"It's so hot here," Maria grumbled for probably the dozenth time. Her companions ignored her, and she glared at them.
Master looked cool as a cucumber in his cute little Barrier Jacket outfit. No doubt it had some kind of temperature regulation spell woven into it. Kirche also looked just fine in her school girl outfit and cloak, like the heat didn't even register to her.
And of course Flame, Kirche's Salamander Familiar, was in his element. The lizard kept going out of his way to walk through patches of burning ground, crooning softly as the fire washed over his scales.
Only Maria was suffering, despite being an actual devil and wearing the skimpiest outfit.
Of course, that wasn't strange at all, considering where they were. The Nether was a land of heat. Massive pools of lava were more common than water was in the other world, and the very rock that they walked on was flammable, liable to burst into flames and burn with the slightest spark. It didn't spread much, but it seemed to just keep burning without end.
If there was a bright side, it was that there wasn't any smoke from all the burning. That and the fact that there didn't seem to be all that many enemies, at least not ones that were aggressive. There had been a few skeletons, but none of their party had any trouble dispatching them, not even Flame.
But so far, everything else had ignored them. The weird undead pig looking guys had looked dangerous, but they had just walked on by. The large, weirdly cubish, 'slimes' made of magma were also intimidating, but they stayed near the lava, which the three of them stayed as far away from as possible. And that was all that they had seen so far.
Maria sighed again. "So hot…"
"Yes, yes, we get it," Master replied, annoyed. "We'll have a nice cooling bath when we get back to the Stoneblock. Just keep your head up and keep looking for the Nether Fortress."
"But that'll be hours from now!" Maria pouted. But she dutifully raised her head and started scanning her surroundings once more.
They continued walking in silence for several more minutes. The nether had lots of hills, dead ends, and cliffs that made navigating it a pain, especially since it was even more square-looking than the above world had been, the 'hills' looking more like Aztec temples with layers of flat stone stacked on top of each other.
Until finally… "There it is!"
They had just rounded a corner that opened to a cliffside overlooking a massive lake of lava, one just like the dozens that they had seen so far, save for the structure in the middle of it. And it was definitely a structure, one that had been erected in the middle of the pool of lava. Spires, bridges, and buildings stood on massive stilts jutting out of the lava, raising it far above the dangerously hot liquid, all made of an ominously red brick.
Even from this distance they could see that it was swarming with enemies. White skeletons like the ones that they had fought many times by now mingled with dangerous looking black ones that towered over the others. In the far distance, Maria could see something that looked like yellow-ish fireballs that floated around.
"But how do we get there?" Kirche asked. Maria took another look and realized that the other girl was right. There was no bridge or connection to anything that could be called land.
Morgan frowned as he looked at it. "We'll figure that out. First, let me check on the others." He didn't move, not even needing a magic circle for a telepathy spell, but after a moment his frown deepened. "Ah. Right. I forgot that the Nether is another dimension, and the math behind interdimensional targeting is still a bit beyond me."
"So we can't communicate with the others?" Kirche asked.
"Nope. Oh well, not that they'd be of any help right now." Morgan pulled out his special phone, the one that connected him to his employers. "But it looks like Lili's group just finished up their mission. They're probably on their way back."
His brow furrowed for a moment, and then he sighed. "Ah, screw it." He turned to the three of them. "I wanted to use this chance to get you two some more XP, and some experience, but I also don't want to carry you guys over, and we spent longer looking for it than I thought we would. So I'm just going to fly over and take care of it myself. You wait here for me."
"That's no fair Master, hogging all the good parts to yourself!" Maria protested.
Master grinned at her, and two large black leathery wings appeared behind his back. "Well, learn to fly and you can join me… too bad those wings of yours are just an accessory though." With a laugh he took off and flew over the lava, toward the Fortress.
"Masteeeeeeeer!" Maria called out after his retreating form. Then she sighed and turned to Kirche. "Well, guess we just have to wait."
Flame took that to heart and found a nearby patch of fire to curl up in and rest. Meanwhile, Kirche looked at Maria, eyes glancing at the wings behind her back. "Your wings are different. I thought you were both devils?"
"We're different kinds," Maria explained. "I'm a succubus, which is a specific type of demon in my world. Morgan's an Infernal, and that's provided by the Company. It's just like how me and you are both mages, but we use different magic."
Kirche made an expression of understanding and nodded. "I see, I see. And of course, Darling is the more impressive one. Though… you're a succubus?" Kirche's eyes lit up with interest. "I've heard stories about succubi, but I've never met one before. Do you really sneak into the beds of men and drain them of their life in a night of fiery passion?"
"Some do!" Maria answered happily. "Though I was part of a faction that avoided messing with humans as much as possible, and we don't really drain their life force, we just get power from doing lewd things, or even just watching them."
Kirche blinked in astonishment. "You mean… you can just watch and get stronger?"
Maria grinned and giggled. "So long as it's sufficiently erotic, indeed I can."
Kirche hummed as she tapped her finger on her chin. "I've never been much for voyeurism, but that sounds absolutely delightful. Can Darling do the same thing?"
Maria cocked her head. "I don't think so. He might be able to later, with some upgrades, but I don't think he'll go down that route." She looked out over the lake of lava, where Morgan was flying around, sniping the skeletons on the bridges and roofs of the fortress with his magic. "I don't think he really needs it though."
"I suppose not," Kirche allowed. "I certainly wouldn't mind it though."
"Then, do you want to become a Succubus like me?" Maria asked, rounding on the other girl excitedly. "I could teach you all about it! I know all kinds of lewd spells! I can also manipulate dreams, or just watch them, and mess with people's memories or just make them really really horny!"
"Me? Become a succubus?" She seemed shocked by the idea. "Is that even possible?"
"Oh, for sure, I can think of at least three different ways." Template Stacking worked of course, but was expensive. She thought that maybe she could teach Kirche a few things with Added Potential, but honestly, the best way was to just use Tantric Arts with Art of Transformation, which one of their missions would net them. It would just require a ritual and would be the most effective.
"But you'd have to convince Master first," Maria continued as Kirche contemplated the idea. "You would need his permission of course, since he'd have to do it. So, if you want to become an amazingly erotic succubus like me, you'll have to convince him that it's worth it."
Maria didn't think Morgan would deny her if Kirche requested to be turned into a succubus. But Maria was also sure that Morgan would appreciate it if she egged Kirche into doing something fun in order to 'convince' him.
"Hmm…." Kirche looked Maria over, who was still in her default loli form. "I won't shrink, will I?"
Maria put her hands on her hips. "Is there a problem with being small? Morgan seems to enjoy it." She ran her hands up her side and up to her modest breasts, which she cupped. "At the start, when it was just the two of us, he couldn't keep his hands off of me."
"Well, if Darling enjoys it, that's fine," Kirche allowed. "But I don't want to lose my girls. They're my best assets." She looked down as she cupped her own significantly larger boobs, lifting them.
"They are pretty good, in their own way," Maria admitted. She reached up and pushed Kirche's hands aside to sink her own fingers into the bustier girl's tits. Kirche looked a little surprised, but made no move to stop her as Maria fondled her. "They're so big and soft, you can definitely give him a tit fuck. You could probably swallow most of his head in these things!"
Kirche giggled. "They're not that big, but I could definitely suffocate him a bit."
An echoey crying sound drew their attention to the Nether Fortress. From another cavern across the way, a massive floating white form appeared. Like the rest of the place, it was oddly cube shaped, though with rounded corners and dangling tentacles. Its front had a giant face on it, and as they watched, it cried out again and fired some kind of fireball at Morgan.
Maria wasn't worried and she continued groping Kirche's tits, enjoying the feeling even through her shirt. But Kirche tensed as Morgan stood still in the air, waiting for the fireball. But, right as it looked like it was going to hit him, he did something they couldn't make out from this distance and the fireball reversed course, heading back for the thing that shot it.
Unfortunately, the fireball moved too slowly, so the ghastly monster was able to slowly float out of the way. It opened its mouth to send another fireball at Morgan, but apparently Morgan wasn't interested in playing with it any more and a beam of brilliant blue light cut through the otherwise red environment as he shot it with magic.
The monster deflated, letting out a keening cry of pain as it fell, where it was swallowed by the lake of lava.
"What a weird monster," Maria commented casually, still groping Kirche, as she watched Morgan go back to decimating the population of the Nether Fortress.
Kirche looked back at her and down at her chest. "You know, this really isn't fair," she commented, referring to what Maria was doing to her.
"Eh? Why not? You're free to grope me back, you know?"
"I'm not really interested in doing those things with girls though."
"Ah. You'll probably want to learn to like that. Morgan loves watching us play with each other. And he's the only one with a dick in our nightly orgies, so sometimes we keep each other company while he's busy with the others."
"Mmm. I suppose that kind of passion does have an appeal," Kirche nodded. "I suppose it doesn't hurt to try it out." And with that, she reached out to Maria and placed her hands on the succubus' chest.
"That's the spirit!" Maria encouraged her, tightening her grip on Kirche's boobs. "A good succubus doesn't just seek her own pleasure, you know? She brings pleasure to others. Not just her partners, but to everyone." An idea sparked in her mind. "If you really want to prove to Morgan that you're succubus material, grab one of the others and get them all riled up before presenting her to Morgan, watch as he takes her, and then ask him for a reward for your efforts."
"That is a rather succubus-like move, isn't it?"" Kirche mused as she rubbed her palms against Maria's small mounds. She could just barely feel the smaller girl's hardened nipples through her leathery top. "But who should I do it with? Tabitha?"
"Tabitha is probably a little too challenging to start with," Maria warned, knowing that Morgan had placed a compulsion towards apathy on the girl.
"Well, I don't think Louise would be a good idea, and I don't really know the others very well yet. You've been with Morgan for the longest, right? Can you tell me more about them?"
"Sure! Asuna is the first girl we picked up, and I suppose you could call her Master's pet project. He's having fun slowly corrupting her to suit his tastes. Then we picked up Ed. Ed's a purchase, like me. She's sorta neutral though. She doesn't mind the whole sex slavery thing, and she enjoys a good pounding from Master, but she's not enthusiastic about it, you know? She's a smarty pants type at heart, and is more interested in doing research and stuff. Though she does have her fun moments."
Kirche nodded. "I see. That was my impression of them. Though, from my perspective, Asuna has changed rather dramatically. I suppose I didn't have the best of chances to get to know her that well when you first came to our world, but she was a lot more high strung then than she was when we fought her in the dungeon."
"Well, slow is relative I suppose. He could do it a lot faster if he really wanted to, but he really wants to take his time with her, and do it 'properly', which is a kind of hedonism that I can appreciate in a Master."
"I can't say that corruption of that nature is something I'm experienced in," Kirche admitted. The two girls were still feeling each other's chests. "I'm usually the one in control."
"What is corruption but twisting someone to fit your own desires and getting complete control over them?" Maria pointed out.
"Hmm. I suppose that's true. But I would be corrupting other girls for my Darling instead…" Kirche's eyes grew unfocused as she imagined it. "Oh… yes… that does seem quite nice. To share such passion and love with them…"
"Exactly! You get it. See, this is why you should become a succubus."
"I'm starting to think you're right. Now, what about the others?"
"Lili is someone that Master saved and offered her exactly what she wanted. So she's the super loyal type. She can shape shift too, which is how she tricked you guys. She's probably not a good choice though. I think Morgan is shaping her to be his pet sadist and assassin. Trying to offer her to him just wouldn't work the same."
"From the sound of it, I agree completely. What about Dia then? I haven't talked with her much."
"Dia is a goddess. She-"
"Wait, I'm sorry, when you say goddess, what do you mean by that?"
"Oh, I mean that literally. She's an actual divinity. She's a relatively minor goddess, I think, but the Falna she put on your back is literally a mark of the gods. If she wanted to, she could probably snap her fingers and obliterate us all."
"O-oh…"
"But you don't need to worry about that. Master captured her and I put a Contract on her, so she can't do anything like that. Not that she would if she could. Dia is a sweetheart. A little airheaded, and definitely too easy going, but she's calm and kind and really very sweet. She'd make a good pick to present to Master!"
"I think I'll pass." Kirche still looked more than a little nervous at the prospect. "What about Saeko then?"
"Hmm. She could do. She's an interesting one. On the outside she's this sort of perfect honorable samurai, right? But underneath that she's one of the biggest sadists I've ever seen. It might be a little hard to get her prepped and ready to present to Master."
"I didn't realize she was like that. Then again… it's always the proper ladies that have the kinkiest hidden side. Very well, then how about Miku?"
"Honestly? She's probably the easiest choice for you. She's a mega slut that we weren't even going after, but her and Saeko's world was doomed, and she wanted a way out, so she came with us. You could tell her you want to try something out and she'll have her clothes off before you're even finished."
"Mmm. Darling doesn't seem that interested in her though. And would it be that impressive if I chose someone so easy?"
"Maybe not, but you could impress him by presenting her in a way that stokes his interest. He's mostly amused by her right now, I think, but if can figure out a way to make him really want her, he'll have no choice but to accept that you'd make a very good succubus."
"That is a fantastic point. Very well, I shall consider it." She gave Maria, who she was still groping, a grin. "This is very exciting… I didn't think I'd be talking to a real succubus about seducing girls in order to make one, but somehow I feel like I was meant for this, meant to do this for Darling."
Maria grinned back. "Of course! I'm happy to lead naturally lewd girls such as yourself to their proper place!"
The two girls shared a look as they squeezed each other's breasts, a mutual understanding passing between them as they formed their plan. Maria didn't think that Kirche would normally accept this, but her inflated feelings of love blinded her to her former sensibilities. Her main priority now was loving and being loved.
"You two are having fun, I see," a voice suddenly said. Both girls turned their heads to see Morgan floating near them, an amused expression on his face.
"Yes!" Maria agreed, still touching Kirche. Kirche, on the other hand, jumped and took her hands off of Maria. Then, seeing that Maria was still touching her, she started to reach back up to resume it, but realized that it would be silly to try to pretend she hadn't stopped and let her hands fall back by her side. Maria, seeing this, finally let go of Kirche as well.
"We were getting to know each other a little better, is all," Kirche said, a faint blush just barely visible on her mocha colored cheeks.
Morgan continued to grin at them. "I see that. Well, while you two were having fun, I got what we needed." He raised his hand and showed them the rectangular bar he was holding that looked like it was made of some kind of bright yellow gem or crystal. "About a dozen of these. Probably more than we need, but there were a lot of Blazes. Not that they were any trouble."
"Of course not, not when they were up against you, Darling," Kirche replied, her attitude shifting back to her normal sultry self.
Morgan's grin widened a bit. "That's true. I'm practically cheating compared to what you can do in the game." He then shrugged and used his phone to stash away the strange rod. "But let's hurry back. I want to be ready to leave for the Stronghold by the time Lili's group gets back."
With that, Morgan landed on the ground next to them and his wings folded up and shrunk until they faded away. Then, barely waiting for them to follow, he started marching back the way they came, eager to get back.
Kirche and Maria shared another look, one that carried a shared amusement, love, and excitement, and quickly followed after him, Flame bringing up the rear.
We made it back to our base of operations in Minecraft without any issue and in much better time considering we could just head straight there instead of wandering around aimlessly.
"Ah, cool fresh air!" Maria exclaimed, sucking in a big gasp of air and spreading her arms after we passed through the portal. "It feels so good!"
"You're far too dramatic," Kirche teased. "And to think you call yourself a demon. Shouldn't your home be similar?"
"The Demon Realm isn't constantly on fire! Well… not most of it anyway."
I left the two of them, who suddenly seemed much closer than they were before I caught them molesting each other, and looked for Asuna. She was up on the wall, sitting with her feet dangling over the edge, looking back at us over her shoulder.
"Any problems?" I asked.
"No. It was pretty boring, actually." She shrugged. "Ed, Saeko, and Louise got back a few minutes ago. They popped back into the Stoneblock to grab a few things."
As if on cue, the three people in question emerged from the portal still hanging in the air in the middle of our little base. Ed immediately spotted us, and she smiled. "Morgan! You're back. How'd it go?"
"It took a bit to track the place down, but I got what we needed. How about you?"
"Well, we had a couple of issues as well, but the town had a potion maker. We just had to barter for his services." Ed held up a glass vial filled with black liquid. "And then I hopped back to the Stoneblock to make the Golden Apple. I wasn't entirely sure how a Golden Apple should be composed, but I just converted the skin to gold and tried to infuse the actual fruit of it with as many gold molecules as I could."
"That should be good enough. If it doesn't work then oh well, we'll give up and move on." I glanced at Louise and Saeko. Saeko looked like she had a good time, her back a little straighter than normal and a hint of a smile on her lips. Louise, on the other hand, looked grumpier and more irritated than before. Perfect.
"In that case, let's give this a shot," I said to Ed before turning and to the little jail cell that I had Ed build in one corner of our base, a room completely cut off from sunlight.
Ed and the others followed as I entered the room. It was too small to fit more than Ed and I though, so the rest stood just outside the door, crowding it. Against the wall was a zombie, chained to the point where he couldn't move. His skin was a sickly green, but it was undamaged and didn't appear to be rotting. His clothes were also rather intact, only a little dirty, and Ed confirmed that it was the same style of clothes that they wore in the village they visited.
All in all, he was by far the most 'fresh' zombie that we had seen, making him the ideal test candidate.
"First, feed him the Potion of Weakness," I ordered.
Ed nodded and carefully stepped closer. The zombie pulled at his chains, seeking to grab us but unable too. It groaned as if in frustration, and kept trying.
Ed, meanwhile, grabbed hold of the zombie's jaw to keep his head still. Then she forced the opening of the vial into his mouth and turned it upside down.
The zombie immediately bit down on the vial, shattering it, but that didn't stop most of the potion from going down his gullet, and he didn't seem to have the wherewithal to not swallow it. In just seconds, he stopped thrashing in his chains and slumped over. His eyes were still open, and he still moaned softly, but he was definitely weakened.
"The apple now. Just… feed it to him, I guess."
Ed shrugged and placed the golden apple near the zombie's mouth. He looked up feebly at it, eyes latching onto the modified fruit, and he leaned forward. Ed very carefully held the apple as the zombie took massive bites from it, not even taking time to chew before swallowing it.
Once the golden apple was nearly all gone, including half of the core, the zombie suddenly stopped trying to eat it and started shaking. Ed stepped back, wary, as his body went rigid and he started to convulse. His groans filled the small room, sounding pained.
"Is this supposed to happen?" Ed asked, concerned.
"I think so. Keep an eye on him."
We stood back and watched as the zombie continued to thrash within his restraints. I was starting to get worried as the seconds ticked by, but I soon noticed a change. His skin was fading, the green hue draining away as the color shifted.
After several minutes his skin had completely transformed from a sickly green to a healthy brown. He slumped over in his chains, eyes closing, and I felt my phone vibrate. A quick check of it confirmed that the mission had been marked as complete.
"It was a success," I declared so that the others could hear. Ed grinned and I heard a few cheers from outside the room. I quickly accepted the mission reward, a new ritual for my Tantric Arts, and turned my attention back to the former-zombie. As far as I could tell, he looked completely healthy.
"Asuna," I called out over my shoulder. She made her way through the crowd and entered the cramped room. "Fly him north and drop him off near the village."
She raised an eyebrow. "You're not going to enslave him or just leave him to die?"
"Why would I want to enslave a big muscular dude like this?" I replied. "And no, I'll give him a chance. After all, it's thanks to him that I got a new toy to play with, so I'm feeling a little generous."
"You don't want to wait for him to wake up and explain what happened?" Ed asked, even as she started undoing the chains.
"I'm not feeling that generous. Who knows how long that'll take? We've got a lot left to do."
Asuna rolled her eyes. "Of course." She sighed and picked up the man, who was now free of his chains. "I'll be back soon."
She carried him out, princess style, and past the others before taking off into the sky.
"So he was really cured then?" Saeko asked as Ed and I exited the now useless prison cell.
"Yep, he's good as new. Or at least good enough for it to count as being cured for the mission." I shrugged. "He seemed healthy enough though, and from what I know, there shouldn't be any worries about him turning back though, except through a repeat of the original process."
Saeko looked up in the sky toward Asuna's shrinking form. "I see… would that have worked in my world?"
"Probably not. Not all zombies are made the same, and they can't be treated the same way."
"I see…" She continued to gaze into the sky, even though Asuna was no longer visible.
I left her to her thoughts and turned to Ed. "Now, while we wait for the others to get back, let's figure out the Ender Eyes."
Figuring out the Ender Eyes turned out to be rather easy. Obviously there was no automatic crafting system to cheat our way into making what we needed, but the blaze rods were easy to crush into dust, especially once Ed broke out the mortar and pestle, and then it was just a matter of placing an Ender Pearl near it. The pearl greedily sucked up the blaze powder without any prompting until an eye grew inside of it, unblinking.
"Fascinating," Ed breathed as she looked at it. "No matter how much of it I see, I can't help but to wonder at this sort of magic."
"This is supposed to lead us to the Stronghold somehow…" I mused as I picked it up out of the pile of remaining blaze powder. It was warm between my fingers, pulsing with heat.
"We should probably wait until the others get back before we try to figure that out," Ed warned.
I nodded. "Good idea." A quick check with the Master-Servant Contract indicated that they weren't too far out. "Let's make the other pearl into an Ender Eye and start packing up everything we need."
There wasn't too much to do, but we had dragged out a few things during our stay here, such as some furniture to sit at and tables to work on, so the others worked on bringing those back through the portal as I fed some more blaze powder to the other Ender Pearl I had gotten from the Enderman that had shown up.
We'd almost certainly need more pearls, if the Stronghold here was anything like the one in the game, but hopefully two would be enough for us to find it.
Then it was just a matter of waiting a few more minutes as the sun slowly descended toward the horizon for Lili's group to arrive.
They did so on Sylphid's back of course, the blue dragon landing in the middle of our erected walls, now clear of everything but the portal back to the Stoneblock.
"Mission accomplished, Morgan-sama! It was a cinch!" Lili called out as she jumped down from Sylphid's back.
"Good job. I knew I was right to pick you for the job." I patted her on the head as she got closer. She grinned and leaned into my touch.
"By the way, we found something interesting," Lili said after a moment. She reached under her cloak and pulled out a golden object. An object that I immediately recognized as a Totem of Undying.
I felt my lips curl up into a smile. "Oh? Interesting indeed. This is a good find, a very good find." I looked at her and Tabitha. "Was it just the one?"
Tabitha nodded, and Lili answered. "We checked all of the others and looked around, but that was the only thing that seemed valuable. Why? Is it good? Should there have been more?"
"Yes, it's good, and no, I wasn't even counting on finding one. This is a boon for sure. As for what it is… I'll keep it a secret for now." I winked playfully at her before stashing it in my Inventory.
A Totem of Undying was a very useful item that prevented you from dying once, and healing you when it did so. But you had to be holding it for it to work. That could be useful for the Ender Dragon fight, but I wasn't concerned about that. No, I had other plans for it.
"Good job, all three of you," I praised them again. "Later, I'll grant a request from each of you, so think about what you want."
"Really? Yay!" Sylphid, still in dragon form, cheered. Lili also looked excited, but she tried to hide it. Tabitha, of course, didn't react.
A glance at the sun, which was sinking even lower, reminded me that we were on a time limit. "For now though, we still have work to do. We need to locate the Stronghold."
We all gathered around just to the side of the portal as I pulled one of the Ender Eyes from my pocket. "Now, there's a chance that when I throw this up in the air, it will start flying in a certain direction. We need to follow it, alright? Prioritize following it over staying with the others. If someone falls behind, I'll find them later. Everyone ready?"
I got a few nods, which was enough for me, so I tossed the Ender Eye into the air. It rose up, seemed to hang for just a moment at the apex… and then it fell back down to the ground, thumping into the dirt without doing anything.
"Uhh. Or not, I guess," I said.
"It didn't work?" Ed commented, brow furrowing.
"No, I think it did," Asuna said. "Throw it again."
Normally I wouldn't let such a bossy order slide without at least a comment, but if Asuna was proactively being helpful, I could overlook something like that. I picked the Ender Eye back up and repeated the throw. Asuna's eyes tracked it, laser focused on the small marble as it soared through the air.
I continued looking at her as it hit the ground. "Notice something?"
"It… curved, slightly," she said. "It didn't fall down like it should. Like it was being pulled."
My eyes widened slightly. "I see. It's being pulled to the Stronghold then, where it belongs." Rather than fly straight toward it like in the game, it instead was being attracted to it like a magnet.
"I'll create a pendulum for it," Ed said, also understanding immediately. She ran back into the Stoneblock and came back out with a few materials. One flash of transmutation later the Ender Eye was in a sort of mesh net suspended by a long thin string. Another pendulum with a small rock hung next to it in a similar net.
She held it so that both dangled toward the ground. They wobbled, swinging from the movement, before settling and growing still. But where the rock one hung straight toward the ground, the net containing the Eye was just slightly off, hovering a few millimeters from the rock on its southwest side.
I grinned. "We have our heading. Let's go."
We traveled quickly. The ones who couldn't run or fly were loaded up on either Sylphid's back or my conjured Floater Field, a solid magical pane that levitated where I wanted it too. Its top speed wasn't very fast, but it was faster than they could move on foot over varied terrain for extended periods of time.
Not unlike how it went in the game, we traveled in bursts, stopping to get a new heading every few minutes and then speeding along in that direction for a good bit before stopping to check again.
The sun sank as we traveled, heading for the horizon. Even after the sun set we would have several hours until the portal closed, but there was no telling how far the Stronghold was, how big it was, and how long it would take to fight the Ender Dragon.
Thankfully, our speed proved up to the task. We flew over several biomes, all pieced together chaotically like it had been truly randomly generated. But, when we stopped to check our heading in the third desert region we had discovered, the pendulum hung straight down.
"This is it," I declared. "Ed? Can you make us a tunnel down?"
She frowned and ran her hand through sand. "Probably. It won't be fast though. How far down do I need to go?"
"Probably pretty far. Until you reach stone brick."
Ed nodded. "I'll have to do it in steps, but I'll figure it out."
"Great. Asuna, help her out. We've got a mission to map the Stronghold, so you'll be taking care of that alone."
She raised an eyebrow at me. "Alone? Didn't you say earlier that it could have up to three people doing it?"
"Sure, it can, but why? We just need to map it while killing everything inside, and you're the only one with the automatic mapping system. Having other people join you wouldn't make it go any faster, and it might even slow you down. Further, you're the only one that hasn't been assigned a job so far, so you can take this one alone while the rest of us work on something else."
"Something else? Like what?"
I held up the other Ender Eye. "We need more of these. Deep in the Stronghold will be a gate of sorts, but an inactive one. We'll need Ender Eyes to activate it and bring us to the place where we can fight the Ender Dragon."
I glanced at the horizon, which the sun was just starting to touch. "And the best time to get them is now, when Endermen spawn." I turned back to her and shrugged. "So Ed makes the tunnel, you clear the Stronghold, and we get the final keys that we need. An efficient use of time, no?"
She sighed. "Fine, fine, whatever. There's not something nasty waiting for me in there, right?"
"Not really. Mostly just the same monsters we fended off this morning." Plus Silverfish, but I wasn't going to warn her about those and deny her the classic Minecraft experience of discovering them for herself.
Ed got to work immediately, turning the loose sand into a compact stone that she used to make a downward tunnel, complete with stairs. Asuna, holding a torch, followed Ed as the sparks of transmutation shone from it every few seconds, Ed crafting the tunnel a few feet at a time.
Meanwhile, I turned to the others. "Like I said, our job is hunting Enderman. If we're lucky, we only need five more Eyes. But to be safe, we need ten more. Fortunately, this is an ideal place to hunt Endermen, as we'll be able to see them spawn."
"Will they actually spawn like that?" Maria asked. "It's not a game, after all."
"For any other monster, I'd say no. But remember the Enderman from this morning? How he teleported? They will likely pop in like that. Of course, we'll have to deal with all of the other night time monsters as well."
Maria nodded in understanding so I went back to giving instructions. "Everyone spread out a bit. Make sure you can all see each other, and see me here at the center. Unfortunately we don't have easy access to water here, which they're weak to, but we'll have to make do. If you see one, just look at it. It'll piss it off and make it attack you."
"And then we converge on it?" Saeko guessed.
"Pretty much. Don't bother with ranged attacks, it will avoid most of them, just rush in and beat them up. I'll provide a bit of support, but I'm saving my strength for the next step, so it'll mostly be on you girls."
"Yes!" Lili replied enthusiastically. "We won't let you down!"
"I'm sure you won't. Now, quick, spread out. The sun is setting, and this is when they're the most active."
Wearing expressions of various degrees of confidence, they spread out across the desert, all staying within my line of sight. Which was easy, because this desert was pretty flat, rather than being more hilly like some of the others we passed.
The first Enderman appeared before everyone was in position, teleporting in not far from Lili. She jumped in surprise, but acted quickly. She stared at it, which immediately triggered it to look at her and let out a mournful otherworldly wail that drew everyone's attention. It rushed at her, long uncanny limbs swinging as it ran, and she met it with a knife in hand.
Lili's knife flashed out and cut into its skin. She earned a wack for her efforts though, and was thrown back. But she landed on her feet and threw herself at the Enderman again, this time burying her knife in its thin leg and avoiding its attack.
It screeched again and teleported away, but not far. It appeared right behind Kirche, who heard its alien moan and turned with her wand extended. A burst of flame shot out and washed over it briefly before it teleported away again, this time not especially close to anyone.
But everyone was looking at it now, and it was enraged. It rushed at the closest person, Saeko, jaw unhinged as it screamed.
Saeko faced it calmly though, and once it was close enough, she lashed out with her sword. Derflinger cut through its torso, causing the Enderman to screech in a way that scratched at my ears, before it fell silent, dead.
I approached. "Good job girls. That's one down, four to go." As I bent over to extract the eyes from the Enderman's corpse, there was a sort of popping noise, and another Enderman appeared in the near distance. A second later, a third one popped in on the opposite side of our group.
"We're not done yet!" I shouted, and the others all resumed their fighting positions as they converged on their new prey.
Grinning with amusement and satisfaction, I extracted the two pearls and put them in my inventory for later. Then I stood up and looked around to see how the others were doing, watching them calmly. I would intervene if it looked like one of them was in danger of dying, but anything short of that could be healed up easily enough, and the effort would be good training for them.
Besides, it wasn't a lie to say that I was saving my strength. I had no idea how strong the Ender Dragon would be, after all.
But I was excited to find out.
Ed placed her hands against the dirt wall and sparks of electricity arced over it. In response, the dirt compacted into a fragile kind of stone and was pushed to the sides, reinforcing the walls even as it was cleared out of the way.
And beyond it wasn't more dirt, but stone bricks, clearly man made, if rather worn.
"This is it," Ed said to Asuna standing behind her. "What does the pendulum say?"
Asuna checked. "It's pointing right toward it."
Ed nodded and clapped her hands together once more before transmuting a doorway into the stone wall in front of them. The inside of the stronghold was dark, but it wasn't silent. Faint skittering sounds echoed from the entrance.
"Can you fight while holding the torch?" Ed asked, unsure.
"I could, but that won't be necessary." She was already in her ALO avatar, so she started canting magic. A few short words later, a ball of light appeared that hovered over her head, illuminating the surrounding area more than the torch ever had.
Ed flinched at the sudden brightness and then frowned at Asuna. "Why didn't you do that earlier?" she asked.
"The torch was enough. I didn't see a point in wasting the magic." She handed Ed the pendulum and torch. "I suppose I better get started. Are you going to head back up?"
"No, I'll stay here, just in case."
Just in case of what exactly, she didn't say, but Asuna could think of a few different scenarios and just nodded in appreciation. They were unlikely, but it always paid to be safe.
"In that case, I'll be back soon."
"Have fun exploring the dungeon, Princess!" Ed chirped in an overly-cheerful tone, and Asuna mentally sighed before she entered the Stronghold.
Her conjured light was enough to illuminate the entire room that Ed had created a door into, which was important, because she only mapped what she could see. She navigated her system menu, opening the map and checking it. Sure enough, the room she was in was displayed, with two exits besides the one that Ed had made.
She moved it to the side of her vision, where she could easily glance at it but it wouldn't be in the way. Then, after drawing her rapier, she jogged for the doorway on the left.
She was greeted by a host of spiders, but her rapier made quick work of them before they could do more than register that she was there. She picked up the pace, keeping an eye on the map and her surroundings as she fell into a flow of action, dashing through rooms and cutting down monsters, her sword glowing blue, not with a Sword Skill, but with Aero Mana, the skill she got from her Falna.
Seventy-five floors of the original SAO, and over twenty of the new version of Aincrad that they had introduced to ALO. While she hadn't been the forefront explorer of every floor, she had been a frontliner since the first boss, and she had hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of experience mapping out a location.
Doing so again here, now, was familiar. It was comfortable. It was something she knew, something she was good at, and if she was being honest, it was something that she had grown to enjoy. Not all of her memories mapping the path to the next Floor Boss were happy ones, but they were all important to her.
Kirito had taught her that. That even if it wasn't the world she expected to be in, if it wasn't something she had chosen or wanted, that what she did and what she made of it still mattered. There was wonder and joy and meaning to everything she did, no matter what.
Was it a betrayal to be enjoying herself now? She was conflicted. Being kidnapped by Morgan wasn't really so different than being held hostage by Kayaba in his death game. So if learning to value her time in SAO wasn't a betrayal, then surely enjoying herself now was fine?
Though, that ignored the one critical difference in those two situations. When she was trapped in SAO, she was still fighting for an escape. She was climbing the floors to defeat Kayaba and save everyone, herself included. She valued her time there, but she hadn't let herself stay there.
But with Morgan… Asuna had given up.
Asuna came to a stop in a larger room. It had multiple floors, with stairs leading to landings that were interwoven with each other in a chaotic manner. There were also over eight doors leading from the room, making it a major hub.
Asuna dispatched the skeletons and zombies in the room and then took a closer look at her map. She compared the layout of what she had explored so far to the locations and directions of the doors, mind processing the information.
She was going for a full clear, and not just finding the boss, so that meant she wanted to backtrack as little as possible. It was a man made structure, or at least made by something intelligent, which the path she had taken so far corroborated. The shape of the Stronghold wasn't random.
Add together the fact that she had entered at a random point along the outside edge, and the general direction that the Ender pendulum had been pointing, she had a pretty rough idea of where the portal room that Morgan had described would be.
So, she picked the opposite direction of that, the one that should lead her to a wall, and went that way. A few rooms later she felt a surge of satisfaction as she was proven correct and she found a dead end, completing the map for a section of the Stronghold.
But that satisfaction quickly turned to guilt as she turned around and returned to the branching room. Enjoying herself like this was a betrayal, because she had given up.
She had read the information that Morgan had given her about the Company's Bindings and what they could do. She had felt and seen their effects for herself. She had also felt the effects of the second layer of control that he had foisted upon her, the Master-Servant Contract.
Not even she could keep up her optimism in the face of all that. After weeks, she had no hope of ever being freed from Morgan's control. And every day, she thought about Kirito less and less, and each thought was just a little less fond. It was only recently that she was able to bring herself to even acknowledge it in the privacy of her own mind, but her feelings for Kirito were withering away.
It started when she had realized how invincible Morgan was. Kirito, in the game at least, could maybe defeat Morgan. But it wouldn't mean anything, and Morgan was getting stronger by the day. So she earnestly hoped that Kirito would stay away, that he would give up on her and never come searching for her, and find happiness. Because if he came, he was doomed.
And now… she was slowly starting to see Morgan in a better light. She didn't want to, but she couldn't help it. He was a pervert, a sadist, a rapist, and an all around scumbag.
But… he wasn't all bad. He had saved Miku and Saeko from an apocalyptic world. He had saved the random villager from his undead affliction. Many of the things he did actively helped people. Granted, he did them for purely selfish reasons, but that didn't feel like it mattered much whenever she spotted Miku, the girl that shared her last name that she had saved, humming in the kitchen with a smile on her face.
Morgan was a bad person. But… being on his side wasn't so bad. So long as you didn't cling to your morals, you would find happiness there, and have your every desire fulfilled.
That kind of thinking was dangerous. On an objective level, she knew that. That path was a slippery slope.
But she also had the feeling that she had already started sliding down it.
Those sorts of thoughts bounced around inside her brain as she auto-piloted her way through the Stronghold. It was nostalgic, but it was also far too low level to keep much of her attention. Her internal fight against Morgan's temptations were of a much greater threat than the monsters that she tore through.
She was drawn out of her thoughts as she entered a room that was rather different from the rest. It wasn't terribly large, but where the other rooms had rotten furniture, moldy books, and heaps of monsters, this room was empty save for a few basins of water in the corners and some kind of altar in the center.
The altar was made up of two rings a few meters in diameter, connected by a set of stairs that gave access to the top ring. The bottom ring was made of stone, and seemed to mainly be there to contain the red hot lava that bubbled within it. Strangely, she didn't feel any heat from it, which made her doubt if it was actually lava.
Meanwhile, the top ring was slightly above her head, so she couldn't see what the top of it looked like, but the material it was made out of was strange. Not gray stone, like the rest of the Stronghold, but some kind of yellowish rock.
But the strangest thing of all was how perfectly circular it was. She had gotten pretty used to the weird square nature of this world, barely noticing it, so the top ring was almost jarring in its lack of corners.
She checked her map. The Stronghold was mostly mapped out by this point, enough that she could confidently say that this was the center of it. This was almost certainly the portal room that Morgan was looking for.
A quiet chittering sound, one unfamiliar to her up until this point, echoed in the room. She whirled around to face the entrance of the room, rapier raised. But there was nothing there. She looked over her shoulder, head twisting and looking up to see if she had been too distracted to notice any monsters waiting in the room such as spiders, but she saw nothing.
Then she felt a vague flash of pain on her ankle.
She leapt up, sword flashing as she turned, but it failed to cut through anything, simply because it didn't reach. Her assailant was a small bug-like creature, approximately the same size as a household cat. Its body was slug like and covered in branching barbs that looked deadly sharp.
It wiggled as it crawled towards her. She didn't give it a chance. Her rapier plunged down and impaled the strange bug, the tip of her sword penetrating the stone below it. It chittered again, wiggling in its death throes before slumping over, unmoving.
Asuna sighed and pulled back her sword. "Morgan, you jerk," she grumbled to herself. She had no doubt he hadn't simply 'forgotten' about these enemies, or hadn't known about them. She just hoped he was too busy to be watching her with that spell of his.
But she didn't have time to be annoyed at him for long, because she heard the chittering sound once again. Her eyes darted around the floor of the room and witnessed as another of the bugs emerged from the floor, its body squeezing its way out of the cracks and gaps.
And then more appeared, in ones and twos, from the floor and walls around her.
"Absolutely not," Asuna declared. She let her sword tip fall toward the ground as she raised her other hand and started chanting. A moment later, right as the first of the silvery bugs were almost upon her, blades of cutting air erupted from her and filled the room.
Offensive magic was by no means her forte, as all of her magic was speced into healing, but she still had a few damage dealing spells to her name. And it was enough for such weak enemies, as all of the bugs were sliced into pieces, slain.
A few more stragglers appeared, but they were cut down, and soon the room fell silent again.
Asuna sighed, still annoyed as she took a quick moment to gather her thoughts and let her MP recover to full.
As she was daydreaming about the revenge she would get on Morgan, which was kept to relatively minor things to avoid triggering the Contract's punishment system, she heard yet another unfamiliar noise from behind her, a faint hissing noise.
Once again she twirled, sword lashing out. She had just a moment to register what it was that had snuck up on her again. It was one of the green creatures that Morgan had dubbed a 'creeper'. They certainly looked strange, with four stubby legs and a tall body with strange patterns, but they died as easily as the rest of the monsters without ever doing anything.
But this one was glowing, a fiery white light building inside of it, and before Asuna's rapier could cut into it, it exploded.
Asuna staggered, flinching and squeezing her eyes shut as heat, sound, force, and light washed over her. She felt a vague sense of pain all over her body, a sign that she had taken damage.
A moment later she opened her eyes to see nothing remaining of the creeper save for a scorch mark on the ground and a quarter of her health bar missing. "What the hell?!" she exclaimed, frustrated. "They explode!?"
Annoyed that Morgan hadn't seen it fit to share that important bit of information, she quickly chanted a short spell to heal herself back to full and then left the room.
She was going to finish mapping this dungeon, and then go give Morgan a piece of her mind.
Shifty's SubscribeStar: subscribestar com / shifty-s-fiction
Shifty's Discord Server: discord .gg/aWJrmhf4Hy
AN: For those noting a few things missing from the Nether, this trip is based on the last version I played rather than modern Minecraft. I'm aware of the bastions and piglins and whatnot, but I didn't want to write a version that I wasn't familiar with, and it's been a long while since I've played vanilla modern Minecraft. That's also why I didn't include any Deep Dark stuff.
As a random aside, I've finally started reading the Shinmai Maou no Testament light novels, and I definitely got a bunch of the details about how the Master-Slave Contract works wrong, even beyond the couple of deliberate changes I made. Which isn't that big of a deal, I'm perfectly fine hand waving that away with an explanation of it being a variant and/or a unique interaction with WC Binding effects, but to anyone who sees me using them there and is inspired? Do your own research first, because this isn't an accurate showing of what they are like.