Fire woke up to the weak stench of blood, there was no smell of decay, the cold prevented that. The flask he had used held enough healing potion to heal most humans completely from the brink of death. It was definitely not enough to do the same for him, not only was he much bigger but due to his different biology he couldn't benefit from the potion nearly as much as humans could. A lot of Fire's wounds were still there but they were all just on the surface, any internal injuries had been repaired by the potion.

He painfully rose up and walked out of the bushes he had slept in. It was now night, he could still see the corpses lying in the snow with perfect clarity. Fire shook his head. He could have avoided those deaths… Actually no, it was them who could have avoided this, but they didn't. This still wasn't an excuse for him to lose control though. Claw was the manifestation of the emotions he had suppressed after what he had taken to calling "the incident". Fear, anger, sadness. In the real world Claw was no danger to him but on the server and apparently in any of the worlds it was connected to who he very much was. Every time Fire felt one of those emotions and didn't immediately suppress it, Claw's chains became a little weaker. If they were strong enough the chains would break completely. The only positive Fire could ever find was that Claw was only a small part of him and couldn't stay in control forever and once he had returned to his cage Fire was rid of him for a while.

He picked up his halberd and turned to go, then stopped. He reached into his backpack and took out the satchel with the diamonds, then threw it into the middle of the carnage, he didn't need them anymore. It was a sick joke, really. Warriors of a culture that was all about hunting for treasure and trophies defeated by biting off more than they could chew, their families would then find unbelievable riches in the place of their death. Would they still be mortified? Probably yes. It was none of Fire's concern. Even though he often wished that he could change the past, he knew that there was only one way: forward.

Fire took another swig of the potion he had brewed in Nexus, he once again discovered that amplified senses and wounds didn't get along, he flinched in pain before getting accustomed to it again. The tunnel to the next world was reasonably close, he could feel his own world quite strongly now, it was now only a matter of one or two more tunnels and he would be there.

Fire stepped through the tunnel, all of a sudden he was overwhelmed by a stream of information. He knew that this meant he was home. It took a few minutes for his brain to synchronize with the network of the Mencur-Besh, it was the first time since his sudden departure where he truly felt in control of the situation again. As he looked around he saw that he was in a desert, there were houses in the distance and above them rose a tall pillar of smoke. He knew where he was, he was near Drysprings, the town of blacksmiths, horse breeders and people acting and dressing like they were in the wild west, minus the guns.

Fire mentally called for somebody to move a locomotive to a railway station near Drysprings. He himself started walking in the opposite direction of Drysprings, he wanted to get to his base as quickly as possible. His destination was a flat area not far from where he was now, an entrance to the Mencur-Besh's underground railway network was hidden there.

As Fire walked, the sand was being pushed away by his bare feet, some of it got annoyingly stuck between his scales. Then he remembered something. With a thought Fire brought up the pause menu.

"Huh."

It seemed like everything was back to normal, in the other worlds he hadn't been able to access the pause menu but in his own world it still worked. No, at this point it was clear that this wasn't something the admins had done. Fire wasn't sure what exactly was up with the other worlds but he knew that it was something supernatural, even if that thought was greatly repulsive to him.

As the hours passed, Fire could feel his wounds closing slowly but surely, the pain also fell off with time. The sun was already setting when Fire reached his destination. The entrance to the railway station was hidden below the sand by an intricate mechanism that had been built thousands of years ago; he himself had taken part in the construction. Fire stopped above the entrance, after his mental command to open, the sand started vibrating. Fire tried his best to hold balance as the ground below him destabilized, after a couple of seconds he started sinking slowly, then more quickly. As the sand closed in above him he shut his eyes and mouth, it would only take a few more seconds for him to reach the entrance room.

His feet left the sand first, the rest of his body followed. His fall was cushioned by a magical spell that filled the spacious room under the sand. As he looked up he saw the desert sand being held up by the magic. Sadly the magic hadn't cleared the sand from between the scales all over his body and from his hair, he'd have to do that himself on the way down.

The sandstone room he was now in was lit by glowstone, by comparison some other entrances were only lit by torches and the Mencur-Besh hadn't gotten around to permanently lighting them, there were much more important things at hand than lighting up railway entrances that were only used twice in a millennium.

The green locomotive was already waiting on the rails when Fire arrived, a blue-eyed female Mencur-Besh named Stream was in the driver's cabin. Fire climbed up to her and she started the locomotive again.

When they were on the booster rails of the main line, Stream asked: "How did you get all that blood on you?"

Even though Mencur-Besh could relay information quickly over their network, having a conversation was near-impossible since the network only transmitted concepts, like a call for help or strategical information. Language was still important, the language used in this case was the demonic language, spoken by demons and Mencur-Besh alike. In this language misunderstandings were impossible, which is why mages also used it to instruct demons they summoned.

Fire replied: "I was transported to another world, on the way back a couple of hunters with spears and crossbows ambushed me, I only had one healing potion left."

Stream didn't answer, everything that needed to be said had been said. Fire just leaned back and enjoyed the wind on his scales.

Fire and Stream arrived at the train station near Fire's base, fortunately the torches in this one had not burned out yet so the staircase was free of any hostile mobs. The mechanism that opened the entrance was slow as always but they eventually got outside, the sun was just rising above the savannah in the distance.

"Thanks for your help Stream, I appreciate it." Fire said.

"No problem."

Fire asked: "Do you have something to do near here since you came up with me?"

Stream answered: "Yes, we tracked down the crash site of our experimental airship, seems like we won't be going down that line any time soon. We'll just focus on the bedrock-breaking drill."

The two Mencur-Besh walked in opposite directions, Stream went deeper into the extreme hills biome they were in, Fire walked down the mountainside and towards the savannah. There was a dirt path in leading through the dry grass towards a jungle in the distance, the jungle where his base was.

There were some residual undead from the night but they posed no threat to him, he was moving too quickly for them to catch up or shoot arrows. A couple of minutes later they had been burned to dust by the rising sun. Fire thought about what exactly he needed from his base. He would need his set of armor for sure, then also some more food and water along with various potions. He would also take his set of diamond weapons and tools with him, he didn't use them under normal circumstances since losing them would be devastating but the situation he faced now would require all the resources he had available. And then he would need Ender Eyes… about a dozen of them, Fire had something special planned with those.

By the time Fire was at the entrance to his base, night had fallen again. Fire was dead tired, having a battle, two world hops and more than a day of walking behind him. He was slouched over as the richly decorated elevator descended into his base, his halberd was just being dragged along. The elevator reached its pedestal and Fire slowly went down the stairs. He tossed his halberd at one of the demons in his sister's service who was walking by, telling it to store it in the armory.

As he reached the living quarters, he saw his sister Shadow sitting at the table in the room below the stairs to the bedrooms. While Shadow was human, she looked very much like Fire. Her skin was pitch black, so black that you could only see her silhouette, she had entirely red eyes and long white hair, she was about half as tall as Fire. Shadow was wearing her usual black mage robes.

As she saw Fire she jumped up and asked: "Where have you been? You just disappeared about two weeks ago."

Fire sat down and sighed. "It's a long story."

Fire told his sister his entire story, his fall in the red rock canyon, meeting Kay and the later Warnado, the events in the village, the Tower and lastly his journey through different worlds.

Shadow stared at him in awe: "So you're telling me that there are more worlds out there?"

Fire nodded. "Yes. And I plan to return there."

Shadow said: "If you go back there, I'll come with you. It seems like a lot is at stake."

Fire was honestly relieved that his sister would come with him, he could use both her company and her tremendous magical abilities, she was an ascended mage after all.

He said: "We'll talk in detail tomorrow, now I just need some sleep."

With those words he stood up from the table and went up the stairs, as he looked back, Shadow gave him a smile. Fire walked to the end of the dark oak corridor where his bedroom was, he let himself drop into his bed without even bothering to close the door, he fell asleep in a matter of seconds.