"I can't tell you the plan just yet, a lot of it will be adapted as we go along anyways, I can tell you one thing though. We will go mining at the crater tomorrow. freeZe, could you ask for the equipment now?"
"Okay" She said.
freeZe walked off in the direction of the shop, which now had a different shopkeeper, just a regular player who volunteered to do the job until someone else was found.
Brad once again inspected Fire's wound and said: "It will be grown back together tomorrow, it works much faster while sleeping. By the way, here are the things you asked for."
With these words he gave Fire a bag and warped away without any further words.
"Just out of interest, what is in that bag?" TehLulz asked.
Fire answered: "It is part of the plan, you will see when the time comes. Go and sell the stuff. Tell the shopkeeper that it is from me."
Fire unloaded a bunch of gems and ingots from his inventory, TehLulz picked it up and also walked towards the shop.
"You two, please go now, I need some sleep, it is quite late already and I am very tired." Fire said with a yawn.
Unchosen replied: "No problem, night Fire."
While walking away from Fire Ambigious said: "Wow, I haven't noticed how quickly the time passed."
The first thing Fire did the next morning was touch the spot where the wound had been, it was entirely gone. He still felt the regeneration potion inside him, giving him energy and fixing some minor injuries from work and from the battle. The only thing that was not intact was his coat, it had a huge hole.
"Damn it, I'll have to fix this thing once again." He noticed TehLulz next to him, smiling.
TehLulz said: "This is probably the one and only time you wake up last."
Fire grinned and asked: "How much did you get?"
TehLulz said: "Quite a lot, it's in the five digit range."
Fire said: "Too bad we won't need that money anymore."
"Yeah, true." He paused. "Can you tell us at least where we are going first?"
"I can, we are going to my base."
"Nice, is it far?"
Fire answered in a mysterious voice: "Depends which way you take… It can be way farther away than the arena, but it can also be closer than the edge of the desert."
TehLulz at first was confused and then seemed to know the answer: "Oh, I know how, does it involve purple?"
Fire replied, satisfied that TehLulz had figured out his riddle: "Oh yes, it does."
"Why is there one in the volcano?"
Fire smiled: "It was an accident."
"Ah, I see."
They were interrupted by freeZe yelling: "Hey, guys, I made us breakfast!"
Fire stood up, stretched and whispered to TehLulz: "Let's see if she can cook like I can."
Fire always made the food because he was the only one of the group who was able to cook something that you could eat without throwing up, freeZe refused to cook since her brother started making jokes about it, this day was an exception since Fire had been wounded.
"What did you make for breakfast?" Ambigious asked.
She replied: "Toast… as close as it gets to toast anyways, bought some cheese, bread and eggs from the shop and cooked it over the fire."
"Sounds tasty." Unchosen said.
They sat down and started eating from their stone plates, now they realized how hungry they really were.
With the claws of one hand deep in sandbasalt Fire reached down to help Ambigious up, he was the last one to get up the final section where the slaves had mined. Ambigious stepped back, sprinted to build up momentum, then jumped and grabbed Fire's hand. Fire catapulted Ambigious up with a powerful movement of his formerly wounded arm, the regeneration potion had worked wonders.
"Oof!" Ambigious said as he landed on the side.
He stood up climbed up the wall to where the others were, Fire pulled himself up over the ledge and followed, five diamond pickaxes and the same number of water buckets in his inventory.
"How far is it? I am exhausted already, I got up early today." freeZe said.
Fire answered: "Oh, it isn't that far up to the crater, the real journey begins when we are up."
They arrived after about ten minutes of half-climbing-half-walking on the burning hot sandbasalt, which was getting hotter and hotter towards the crater.
Fire warned: "Okay, cover your eyes. Well, not Ambigious, you already have your sunglasses."
Everybody except Fire and Ambigious did so and looked over the edge of the crater. Even with the covered eyes, Ambigious shades and Fire's resistant eyes the Lava was blinding them in the first few seconds.
"Whoa!" TehLulz and Unchosen said simultaneously "That is bright!"
When their vision wasn't all white again, they saw one of the most impressive things that nature and Minecraft had to offer. The lava's yellow and red glow perfectly mixed with the yellow part of the sandbasalt, making it hard to tell, where the lava pool in the middle ended and where the superheated stone began. The walls sharply fell down, you could still climb up from inside but you certainly couldn't go down safely. Everything had a red glow from the lava.
Once everyone had recovered Fire poured one bucket of water into the crater and temporally extinguished the bright red glow.
"Hop in!" He said.
Fire jumped over the ledge, picked the water source up while falling and landed on the relatively thin layer of obsidian the water had formed, it gave out an intimidating crack but didn't break.
"You see, totally safe. Seriously, it is Minecraft obsidian after all."
They slowly climbed over the edge and climbed down even slower. They were all standing on the black volcanic glass, the lava gave out a dim light through the obsidian, which made it glow mysteriously.
Fire said in a quiet voice, almost whispering: "Alright, here is the plan. We poke a hole into the obsidian and jump in."
Ambigious interrupted: "Jumping into lava?"
"The bag Brad gave me, there are Fire Resistance potions in there. We jump into the lava and swim down, just follow me, the potion also provides us with energy so we don't have to breathe, it also makes us able to see in the lava. It is pretty hard to brew."
With these words he gave everyone a diamond pickaxe.
"We will make a large hole, as if the obsidian collapsed, then we will drink the potions and jump in, there is a Nether portal at the bottom, we will swim through that."
Nobody asked a question, they were just swinging their pickaxes at the obsidian, too focused to even think about anything else, it was still hard work and they had to watch out for a real obsidian collapse. The obsidian made a high pitched bling every time a pick hit it, suddenly a loud crack came from the center of the obsidian.
"To the sides, quick!" Fire shouted.
The obsidian started falling into the lava, a hole formed in the middle and was rapidly growing, they jumped just in time before the lava would have swallowed them.
"Phew, that was close." Unchosen said.
freeZe demanded: "Okay, we'll need those potions now."
Fire searched his inventory for the bag and fished out five potions, then packed the bag back into his inventory. The others had slowly come to Fire on the half meter strip of obsidian around the lava that was still left.
"One last thing, it is hard to combine so many different effects in one potion, and these are no simple effects. There may be some side effects while it kicks in, nothing dangerous though." Fire warned and added: "I will drink the first one and tell you if anything happens."
He gave the potions to them and drank his. The orange liquid was burning hot, or at least it felt like lava running down his throat. Once in his stomach, the liquid partially turned into a yellow gas, which came out of Fire's nose and mouth and also got into his lungs. Fire felt how the gas dispersed in his lungs and at the same time his eyes started feeling strange. His vision blurred out, Fire made a step towards the wall and leaned against it. A few seconds later his vision went normal again, only he could see even better than he could normally. His body shook for a few seconds, then Fire didn't feel the burning heat radiating from the lava anymore, he only felt warmth all inside his body.
"Are you… Okay?" TehLulz asked.
Fire answered: "Not many side effects, Brad did a good job. It only feels like drinking lava in the first few seconds, also support yourself on the wall, your vision will be blurry for a short time."
"Okay, if that is all, let's drink on our victory!" Said Ambigious and emptied his bottle in one go and regretted doing so a second later as the liquid ran down his throat. Everyone else also drank, a minute later they all were completely immune to the lava.
freeZe counted down without asking anyone: "Three, two, one… jump!" They jumped into the molten rock, hoping Brad did the potion right and they wouldn't get fried instantly. They felt the lava enclosing them…