Taking another step forward on the springy magenta turf of the mushroom plains, Faith contemplated her current situation. She was stuck on an island with a familiar stranger, surrounded by cows that looked possessed or perhaps faintly diseased, and with a faint but persistent sense that she was forgetting something.
Well, “familiar stranger” might be taking it a bit far. He’d introduced himself, and she’d made friends with him quick as anything. But there was still that lingering aspect of intuition that seemed too finely honed for someone she’d never met before. Not that she had any evidence to the contrary, unfortunately.
She halted both her contemplation and her journey at the edge of the spruce forest that had begun to spring up at the spot her neighbor had claimed. She’d brought along a knee-length leather coat she had painstakingly put together over the last… week? Month? She wasn’t sure, honestly- but she’d finally finished it, sewn in the runes for Unbreaking, and tried her best to dye the thing red, although it had turned out more maroon than anything. She supposed it was what she got for trying to dye it with beets instead of proper red flowers, but it was too late to turn back now. She’d been spotted, and Kitty was waving her over to… A large obsidian frame. Oh, joy.
She handed off the coat as she stared at the portal uneasily. They’d have needed to visit the Nether eventually, of course, but she hadn’t expected the time to come so soon. She was jolted from her thoughts by a metallic paw clamping down on her shoulder accompanied by Kitty’s voice.
“We shouldn’t venture too far out on our first trip, we don’t want to get lost, right?” He asked, flint and steel in his other hand.
“Yeah,” she nodded, “it’s pretty tough to navigate in there, and I’m pretty bad with directions.”
Agreement now reached, Kitty sprayed sparks against the obsidian and the swirling purple fire of the Nether portal sprang to life in an instant before them. Before Faith could get too caught up in poetic descriptions and wondering if “fire” was really the best way to describe it, though, Kitty had grabbed her hand and already stepped through, so, grimacing, she followed.
The wall of dry, oppressive heat that hit her entire body the moment she stepped through the portal was nothing unexpected, and, as always, left her wondering how anyone with fur could stand this place, but the yellow grass and golden trees that graced her eyes were decidedly not.
Honestly, Faith couldn't have said it better herself. Clearly, whatever force had been changing the makeup of the overworld had also been hard at work in the Nether, and now the two of them were standing in the middle of an unfamiliar dimension with unfamiliar conditions.
But, judging by the sound she'd just heard, the not-so-unfamiliar presence of piglins hadn't changed. And one was headed right for them.
"Watch out!" She cried, leaping forward to shove Kitty out of the way of the piglin's golden blade and hissing as it clashed against the tough scales of her back, then said, rather redundantly, "there's a piglin!"
She turned and lunged again as the piglin swung a second time and Kitty drew his sword. She wasn't sure which of them had yelled, "I'll protect you with my life," this time, but she heard it echo through the forest as she rammed her horns into the piglin's head from her grip on its shoulder.
It quickly shook her loose, but she saw Kitty advancing as she tumbled to the ground, and by the time she righted herself it was gone and Kitty was already putting his sword away with a frown.
"You know," Faith panted, "I have gold armor at home. We should probably go get suited up."
"Oh, yeah, that's probably a good idea," Kitty said, and so they both stepped back into the portal.
This was Faith's least favorite part of Nether travel. The coming back. The air of the overworld curled around her as she leaned against the portal frame, dizzy and cold after the hot climate she'd been standing in a moment ago. Deep breaths. The air here actually had moisture in it, despite the lower temperature. She squeezed her eyes shut a moment, waving off a concerned comment from Kitty.
"Just portal sickness, you know how it is. Hah… I'll be fine on a ship, don't worry." Once she was confident in her ability to walk bipedally again, she jogged back to the half-constructed lighthouse.
Her storage was in the basement, and she’d used the third-floor door, so she took a moment to privately bemoan the poor lighting inside as she descended the stairs. The helmet she’d remembered was right where she’d left it, but that was all for gold. Frowning, she checked her stock of raw materials.
Thankfully, she found that she had just enough gold to make a pair of boots. She let the crafting table take care of that- no need to make them look pretty- before setting back out for the forest.
It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the waterfall was babbling along into the cave as it always did, and it was a real shame she would be spending it in a perilous underground dimension of heat and hellfire.
Ah, well, it wasn't like there wouldn't be a hundred more identical to it in the coming months. The mooshrooms would get to sun themselves in peace today, that was all. They deserved the relaxation after the terror of being hunted by two very hungry players for weeks on end.
On the note of potentially-invasive wildlife, Faith could see the evergreen forest up ahead! She secured her helmet to her head and ducked under the prickly branches of spruce until she found herself back in the clearing Kitty used as a home base.
He was elbows-deep in a chest, with gold ingots both refined and not scattered about on the mycelium around him. Mostly unrefined, to be honest. Little chips of it as well, looking like they had been sheared off of other ingots long ago and forgotten.
"What in the world are you doing?" She asked, and Kitty sat up so quickly he hit his head square against the lid of the chest he had been rummaging through.
"Looking for gold to make armor!" He said, sweeping a paw back to gesture to the bits of metal dotting the ground behind him.
Wordlessly, she raised the boots she was carrying into his field of view. They weren't the nicest she'd ever crafted, but they were still gold, so they should keep stray piglins at bay.
"Actually," she mused as Kitty sighed and took them, "Why doesn't your hand keep them from attacking you? It's gold, right?"
"Yeah, I dunno, I guess it doesn't count to them since it's, like, one of my body parts?" Kitty replied, shimmying his paws into the boots and giving an experimental stomp.
"What about your earrings and lip piercings? Too hard to spot at a distance?"
"Probably something like that. Maybe too small, like I said, I dunno. The inner mechanisms of their minds are an enigma!"
She nodded thoughtfully at that. Probably they'd never know for sure, but-
"Wait, what about your tail cuffs?" She asked incredulously, "They're kind of hard to miss, aren't they?"
All she got in response was a helpless shrug. Well, that was fair. An eternal mystery, right here. Right up there with why silverfish live in strongholds and what was causing the world to mutate!
When Faith had finished contemplating and Kitty had gotten all dressed up with gilded boots and leather coat halfway buttoned, the two stepped back through the portal with gritted teeth.
The heat wasn't any better the second time. She wouldn't have minded nearly so much if it had been the humidity of a jungle, or the warmth of sprawling out on sun-warmed rocks, but the hot, still air and the mixed scents of char and pollen created an absolutely rancid atmosphere. She was tempted to gag, honestly, but she didn't want to open her mouth any more than necessary. Last time she'd been too distracted by the unfamiliar sight to notice the smell, and wow, did she wish she could go back to that.
Kitty was making a face that expressed a similar sentiment before he went rigid and silently pointed at something through the foliage. She tried to see what he was pointing at, but the trees were blocking her view. Just as she shot him a questioning glance, she heard the warbling cry of a ghast ring out through the forest.
"Run, run, run, run," she hissed, "get away from the portal!"
She didn't need to say it twice. Kitty grabbed her hand and the two of them went sprinting away from the portal without looking back. They ran towards the fortress Kitty spotted before, tripping through soft soul sand and then skidding across the denser soul soil before they finally made it to one of the walkways and were able to ascend the crumbling bricks and sit, panting, in relative safety.
Not for long, however. Faith had just caught her breath when she glanced up and caught sight of a hovering pillar of fire.
"BLAZE!" She yelped, leaping backward, "behind you! Look out!"
"What? Where?" Kitty asked, turning back to look over his shoulder for it. Faith backed up another step.
"Come on, it's off the walkway, we can't fight it like this," she hissed, tugging at his coat.
"Oh, yeah, I see it now," he muttered back. Before Faith could propose venturing deeper into the fortress, though, Kitty spotted a vein of quartz they had to pause to mine.
The blaze shot several fireballs at them while Kitty was mining, a few of which Faith almost managed to deflect! Luckily it had pretty terrible aim, so neither of them got hit and they were able to get back to the task at hand quickly enough.
"Ready?" Came the question, as the two of them stood on the threshold of the roofed-off part of the fortress.
"As I'll ever be," came the reply, and they forged onwards with paw held in paw.
