An additional hour of paddling later only a few hundred meters separated them from the witch hut but those meters seemed to be a very long distance to them. Fire's potion had completely worn off, their whole bodies were hurting. Wearing the wooden armor had left its marks on them, dozens of small splinters that they hadn't noticed before were all under their skin. Their shoulders were bruised by the weight, the constant paddling didn't make it easier on their arms.

As if to make their situation even more desperate, Ambigious' fever had increased even more, he had started muttering words they couldn't understand. Each and every paddle stroke was painful to them, they progressed at a snail's pace. The witch hut was growing on their horizons at a slow, almost torturing speed. Every time they forced themselves to draw their wooden shovels through the water an additional time, they pressed their teeth together in pain but without making a sound.

Seemingly endless minutes of paddling later, freeZe broke the silence, her voice was tired and weak: "How far is this going to be? TehLulz, how far? Any idea? My vision is all blurry."

TehLulz' voice was in a similar condition, he answered: "About one-hundred and fifty meters, I don't know." He sighed "Even if we can find Fire, we won't be able to carry on like this."

"How is my brother?" freeZe asked.

TehLulz interrupted his painful paddling and knelt down to look at Ambigious. He put his hand on his friend's forehead and pulled it back immediately.

"It feels like he is burning!" he said.

"That doesn't sound like an illness I know." Unchosen replied, did a paddle stroke and added: "I would not be surprised if there are more illnesses in here too. As Fire said, everything is harder… If only Fire were here right now."

They stopped talking and focused on moving their boats towards the witch hut. Every additional stroke of their paddles, every movement, seemed to take an eternity to them. They were so focused on doing their task that TehLulz didn't notice at first that the front of his boat had hit land. He did one more paddle stroke before he realized that they had arrived. A numb feeling of triumph filled his body and made the pain go away, he almost forgot to get Ambigious out of the boat. He put his arms below his sleeping friend and lifted him up with ease, in any other situation it would have surprised him how easy it seemed to him but his vision was blurry and he could only think about one thing: Getting to the witch hut.

freeZe and Unchosen seemed to have the same feeling as they hopped from one boat to the other and to the land as if they hadn't walked through a hellish world, as if they hadn't climbed a mountain, as if they hadn't gone through all what they did go through. With a feeling of euphoria, all three ran towards the tree with the witch hut on it with long elastic steps.

The witch hut, despite being on a tree, was more a hut between the branches than a real tree house, as if it had been lifted up there by giant arms. It didn't sit on any supporting structures or had any ropes that held it in the tree. It was simply built, a square house with a flat roof, a window on each side, the only way to get up was a rope ladder hanging down from a small balcony in front of the door.

TehLulz went up first, with Ambigious over his right shoulder, climbing with only his left hand, once he was up, he broke the simple wooden door lock with ease and went inside. The inside was not very well lit and barely decorated, just a crafting table, a furnace with a brewing stand on top of it and a chest beside it, the rest of the house was hidden behind a separating wall. freeZe and Unchosen came up after him, they walked past the wall, they couldn't see much because their eyes had to get used to the light, but then they saw something. Suddenly TehLulz felt Ambigious' weight on his shoulder, he almost threw him down to the ground, so fast did he put him down. Their minds cleared, they felt the pain in their arms and all over their bodies again, something had knocked them out of their trance violently.

On the ground was a figure lying on its back, clothed in torn white clothes, the figure was very tall and had a black scaled skin, pieces of shattered wood and torn vines were lying all around it, on a closer look they could see that the figure had a bow on their back. This normally wouldn't be a reason for sadness, but the reason their trance had been broken was the chest of the figure, a deep gaping wound was right in the middle where the heart was.

"Fire?" freeZe stuttered and knelt down next to the body.

They expected their reunion with Fire to be better, happier or at least a little more glorious. They hoped that Fire would make everything better again, Fire would help them.

"Fire…"

Fire had always been a bright light in their lives on the server, he seemed do know everything and have a plan for every situation. Wasn't it Fire who guaranteed them not to be hungry in the quarry, who guided them through the Nether, who risked his life to protect them from the magma cube, who helped them climb the mountain, who made their armor, who convinced Oalrhm to open the tunnel, who fought mobs with them… who died, trying to save the world.

Now that they saw what happened, they knew that they wouldn't be able to save the world on their own, they were tired, hurting and Ambigious was close to death. Fire would respawn in the quarry and the hackers would put him in some jail where he would just have to wait to die in the real world.

"No pulse, no respiration… dead." Unchosen confirmed, trying not to look at the wound in Fire's chest, fighting the tears.

Also TehLulz and freeZe tried not to cry but then, all of them gave up their resistance and threw themselves to the ground. Even Ambigious seemed to have noticed something, he started rolling around in his fever, he again started muttering unintelligible things.

After lying there for a few minutes TehLulz heard something, someone was going up the ladder, without a doubt the witch. He forced himself to stand up, ignoring the pain and sadness, now it was important not to anger the witch and maybe get her to help them, maybe there was some hope left. Unchosen and freeZe were still on the ground, apparently not noticing that he got up. TehLulz heard a female voice cursing, the witch had noticed that somebody had broken into her hut. He heard the door open and took a peek around the corner and then instantly pulled his head back to avoid being seen. The witch didn't really look like the usual witches in Minecraft, she seemed to be much younger, also her clothes weren't purple and she wasn't wearing a hat. Her clothes were green, too wide to be normal clothes and not wide enough to be a robe, they seemed to be woven from grass or reeds. TehLulz heard her voice, it sounded like a normal human voice, she sounded angry but also a little scared.

She said: "Who is there?"

TehLulz had to force himself to answer, his knees were shivering, so was his voice: "Please don't kill us."

He couldn't come up with something better but it seemed to have worked, he heard how the witch breathed out in relief. TehLulz slowly came out behind the wall, it came to his mind how funny he might look, a man with messy shoulder long brown hair in a black suit, which was completely ruined. A thought crossed his mind and despite the situation he chuckled to himself, he almost looked like a secret agent lost in the wild. But of course the witch didn't know what a secret agent was, she only saw that he needed help. However she first wanted to know a little more about the intruder inside her house. TehLulz took a closer look at the witch, she was slim and tall, her dark brown hair was very long, it almost reached down to the ground. Her eyes were as green as her clothes, her skin was pale, almost white. She was also missing the wart on her nose that the witches in Minecraft had, her face was actually quite beautiful.

"Who are you?" she asked, still with a fair bit of distrust in her voice.

He answered, still with a little bit of insecurity in his voice: "I am a traveler, my friends are in here too, one of them is mortally wounded and one is sick."