“Aaaaand I can't understand a word of this”
Joshua leans over a pedestal, a book hovers an inch off of it, tilted up for him to see.
Strange hieroglyphics fill the rapidly flipping pages, and the cover is gilded with a strange golden material.
Joshua has made an enchanting table. After the construction of the house, he decided to spend time constructing a mine for him to use. Which just meant digging a staircase downwards into the ground.
The physics of it just seemed to be kind of… ignored? Out of paranoia he has been pcing support pilrs every few blocks but honestly he hasn't seen any reason to do that outside of looking neat.
Anyways, he found a va pool. Knowing the parasites hate fire, he decided to bucket some of it, which strangely isn't hot at all once it's inside the bucket, weird Minecraft logic once again throwing him off.
The same pool became a source of obsidian, and after using a book he found in the hospital he had all the materials for an enchanting table.
One he cannot fucking read, of course.
Luckily the UI popup is the same as in the game, and it just gives him a list of three enchantments to apply to whatever tool is in there.
Hovering over each selection does transte the hieroglyphics, but he knows that enchantments could be very useful outside of tool or armor buffs. If he understood how they work he could possibly make custom magical effects on objects.
Potentially to create a way back home.
Or… at the very least, keep whatever the hell these monsters are away from him.
The idea that there might not be a way back home is… No!
Joshua shakes that thought away.
Having his world taken away from him…
His friends, family…
He's spiraling, but suddenly… he feels a ‘presence’ in the back of his mind.
A snap of realization makes him jolt up, throwing his hand into his inventory to pull out another carver cross.
But…
“*r* y** *ka*?”
Something speaking in his mind. A monotone, broken string of words, mostly muffled by some kind of static.
“What the hell?...”
He looks around, the vaguely feminine voice still mostly incomprehensible, but the feelings and intent behind them are clearer.
Reassurance.
Worry.
Concern.
His eyes trail to a certain unicorn, who's been staring at him with a certain look he can't describe.
Was that…
“Jophiel? Did you…”
She gives a soft nod.
“*t i* *ka*”
Reassurance.
Confirmation.
Calm down.
…fuck.
He remembers that some Pokemon, psychic types, can speak to their owners telepathically.
Joshua just assumed that Jophiel either couldn't do it, or that his ck of psychic “talent” made it impossible.
But now… holy shit…
“Can you hear me?” He tries to ‘speak’ in his mind, trying to ‘direct' it towards her.
Whatever psychic link she established seemed to pick it up, as she nods.
“*I c** *ea* y**”
Wow.
While researching enchantments, Joshua continues to keep prodding at the psychic link between the mare and himself.
It's faint, like a cup and a string faint, but he's hoping she'd just need practice before she can actually start speaking.
Having a… ‘presence’ in your mind is weird to Joshua, if a bit concerning considering he doesn't really like anything being in his head. Especially after the ‘possession’ incident, and the… BBC incident. (Big Bck Obelisk, the C is silent)
He hears Jophiel chortle behind him.
But despite that… he trusts her.
Jophiel has been nothing but a great ally and a better friend, she's already expressed frustration at her inability to properly communicate as clearly as she wants, so Joshua doesn't mind that much.
Now… about the enchantments…
…
[Have you tried turning it off and on again?]
“You're about to turn on a fucking migraine”
[I think the squiggly line next to the x thing is a “b”]
“No I thought that too, but it wouldn't fit some of the transtions”
Joshua wouldn't call himself a smart man.
Not smart enough to transte a nonsensical goddamn nguage.
He's slumped over at his desk, scowling as he looks at his notes.
The “runes” have the same amount of characters as the English alphabet, so he thought it would be easy, right? He has a transtion in the UI so he'll just… write down a transtion for each rune. Should be easy, right?
Fucking WRONG.
Some transtions just… don't make sense?
Strings of runes that sometimes correte to the English transtion, while others don't.
Which made him think that a combination of runes can mean something different. Like how Japanese does its weird multipurpose symbols.
And just like Japanese, each tiny little difference takes the runic context, bends it over nice and neatly over the counter, gives it a little kiss on the cheek, before completely and utterly FUCKING it.
“J*sh**...”
“Sorry girl”
Jophiel must be learning a lot of new vocabury, especially after he's been at this for the better part of three hours.
He takes another look at his notes before sighing.
A break is needed.
Joshua puts his research away and gets up, his back slightly stiff. Jophiel doesn't even react as he picks her up and puts her back on her rightful pce (his shoulders).
“Wonder what Pinkster's been doing”
“N*t***g g**d"
“Ye of little faith”
She chuffs.
Because he didn't want to risk having something as valuable as an enchanting table be destroyed, he moved it down to his bunker. So as he emerges from the stairs, he expects to see the hazmat mare somewhere in the house.
What he didn't expect, however, was looking out of the window and seeing a whole different building in his yard.
“Okay what the fuck”
Even Jophiel is stunned.
“Pony…”
Walking out, he sees a small little hut, made out of pnks and logs much like his own, but not nearly as neatly pced.
It's barely 5 feet tall, and the door has a heart carved into it.
A head of pink fur pops out of one of the windowless holes near the door.
“Hello Mister Joshua! Do you like my new home?”
“...yeah Gabe, it's really…”
He hears something creak, and then snap inside the hut.
Gabriel doesn't even seem to notice.
“Nice”
She beams.
“Thank you! I worked really hard on it! Mr. Suit gave me a few ideas, so I wanted to surprise you and Miss Josey!”
“Pony”
Jop-phe-el?”
“...pony”
Even without a telepathic link, he can tell the exasperation radiating from the unicorn.
“Come on inside! Let me show you around!”
The door opens, something else creaks, something else shatters.
Jophiel looks down at Joshua.
“Do you…”
“N*”
Oh thank God.
