They didn't talk for very long after smelting the ores, everyone walked over to their tents and went to sleep. The tents were not very big, they were green triangular prisms of wool. They all had the same length, which was too short for Fire, his feet were poking out at the end. It never took long to fall asleep there, even though you didn't have much cushioning, the work was just so exhausting that you could sleep on almost everything. Fire was always the last to fall asleep and the first to wake up, he didn't need much sleep.

The next morning Fire crawled out of his tent and yawned, it was time to sell the mined resources, which meant that he had to haggle with the Shop Guy once again. The Shop Guy joined the hacker team after the takeover, he didn't use a client himself, he still was connected to the server like most of the players, through his brain, his abilities were managed through the main hacker's clients. Of course his name wasn't really "Shop Guy" but everyone just called him that, including the hackers from what Fire had heard. Needless to say, his low place in the hacker hierarchy didn't help his ego, which he took out on the slaves.

Fire looked into his inside pocket to see if the diamonds were still there, pickpocketing was very common in the quarry but it did really take some courage to pickpocket someone like Fire, it hadn't happened to him yet, the others hadn't been as lucky.

He felt a bit like celebrating but on the other side it was a bad thing to be in the quarry one year, he didn't think that he had much time left…

"Nevermind." He said.

He walked towards the campfire and the furnaces but noticed with surprise that Unchosen was already there waiting for him.

"Morning Fire." He greeted him.

Fire greeted back: "Morning Unchosen, why up so early?"

"Couldn't sleep." He said, paused and then continued: "Are you going to open it up?"

"Yeah, stand back there is quite some pressure in there."

Fire moved a stone pickaxe onto his hotbar and started mining down the blocks. As he opened the furnace room up, a blast of hot air went out, heating up the surrounding area.

"Impressive, right?"

Unchosen replied: "Right, I don't want to be the one to accidentally dig into the furnace room."

Fire explained: "That happened once, but it was right after we put the coal in and only two furnaces were running, he still got some pretty decent burning wounds, now he is showing off with the scars and tells everyone that he got hit by a blob of lava near the crater."

"So if you die you keep the scars? Or wounds?"

"He didn't die. If you die, you can respawn, but wounds or scars become permanent after some time so you keep them after respawning. If you want scars removed or missing parts regrown, you'll have to drink a powerful healing potion."

"Good to know that."

The air in the furnace room had cooled down enough for Fire to jump down and take the now smelted ores out.

Fire jump-pillared out like the evening before and said: "Pretty good week, about two-hundred iron and a bit more than a hundred gold. We'll have to wait for the others to count the rest of the mined materials."

They sat down on their blocks again but without lighting the campfire, the sandbasalt was even darker than everywhere else, almost as black as freeZe's skin. Unchosen stared into the ashes of the wood and coal they burned yesterday.

Fire looked at him and asked: "Why are you always staring into the campfire?"

"I am thinking of my family."

"Oh, I see, everyone is like that in the first few weeks, it is shocking to be locked in this place."

"I am trying not to think about my family too much because it makes me even sadder, you and the others are a great help, you know?"

"I have heard that from the others too, first freeZe and Ambigious came here, then about a month later TehLulz, then two months later, that means now, you."

"So you were here alone for nine months?"

"Yes. It was a lonely time, but then our firegroup formed. Before that I rarely went down, I worked two days and slept one night, smelted the ores every week and then sold them to the guy. Nobody knew who I was, they avoided me. I wouldn't go close to someone who looked like me if I were a regular slave either. It just happened that freeZe and Ambigious spawned right in my section, so we formed a group. One month later they invited TehLulz to our group, you cannot imagine how grumpy he was back then, he didn't laugh about anything but look at him now."

"I still cannot imagine living in slavery on my own for nine months, wasn't that very depressing?"

"I was able to deal with it." Fire said, he continued: "As much I want to sit here and talk, I have to go sell the stuff. I'll wake the others up, they will be there in about ten minutes, well for Ambigious it might be twenty. See you later in this place."

With these words he stood up, took the ingots and sprinted towards the camp, where he yelled into each of the tents of the members of the firegroup, telling them to get up.

As they got out of the tents Fire told them to give him the resources to be sold.

freeZe yawned: "How do you manage to get up so early…"

She and the others threw the lapis, coal, redstone gems and diamonds at Fire, he picked them up and rushed towards the place where the Shop Guy was.

"Four-hundred?" Fire asked "The prizes have fallen suspiciously quickly."

The Shop Guy always had a mocking grin on his face, at least in Fire's presence. He smiled at Fire and said: "Well, Fire. They in fact have, hand me the diamonds and I will give you four-hundred each."

Fire leaned over to the Shop Guy, bowing over him and said: "You will pay me the regular price."

A small spark of fear appeared in the Shop Guys eyes but disappeared after a second later after he recovered his facade.

He said: "This is the regular price. Now… hand them over!"

Fire extended his claws, resulting in ten small holes in the wooden table the Shop Guy was sitting at.

"Don't come with the claw show again, I'm not falling for that anymore, I know that you wouldn't hurt a person."

Fire put on an evil grin, showing his shining fangs and said with a cold voice: "I may not be the pacifist I have made you believe I am. Besides, you are no person to me, turning coat and joining the hackers."

The spark of fear appeared again, this time for longer and more intense, but anger was mixed into the spark as well. Fire knew he was playing a dangerous game but he had enough of the Shop Guy's arrogance. He also knew that if he would just hand them over he would appear weak, and appearing weak was the last thing he wanted in front of the Shop Guy.

"Don't you dare to attempt to intimidate me! Hand. Them. Over!"

"Come and get them."

The Shop Guy threatened: "You don't want to force me to activate my kill aura!"

Fire taunted him: "Oh, your mighty unarmed kill aura, I am so scared."

Fire knew that the Shop Guy had orders not to harm or kill slaves since it could provoke a riot but Fire also knew about his violent tendencies.

The Shop Guy tried his best to stay calm: "Hand them over now! Let's end this pointless discussion!"

"I will hand them over for the regular price."

"No! Four-hundred!"

Fire was about to say something he could regret, he saw that the Shop Guy was about to burst in rage but he had wanted to do this ever since he had been in the quarry. His talk with Unchosen had also made him realize something, it was time.

Fire's voice was as cold as ice and his eyes had an aggressive, cold shine in them, making them appear even redder than normally. He said: "Fine. I will hand them over for four-hundred… but…"

The Shop Guy was very surprised and thus lost his I-don't-give-a-damn facade for another five seconds.

He said: "But what?"

Fire didn't want to give him the answer right away, he wanted him to let the Shop Guy's rage disable his ability to think logically.

"Figure it out!"

The Shop Guy finally recovered his facade and said sarcastically: "Let me guess… You want to challenge me to beat you in a fight?"

"Exactly that."

"What kind of bad joke is this? You cannot reach me with my kill aura on!"

"What if I could?"

"How?"

"I'm not telling you that!" Fire said in a provocative tone.

The Shop Guy had enough, he let out a scream and then shouted at Fire: "Okay! Let's do this!"

Fire replied calmly: "Good, let me set some rules."

"What? Rules are for losers!"

Fire ignored him and replied: "The duel takes place in the arena, mobs off, you can use whatever you have access to, so can I. No noclip, no godmode, no everything that makes it flat out impossible to win, you can use kill aura though. And if I win, you will have to buy for seven-hundred."

The fact that Fire was keeping so cool setting the rules so that it was impossible for himself to win by allowing kill aura doubled the intensity of the Shop Guy's rage, making him shout at Fire even louder: "You will see what you get from that! Endless pain!"

After these words the Shop Guy called a lead hacker, who transported them into the arena about ten thousand blocks away.