Fire sprinted down a large stone spiral staircase leading down into the lowest parts of his base. He had no reason to go any slower since he was on his own now, no need to wait for anybody. His steps were precise and he didn't have to worry about tripping or falling.

When he arrived at the bottom of the staircase yet another large room with polished stone walls and ceiling was in front of him, not as decorated as the entry hall but still very appealing to look at. A large steel door was on one of the walls, a lever next to it.

Fire pulled the lever and the door slowly swung open without making a sound. Behind the door was a dark room with a huge metal structure that looked like an oven, it was cold at the moment. On the left and right side of it stood two large statues made from a dark metal, they were two times bigger than Fire himself. The statues were humanoid and finely crafted but lacked faces and had completely smooth skin. In one corner there was a heap of blaze powder with a pipe above it. As Fire entered the room the statues came to life and took a few slow but by no means clumsy steps towards him and then came to a halt.

Fire gave them some orders, then they started moving quickly and did the task Fire ordered them to do. One of them positioned itself at a giant bellows located at the back of the oven, the other one started shoveling blaze powder from the heap into the oven. After the first statue had started working the bellows the blaze powder started burning and the room heated up immediately.

Fire was satisfied and left the room and closed the door. This room was directly below his forge and now that the heater was running again the forge should start warming up, a few hours later it would be operational.

Fire proceeded to check his armory and potion lab and made sure that everything was in order. After that he met up with Shadow at the table in the living area.

She asked: "Everything alright?"

Fire nodded.

Shadow asked: "Now, tell me. How did you find a mage in the mine?"

Fire replied: "I only found out that she was a mage halfway through the journey by letting her use a blaze core that I activated. She seems to have a lot of energy at her disposal but her magic seems to have a very strong will of its own, it took over one time shortly after I was wounded and then another time a bit later. The second time was on purpose though."

Shadow said: "I assume that is where the burns came from. What are her affinities?"

Fire answered: "From what the others told me, she managed to produce lightning bolts strong enough to outright pulverize a skeletal mage. She seems to have an easy time with fire too but she can't produce it from thin air like with the lightning."

Shadow raised her eyebrows. "Pulverizing a skeletal mage? Just guided by instinct? That sure is impressive. Better than when my magic took over the first time but then again, Ender magic is a lot less impressive when used randomly. I just ended up floating in the air awkwardly."

Fire put down the blaze core on the table asked: "Could you unlock this blaze core and see how much energy is in there?"

Shadow replied: "Sure thing."

The blaze core started floating up into the air and a purple sphere formed around it, a barrier to catch the escaping energy. The blaze core released an explosion of fire which kept raging inside the sphere, trying to find an exit but eventually was entirely absorbed. The blaze core floated down onto the table again, it had stopped glowing and now instead had turned grey.

"And?" Fire asked.

Shadow said: "That is indeed a fairly large amount of energy. I could also sense a lot of instability. I suspect that she will have trouble controlling her magic in the beginning but that is nothing that can't be fixed with some good training. She has a lot of potential."

Fire said: "Speaking about training. Could you prepare some projections for them to fight for the basic combat training?"

Shadow smiled and said: "Already did."

"You are my sister after all."

Fire then asked: "Could you also send one of your flying demons into the nearby swamp, there is a witch living there who saved my life on the way here."

Shadow answered: "Aurone? Sure thing. You'll have to instruct the demon though."

Fire noted: "I did notice that we don't have any demon tongue potion left."

"Let's just say I have been dealing with demons a lot over the course of the last year and used up the entire supply." Shadow said.

"I'm not going to inquire further." Fire replied.

They walked through the corridor to the hub and then took a staircase upwards towards Shadow's summoning chamber.

She opened the wooden door and immediately the scent of burning herbs met their noses. The room itself was only lit up by eternally burning candles, the walls and ceiling were covered with pitch black nether wool and the floor by a black carpet. The only space that wasn't occupied by fabric was a spot in the center where a circle of runes had been drawn on black rock with white chalk.

Shadow immediately began the summoning ritual, making the chalk runes pulsate with Ender magic. Fire could feel energy flow into the center of the room where it condensed. After a few seconds a silhouette became visible in the summoning circle and a few more seconds later the demon fully materialized. It looked just like you would expect a flying demon to look, complete with long tail, bat wings and small horns on the forehead.

The demonic language wasn't so much of a real language and more of a way to transmit concepts. Only if both participants of the conversation knew the language they would be able to understand each other. Lying in the language was possible but misunderstandings were not. This made it the only way to reliably give a demon orders. Most demons would follow regular orders as well but there were some of them that loved to deliberately misunderstand their instructions.

Fire started speaking in the demonic language: "Greetings."

The demon replied: "Greetings, Fire."

The demon then asked: "What is it?"

Fire said: "I would like you to deliver the newest issue of my potion journal to a witch called Aurone living in the swamp nearby."

Fire didn't need to specify further as the language made sure that the demon knew which swamp and which Aurone he meant.

The demon nodded, then said: "Will do."

Fire gave his sister a nod and she released the demon from the summoning circle, it opened the door and made its way into the library of the base.

Fire said: "I guess I'll have to brew more of the demon tongue potion, it will be a good practice potion for Unchosen as well once he is a little more experienced."

Shadow said: "Talking about that. Where will we go after the training is done, I mean in what order will we get the artefacts?"

Fire replied: "First we take the old underground railway to Drandin, I have some business there, I need to see how the drill is coming along. From there we'll go to Rockhaven on foot, or maybe I can arrange some other means of transportation. We should be able to get the Axe by diplomatic means. Then the hard part begins."

Shadow said: "I'm guessing the dragon is next."

Fire said: "Yes, we will restock at the base and then head towards the stronghold. The location of the stronghold is known but nobody has ever returned from the End alive or at all as far as I know. We'll have to go in completely blindly and we just have to be as prepared as possible. If we succeed in getting the dragon egg, we'll have to get the locations of the other artefacts. I'll ask the other Mencur-Besh to keep their eyes open."

Shadow said: "I'll go to sleep for a couple of hours, haven't done that in a few weeks."

Fire walked out the door and said: "Before you go to sleep, would you mind setting up some more powerful projections in the training room? I need to get back in the groove of fighting again."

Shadow nodded and followed Fire to the training room.