Hi again! This chapter is from Scimitar's POV. Sorry if these chapters are a little short!

The first thing I heard was Zarkana screaming, "DON'T COME OUT OF THE PORTAL! WE'RE FLOATING ABOVE- oh wait, we're just on the side of the lava lake. False alarm!"

"Oh my god you scared me! I thought I was gonna get roasted alive!" Cited exclaimed, walking out of the portal and onto the soul soil beach that our portal had generated on.

Zarkana looked around. "Ok, so we spawned in a Soul Sand Valley, and there's a Basalt Flats up on that cliff.  And is that... There's a Nether Fortress over there!"

"Whoa." I said. "I've never spawned this close to a Nether Fortress! We can get tons of gear, make potions, and get blaze rods without having to travel far at all!"

"Don't forget getting wither skulls!" Zarkana said as he raced toward the Nether Fortress. Well, tried to race. He was running on Soul Sand, so it was more like a walk, but when he hit a patch of Soul Soil, he started moving normally again.

Once we got to the walls of the Fortress, we started towering up to an entry point by jumping and placing a block under us before we hit the ground. We came level with a bridge, jumped onto it, and ran inside the menacing structure. I searched the dark corridors, hoping to find a loot chest, and found something even better.

The Blaze Spawner was one of the most essential things in the game. You couldn't get to The End without it. "Found the spawner!" I yelled, and immediately heard the clanking footsteps of my friends approaching. They arrived a few seconds later, and Zarkana started building a kill hole so that we could farm Blaze Rods. I realized something, and asked Cited, "Hey, could we turn it to easy for a sec so that we can get rods?"

"Fine. but only for five minutes, okay?" he replied, encasing himself in cobblestone.

"Turning it now!" Zarkana warned. A moment later, the Blazes started spawning.

I jumped down into the kill hole, and swung my sword at the closest Blaze, over and over until it died, dropping a Blaze Rod. "BLURGH!" Zarkana yelled as he shot a Ghast that had snuck up on us while we were talking, catching the tear and storing it in his inventory so we could make potions of regeneration later.  (Yes, I am that weird :P) After I slew a couple more blazes, he asked, "Can I take a turn in the kill hole?" 

"Yeah, sure, I should probably check on the Wither Skeleton spawns anyway." I replied, jumping out of the hole. I mined away the wall we had made to keep mobs out, and ran into the Nether Fortress, searching for the blackened figures that could mean any player's doom. 

A grey blade shot out from the darkness of a side corridor. The stone sword took me down to half health, and I was rocked with wave after wave of painful spasms. My skin had turned black and was starting to shrivel and flake away. I didn't have much time left.

I lashed out at the Wither Skeleton, and it was knocked back, giving me time to put up my shield. As the charred undead pounded the wood with its sword, I ate a steak to counteract the Wither poison that was slowly killing me. The meat was dusted in ash from the air around me, but I didn't mind. I'd die if I didn't eat. After about ten seconds, my skin turned back to its original color, and the spasms stopped. I grabbed one of my attacker's ribs, pulled it to the ground, and stabbed it through the chest. The monster's body dissolved into a puff of smoke, leaving- the skull. I got a Wither Skull on the my first try! I tenderly picked up the powerful bone, and immediately heard the rattling of more skeletons down the corridor.

Knowing I wouldn't survive another fight, I turned and ran back the way I had come. A few minutes later, I arrived at the spawner. Zarkana congratulated me on getting the skull, and told me he had collected seven Blaze Rods. "Well, Cite's waited long enough. I'll turn it back to peaceful so he can come out." He said. His character froze, and a moment later, all of the blazes and ghasts disappeared.

"You can come out now!" I informed Cited through the walls of his shelter.

We waited for him to mine himself out, then jumped the gap between the spawner balcony and a nearby cliff.

"Okay, get out your picks, we're going gold mining. We'll need a lot of gold so we can trade with the Piglins for the ender pearls we'll need." Zarkana told us.

And without further ado, we all split up in search of gold ore.

Hello again! If you were confused about the BLURGH! part, the only reason I haven't mentioned me doing this before is that I didn't really have a reason to. But, today I was feeling particularly deranged, so I decided to mention the parts were I'm a complete weirdo. Also, I didn't really know what to capitalize, so I may have made a couple of mistakes. Other than that, see you in the next chapter! (Hopefully next weekend.)