As we made our way down the hole slowly, I took a closer look at the tunnel. While the top part of the tunnel was lined with stone brick from the outside, the entire inside of the tunnel was lined with iron and quartz, with redstone lights on either side. They each activated row by row as we reached the floor of the tunnel, startling Miles.

"Man, this dude knows how to build a hallway!" Erik said, as we continued walking.

"I wonder where this hallway will lead us to…" Josh wondered.

"Well, I'm assuming one side of this tunnel contains an elevator to the surface, hopefully we're going in the right way." I stated. Jamie tried her best to walk with me, dragging her iron leggings across the floor of the halway as we went further. At the end, we could se piston door, and a dropper with a button on it, as well as a note block in the wall with another button on it.

"That must be our way into this place…" Erik said. Turning around, I realized that Miles had fallen behind a little bit.

"Be… careful…" Jamie said, in a raspy voice.

"Mhm…" I replied, taking out my sword. As we approached the door, Josh immediately went up to press the button on the note block.

"JOSH STOP!" I yelled.

"What?" He replied. "It's obviously a doorbell…"

"You don't know that for sure, what if it does something else?" I asked.

"You think too much…" Josh replied, pressing the button anyways. Soon, the door opened revealing a female player with red hair, goggles and a tank top on, with a hoodie wrapped around her waist.

"You ain't the delivery guy…" she said, putting her hand on a lever on the side wall. "How did you find this place…?"

"We dug into it." Josh answered. The player immediately pulled the lever down, and four slots in the walls opened up to reveal arrow dispensers. We all put our hands up.

"Woah woah!" I said. "We don't mean any harm, we uh… we found this place by mistake!"

"Pretty shitty explanation…" The player said, moving her hand to a button seated next to the lever. "You got five seconds to give a better one, or else imma hit this button and you'll all be dead within 10 seconds."

"We fell through a sand chunk!" Josh blurted out.

The player took her hand off the lever for a second. "Wait… what?"

"Some creeper exploded, and a whole chunk of sand caved in taking us with it." I explained.

"Oh, awesome!" The player replied. "That means my trap worked!"

I looked towards Erik. "I fucking told you so."

The player took a look at Jamie, who looked very weak at this point, a look of concern on her face. "Wait, is she okay?"

"She's on like half a heart from that fall, and we're all down on health too." I replied. "Do you mind… assisting us?"

"Uh… not at all, please do come in, and uh… Sorry about the trap shit. That was meant for my mob farm, not actual players." the player answered, pulling the lever back up, retracting the dispensers. I let out a sigh of relief, but it was short lived, as Miles caught up with us he immediately began to bark and growl at the player as we were going inside.

"Hey! Miles, shut up!" I commanded. "She's cool."

Miles went silent following closely to me.

"So, you got a name?" I asked her as she closed the door behind all of us.

"My name's Kathy, just call me Kat." She introduced herself. "Over there in that room is the kitchen, there's plenty of food in the chests for all of you to replenish your stamina. I'll head into my room and grab some golden apples."

"Thank you so much." I replied, heading into the room that she pointed towards with the others. I managed to pick Jamie up, and placed her on the table in the middle of the room.

"Look for healing potions as well." I said, starting to rummage through the chests for steak. Grabbing a stack, I rushed it over to Jamie.

"You can probably take the armor off for now…" I suggested. "Get a little comfortable."

"O-okay…" she said, unequipping the armor.

Erik approached me with some porkchop.

"N-no… my stamina is already full…" Jamie said, trying to get up.

"Jamie, just relax a bit…" I said.

Just then, Kat entered the room with golden apples for each of us. Tossing them to us, we each ate them quickly. Jamie got up off the table. "Thanks." She replied. "Regeneration via food is slow as hell…"

"Yeah, tell me about it…" Kat replied.

"So… why do you have your base here?" Erik asked.

"Underground bases have a less chance of getting raided." Kat explained. "Unless of course, the coordinates are revealed, which I'm now worried about with you guys."

"I can keep things secret." I said.

"Yeah, but what about your two buddies and your girl?" Kat asked. Erik chuckled a bit.

"Look, we wandered in here by mistake, we honestly just want a way out of here and quick." I replied.

"Where did you come from?" Kat asked.

"Uh, wait…" I looked towards Jamie. "What was the name of that village again?"

"Contavern." Jamie replied.

"Wait, that village was just raided a few days ago." Kat replied.

"Yeah, we stopped it." I replied. Kat was shocked.

"You escaped?" She asked.

"Yes, then we came back, and took those fuckers out like my trash on wednesday." I replied.

"Huh… those pumpkin heads are going to be onto you now… You know that right?" Kat replied. "Anyone that's ever screwed them over winds up dead within the hour."

"Well, considering it's been several since we fled the village, I don't think we'll have a problem." I answered.

"Well, what do you plan for now?" Kat asked.

"Well, I'm thinking about stopping the spawn incursion all together." I answered.

"And… may I ask, why?"

"Those people are killing innocent players. Those players are dying in real life. It's literally legal murder and I can't live with that." I explained.

"And you think you can stop them?" Kat asked.

"Well," I looked towards Jamie. "I sure as hell can try."

"You're going to need an army to go against those peeps if you want to even stand a chance." Kat said. "Four people ain't gonna be enough."

"What about the people from the village?" Erik asked. "That would bring our total to like 15 players."

"Do they know how to fight?" Kat asked.

"Well, that's the thing." I answered. "I don't know."

"Well, if you need a helping hand, unfortunately, now you know where to find me." Kat explained. "In the meantime, now that you're all healed up, you need to get your asses out of here before those pumpkin players find you here and blow this whole place up."

"Uh, well we would, but we don't know our way out." Erik replied.

"I'll lead you to my minecart system." Kat responded. "It will lead you to an abandoned mineshaft a little ways from this place."

"Cool." I replied.

"There are only 3 minecarts though, so one of you will have to ride with someone, and I don't know about your dog."

"I think we both know who's going to double…" Erik said, pointing towards us.

I sighed. "You never fail to piss me off."

As Kat led us down the hallway, there was a Jeb door at the end. Pulling the lever, it revealed a natural cave system, with a track going upwards to the surface. Kat placed the 3 minecarts down on the track for us, Erik and Josh immediately hopped into the first two and were on their way. As I approached the cart, Miles approached me. Picking him up, I handed him to Jamie, then looked towards Kat.

"Thanks for the help." I said.

"No problem." She replied, as I got in the minecart, and Jamie got in with me.

"Comfortable?" She asked.

"No, but I'll live." I answered. "Let's go."

Giving the minecart a slight push, the powered rail started up and pushed us on our way out of the mine tunnel, as I could see the Jeb door close behind us.

The tunnel was barely lit, the only thing illuminating it being the redstone torches alongside the powered rails. We passed by a few bats, one smacking me in the face.

"You good?" Jamie asked.

"Yeah." I replied. "I sure hope this track doesn't get us too lost…"

"It shouldn't." Jamie replied. "This mine doesn't seem to be really big, we will probably reach the surface soon."

Far up ahead, I could see Erik and Josh in their carts, looking around for when the tunnel would end. There were chunks of coal, iron and redstone ore in the walls as we kept going up.

"Damn, how deep did we fall?" I wondered.

"Must have been pretty far…" Jamie said, as Miles started licking her face.

"You know, I think I'm going to like this dog." She said.

"Oh don't tell me I'm about to be replaced." I replied, Jamie laughing.

"Pfft. Of course not." Jamie replied, looking towards me. "Perhaps you forgot what I said the other night."

"Uhh… I'm as hard as bedrock?" I guessed.

"What? Fuck no, not that…" Jamie said, turning around.

"Then what is it?" I asked.

"I love you, and you only." Jamie replied, looking ahead of us. "I hope they didn't hear that."

"They're bound to find out about us eventually, Jamie…" I added. "Should we just tell them?"

"No. Not yet." Jamie replied.

"Then when should we?" I asked.

"I don't know. Just not now." Jamie looked ahead at the upcoming light source. "Speaking of now, I think that's the exit."

Sure enough, our cart reached the top of the incline and came to rest outside, sure enough… an abandoned mineshaft entrance. Erik and Josh were out there waiting for us. As Jamie got out of the cart first, she set Miles on the ground, and I got out soon after. Looking at the sky, the sun was already starting to go down.

"Oh shit, we were supposed to be back in town by now…" I exclaimed, pointing at the sun. "Everyone's probably worried about us now."

"Well, we better haul ass then." Jamie said, taking my hand and pulling me behind her as she led us forward. "We better not get caught in the dead of night, especially after what just happened."

"I think we can handle a few skeletons and zombies…" Erik said, sarcasm in his voice.

"Oh yeah? Try fighting an enderman in the middle of a fucking desert." Jamie snapped.

"Well… I guess you have a point." Erik said, speeding up his pace.

"Wait, can't we just use the pumpkin heads from when we went to the village?" Josh suggested.

"That… doesn't actually sound like a bad idea…" I said, letting go of Jamie's hand and pulling out the pumpkin.

"Wait." Jamie said. "If there are players around, they'll mistake us for real members."

"So? They'd probably just make a run for it." Erik replied.

"Still. I don't want to take any chances." Jamie added. "Lets only use them if they are needed."

"Roger that, master." Erik responded, as I put my pumpkin away. Looking at the sun, thankfully it was setting slower then I had assumed it would, which would give us some extra time.

"Yo Jamie, pass me the sword." I asked.

"Kay." She said, taking the sword out and tossing it to me. Grabbing it, I held it out in front of me, ready to attack anything that would come out in our way.

"Make sure to watch your back, guys." I said.

"Got it." Erik said, pulling out his iron sword as well.

"I'll try my best…" Josh said, also pulling out an iron sword.

"Is everyone stocked up on food?" Jamie asked.

"Yep." We all replied in unison.

The sun was now near the horizon. It would be pitch black outside before long. In the distance, I could already see husks materializing in the distance along with 2 creepers and…

"Oh boy…" I said, pointing out. "That's a fuckin skeleton jockey."

"Eh, it's not that bad." Jamie said, pointing to Miles. "The dog will scare it to death."

We all laughed subtly, as the sun began to set across the horizon.

"I guess you can say that we're on the highway to the danger zone." Josh said.

"Don't make me start singing…" Erik replied.

"Ride in-to the… danger zone…" Josh began to whisper.

"Oh boy…" I said.