Worlds Apart (Techza)

#3~A Blistering Expedition~

^ {picture} ^
What they see at the edge of the cliff! Just to make it easier on your imaginations. ;)
(PS: this picture was taken by me. That Nether is where most of the layout is based off of.)

A sloppy, diagonal bridge now connects the ledge to our side of the chasm. We all shuffle carefully across and crowd together as I build the next one. I crouch close to the edge and place a block of cobblestone right in front the block I stand on, and I continue this action until another bridge has been created.

"Careful, I'm not done." I hold out an arm to hault the slow-moving trio. The next platform is a few blocks lower than the first. I crouch and slide off to the ground, landing, and turn to place blocks down in a stair-like fashion.

"I could've easily jumped that y'know," Tommy comments, annoyed.

"Yeah, I don't doubt that, but we shouldn't be too careless," I reply and glance below. "Afterall, that drop will easily be the death of us."

"And we'd respawn. I don't see what the big deal is!"

"Tommy, you shouldn't take death so lightly!" Wilbur argues back.

"Y-yeah. Besides, it will still hurt, and we would loose all our stuff down there.." Tubbo trembles slightly at the thought, clasping his hands together tightly and gulping.

I sigh and make room for them on the platform with me. Wilbur then builds the next bridge back towards west to a larger space, which is much farther than the other two bridges combined. He copies the action of crouching and placing for the first few blocks. When he's almost there, he trips on a crack in the cobblestone.

"Wil!" I shout fearfully. The brunette stumbles onto his knees, but holds tightly to both sides of the block as to not tilt and fall over.

"I'm okay!" Wilbur calls back to me and slowly gets back up to continue the bridge. I breath out in relief.

Finally, we're all safely on the caved-in part of the west wall, and I can now clearly see the narrow pathway leading to the forest side of the Nether canyon.

"Looks like easy passage from here," Tubbo informs happily, completely missing the parts in the pathway that dip down or are missing.

"Not necessarily," Wilbur grumbles.

In a single line the four of us hike cautiously along the thin ledge. I hold up the rear, while the impatient, british child takes the lead. I only hope nothing goes wrong...

F*ck! I jinxed it, didn't I!?

Despite my jinxing, we miraculously make it to the end with no casualties.
Unfortunately, our luck may end here. If what's said in the journal is true, then dangerous creatures await us in these woods. For everyone's sake, we better not run into any of these piglins.

"Wha! So cool!" Tommy and Tubbo run around the shaded area excitedly, sniffing and poking everything interesting. Strange plants and trees grow up from grassy netherrack, and all in hues of red, from dark to light and light to dark.

"Look at this weird mushroom, Philza! I'm gonna eat it!" Tommy yells out eagerly and swiftly stuffs the fungus into his mouth.

"No! Don't!" Wilbur rushes over and picks up Tommy by the back of his shirt and vigorously thumps the back of the idiot child's neck, causing Tommy to now choke on the mushroom.

"AAHHH NO, TOMMY!" Tubbo slaps Tommy's face back and forth in a poor attempt to stop the choking, as Tommy flails about, beginning to turn purple by the second.

During the noisy display, I get the strange feeling of being watched. I gaze around the new area only to see nothing and shrug it off as the stress of being in unfamilar territory.

Wilbur finally comes to his senses and puts his arms around Tommy, bending the boy forwards. Then, he makes a fist with one hand and covers the fist with the other, beginning several sharp inward and upward motions on the blonde's stomach. Wil keeps this up until Tommy coughs up the chewed mushroom bits. Right onto Tubbo.

"GAH! EWEWEEWEW," bee boy shrieks in disgust, dancing about like a fool.

I am so tired of this.

I blink boredly and pull out a bucket of milk from my inventory, chugging it in an attempt to numb my emotions, since there is nothing else I can drink besides plain water.

"Aight, lets go!" Tommy begins a brisk walk further down the very large balcony, as if he wasn't dying a minute ago. Tubbo and Wilbur chase after him. I shake my head with a chuckle and follow close behind.

As we travel through the brush, a soft snort is heard ahead.

"..That was you, right Tommy?.." Wilbur whispers lowly, stopping in his tracks.

"Ew, no! That sounded disgusting!" He shouts back, and we all cringe. Unlucky for us, whatever it is has locked onto our location and is now heading over very quickly.

"Hide!" I yell uselessly, because it's too late.

A hoglin burts through the vines and rams straight into Wilbur, who goes flying into the air and lands on a crimson tree with a painful thud. I pull out my shield as it directs it's attention to me. When it comes in for an attack, I hold up the shield protectively, but instead get hit and fly up several feet as well, taking quite a bit of damage.

"Sh*t! Shields are useless against these creatures!" I shout in panic.

"AAAAHHHH!" Tubbo runs forward with a diamond axe drawn, swinging as fast as humanly possible. The hoglin takes several hits, but doesn't back down and sends Tubbo flying backwards. Wilbur then ambushes it from above and gives one big blow that deals extra damage to the wild beast.

That must be all the hoglin can take, because it suddenly keels over red and bursts into a white cloud.

"Mmmmm, meat." Tubbo steals the hoglin's drops before anyone else can claim it and greadily stuffs it into his inventory.

"Now that that's out of the way..." I start, "Should we find or make a path to that fortress?"

"Nah, not yet. That'll be like the boss fight! Lets explore some more." Tommy offers - more like demands - instead.

"Whew! That was exciting," the brunette remarks, taking off his chest coverings and wringing out the sweat from his shirt.

"Why's it so f*cking hot," he complains, putting back on his shirt and chestplate. "This armour doesn't make it any better either."

"Lava," I state simply. He makes a whining noise and I giggle up a storm.

A sudden rustling of leaves behind me has me spinning around with my heartbeat picking up. There's nothing there except crimson folliage, fungi plants and netherrack. I wipe sweat from my forehead with a slow sigh and rest a hand on my wildly thumping chest.

"Ya coming, mate?" Wilbur calls to me from ahead. I look in his direction and nod, taking another glance at the scenery behind me. Once my curiosity is satisfied, I turn back towards the others and continue forwards.

I believe I saw something, but it could easily be my mind playing tricks on me. I mean, come on! The heat, the hoglin attack, the hypnotizing amount of red all around us. It's easily a possibility.

I clench and unclench my hand anxiously. But, I can't stop thinking about it.

Pink.

There's no way I saw pink.

Is there even a sliver of pink in these crimson forests? Probably.

...

I'm just going crazy.