I took Bobby with me a little further while the piglins decided to give us some space.
Bobby looked at meet confused but also curious about what we talked about while he was away.
I took a deep breath and tried to remember everything that happened while we were apart so I can accurately tell him.
I was with Undying Flame beside a small lava lake where I found out that striders can be milked and their milk has the ability to give fire resistance for an hour.
She then proceeded to explain to me how their tribe lost a red forest.
It was a normal day of hunting and taking care of the striders, but everything changed when the outsiders attacked. With their enchanted armor and shields, they could easily fight against wooden and gold weapons.
But the Nether does not look kindly on weak people, so even with those disadvantages, they managed to kill a few of the invaders before deciding to retreat and leave the forest behind.
Unfortunately, her parents were killed in the battle, and the tribe who just lost their leader wanted revenge with blood. At that time Undying was the voice of reason, she was the one to take the mantle from her parents and became a chief.
There was some opposition at first, but she crushed them with what everyone respected the most.
Strength.
That day, she got the name of Undying Flame, she promised revenge, but not now. They were wounded and hot-headed, they needed to plan and then strike.
I was shocked when I heard the story, but I couldn't see how that was relevant to us.
"I want your help to get back our forest."
She said with a serious voice.
I looked suspiciously at her.
"Pardon me for being honest, but while your story is sad to hear, it's not related to us in any way. Well actually endanger ourselves more by painting ourselves as an enemy to the royalty."
I do like to help the people in need, but while she saved us from the hoglins, I don't feel like I should endanger my and Bobby's life to repay that debt.
And I still think the shaman ripped me off with that deal.
She nodded her head in understanding.
"I understand why you'll be suspicious, and since we recently just meet you won't be inclined to easily help us. But I don't ask you to help us with fighting. I ask you to give us resources so we can fight back by ourselves."
That made me think for a bit. They probably wanted iron armor and weapons, which is better for us, since from what I understand only the royalty had access to the portal. So if they were suddenly attacked by a bunch of piglins with iron armor, they'll be taken by surprise in more then one way.
"That doesn't sound bad, but I won't give them for free, what do you have to exchange for so much labor?"
"Leather, gold, brewing materials, and ender pearls."
I looked at her face in case she was joking, but that wasn't the case, she was dead serious.
"From what I saw in your tribe, you don't have enough gold to even make armor, much less to trade with, leather can be valuable but it's not something unique to this world. Brewing materials are useful, but I don't think you'll have enough for all the iron. And lastly, the ender pearls are impressive since from what I understand it's hard to win a fight with an Ederman without them running away, but again, I don't think you'll have enough after the fight, since I suspect you'll use them."
She bit her lip in frustration, which made me feel bad for responding like this. But I had to put boundaries or else people would take advantage of my kindness. And what she asked wasn't a small thing, I only managed to get over 100 iron ingots after mining for 3 days straight. What she's asking me is to mine enough iron to make armor for a few dozen people which could accumulate over 1000 iron ingots.
And from what I understand, only I can do that quickly. While the villagers in this world are capable of mining, they're too slow in comparison to me.
Even if I did mine nonstop for a whole month, I still have to craft them which would take a while. It was a hard task to do and something you can't ask casually, especially from someone who you just met.
"I-I can give you the location of an unclaimed fortress."
Now that got my attention, an unclaimed fortress can be very valuable, especially if it has chests like in the game. The only problem with that would be that I have to actually capture it, and that's not an easy task to make a Nether fortress safe. It was infested with black skeletons that can do a lot of damage from what I remember, plus the withering debuff which was not pretty.
The only way to stop that is to spawn-proof the whole fortress. Which in the game took a lot of time and resources, I don't want to think how much it would take here. So while the fortress can be a great boon, it's not worth the hassle.
" It does sound like a good offer, but it's more efficient to trade for blaze roads than to actively hunt for them I'm a dangerous fortress."
She bit her lip harder went to a nearby wall and punched it, followed by a scream. That actually scared me, but she quickly turned back to me.
"I'll give you myself as the payment, I don't care what you intend to do with me but help us to get our land back."
That actually shocked me, I didn't understand how important this fight would be because she was so calm and calculated most of the time. But I could see now, that she won't stop at anything to get her revenge. If I didn't help her now she'll just do a suicide mission or something similar. This made me hesitate a lot, but after thinking about what to do, I decided to accept some of her offers.
"Ok, I'll accept the offer for the items and the location of the unclaimed fortress, but I have to talk with my friend Bobby if he wants to go through all this."
She finally gave a smile and nodded in understanding.
We then went back to the house I'm the big tree and discussed some details on what to do if he accept it. I told her what time it would take to get the materials done and why, and she offered to send some of her people to help mine, but from what I remember once a nether mob enters the overworld, they will become zombified. She was surprised by that information and got a bit suspicious of its credibility. But before we could argue how I got that information, we got surprised by the shaman and Bobby.
"And that's what happened while you were away."
Bobby looked at me with his lower jaw hanging.
"So let me get this right. I've been away from you for a few hours at most, but you manage in that time to make a promise to gather the resources equivalent to a small noble fortune, in exchange for some rare items, a fortress location, and a person. But what is the most shocking thing from all of that.... is that I can see you actually pull it off."
"First of all, I didn't accept the third deal, and secondly, thank you for believing in me?"
I wasn't sure how to react to that, but I know I was walking into a mess, so I'll take what I can get.
"So do you want to accept their request?"
"Didn't you already accept it?"
"I kind of did, but I'm asking you for permission to use the portal in your village."
"What do you mean by that? You are the one who made the portal, it's not mine."
"Yes, I don't what to endanger your village so you can refuse, but if you accept it, I'm most likely to use the mine under the village, if you don't accept it, I'll get back to my home base and built a portal there."
He then looked at me, with a look of searching if I was serious.
"Trader, you made so much for me and my village, I won't abandon you when you need the most help. So if you'll accept the deal, I'll also accept it."
That made me smile. I finally made a friend in this world, and it's someone that would stick with me until the end.
"I'm glad to hear that."
I then started to shout for the piglins to come back.
"We finished discussing, you can come back!"
And not too long after the two piglins came back and waited anxiously for our answer.
"We decided to help, and take on the offer."
Undying Flame's face lit up with happiness, while Blue Flame had mixed emotions.
But then we sat down and started to discuss the details of how to get, what to get, and how much to get.
They wanted equipment for 50 people, so that would be 50 full iron armor, plus swords or axes and shields, Bobby even offered to make some potions of strength and speed, which they gladly accepted it.
In total it would be roughly 1.350 iron ingots, which it would take a good time to mine, even if I had a few clever ideas to cheat the system it would still take about a month to finish everything.
Bobby looked at me like I was a madman for even thinking it was even possible to do it so quickly. We also talked about the crafting after I get the raw materials, and decided to try and see if we could share some of the responsibility with the piglins to make some them themselves.
Even if they didn't have access to the system, that actually helped them since they could still use the crafting table, but without restrictions.
We didn't know if we also lose those limitations if we crafted in the Nether. Well, have to experiment once we get back.
With everything planned down, we decided for the payment to be paid in half's, the first one after we delivered everything, then they will show us the location of the fortress, and the second half after the battle.
With everything done, we decided to get some rest. I don't know what time is it in here since it doesn't have a day-night cycle, but with everything that happened, it felt like it's been one week.
While it was two days at most in reality.
We didn't get a normal bed, but we did get a carpeted room where we could sleep more comfortably, which I guess it's better than nothing. And I didn't want to find out if beds are explosive or not.
We slept pretty well overall. The next day we took our items and went on toward the last block of cobblestone we put to mark the way home.
Of course, we weren't alone this time. Undying Flame and two more piglins decided to come with us as guards and to know where that portal is.
They also had to build a base of operation after all.
We didn't search for too long before we found the block that we were looking for.
The way back was much easier thanks to the bodyguards that actually know what to look out for when you were in the Nether. So after a few hours, we arrived at the cobblestone hose.
It wasn't the most beautiful thing that I build, but it brought me joy when I saw it. We quickly entered it and saw the almighty portal still there doing its magic.
"Ok! Let's get to work then."
Bobby and I stepped through the portal back to the out world.