I arrived at the bottom of the stairs and stood in a wooden room with a few barbells on the side.
I opened one and saw cooked fish with nothing else.
I turned my face towards the wooden door and opened it to see what was beyond.
On the other side, was another staircase with a stone button on the side.
I pressed the button and heard a piston working on top of the stairs, revelinga lot of yelling.
Not knowing how long it would stay open, I climbed swiftly towards the noise.
Once I was up, I was behind a bar who was empty while a few men were brawling on the floor.
A small group was formed around the fight, encouraging the conflict to continue.
Only a man with a uniform, who I could only assume to be the barman tried to stop the fight.
While it looked fun, I didn't intend to watch the chaos, so I slipped past everyone and got out.
Once again I was in a huge cave, but this was slightly different then the other's, it had a huge lake beside it with some ships docked.
Everything was well illuminated and I walked around to explore the place.
There weren't a lot of hooded figures like in the last city, but I wouldn't stand out too much even if I didn't have my armor on.
Here I found a lot of thieves, more exactly sea thieves.
The ships on the lake were pirate ships with black flags!
I stopped at a food stand close to the lake.
"Hey old man, I want to try some of your stuff, what do you have?"
The man with white hair was startled by my voice and quickly looked at me.
"When-Welcome to my stall! Where your belly would be full no matter how hungry you are."
I looked at the items he displayed In frames.
Some of them looked like burgers, others were soup in a bowl, but I pointed at the barbecue-looking stick.
"I want that one old man, how much is it?"
"Ahh, the meat on a stick. That's a fine choice, 2 emeralds."
I paid the man as he gave me the food.
But I didn't leave his stall, instead I leaned on the wooden poles.
"I heard someone saw a one-eyed fish as big as a man deep into the sea."
"There's lots of danger deep into the sea, so it could be possible that someone saw something like that."
The man, made himself busy with cooking something else.
But I felt he should know something about this.
You don't just open a food stand in the middle of the Black Market and not have a side deal.
The food was good I dodn't deny it, but not enough to pay for the location of his shop.
"Give me the odd-looking sandwich old man."
I said that while pointing at the hamburger.
"Ahh, the meat between buns. A fine choice indeed, 2 emeralds please."
Weird naming sense.
I paid the man once again as he gave me the hamburger.
"I think you're talking about the White Skull crew from a few months back. The captain keeps talking about how her life was destroyed because of the one-eyed fish while she's drunk. But who knows if she says the truth."
Bingo!
I knew the old man was more than a simple shopkeeper.
"How does she look like, where can I find her?"
"How would I know?"
Then he went back to chopping cooked meat.
Rolling my eyes, I ordered a bowl of red soup.
The man prepared a bowl for me with a smile on his face, and I gave him 2 more emeralds.
"Sorry lad, this one is 5 emeralds."
"5?!"
Why would a beetroot-looking soup be so expensive?
But in the end, I could only sigh in frustration and paid the man.
"She's a tall woman, with brunette hair, an eyepatch on her left eye, and wears a red coat. She usually visits the Fish bar, it has the best cheap alcohol you can buy."
That was a lot of useful information from him.
I thanked him and went towards the bar.
From afar I could tell the bar was popular because of the noise I could hear a street away.
The bar had a similar Western style to the one from the previous city, and just as I was about to enter the building, someone flew out through the door.
Or more exactly, someone was thrown out because it got too drunk for everyone's liking.
But that someone was the woman I was looking for, who could bearly stay on her feet.
"Suck a punch old man! I'm sure those men love you more than your wife!"
Laughter was heard beyond the door, but no refute came back.
Slowly she turned away from the bar and wabbled off until suddenly she bumped into me.
"Wha?"
"You look drunk, let me help you get back to your place."
She tried to say something, but her words kept twisting resulting in nothing.
I just rolled my eyes, took her arm, and put it over my shoulder.
"Where to?"
She pointed her arm in a certain direction until we arrived at an isolated street.
Then out of nowhere, she took out an iron sword and stabbed my gut taking me by surprise.
But the final surprise ended for her, since the blade didn't meet flesh, only metal.
Not only that, but her strike was so abrupt that the sword fell out of her hand from the knockback, which made her jump away from me.
"What kind of armor is thar, diamond?"
"Why did you stab me in the first place?!"
"I'll rather die then be captured and turned into a slave. Leave or ill use my arrows to kill you."
She took out her bow and arrow to show how serious she was.
"I don't have such plans! Your drunk, and reasonably on your guard. Let me give you some milk to wash away the disines and the we can talk like two reasonable adults."
"I don't need your milk, who knows what poison you put there, I have my own."
Then she took out a bucket of milk, and splash it on her face.
"Phew, much better, now stay where you are and ask me your question."
She tried to look threatening, but it was hard to take it seriously since she looked like a wet puppy.
"I wanted to ask you about the location of the one-eyed fish."
This visibly shook her, as she narrowed her eyes.
"Why would you want to know the location of the beast?"
"I want to hunt it."
This answer seems more reasonable then the original one.
She let down her bow and arrow, and moved away the hair on her face while letting out a big sigh.
"Give up man, that creature destroyed my medium sized ship and killed us while we were peddling our boats, im the only survivor. Unless you have a large ship, don't even think about approaching that place."
This doesn't sound good.
Looks like my plan of using a System boat and cross the sea it's no longer feasible.
The boat would be destroyed In a second, and I don't think I'll be able to swim fast or for long with my heavy armor.
"What if I payed someone with a big ship to bring me there, would that be better?"
The woman started to laugh at me while holding her belly.
"Even if you somehow had enough emeralds to convince a captain to follow you, he wouldn't do, since that zone is a cemetery for ships! No captain with his head on his shoulder would take that deal."
Should a make a flying platform then?
No that wouldn't work since I can't tell it to go right or left, only forward.
Even if I did manage to arrive there with the platform, the only way down would be though a waterfall, and I don't know if I'll swim up fast enough when retreating.
"What if I bought a big ship, would you be interested to be it's captain? After I'm done, you can keep the ship."
The woman narrowed her eyes trying to study me.
Unfortunately she couldn't see past my armor.
"Do you know how much a large ship would cost?"
"Enlight me."
"10 blocks of diamond at minimum."
That...was pretty pricey.
It's not that I didn't have that much diamond, but I didn't have it with me.
Should I do a mining session here?
No, 90 diamonds would take a while even with my Fortune pickaxe.
Then an idea come to mind.
"I'll get the diamonds, are you willing to take the deal as well?"
She was taken by surprise at my response.
"Y-yes, if you mange to get a large ship and give it to me afterwards, I'll guide you there."
"Good, tomorrow night well meet at roughly the same time on this street. I want you too look for someone that is willing to sell his ship, and start recruiting a crew. Don't try to pull a fast on me, since I'll kill you without so fast you wouldn't even notice."
With that I turned away and used an Enderpearl to get away.
Suddenly I was on top of the roof looking at the market around me.
"Now, how do I get back?"
I could probably use the same method I came through, but I don't want to use same entrance next time.
There's to much risk with me ending betrayed or found out.
So for the next hour I walked around the place until I found a main entrance that ended up in the sewers like the other.
With that, I went back to my hotel room and got some sleep.
----
"Hey there, sorry for interrupting you, but what kind of job do you have?"
"Librarian, why?"
"Perfect! Can I look at your trade tab?"
"Sure, hope you'll find what your looking for."
Then she showed me her trading tab, and my eye's sparked with happiness.
22 Papers > 1 Emerald
5 Emeralds > 3 bookshelves
1 Emerald > 1 lantern
I finally found the trade that I wanted!
And one of my tickets to success.
I quickly bought all the bookshelves she had which brought me 30 in total.
Unfortunately with this purchase I didn't have any more emeralds with me, so I hoped this would work.
"Is there anyone in here that has the same job?"
"Yeah, I have a few more colleagues that would be open to trade, search around the library, they all wear a red hat."
"Thank you."
With that I searched around the floors until finally I found what I wanted.
Unfortunately disaster struck.
22 Papers > 1 Emerald
4 Emeralds + 60 Books > Protection 3
3 Books > 1 Emerald
"I can't make this trade."
"I'm sorry to hear that, maybe you can have more luck with the others."
The librarian tried to comfort me.
But no, the reason I couldn't trade with him was becose I was loosing emeralds instead of profiting.
I think I only rembered videos with people that had hero of the village, or cured zombie buff.
And I don't want to use the methods for getting those discounts.
I guess the only way to get more emeralds it's through selling sticks the old fashioned way.
I let out a big sigh and left the library.
It's not like there was no hope with using this trade, it's just that I need to level up my Trading skill, to get the next discount.
But that would take a while, especially with trading sticks.
Unfortunately I was under a strict time limit to get a good amount of diamonds until night fall.
Otherwise she wouldn't trust me anymore, or if she trusts me at all.
With that motivation, I took my horse and left the city quickly.
10 minutes later I was between trees with my axe out, ready to do some heavy deforestation.
I copped trees for hours until after noon.
In this time, I manged to get a few stacks of oak wood, which made me satisfied with what I got.
I planted saplings to regrow the forest, and feed all the apples that fell on the ground to my horse.
With the hard part done, it was time to start the second phase.
"Let's go back to the city."