"Fire, I am so thirsty." freeZe complained.
Fire answered: "We will have something to drink in the fortress… Wait, don't we have water buckets?"
Ambigious moaned: "Oh yes we do, why didn't we think of them earlier, freeZe is about to collapse."
freeZe talked back: "No I am not! But I could use some water."
Fire handed freeZe his water bucket, she tilted it and drank a quarter of the water inside.
She asked: "Anybody else need water?"
The others raised their hands. freeZe passed the bucket on to Ambigious, TehLulz and Unchosen, who emptied it completely.
"Everybody ready again?" Fire asked and packed the bucket into his inventory.
They started walking again. They were about half way to the fortress, the ghasts had left them alone since Fire caught the fireball. They walked pretty slowly because they wanted to save water and energy.
The scenery had changed quite a bit since they exited the tunnel, they were higher up now, which had advantages and disadvantages. One of the disadvantages was having to avoid lava rivers all the time. One of the advantages was having a way better view than from below, the fortress was now completely visible and it was huge. Some of the bridges went into the reddish-pink rock, it was possible that a lot of the structure was inside the netherrack.
Suddenly they heard a strange sound, a slap and a slurp a second later.
"Uh-Oh, that doesn't sound very good." TehLulz stated.
He was right, a huge magma cube was hopping towards them, revealing its fiery core with every jump.
Fire closed his eyes, opened his inventory and pulled a diamond pickaxe onto his hotbar with his thoughts, it was in his hand right hand after he opened his eyes again, the fireball still was in his left hand.
He started digging a hole and called the others: "Get in there! It can't reach you as long as it is that big!"
He didn't have to say that twice, in a chaos of hands and feet freeZe, Ambigious, TehLulz and Unchosen disappeared in the hole, Fire stayed out of it. He switched to another slot of his hotbar and put the fireball in his right hand.
"So you want to eat us? How about you chew on this?" Fire yelled and threw the fireball at the cube, which was in the middle of a jump.
Fire had aimed the fireball a bit under it so it would hit it in mid-air. The fireball left a burning hot trail behind it and made a nasty ear wrecking whistling and howling noise like some fireworks do. The fireball hit the magma cube right between the strips of half-liquid magma, which were like a spring, making it able to jump.
The fireball exploded with a bright flash right at the molten core in the center of the cube as it hit the ground. It stopped with its red eyes rolling wildly, it didn't have enough surface tension to stay in its form. It liquefied without any warning, forming a puddle on the ground. Fire jumped back shortly before the puddle reached his feet. Three smaller but still two meter tall replica of the magma cube rose out of the puddle.
They made a big leap and surrounded Fire before he could react. He extended the claws on his hands, they wouldn't help him much in the battle but it was better than punching the cubes. He attacked the cube closest to him, which was about to leap. Fire's claws cut through it, doing some damage but the magma core in its center flared up, liquefying the wounded part and making it grow together again. Fire knew that the other two were about to land on him. He jumped forward and tried to roll like in the arena. The netherrack however was much rougher and more solid than the sand in the arena, the roll wasn't fluent and didn't get him far but he got on his feet again at the end.
"Out of the hole!" He yelled and ducked under an incoming cube.
Their circle now was closer than before but the eyes of the one cube he hit were a little bit dimmer than the other's. Fire attacked the same cube again, this time with both hands, slashing down on it diagonally and again, the core flared up and healed the wound. The second cube landed next to Fire and the third one remained in his position.
"Eat this!" A voice yelled, apparently Ambigious, a big chunk of netherrack hit the cube which had landed next to Fire.
Fire took a quick look over to the rest of the group, they all had picked up rocks and bombarded the cubes with them just like he had told them when they entered the Nether. The cubes absorbed the netherrack, instantly turning it into lava with a flash of their core and using it to grow.
freeZe said half loud: "Oops, that is not good."
Fire dodged the third cube, which almost landed on top of him, jumped again, this time without a roll and stood up, just to dodge the second and third cube that were following him, the first one seemed to be slowing down.
"Keep throwing, it cools their cores!" Fire yelled.
He cut his claws right through the second cube a couple of times, forcing it to sacrifice more of its temperature to repair itself. The third cube made a giant leap in the air, Fire stepped aside. Fire saw, that the first cube's core was almost not glowing anymore, a split second later the second cube landed on him with its full weight, knocking him to the ground. Fire saw stars for a second and when his senses were there again, he noticed that the cube had swallowed him, a moment later he felt the burning heat of lava at his skin, half of his body was stuck inside the core, the cube wasn't moving and tried to keep Fire inside.
Fire struggled but couldn't get free. The other three noticed that Fire was stuck inside the cube but couldn't do anything. Fire thought he heard freeZe screaming but wasn't sure since his head was stuck in the cube. His skin was resistant to heat but only up to a certain degree. Smoke started radiating from the core and the horrible smell of burning scales filled the air. Fire tried to think of a plan, everything slowed down again, which gave him a bit more time to do so, however the pain was preventing him from forming a clear thought.
All he could do was an instinctual reaction, he extended his claws at feet and hands and started to struggle like a cat that had been picked up against its will. His claws cut through the cube, making it cool down rapidly but also with every flash of the core the pain all over Fire's body increased. He wondered why he wasn't dead yet. After painfully long twenty seconds the heat dropped below the level where it could harm Fire or fix the wounds of the cube. He cut his way out of his once fiery prison, which liquefied right after he crawled out of the thick semi liquid stone. Fire stood up using the strength he had left, a feeling of triumph filled his body and drove the pain away. The others had done a good job at killing the first and third cube, they had shrunk to their minimal size and were being stomped by Ambigious, TehLulz and freeZe. Unchosen ran over to Fire, who had sunken to the ground devitalized. When the others were done killing the remaining cubes, they also ran over to Fire.
freeZe said in concern: "You look terrible!"
Fire in fact looked terrible, half of his coat was charred, the scales on his head and torso were deformed and he had smaller burns all over his body.
He answered in a weak voice: "I don't know how I am even alive… we need to get to the fortress quickly, just give me a few minutes to rest."
They sat down next to Fire saying nothing, their silence only got interrupted by a huge chunk of netherrack falling down from the ceiling into the lava lake, causing a huge tsunami of lava to surge the coast, pulling in pigmen and magma cubes as it flew back again.
"Pretty impressive place, the Nether…" Unchosen whispered.
"But also very dangerous." TehLulz added.
"No beauty without danger, it is like this everywhere." Fire said.
The sentence made Ambigious chuckle.
He said: "Right, freeZe? No beauty without danger, many people experienced that…"
She replied, smiling: "Stop it."