Following their discoveries in the mines, and some extended time there to stock up on resources that Steve and Alex said were necessary for the future, the group returned to the village to get a good night's sleep and make sure they were ready for what the morning held. This was what they had been waiting for, a trip to the Nether, where Pinkie needed multiple new materials to advance her weaponry and armor, Octavia needed one item for sure and had her eyes set on anything else that might be useful, and Steve and Alex would be keeping their eyes open for two special structures. The first was the Nether Fortress, where they would find the Blazes necessary to collect the rods from, along with Wither Skeletons, black Skeletons with a rather nasty withering effect if they were hit by them. The other was a Bastion, a ruined structure that was guarded by the Piglins, a race that inhabited the Nether, though while there was gold inside such a place they were more interested in the true treasure: Netherite scraps and Ancient Debris, which would allow them to forge Netherite, the greatest material the pair knew about.
In addition to that they could find powerful suits of diamond armor, if they were lucky, and with Pinkie's skill they knew that fixing them would be rather easy, once she got her hands on whatever she discovered, plus they could be upgraded to pure Netherite if an ingot was applied to a piece of armor or any of their tools, allowing her to think about it during the night, as it was interesting to consider.
When morning arrived the group gathered at the southern gate and departed from the village, heading to the west once more as they focused on setting up the Nether portal away from their friends, as the Elder and his Villagers didn't need a portal to another dimension right outside their homes. Octavia had suggested setting it up halfway between them and the Illager base, just in case some of them returned to the base they cleared out not that long ago, a way to make sure none of the aggressors thought to do so again. She was using the dangers of the Nether as a deterrent to keep the village safe from danger while they were off somewhere else in the world, be it this dimension or one of the others they knew about, which the others agreed with, since they didn't have much to choose from. Pinkie had also been told what sort of portal they had to construct so they could head to the Nether, a frame that was four blocks wide and five blocks tall, anything smaller would fail, where she kept the instructions in mind as they sought out a safe location to build it in.
Sometime later they found a decent area, a small clearing, that Pinkie could easily level out with her improved shovel and pickaxe, though once it was flat she took out four more pieces of stone and replaced them with obsidian, before taking the time to make the sides as high as Steve had told her and then connected them, leading to her using the flint and steel that Alex had made on it, creating a purple portal between the obsidian.
"There it is... the portal to the Nether." Alex remarked, as this was the fastest she and Steve had done this, usually it took them days, if not weeks, to track down enough diamond to make all of the tools they needed to even consider this, while this world had outfitted them far too quickly, and that wasn't even taking Pinkie power into consideration.
"Another dimension rests on the other side." Octavia said, recalling what she had learned from their companions and the information she gained from her tome, the latter being far more limited right now, though given what sort of dangers were said to be on the other side, at least on Steve and Alex's old world, she hoped they could find their items quickly and get out before something happened to them.
Pinkie, as usual, simply walked through the swirling purple mass and disappeared, in fact Steve and Alex were sure that she was afraid of nothing and her instances of saving them were to keep her friends alive, before the trio headed in after her, finding the world around them blinking out of existence before a new world appeared around them, one of fire, heat, lava, and danger.
"Note to self, got to make liners for our armor." Pinkie commented, as it was hotter than she was expecting, meaning that this dimension had to be close to the core, like a planet's core in her mind, before she pulled out her canteen and took a few sips, which the others did upon their arrival to stave off the heat, "Okay, let's find the metal we need and some of that glowstone for Octavia... maybe if we're lucky we can find one of the other structures before we need to retreat for a time."
Octavia found that the portal they had stepped through appeared on a rocky edge of the massive underground chasm it had brought them to, as that was the best way to describe the Nether right now, though while there were about ten blocks in front of their portal, giving them some safety, she was worried about the sea of lava she could see. Fortunately one of their goals happened to be nearby, as glowing out of the ceiling were golden or bronze colored blocks that glowed with an interesting light, which Steve confirmed was glowstone, to which Pinkie got to work making a stone path up to the section in question. Once she reached the material she went to work breaking them and found that they shattered into dust, the same color as the blocks her friend had spotted, which she collected as Alex spotted some monsters off in the distance, all new beasts that none of them knew about. There was a massive humanoid creature, which stood as tall as two or three of them, with cloven hooves and a pair of demonic horns on it's head, along with red skin, there was a bloated eyeball beast with spikes on it's body, and who knew what else.
As they stayed out of sight, since the group didn't want to engage the Nether monsters yet, they recalled what Pinkie had told them earlier, she was looking for a blue material called cobalt and a yellow material called ardite, which she would be able to combine to make the Manyullyn metal she had read about. Of course they had no idea if it was stronger than the known material that Steve and Alex knew about, since Netherite was stronger than diamond, but she wanted to collect a few pieces of both metals before they left the Nether. Pinkie she also wanted to collect some Netherite or a few Ancient Debris, but locating said items would be the hardest part of this venture, especially since the former was in scraps and finding an ingot was near impossible, making one wonder where it had all gone, while the latter was said to be in the rocky walls, impossible to find without extensive searching. Fortunately they discovered an ore vein nearby, which contained at least six pieces of cobalt ore that Pinkie happily collected, leaving Steve, Alex, and Octavia to continue the search for the other material they were here for, as once she had access to making Manyullyn they were leaving, since returning with a set of powerful armor was high on their lists right now.
As Pinkie collected the last of the cobalt, however, one of the larger demonic monsters rushed over to them and swung it's fist at her, the collision sending her right into the wall and breaking several pieces of stone, netherrack as Alex called it, all while the others found themselves under siege as well. Such a thing told them that the monsters had either ignored their presence and were only attacking because they were stealing the metal that was in the ground, or they had just noticed the group, even though they had been here for some time, causing the group to attack them in kind. Pinkie, however, was just fine as she pulled herself out of the wreckage and swung her scythe, cutting through her foe's arm as it backed off for a moment, though she was pleased to see that her armor held up to it's attack and didn't break entirely, as she suspected that iron would have broken instantly. In addition to all of that they found flaming skull monsters that exploded when they either struck their target or hit the ground, something that caused Pinkie to smile as she discovered something that might aid them in mining out the area near their Nether portal, she used the edge of her weapon and sent the explosive skulls at the wall behind her.
Sure enough it rained rocks down on her as she fought the larger foe, which she was fine with, though the major thing was that it opened the way for her to see if any cobalt or ardite happened to be nearby, so while she fought her foe she used the skulls to help her in her mining, and once she found the second metal she took her foe down.
"I need a few more items, but with this we should have everything we need to make Manyullyn," Pinkie commented, due to the fact that the tome informed her that she needed magma cream, soul sand, and gravel to make the Nether version of the grout she made to make the smithy, as what it opened the door for would allow her to make all sorts of metals and additions to their gear.
"Might as well keep exploring, but keep an eye out for enemies." Alex said, where she had a feeling they needed resources from the Nether to make what Pinkie needed so she could mass produce the Manyullyn gear that would aid them in their quest, hence why she carefully made her way down to a valley of soul sand that was below their ridge.
What made this interesting was that they found a number of Magma Cubes, square shaped slime monsters who liked to bounce around, wandering the area, where Steve was sure that they had bounced in from one of the other biome, due to them not being in the soul sand valley. Since they contained what Pinkie was looking for Steve and Alex attacked them as Octavia continued to scan the rest of the Nether, adding more and more to her notes for when she returned to the tower and resumed her studies into what her tome had to show her. It wasn't long before their companions were able to find a couple of circular items that Alex confirmed were what Pinkie needed to make the new metal, or whatever it was that she needed the magma cream for, while Pinkie dug up some soul sand, making sure to gather enough in case Octavia needed some in the future. Other than that it didn't seem like any of the structures they were interested in were nearby, which wasn't a surprise to the group since too much progress was a bad thing, before discovering a passage in a nearby wall that seemed worth exploring, so they did so once everyone had what they needed.
On the other side of the short passage, however, they discovered a large force of Nether monsters, far too many for them to take out right now, especially when Octavia was sure that one of the massive flame dragons, like the one they found in the depths of that dungeon, was off in the distance, to which they returned to the portal and headed home.
"Okay, the Nether is dangerous... that much we're able to confirm." Octavia remarked, where she was happy to be back in the Overworld and not down in the depths of the Nether, even though this dimension was just as dangerous as the one she and the others had just left, before she focused on their mission, "So, we got everything we needed, right?"
"I should be able to make the Alloyer now, meaning it won't be long before I start producing Manyullyn ingots to improve our weapons and gear," Pinkie said, though she pulled out the collection of glowstone dust she had collected and handed most of it over to Octavia, while keeping some for herself in case she needed a bit in her own tinkering, before she grinned for a moment as she considered what was in the Nether.
Steve and Alex, on the other hand, simply decided that it was time for them to return to the village so they could rest and figure out what they were going to do next, since returning to the Nether right now wasn't the best option available, not with the army so close to their portal, so they would have to figure out what to do next as Pinkie worked on their gear.