Chapter 17: Chrysopoeia
*Somewhere, deep in the forest...
It was a bright and sunny day today. The wind was jovially weaving through the leaves of the dark oaks, playing them as though they were musical instruments. Together, they created a pleasant, soothing rustling noise that permeated the forest biome. It was almost like the entire world was at peace.
For better or for worse, the illager leader was in no position to enjoy any of those things. Instead of being in the outside world, she was in the confines of the map room, ironing out the last few details. Soon, the master plan would be ready.
So engrossed was she in her planning, she didn't hear the incoming footsteps.
Hesitantly, the captain crept up to the doorway of the map room. After last time, he didn't feel too comfortable being in the presence of the evoker. She hadn't ever threatened an ally or a subordinate of hers before, so that had thrown him for a loop. Regardless, he announced his presence all the same.
"You called me, ma'am?"
"Indeed," she assured, while turning to face him.
"Our spies have reported that the two humans have set foot in the Nether. It's time."
"Yes, ma'am. The portal is all set up. I'll be sending troops right away. Was there anything else you wished to tell me?"
"No, captain, that would be it. You're dismissed."
With a curt nod, and an internal sigh of relief, the captain retreated and headed off to the training grounds of the mansion. Every pillager that was a part of the offensive, had been assigned to a specific division during preparations for the upcoming Nether campaign. The Nether was a truly treacherous place, that even the most capable of fighters would rather avoid. Its terrain was certainly a significant hindrance, but its inhabitants were an even more prominent one.
Ghasts, enormous flying creatures which could launch fireballs from afar, made for a formidable adversary. Hoglins, hostile beasts that bore a resemblance to a wild hog, could send their prey flying with a single tackle. Lastly, the piglins posed the most significant problems. Although neutral to anyone equipped with gold armor, these ravenous brutes would lash out against anyone they deemed a threat.
Taking all these hindrances into account, one could wonder why anyone would ever voluntarily visit such a realm. In reality, there was one crucial advantage the Nether offered, that just could not be overlooked. The hellish dimension had a peculiar space-bending capability. One block's worth of distance in the Nether equates to a distance of eight blocks in the Overworld. In other words, the same distance could be covered eight times faster with the help of the Nether. A risky option, but one that offered great reward.
...
After some time elapsed, the superior, too, left the map room and treaded down the main hall of the second floor, which housed the stairs that led to the first floor and the ground level.
Upon reaching ground level, she stood in the doorway of the main entrance, and could already see the fruits of her labor, before even exiting. She saw many of her soldiers honing their archery skills on targets posted on a few dark oak logs. What was more eye catching, however, was the sight of an absolute behemoth of a creature emerging from the shade of the trees. It was being dragged onwards by a couple pillagers, who had it leashed and saddled.
As for its appearance, it was a quadruped beast with approximately a height and width of two blocks, and a length of three. Its body was hefty, and its legs long and sturdy. It was primarily dark gray, but had a lighter shade for its horns, which were pointing forward.
Its snout was black, but in terms of resemblance, it wasn't like any other animal's; it had the basic facial features of a villager-type creature: long nose and a trademark unibrow, but its eyes were a darker shade of green, much like an illager's. That was a fact that made a lot of illagers feel uncomfortable. Lastly, its feet were clad in protective iron shackles. It was known as the 'ravager'.
With every step this hulking monstrosity took, the ground tremored.
...
'Just you watch, Johnathan. You'll get what you deserve soon enough.'
...
"'Warped wart'?"
We had harvested the blue 'leaves' from a 'tree' in the alien-looking forest. Not everything was as it seemed, however, because the 'trees' and the 'grass' weren't really plants, but rather, fungi. Specifically, the warped wart, now that we were closer, was actually the cap of a mushroom, and not foliage, whereas the 'log' was the stem.
Practically, there were more similarities than differences, because the stem block could be crafted into warped planks, which behaved pretty much identically to wooden planks, down to the crafting recipes they could be used in. Their blue color was what set them apart. On another note, the 'grass' was probably some kind of fungus as well, but when I had tried to mine it, it only dropped netherrack.
Otherworldly oddities aside, this biome was fairly pleasant to be in! The air was slightly cleaner, the temperature wasn't as high, and there were no enemies from what we could see. With that in mind, we set down a camp. We weren't too worried about the fire resistance wearing off in this location anyway.
We replaced a square patch of land with cobblestone and set up a makeshift table to eat some lunch: pumpkin pie, milk, and water, enough for both of us. We were sitting across each other, and the iron boots we had crafted were left on the side.
"Good thing the villagers were kind enough to give us supplies, right?" Rana pointed out in between bites.
"It was nice of them."
"..."
"..."
"Nice weather we're having, don't you think?"
'Hmm...I wonder...'
"Rana, seriously? I'm freezing over here."
"Really? Here, do you want my raincoat? I don't want you to get sick!" she pointed to her raincoat, that was still tied on her waist.
"And let you get claimed by the harsh, unforgiving cold? Never."
"Haha, wow, how chivalrous! I'm indebted."
We resumed eating in comfortable silence. For the first time since I'd set foot in the Nether, I felt a sense of bliss swell up inside me. Perhaps I'd been wrong; maybe this place would prove to be more pleasant than I'd assumed.
Once we were finished, we got up, and continued down the direction we'd been going. Soon enough, the blue hue of the forest gave way to a red one. The caps were now a dark crimson. To be honest, despite the shift in atmosphere, nothing felt substantially different as we kept walking.
That is, until Rana pointed out a rustling noise that was audible to our left. Could it have been a mob? It was true that we hadn't ran into one in the warped forest...
"Oh, boy! I can't wait to see what lovely creatures await us now!" she whispered.
From the tall fungus-grass, emerged a...baby pig-looking thing?
'What am I even looking at?'
"Uh...It...sure is lovely?"
For all intents and purposes, it was a humanoid pig. It was one block tall, and its head was disproportionately larger than its body. Its skin was pink, and its eyes were completely white. No pupils, or irises. It wore a brown leather tunic, had a belt with a gold buckle tied around its waist, and carried a gold sword that was little too big for it.
"Do you think this is one of those piglins that book was talking about?" she suggested.
"Seems likely."
We observed it as it roamed around idly. Soon enough, we made eye contact, and it zoomed right up to us. It was staring at us quite intently, at our helmets to be more precise, but I couldn't tell why. As we were about to move on, the ground began quaking.
The little pig creature ran off to the direction it came from, as the rhythmical tremors grew more intense. I got a strange feeling of déjà vu...
"Is something coming?"
I couldn't see it, but I could very much hear it... A huff that slightly reminded me of a cow's could be heard from our right. Even with the audio cue, we were still caught off guard by a giant animal pouncing at us.
We were knocked back several blocks before even being able to look at the thing. It, too, resembled a pig – a rather big one at that – but had a much larger and longer snout, two white tusks, and shared the same blank eyes with the previous creature. In contrast however, this thing was far more animal-like, probably due to the fact it was a quadruped.
"You defend, I attack?" she proposed.
"You've got it!"
As it would turn out, we would, not be doing any attacking or defending, because we got more things to worry about. The little piglin returned...with its whole family of bigger, older, sword-swinging piglins. They all did flashy, aggressive gestures with their weapons as they dashed toward us.
"Okay, screw that. Run!"
Deciding that this battle wasn't worth risking our lives for, I grabbed Rana by the hand and retreated.
"Woah, wait, I wasn't ready!"
"Sorry."
Before we could re-enter the blue portion of the forest, Rana called out to me once again.
"Steve, look!"
She urged me to stop and look behind us. To my astonishment, the two species had instigated a battle against each other! Rana dragged me to the closest giant mushroom, so we could watch the battle rage on from a safe vantage point.
"Monsters fighting each other? I've never seen this before..." I muttered.
"Yeah...Who do you think's gonna win?" she asked excitedly.
I eyed the combatants carefully. On one hand, the quadruped hog-like beast could knock a piglin upwards and backwards a good distance, an important advantage, considering the latter couldn't attack from afar. On the other hand, the piglins had a numerical advantage, actual equipment, and their foe completely surrounded.
...
'I can't believe I just did a mental analysis on this...'
"The pigmen have got this one," I stated.
"Nope, my money's on that hog-thing," she countered.
We watched in complete, unwavering attention. Each hit that was dealt from either side felt like it would make the difference between life and death. After a few more nail-biting moments, the tusked quadruped was reduced to nothing more than a puff of smoke, leaving behind a scrap of leather. This made me the victor of the 'bet'.
"Noooo! Aw, you know what this is like? This is like seeing the raindrop you bet on lose the race...Oh well, at least we can move along now..."
"Right..." I slowly responded, not being totally certain of what she was referring to. As we made our way through the piglin squad - which had started a victory dance to display their indisputable dominance, and out of the forest, I asked her about the analogy.
"Oh, that? Well, back on Earth, rainwater would 'stick' on the surface of glass in the form of droplets, far more than it does here. So, when I was little, I'd watch the droplets slowly cascade down a pane, and make bets with myself on which one would reach the bottom first."
There was a hint of nostalgia in her voice as she reminisced. It was at that moment, that I remembered something crucial; something so obviously important, that I felt dumb for forgetting in the first place: Rana wasn't from the same world as I...
If she had the opportunity...
...would she leave?
Before I could ask, something that was hiding in the red mist caught my eye. I couldn't tell whether I was seeing things or not, but as we kept walking, I could make out a massive pillar sticking out in the distance.
As a matter of fact, there were more pillars, of equal height and width, all lined up, one behind the other. There was a large gap between each pillar. They were made of some dark material, but we were standing too far away for me to tell its texture. Some of the pillars seemed as though they had sprung from the ground, while others had their foundations hidden below the surface of the lava ocean.
It would seem that each of these pillars served as support for a bridge that was just barely visible from ground level, for it was so high up, it seemed to reach the ceiling of the Nether. Yet another awe-inspiring sight from the dimension...
The bridge had its one end cut off, while the rest continued on, toward the fog.
"Do you think this is the Nether fortress?" I asked.
"Only one way to find out! Do we have enough blocks to climb up with?"
I took a glance at my inventory and estimated that the number of blocks we had could allow one of us to build a tower to climb up, but not both of us.
"No...but that's not the end of the world; there's plenty of solutions to this. We could mine some netherrack, or maybe burrow our way up through a pillar. How do you think we should go about this?"
"Hmm...I like the idea of mining our way up. It sounds safer that way."
"Alright, then."
We finally got within arm's length of the nearest column. Upon closer inspection, I noted that it was made out of only dark red bricks. I raised my pickaxing arm up and mined the outer corner. "Nether brick" was the material's name. I handed it over and got to mining the outer blocks in such a way as to form a winding stairwell around the center of the pillar.
Rana was climbing up behind me, as there wasn't much space for two people to stand on the same block. The thought of us going for one column each did cross my mind, but it wouldn't have been efficient for our pickaxes' durability. In any case, mining the Nether brick wasn't inherently difficult, but the whole operation would take a while. This was a tall structure, after all...
...
Once we were around halfway there, I heard the characteristic crunch of a dirt block being placed. I looked behind me, and saw that Rana was placing dirt blocks to the side of the staircase.
"Uh, I'm sorry, but...what are you doing?"
"Well, I was just thinking that this wouldn't be exactly safe when we climb down, so I thought that maybe more walking space would help."
"Ah, good call."
I resumed swinging along. The more our elevation increased, the more wildly the feeling of excitement and anxiousness whirled within me.
...
"Are you ready?"
"I am."
We were one block away from breaching the floor of the bridge, which was directly overhead. I raised my pickaxe one last time and broke through. Still being halfway through the floor, I could only scan the bridge's surface by tiptoeing.
"Coast's clear."
Finishing up our staircase, we took our first step on what we assumed to be the Nether fortress, at last. Honestly, I would've been extremely irritated if we had done all this work for this to be just an inconsequential structure.
"Wow, look at the view!"
Rana had gone off near the end of the bridge to marvel the view. One could faintly make out the piglins patrolling in the crimson forest. Various barren landmasses were also visible now, as well as many lavafalls, and glowing stalagmites on the ceiling.
"..."
"..."
"We should probably get going, right?"
"We should..."
"Alright, then. Off we go."
...