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I asked Kir for a physical description of the man.

Destiny snored slightly beside me.

“Auburn hair, striking emerald green eyes-”

My own thoughts cut Kir off and he fell silent, evidently sensing my feeling of dread. The man Kir was describing had been dead for a long time now.

Then, another idea clicks in my head. In my mind’s eye, I see my own body as if viewing it from above. My body, filled with energy, shines like a star, piercing through a dark and stormy sky. Just next to my star is a fainter star, the light of the enchantment table. Surrounding my body’s star are even brighter stars, the stars of the wizards, and beyond those, even brighter still, is a shining wall lined with hourglasses, and beyond that… pure darkness.

It is a sight, which I cannot really classify as sight. The only word I can use to describe it… is magic.

The hulking beast was green, and covered in fur. Its eyes were glowing blue, and it was armed, carrying a sword hidden within a scabbard. This surprised Warnado; the beast’s arms were rippling with muscle. Deciding to use a sword seemed like a bit of a downgrade.

The beast had its back turned, staring at the wall. Unsure whether it was capable of speech, Warnado decided to reach out with his mind. “Hello.”

The beast shuffled around, turning to face the half-demon. “Are you Warnado… 125?”

Warnado was immediately on his guard. How did this strange creature know his name?

“Depends. Who wants to know?”

“Tyron of Minecraftia. Kay told me to tell you to get the keys.”

“So, I suppose I’d better elaborate slightly further,” I added in, shaking my head a little. This was the most awkward conversation I’d had in several years, even accounting for the makeshift knife pressed to my jugular. Neither of us knew what was going on, why the other was there, and both of us were deeply suspicious. As such, it was a very uncomfortable conversation despite my best and most charming efforts.

“Do you want to know how I got here?” I shrugged.

I lay in a narrow bed with white sheets, one of many arranged side by side in two horizontal rows. All of the other beds are empty, and there is the pervasive purple light as usual. To my right is a small table on wheels which holds many clinical-looking tools made of metal and wood. On this same table is a cup of tea and a wide bowl of soup, both plated. Under normal conditions, I would have considered this the hallmark of hospitality, but instead I find myself emitting a metallic growl of disgust.

Hold on… what was that sound I just made?

As he arrived at the marketplace he definitely noticed that people looked at him more than the day before, this time he wasn’t just an unusual creature travelling through, he was an unusual creature who was here a second time for an unknown reason. Fire had come up with a way to attract people, his little trick with the embers had worked well on the children the day before, he just had to scale it up a bit for the adults. He needed a good reason to start shooting flames without causing a mass panic though.

Fire noticed a raised wooden platform in the middle of the place, performers would usually stand there to entertain people, either with their act or with their failure. He walked up to the platform and leaped onto it, making a noticeable banging sound as his feet hit the wooden planks. People turned around to see what the noise was about.

Fire raised his voice theatrically: “Behold! The scaled flamecaster from another world!”

As his call echoed between the buildings Fire knew that he definitely had the attention of the people now.

“Jennifer, are you awake?” the enderman asked.

Jennifer shut her eyes tight for a moment and then opened them again. An enderman referring to her by name… she didn’t like the sound of that, especially not this late at night. It was probable that this enderman wanted to take her somewhere else, just as the other enderwoman had done with Fristad.

“...yes?” Jennifer acknowledged reluctantly.

“I hope I didn’t alarm you,” the enderman apologized. “This is going to sound hard to believe, but I’m actually Fristad. Remember when I mentioned that armor made of diamonds and ender pearls? This is what that armor does to me.”

Jennifer stared at the enderman in disbelief, at once too tired to react immediately and at the same time carefully gauging the reliability of its words. Supposing this really was Fristad, how should she react?

The woman spat. “We fought red dragons the size of trees, do you think we would back down from you?”

Fire took a deep breath, he was getting angry and he didn’t like it. He on the other hand...

Fire said: “Here is your last chance, back off now and nobody will be harmed.”

The woman said: “I’ll mount your skull in a special place on my wall, never had such a talkative beast before.”

“Then the Brine couple should guard our front, and should be responsible for destroying any magic-inhibiting devices in our way.” reasoned Kay. “We should all stay together as one group, so Freak and the endlings don’t overwhelm us. Have a vanguard with two prongs - but draw away attention from it with a larger central body. In a pinch, the Brines might be able to turn and help us a bit, with the benefit of the enemy being turned away from at least one party. I like that. Patchwork, but decent.”

“They could still overwhelm us,” countered Astro. “The tower likely won’t take too kindly to the idea of so many escapees. We need to-”

Astro’s voice was caught off as he witnessed the approach of a large number of armed guards in their direction. Yet other guards were fighting, capturing, and beating some of the anonymous prison escapees. The crackdown had begun. There was no time to waste.

“The best laid plans…” groaned Kay.

The gates then began to open and out of the shadows emerged countless beasts. Pigmen clad in gold flourished their swords. Blazes lit up the skies in hellish orange. Shrieking ghasts lingered about above, ready to hurl down fireballs. Strange things resembling creepers, with four claw-like legs supporting a twisted greenish-brown cocoon of a body. Then there were various vaguely humanoid creatures who seemed to skulk between battered bands of the aforementioned creatures.

Steve could hardly believe his eyes, and briefly felt the cold breath of death upon his neck.

“Just say the word, guys,” Fristad muttered to the group, stooping uncomfortably, “and I’ll get us out of this freak show.”

Kay could not help but be relieved. But years of knowing better the nature of endlings triggered a failsafe in his mind, and he reminded himself how ridiculous it was relying on an endling to bring him to safety. He reckoned that if Fristad had met the Entity’s endlings first, he would have joined their ranks. A human one minute to earn their trust… an endling the next...

Kay seemed to shudder at the thought of this, and eyed Fristad suspiciously. Steve was already preparing himself to clip him around the ear.

With lucid anticipation, an enderman rushed toward Fristad, knocking him to the ground. The force of the impact caused Fristad’s goggles to fling off of his face. Fristad covered his eyes and turned his head away, suddenly and mysteriously incapacitated.

The creatures looked at them for a second, hundreds of black and burning and bronze eyes staring into and through them. Then, someone screamed and ran forward.

By the time Fire was at the entrance to his base, night had fallen again. Fire was dead tired, having a battle, two world hops and more than a day of walking behind him. He was slouched over as the richly decorated elevator descended into his base, his halberd was just being dragged along. The elevator reached its pedestal and Fire slowly went down the stairs. He tossed his halberd at one of the demons in his sister’s service who was walking by, telling it to store it in the armory.

As he reached the living quarters, he saw his sister Shadow sitting at the table in the room below the stairs to the bedrooms. While Shadow was human, she looked very much like Fire. Her skin was pitch black, so black that you could only see her silhouette, she had entirely red eyes and long white hair, she was about half as tall as Fire. Shadow was wearing her usual black mage robes.

As she saw Fire she jumped up and asked: “Where have you been? You just disappeared about two weeks ago.”

Fire sat down and sighed. “It’s a long story.”