A large structure, stark white against the bruised plum backdrop. It couldn’t have been more alien or beautiful to my dry, blinking eyes.

“The Ice Cube?” I asked.

Summer nodded, and started toward the aptly named box.

“Quartz?” was my next question, which got me another nod. “Easy to spot, even without night vision.” And, on cue, our potions faded and our eyes returned to normal. Even in the haze, it shone as clearly as a lighthouse in ocean fog.

As we continued across the crunching heat, Summer explained, “Took quite a bit of time, I can tell you, and while it’s not exactly ghast-proof, the outer wall is easy enough to repair.”

Outer wall? Mentally, I braced for what had to be another eye-popping tour. I could already spot Summer’s signature retractable gravel slits, and as we approached the wooden front door, she explained that “I would have preferred iron, but the open holes would let all the cool air escape.”

“Cool air.” I shook my head. “Why am I surprised that I’m surprised?”

Summer laughed, opened the door, and ushered me into a dark vestibule, then reached up to switch on the redstone lamps above us.

“Oh,” I moaned, embraced by a welcome wash of arctic air. “Whoa boy.”

Summer chuckled again, motioning all around us. “Three walls: quartz outside and quartz inside, with packed snow in the middle.”

“You brought snow from up top.” I leaned my face against the chilled quartz wall.

“It doesn’t melt,” said Summer, “even when exposed to the air.” I saw her looking up and did the same. Checkerboarded amidst the redstone lamps were iron grates, and behind their bars, cubes of frozen flaked water.

“Simple thermodynamics,” chirped Summer. “Hot air rises, cold air descends.”

“Oh yeah”—I gave an exaggerated nod—“simple, you just invented air-conditioning.” I motioned to the next door. “And through there is, what, the car-boat-jetfighter that looks like a bat?”

Summer laughed so hard she bumped her shoulder against mine. “Oh, Guy.”

No, there wasn’t a superhero lair beyond this temperature-controlled “airlock,” but the main room did have supply chests, raised beds of potatoes, and a jukebox playing one of those weird musical discs I have yet to acquire a taste for. Still, I couldn’t help but marvel at all the time and effort that had gone into this home away from home.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing to what looked like a four-legged iron box full of water in the corner.

“A cauldron,” answered Summer, filling three of her empty bottles from the little cube. “Only way to store water in the Nether. For some reason it instantly evaporates, even in here, if you pour it onto the ground.”

“So, water doesn’t make water down here,” I mused as Summer handed me a drink.

“A bit of an inconvenience,” she replied, refilling the cauldron with a full bucket from her pack, “all this BYOW nonsense. Still”—she gestured to our luxurious surroundings—“I think it’s worth it, don’t you?”

“Mhm!” My mind was already spinning after I’d finished chugging the throat-quenching bottle. But then, because my head was tilted toward the ceiling, I saw something that instantly re-dried my throat.

“Summer.” I hesitated, scrounging for diplomatic words. “I count almost a hundred redstone lamps…I mean…minus the six…eight spaces you’ve got for AC vents…”

I let my words trail off, not sure exactly how to finish the thought.

“Yes?” Summer asked with the slightest edge to her voice. “And your point is?”

I didn’t even know why I was so nervous. I mean, it was just an honest question.

“Well…wouldn’t it be easier to just use these lamps, and the ones in the vestibule, and all the glowstone we’ve harvested to finish lighting the mountain?”

A pause, so slight it probably lasted less than half a second. But to me, that tense waiting…

Where’s a good ghast attack when you need one?

“Oh, yes,” Summer replied coolly. “I can see how you’d think that way. I did too, actually, when I considered building this place.” She nodded emphatically, then downed her bottle of water. “But this is just a fraction of what we’ll eventually need and”—maybe this was my imagination, but I could almost feel her voice relaxing with each word—“yes, we’ll be taking it with us when we finally pack it all in, but until then, we’ll need this place to rest and cool down. Especially,” she said, her voice picking up in excitement as she sauntered over to a lever next to the far wall, “when our next stop is this!”

Flk.

The gravel dropped before the glass windows.

“Dang.” I was staring out across another ocean of lava, topped by something straight out of a fantasy adventure novel.

A black fortress rising out of the molten rock. Thin, sinister towers connected by narrow bridges that made my head swim.

“I haven’t explored this one yet,” she admitted, “but if it’s anything like the other two I’ve cleaned out, then those halls are crawling with some truly nasty brutes. Blazes and wither skeletons that make surface mobs look like harmless snow bunnies. But once we get past them to there”—she gestured toward the far end of the fortress, to all the glowstone deposits hanging just above it—“and with us working as a team, we’ll have more than we need in no time at all!” Her voice was so cheery, so optimistic. At that moment, I couldn’t even remember why I’d brought up the Ice Cube’s lamps in the first place.

“Trust me, Guy.”

Friends trust each other.

“I do.”

After a quick fist bump, and armed with more water and another dose of night vision, we exited the Ice Cube into that infernal body slam of heat.

“Never thought I’d identify with the upper deck of a furnace,” I mumbled.

“What was that?” Summer asked, bow and eyes scanning the sky.

“Nothing,” I replied, not wanting to seem like a complainer. “How are we gonna get over there?”

I couldn’t see any connection between our cliff and the fortress. Which I guess makes sense for why it was there. I mean, if the whole point of a fortress is defense, what’s more defensible than an ocean-sized moat of flames?

Summer didn’t seem bothered, though. “This way.” She pointed down the cliff’s edge.

I couldn’t see what she was directing me to at first, confused by the feature-obscuring netherrack. I leaned over to peer closer. “Careful!” Summer tried to dart in front of me. “Mind the gap!”

I did. Not far, just a few blocks down onto a staircase. It was dug right into the ground, and angled in such a way that I’d totally missed it.

“I meant to do that,” I said, looking up at her.

“Of course you did.” Summer landed gracefully next to me, then stepped in front.

“Onward,” Summer chirped, and disappeared.

We came out just at the shore of the lava, close enough to feel it bake every exposed patch of skin.

“You invent a fireproof boat?” I half-joked, backing up as far as I could.

“No need,” Summer answered seriously, motioning down the “beach” to a strip of land—I think the word is “isthmus”—that connected to the closest tower.

At first, I was relieved that it was both wide and at sea level—well, lava level. But when we got closer, I saw that the material was darker, browner, and finer than the ever-present netherrack.

“Soul sand,” remarked Summer, “which, trust me, you do not want to tread upon.”

“Is it quick?” I asked. “You know, like that stuff back home that’s supposed to swallow you whole?”

“Quite the opposite,” explained Summer, as we stepped right up to the woody-colored grains. “It holds you in place, slows you down. A nuisance in the best of times, but in a battle…”

“I got it,” I nodded, staring closer at what appeared to be ominous faces in the sand. Maybe I was imagining that, though. I looked over at Summer and watched her remove stacked netherrack from her pack. “Want me to keep an eye on the sky?”

“You got it.” She nodded, and went to work covering the soul sand. I kept watch, bow in hand, waiting for those creepy floating squid-balloons. It was tense going, eyes darting this way and that for anything that looked out of the ordinary—as if that word had any meaning anymore—and straining my ears for that nightmarish screaming.

But the floating bombers never came, and in a few short, sweat-evaporating minutes, Summer had built a bridge all the way to the tower.

“Now”—a diamond pickaxe glinted in her hand—“we do what we do best.”

And we dug. Taking turns, cracking through a dark, tough substance that Summer identified as “nether bricks.” This phase actually frazzled me more than crossing the isthmus, because, if you remember, we were tunneling blind through a pillar surrounded by lava. One mistake, one nether brick too many and…well, you can picture the results. I sure did. And when we finally broke into open air, I breathed a dry, lung-baking sigh of relief.

“About ruddy time,” puffed Summer, leading me up onto what must have once been an intersection. The roofless structure was composed of four connected doorways, three of which led nowhere. The fourth, however, opened onto one of those connecting bridges I’d seen from the Ice Cube. I think the technical term is “catwalk,” which I guess comes from the idea that only a cat would be crazy enough to cross one. Three blocks wide. That’s all we had, with an extra one-block raised guard on either side. No rail. No fence. And, unlike a cat, no nine lives.

Summer was beside me now, bow ready. “From here we can get a good sense of where to start building our ‘stairways to heaven.’ ”

I didn’t get the reference. And I didn’t have time to ask about it.

“You got your fireproof potion handy?” Summer asked, scanning the pink mist.

“No, but…” I started to say, then heard a new noise. It was a muffled, distant thf-thf-thf, and Summer shouted, “Look out!” before shoving me up against a protective corner between two doorways.

“Drink your potion!” she ordered as three fireballs streaked past us. These weren’t ghast missiles. They were smaller, faster. I watched them strike the nether bricks behind us with just enough force to set them alight.

“Stay here!” Summer commanded, then leapt to the safety of the opposite corner. “It’s right out there.”

“What?!” I squeaked, and peeked out from behind the barrier.

It was smaller than a ghast, golden and smoking. A humanoid head perched atop rotating rods. It didn’t seem to make any sound…that is, until it launched another tri-flame. That was the thf-thf-thf sound that had made me pull my head in like a turtle.

“It’s a blaze,” said Summer. “They come from spawners in the fortress, and the longer we delay attacking, the more chance of its gathering more mates.”

“Let me draw its fire,” I suggested, surprised at my courage. “You’ve gotta have more experience hitting those things at a distance.”

“Good point,” Summer agreed, nocking an arrow to her bow, “but for Pete’s sake, be careful on that catwalk!”

I didn’t know who Pete was, but I got the message loud and clear.

“Here I am!” I shouted, running out into the open. “Here’s your target!”

Thf-thf-thf. Three shots, right behind me, close enough to burn my backside.

“Too slow!” I shot back, turning to face it.

Thf-thf-thf. Right at me, but slow enough to dodge.

“Ha!” I taunted, evading more incendiary rounds. “Gotta try harder!”

Whp! Summer’s arrow streaked from the tower’s doorway, barely missing the bobbing blaze. “Almost had it!” called Summer. “Keep it distracted.”

“No problem!” I replied, realizing how helpful all those ghast battles had been.

Just like with anticipating where those sky-squids would be, I’d mastered the art of calling their shots as well. Blaze strikes might have been a little bit faster, but the principle was still the same. It didn’t take too much adjustment to dance out of their way.

You heard me: “dance.” My signature victory spin-hop.

“And you may find yourself in a giant subterranean oven!” I sang, rewriting a barely remembered song that’d floated through my mind since my time on the island.

Thf-thf-thf. Break left.

“And you might find yourself in a fantasy fortress facing a gold-y, float-y, fire thing!”

Thf-thf-thf. Break right.

“And you might ask yourself, well, how did I ge—aaahhh!”

Big mistake! I was so distracted with making up my song that I’d stepped on a burning square of nether brick. I’d observed that, unlike netherrack, its darker, denser cousin only burned for a few seconds when lit. What I didn’t take the time to confirm, however, was exactly how many seconds I had.

A lesson from my time on the island leapt to the front of my mind. Details make the difference.

“Yaaaaa!” I howled as flames rose up before my eyes.

Pain.

Panic!

I ran for what I thought was the safety of the tower.

“STOP!” cried Summer, halting my flaming feet.

I was right on the edge of the “guard.” One more step and…

“Here!” A voice to guide me, calm me. “This way, Guy!”

Following my crisping ears, I made it to the corner.

“Stay still!” A few more eternal seconds before the torturous flames finally burned away.

Vision clearing, eyes regenerating. Summer yelling at me from the far corner.

“Didn’t you take your fireproof potion?”

“Uh…”

“No matter.” She raised her bow for another shot. “Just pop a healer!”

The bottle in my belt, in my hands, and then the salty sting of instant health.

“Lemme get back out there!” I offered, ready to rejoin the fray.

“No need!” Summer wasn’t mad, just focused. I watched the arrow leave her bow, then peeked out just in time to see our foe drift away in a puff of smoke.

“Pity.” Summer was looking down now, watching the remaining blaze rod fall slowly into the lava below. “Can always use one of those.” She turned to me, adding, “Still, plenty more when we find the spawner. Let’s go!”