casual. “Dunno who this Mexican Dream character is.”

“Hm. Guess I’ll need to ask around, then. But time’s stretched out, in the afterlife? So I suppose I can’t be as careful as I might like.”

“You might just be swapping people around, anyway. Hey, Big Q, any other ghosts around?”

“Not that I’ve met. Or, Schlatt, I guess, but he was still in limbo.”

“Swapping people around? Like they’ll go immediately kill each other if they share the same air, or what?”

“No, that’s not— I had a ghost running around up here while I was dead, and now he’s in that train station instead of me. It’s one or the other.”

“What? No. That’s dumb. Who says it should be one or the other? What if no one has to suffer at the train station at all?”

“Look, if you can make that work, I’m all ears, but please— please don’t send me back there. I’m begging you, man.”