Rise of the Wither, Book 1: New Danger

by Mark Mulle

compass, and three buckets of water. He may not know much about the Nether, but he knew that there would be lots and lots of fire and he intended to be prepared for it.

  He met Alex at the spot Luinda had selected for the construction of the portal. To his amazement, Alex was still decked out in her favorite leather armor, this time colored a deep, fiery red.

  “Alex, you know how dangerous this place is going to be?”

  “Not really, and neither do you,” she answered.

  “Will you please at least put on some iron armor?”

  “You know how much I hate the feel of metal,” she said.

  “I bet you hate the feel of fire even more.”

  “Relax; I’ll be fine,” she said. “I survived the Obsidian Cube in this stuff; I’m sure I’ll survive the Nether. Besides, metal slows me down; I prefer to be quick and quiet.”

  Steve shook his head, but gave up. Alex was stubborn on points like this. She had only just barely consented to accept the diamond sword he had given her, let alone armor. She had her bow out and looked resolute.

  “All ready?” said Luinda, walking up to them and smiling. “All prepared? Lovely! Now, let me explain what we need. Steve, would you mind constructing a portal for me? I’m afraid I can’t really do that. We will need a rectangle of four across and five up, all obsidian.”

  This required Steve to run back to the palace and pick up a stack of obsidian blocks.

  “Oh, and be sure to bring flint and steel with you as well!” she called after him.

  Steve returned with the necessary materials and constructed the portal according to Luinda’s specifications.

  “Lovely,” she said. “Now all you need to do is set fire to the entrance and the portal will form. But don’t do that just yet; I need to explain what you are to expect.

  “The Nether, as you probably know, is a terrible, terrible place. A realm of endless torture and madness. There will be fire and lava everywhere, and Mobs far more terrible than any you have yet encountered. It will be very easy for you to lose your way, so must take care to lay a trail behind you wherever you go. If you are once lost in the Nether, it is a thousand to one against your ever finding your way back.

  “Now for what you’re looking for. The first item I will need is called Soul Sand: sand composed of damned souls. Their frozen faces are seen on all sides, and their ghostly hands will grab at you feebly as you pass over them. It should not be difficult to find; gather a good supply of it.

  “The second will be more difficult: the skull of a Wither Skeleton. Through great peril and terror, I have acquired two skulls already. I require a third. These creatures haunt the fortresses you will find in the Nether: black as night and armed with poison blades. You must slay me one and bring back its skull.

  “Inside the Nether you will encounter things you have never imagined: horrors out of your darkest nightmares. You will only survive if you discover within yourselves reserves of courage the likes of which you have never before known.

  “Now, this is vital: you should each bring a supply of obsidian and flint and steel just in case, but unless you have no other choice you must return through the same portal you entered by. The worlds, you see, do not match. If you lose this portal and leave by another, there is no telling where in our world you will end up.”

  They nodded to show they understood.

  “Then, if you are prepared, light the portal and step through.”

  Alex stepped forward and flicked the flint and steel in the midst of the obsidian frame.

  For a moment, fire danced on the block she had lit, then, suddenly, it vanished and the whole frame was filled with an eerie purple substance. It looked rather like water stood on its end in that it constantly rippled like a pond in a rainstorm, yet it was more opaque than water and seemed somehow thicker, more sluggish. It reminded Steve of the purple sparks that appeared whenever an Enderman teleported, and indeed there were little purple sparks appearing in the air before the portal and being drawn in. A faint breeze seemed to come from behind them, gently pulling them toward the purple sheen.

  Steve cricked his neck, did one final check of his equipment, and turned to Alex.

  “You ready for this?”

  “Guess we’ll find out,” she said.

  Their hands met and clasped, they each took a deep breath, and stepped forward into the Nether.

  The portal felt very warm about them, like the air coming off of a fire. For a moment they saw merely the other side of the portal; the fields running down and the mountains in the distance. Then the image began to blur and whirl and stretch alarmingly, and they were conscious of a rising noise in their ears like rushing water. They felt suddenly and violently compressed, and then…

  Then the image before their eyes began to come into focus again. But it was a very different landscape.

  Heat as if from the inside of a furnace struck their faces. A red haze hung in the air like a mist. They stepped forward out of the portal, gasping for breath and finding that the air here was so dry and putrid that they were parched almost instantly. Looking around to get their bearings, they saw that they stood on the crest of a steep hill made of a red substance that felt rather like flint. Patches of it were on fire about them. Not far to the right, lava spilled down from somewhere above, flowed down the slope, and joined an enormous lake of molten that stretched as far as they could see. It looked far bigger than the one that had surrounded the Obsidian Cube.

  Eerie sounds filled the air; besides the crackling of fire and the bubbling of lava, there were strange, low grunts or moans, mingled with what sounded like high-pitched purring.

  Steve and Alex had not let go of each other. They turned in a slow circle, weapons drawn, taking in their first view of the Nether. Far overhead they could see a roof; there was no sky in this realm of darkness.

  Alex broke the silence.

  “Should we get started?” she whispered.

  “Faster we do, faster we’re gone,” Steve replied.

  “That’s why I thought. Where should we go?”

  He looked around. Everything looked equally horrifying to him.

  “Out of curiosity, what does the compass say?”

  Alex looked at it. It spun wildly beneath her gaze.

  “If I’m reading it right, it says we’re nowhere,” she answered, shivering.

  Steve tried to swallow, but his throat was two dry.

  “I guess let’s go down the hill first,” he said.

  They let go of each other’s hands to more easily navigate the uneven terrain, and so that Alex would have both hands free to shoot if needed. Steve dropped torches behind him as they went to leave a trail. The light didn’t seem to pierce as far in this fiery gloom.

  Soon they reached the base of the hill and stood on the shores of the vast lava lake. They turned left and began making their way along the shore, but soon left it in favor of a passage that seemed to lead deeper into the depths of the rocky landscape.

  The Nether, they soon learned, was very dark despite the fires that burned everywhere. The red mist that hung in the air seemed to swoop down and stifle any light before it could pierce very far. This gave them an unpleasantly claustrophobic feeling as they went. Steve had taught himself to get used to tight, underground places, but even he felt the oppression of this gloom, and poor Alex, who loved the sunshine and outdoors, felt like she was being crushed. Her hands shook so that she doubted she’d be able to hit anything, and she walked slower and slower, soon lagging behind.

  Steve realized what was happening and stopped to let her catch up.

  “Do you want to rest a while?” he asked, though they hadn’t actually been there very long.

  “No,” she answered. “I just want to find the stuff and get out of here as soon as we can.”

  He nodded, but still looked at her with concern.

  “I’ll be alright,” she assured him, though she looked about her with disgust and shuddered. “I just never t
hought I’d find a place I hated more than Draugr’s castle.”

  She started walking again, but this time Steve made a point to stay next to her as they went.

  The passage they had entered wound deeper and deeper into the rock. All about them was the red, flinty stone, though interspersed with it were occasional patches of a strange, pale substance. Steve, unable to restrain his curiosity, mined it out and found a pile of white, flaky pieces. He’d have to experiment with them later, he thought.

  Thus far they had not encountered any Mobs, which Steve thought strange and unsettling. Surely they should have run into something by now. It felt as if the Nether were trying to lure them into a false sense of security, waiting to spring its horrors on them the instant they let their guards down.

  The passage ended in a wide, open cavern. Two pillars of lava spilled from the ceiling, which was too high for them to make out. The lava pool and spilled out across the ground in a haphazard kind of mess that didn’t collect into any kind of a lake or pond but just rolled about like a spill.

  “Steve.”

  Alex pointed at the wall a little ways to their right. There was a new substance; dark and shadowy. They moved closer to get a better view. It appeared to be a huge pile of dark brown sand, piled high along the cavern wall, almost as if someone had shoved it aside to make room for the lava spills. Yet, there seemed to be something strange about its appearance, and Steve and Alex moved closer to try to examine it. The gloom required them to get right in among it and plant a torch to