//------------------------------//
// Exploration 
// Story: Minecraft: A New Adventure 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

When morning arrived Pinkie walked out of her smithy with a smile on her face, while her armor was gleaming and her tools were ready to go, after she repaired her blade and shield after the assault the previous day, though she also carried an axe for cutting down trees and one of the atlases they had recovered. Octavia, on the other hand, simply walked across the bridge and entered the village without delay, allowing them to regroup with Steve and Alex by the Waystone, the stone pillar in the center of Cerozer Taiga, which seemed to be what this placed was called. One thing they found was that the atlas automatically made a map of the area they had been to and they could make notes of interesting things for later, or to make sure they didn't lose their way, so Pinkie added a pin with the village's name on where it said she was standing. Octavia was interested in it and found that their other copy, which Pinkie had given her earlier, was a mirror copy of the main one, so if one was filled in the other seemed to do the same thing as well, or at least it sure seemed that way.

"Okay, so which way are we going?" Octavia asked, because to the south rested the area the black dragon rested in, or at least where they saw it for the first time, and she wasn't too eager to head back to where it was living, just in case it was still in the area, which left three directions for them to head in for their exploration.

"According to the Elder there should be a desert somewhere to the east, an ocean to the southeast, and mountains far too the north, but he's unsure of the other directions," Steve replied, where he looked at the atlas they were bringing with them, as Pinkie handed it over while Octavia kept hers inside her new tower house, though it was clear that he might be thinking of what to do next, "Based on that, and what we've seen so far, heading to the west seems to be the best course of action, at least for the time being, as we might find some of the ancient structures we learned about last night. If we can do that the information inside might tell us more about whoever is watching over this world, the Admins as they're called, and might point us in the direction of the knowledge to find their foul guardians."

"Sounds fun to me." Pinkie said, where she started to head in the direction that they would be heading in, causing Steve and the others to follow after her so nothing overwhelmed her, though Octavia wasn't too surprised by her desire to just explore and left the village as well.

Some of the Villagers came out and wished them well in their venture, since they seemed to know that they needed to explore to figure out what else was in this world, before Steve, Alex, Pinkie, and Octavia stepped into the wild and left the safety of Cerozer Taiga behind. Octavia glanced around as she found that nothing seemed out of the ordinary, using her Thaumometer to scan the surrounding area and make notes on everything she was seeing, or at least the tome she had was making notes on everything as her device noticed them. Pinkie kept her eye out for anything interesting, towers like the one they had conquered or something else for her and the others to tackle, like an underground dungeon or a place filled with enemies to challenge, but all she fought right now were bits of stone sticking out of the ground, which she just cleaned up before catching up with the others. Steve and Alex, the experts in this field, kept their eyes open as they made their way through the forest, as they had a feeling that there had to be something or someone watching them, given the dangers they faced in their own world.

They did end up passing by a few flat mushrooms at one point, causing them to pause for a moment as they noticed the figures, where Octavia studied it with her lens before Pinkie cut one down, as she seemed to want one of every material in the entire world at the rate she was going, and once they were done they resumed moving forward.

Steve and Alex found it odd that the area was so peaceful, that the village didn't seem to have much in the way of danger, save for the black dragon to the south of it's location, though one thing they were happy to see were some pigs, meaning they would be able to bring some back to the village once this was over. Octavia figured that it was about keeping a supply of food for them to eat, so they didn't starve, and it made sense that they didn't take the pigs with them, as they had no idea how long they would be out here and didn't want to endanger them. None of them were worried about the pigs, as it looked like there were no predators in the forest, even though Steve and Alex were sure that something might be lurking in the shadows, since there was no telling what sort of dangers were resting in this world. A few moments after that they found another river and found a large outpost in the distance, one made of wood that Alex said was an Illager Outpost, an area they didn't want to tangle with right now, so Steve followed the river to the northwest and the others followed after him while keeping an eye out for danger.

It took them an hour to find something new, which turned out to be a stone house with an oak roof and a brick chimney, which interested the group as they laid eyes on it, especially since it was some distance from the river, and they headed inside without delay. Octavia found that no one had lived here for some time, as there were a few cobwebs near the door, which Steve and Alex broke up by swinging their swords at them, as the string from these webs could be used to make a bow or two, useful tools for the future, unless Pinkie could make a bow in a different manner. After that they found that there were a few chests inside the house, some locked and some not, a couple of beds, a number of lights that came in the form of candles and metallic lanterns, and a room with a number of iron weapons and tools, which they let Pinkie take for later. In addition to that she found a medkit, a small white box with a red 'H' on the front, before she found a journal near a bed and opened it, where the writer wrote that they met a shaman who told them how to go to a place known as the 'Lost Cities', likely another dimension that was unique to this world, and they wrote the method down.

The 'portal' to the Lost Dimension was to use two Cincinnasita Lanterns, where she discovered that the materials could only be found inside the Nether, place a bed on top of them, and then surround it with six skulls, either from Skeletons or the Wither Skeletons from the same dimension that the material was found in.

"Something important must be located in the Lost Dimension, enough to cause whoever wrote this to head to the Nether to make the portal there." Pinkie commented, showing the others what she had found while they were investigating the rest of this house, finding that there was nothing else inside it save for some crates that Alex collected, storage for later, in case they found some treasure later on, "I wonder if the rings that were on that list I found might be located somewhere inside the dimension... might be worth exploring, once we figure out how to get to the Neither."

"We need obsidian to make the portal, and to get that we need something to mine it, usually diamond." Steve said, which was another piece of information about the world that he and Alex came from, how they were used to things going with all of their tools, but with this world they could either use Experience to boost their skills or wait for Pinkie to make a brand new pickaxe to do such a thing, once she had more materials.

"Or we could mix lava and water, as that should make obsidian." Alex added, informing them of another method that they could use, before she thought about it for a few more seconds, as it seemed like there might be a snag in her statement, all while Octavia gathered all the information she could, "of course we'd still need a diamond pickaxe to mine it, so I guess we'd be back at square one."

Pinkie, however, considered her smithy for a moment, wondering if there was a way to mix materials into a stronger metal or material, such as obsidian, though she said nothing about that as she and the others stripped down the house, taking all of the useful items while leaving the structure as a landmark. Of course she took the chimney's bricks, leaving enough to not mess with the form of the house itself, though as they left the area the group discovered some of the Baby Zombies lurking under some of the trees, causing most of them to sigh. Octavia found that the smaller Zombies were faster than the taller ones, an interesting fact based on what she had seen so far, though she and her companions took them out with a few swings and opened the way for them to depart from the lone house. Once more they found that there were next to no enemies hanging out nearby, which was great for them, even though it deprived them of Experience, before Pinkie found a square shaped structure in the plains that were beyond the tree line, a wooden one based on the walls and all of the fortifications they were seeing.

The area in question seemed to be an outpost of some kind, likely for Illagers since there were a few Spawners and that meant no sane traveler would stop here with them active, so the first thing they did was break the containers before any enemies spawned on top of them. Once that was done they scouted the area, Steve and Alex claiming the wool that was being used as roofing by cutting each piece down, while Pinkie found some lapis and glow dust from each container, but the chests didn't seem to have too much loot inside them. As soon as they were done with the camp, and had taken all of the good stuff to help outfit their village, the group continued into the plains and shifted their course so they could head to the north, mostly for a change in direction so they didn't get bored of repeating the same thing. Such a thing turned out to be a very bad idea, not because of the possibility of running into Illagers or wandering packs of monsters, like the few spiders and scorpions they had fought yesterday, but because they spotted something terrifying off in the distance, one that made them change direction immediately.

It was due to a golden yellow colored dragon torching an area to the north, as in something must have pissed it off, but while it was smaller than the black one it was just as terrifying and everyone knew that, even with iron gear, such a thing was beyond their power, hence why they headed in another direction without delay.

Another thing they discovered was a large floating structure made of some blue material, though while it was clear that it was a dungeon, since it had a number of floors and chambers, there was no way to get up there and Pinkie felt that it had a good number of powerful creatures inside it. None of them were ready for such a thing, in fact they didn't have a way to get up there, at least not yet, so for right now Pinkie added it to their atlas for later and resumed exploring, since there had to be something else for them to stop and salvage. She sort of got her wish sometime later, when they found a small area that looked like a dragon had torched it recently, though there were none nearby, but she did find some emeralds in the floor, in their ore form, to which she carefully mined them and some of the ashen material. Her curiosity got the better of her as she found more charred material and carefully dug into the earth, finding more material before opening a small hole into what appeared to be a circular dragon hoard, given the gold and gems on the ground, before spotting a massive red dragon that was currently sleeping.

She quickly made a note of where this beast was resting before leaving the area, causing the others to move as well once they knew what she had found, though when they were far away from it's cave Steve had everyone stop and made sure everyone had something to drink, just to keep them hydrated.

"Okay, we have at least three dragons near the village... that's not good." Steve remarked, because while two were some distance from their base, and thus shouldn't be too much of a threat, he had no idea if they would follow them back and wreck havoc on everything they were setting up right now, which would really suck after everything they've done so far, as this was a fantastic start to their adventure.

"It's not like we can do anything about them, not with our current level of gear." Alex said, which caused Octavia to nod at the same time, meaning they were in agreement, even if this was the first time anyone had said anything about this, but she did sigh as she considered their options, "We need better tools and gear to move forward, which is easier said than done since some of the materials are deep in the earth and some are in the Nether... it'll be some time before we reach the point where we'll be able to face these beasts."

"Maybe we should return to the village and spend a few days in the mine?" Octavia inquired, as that seemed like the safest option right now, especially since they would be able to protect all of the Villagers in case something strange happened, as in another Event or an attack from some of the Illagers.

Steve and Alex weren't too convinced that now was the time to return, in fact they had barely filled out the atlas, which all of them knew would take forever based on large the world was, before the group got moving once more and continued to avoid the dragons that they knew about. What surprised the group a few moments later was that they found a village that looked like it had been abandoned, not because of dragons since everything was still intact, rather it looked like Zombies might have killed everyone, since a few were hanging out in the houses right now. As such Steve and Alex wiped out all of the Zombies that were scattered throughout the village, even though the first thing they did was activate the Waystone to know the location of this place, before everyone split up and started to salvage everything they could find, gathering wool, whatever food they could find in the various chests, and anything else of use. Pinkie chuckle as she found a chest with two diamonds inside it, she'd figure out something to do with them when they were back in their village, before she pulled out the crate Alex had given her and stored the various chests inside it, as it seemed to shrink them down so one could put all sorts of things inside it.

There was also a small stone structure on the outskirts that happened to contain two Zombie Spawners, which had to be how the village was wiped out, an Admin must have gotten bored of these Villagers, so Pinkie broke them and collected all of the items and Experience. Once they took stock of what was in Mararkas, which was what this village was called, Steve and Alex returned to Pinkie and Octavia, as while they had found a lot of stuff that might be useful they knew there were more items to collect and not a lot of Inventory space to contain everything. As such they decided that it was time to use the Waystone to warp back to Cerozer Taiga, so they could deliver the materials that had been recovered so far and allow everyone to come back with more space, since there was far more for them to collect. Fortunately it looked like they were still within range of the other Waystone and were able to warp back without using any of their Experience to use it, where the Villagers cheered for their return and found that they came back with all sorts of food and materials, which was nice since it could be added to everything else that was being gathered recently.

Octavia smiled as they returned to their home, as it was nice to have some safety before worrying about the dangers that the Admins might throw at them, causing her to pull out her tome and wonder if she might be able to make something to protect them, though she had a feeling she would have to start her experiments before reaching that point and made her interested in what she might discover in the near future.