Fire could see the first sun rays shimmering through the leaves of the jungle trees. Normally he would wake up his friends now but Fire decided to let the others sleep a little longer this day, his base was only a few hours of walking away so they would arrive there a little bit after noon.

Because the night was over Fire decided to take a quick look through his inventory again, seeing that there was not much danger during the day. Fire was satisfied with the things he had collected while they were travelling, the blaze core and the liquid flames would surely come in handy and so would the steelwood and the dried slime.

While there were already a lot of weapons and armor in Fire's armory, he would still have to make gear for his friends, good armor and weapons needed to be custom fit to their owner. He would have to reignite his forge so that he could make the gear for the others, the forge was sure to have cooled down over the year Fire had been away.

Fire woke up his friends when the sun was a good bit above the horizon already, he woke up Ambigious first and ten minutes later the others so that they would be fully awake at about the same time.

Their breakfast consisted of the rest of the leaves Aurone had given them and some water, then they were ready to go. freeZe still didn't feel good enough to walk on her own so Fire had to carry her again.

TehLulz asked: "Did anything notable happen in the night?"

Fire had already decided not to tell his friends about the spider attack and answered: "Everything was quiet."

"Good to hear." TehLulz said.

After leaving the clearing Ambigious and TehLulz took the lead again and cleared a path, the work didn't seem exhausting to them at all, which was no wonder seeing that they had been working in a slave mine for the last few months. Unchosen had assumed the role of the rear guard again.

The path they were taking was almost completely free of danger, they had to avoid another carnivorous plant but that was the only thing. The closer they came to Fire's base the more lighthearted they became, they all were happy that the first part of their journey was over soon.

Fire told them: "Travelling will be much easier when we depart to get the first artefact, we won't have to use wooden shovels as paddles anymore for one thing. But I can't guarantee that getting the artefact itself will be such a cakewalk."

Unchosen said: "That is for certain. Getting them won't be easy."

Ambigious asked: "Remind me again which ones we know of. There is a potion in your base, then there is some axe… and something"

Fire replied: "The ones I know of are the Ultimate Base Potion, the Dragon Egg and the Axe of Eric the Viking. The potion is in my base, the egg is in the End, obviously, and the Axe is in Rockhaven."

freeZe asked: "So we are going to Rockhaven? From all I have heard it's going to be hard to get in there."

Fire laughed and replied: "Not if you have connections in there."

freeZe said: "You said that you had to sneak in there when you stole the books."

"That was when Rockhaven was still a relatively young city and I didn't have said connections. That was a couple of thousand years back." Fire answered.

Ambigious said: "Wow, I still find it hard to believe that time passes so much faster in here compared to outside… for how long have you been here Fire?"

Fire explained: "You must know, the hacker's attack on the server is slowing the simulation speed down quite a lot, normally it is even faster. In real time I have been on this server for about three to four years but in here… it has been a little bit over five thousand five hundred."

Ambigious sounded very impressed: "Holy crap, that is a long time."

Fire nodded and said: "Oh yes, it is."

The conversation ended and they just continued walking silently, the sun was now exactly in the middle of the sky but the leaves above protected them from most of the direct heat.

Ambigious turned around and said: "Hey, Fire. There is a small wooden hut on a clearing ahead."

Fire simply said: "We are there."

Ambigious and TehLulz cut through the last bit of plants and stepped out onto the clearing. They waited for the others to catch up and then they approached the hut together, they were not sure what they should think about Fire's ominous claim that they "were there".

As they walked towards the hut, Fire spotted a tiny yellow symbol above the door of the hut, the others didn't seem to notice it as it was too small. When the hut was only a short distance away from them, the symbol suddenly flashed. Fire sighed.

Three lightning bolts erupted from the symbol, each one hitting a different member of the group, it seemed to ignore Fire as well as freeZe in his arms. Ambigious, Unchosen and TehLulz weren't even able to say anything or react at all before the lightning bolts struck them, they fell to the ground paralyzed. The yellow symbol had changed its color to grey and was now slowly pulsating.

freeZe screamed: "Fire! What the hell was that?"

Fire just wanted to answer, then he felt pulse of energy nearby and a relatively low female voice spoke first: "Base defenses. I am sorry about this, I just had to make sure nobody finds this on accident."

The owner of the voice stepped out from the door of the hut. It was a short woman with pitch black skin, similar to that of freeZe. Her hair was completely white and very long, her eyes were entirely red. She was wearing a wide black robe making it hard to guess her figure, overall she was quite beautiful but there was an undeniable feeling of power in her presence.

Fire smiled and said: "I expected no less from you."

He carefully put freeZe down on the ground and walked towards the woman. He knelt down and opened his arms to hug her, this emphasized the size difference even more, she seemed like a child next to the three meter tall Fire.

Ambigious was the first one to recover from his paralysis, he slowly got up and said: "Ugh… That's your sister, right?"

Fire stood up again and replied: "Yes. If the matching skin, eye and hair color haven't made it obvious enough." He then added: "For your own safety, be careful what you say Ambigious."

Fire's sister looked at him questioningly but then she seemed to understand. She then proceeded to send out three floating dots of light to the victims of her lightning rune. Once the dots reached them they seemed to instantly recover.

She said: "I am very sorry for this but as I said, I need to keep the base safe. Fire, would you mind introducing us?"

Fire nodded and said: "Of course. Friends, this is my sister, her name is Shadow. Shadow, this is Ambigious, TehLulz, Unchosen and freeZe."

Shadow said: "Nice to meet you." Then she took a closer look at freeZe and said to Fire: "I see you found a mage too."

Fire replied: "Yes, would you mind healing her?"

Shadow nodded and said: "Will do. I assume that you'll tell me the whole story later."

Shadow walked over to freeZe and inspected her wounds and a few moments later the wounds already started healing rapidly. Half a minute later freeZe looked like she never had been burned.

freeZe looked at Shadow and simply said: "Thanks."

Fire said: "I guess I'll show you our base now. And just so you know, this hut is only the entrance."

Fire went into the hut first, crouching through the low doorframe, his friends and his sister followed right behind him.

"Ready to be impressed?" Fire asked.

Before anyone had the chance to answer, they started sinking into the floor. The floor, however, turned out to be only an intangible projection covering an elevator. The round elevator was richly decorated with iron, gold and a variety of gems.

The elevator descended into the depths of the world, slowly at first but then progressively faster. After a few minutes they felt that the elevator was slowing down again. Shortly afterwards the shaft opened up into a grand entrance hall, the walls and ceiling were made from polished stone engraved with various scenes. The hall was lit up by artfully cut glowstone crystals.

The apparently floating elevator came to a halt on a pedestal, a red carpet leading down some stairs onto the dark oak wood floor. Fire's friends were too impressed to say anything, they just followed Fire and Shadow through the hall, each of them looking at a different engraving but all wondering what would really await them here.