//------------------------------//
// Period of Rest 
// Story: Minecraft: A New Adventure 
// by Blackdrag-rose 
//------------------------------//

Following their victory over the Ender Dragon, and Pinkie claiming her prize, the group used the new portal that opened up in the middle of the End and returned to their village, each one appearing in their residences with ease, causing each one to smile as they regrouped near Pinkie's workshop.

"We've beaten both the Wither and the Ender Dragon in record time." Steve said, though he and Alex were amazed by this turn of events, as both of them were expecting to take some time to gather the items they needed to do both tasks, but with Pinkie and Octavia they had taken both targets down, without really stopping to rest, "So what do we do next?"

"We rest. There are several other enemies we can take out, but we need to rest first." Pinkie replied, as she knew what the next step in their quest was, destroying the golem and then taking out the remainder of the powerful generals that served the three Admins, before trying to do anything to the Admins themselves, all while she took stock of her new additions, "I also need to make some alterations to my armor to accommodate the horns and tail."

Octavia wondered just how far Pinkie would go in becoming a dragon, but decided not to worry about it right now as she nodded her head with Steve and Alex, showing that she was interested in resting as well, to which everyone separated and headed back to their residences, as the first order of business was a good nights sleep. While Steve and Alex returned to their homes, and Pinkie worked on her armor for a time, Octavia returned to her tower and resumed her work on the tome, finding that the more she unlocked the more pages she had access to, even if it would take some time to get through each topic. One thing she instantly discovered was a recipe to make a set of goggles that allowed one to see the Vis of items, as in they would reveal the hidden information of everything, and would even reduce the cost of Vis when she did other tasks, how she had no idea, but she had learned to accept everything this tome told her. She also considered the possibility of creating mechanical devices and imbuing them with arcane energy, something that the tome spoke about as she turned the pages and delved deeper into the information it possessed.

As she did that, however, she heard a voice whispering to her and found that, when she strained her ears to listen to it for a time, it wasn't the voice of the parasites' leader, rather it seemed to be a faint feminine voice, possibly the Admin that Pinkie was speaking to, and when it faded away she suddenly felt much smarter and more magical.

Octavia figured it was a blessing of some kind, to help her keep up with Pinkie in some manner, especially since it allowed her to understand the tome more and figure out things faster than she had before, as if she was stacking blessings since the parasites had given her such a thing after her death in the Lost Dimension. While she thought about that she found a few mentions to something called the Infernal Furnace, which seemed to do a lot with the Vis in the air, and Ignis based on the information in front of her, and it didn't take her long to make such a thing in part of her tower, or at least she made an attempt to do so. What actually happened was that on her way up to the sixth level, the uppermost one where Octavia was planning on doing all of her more dangerous experiments, so they didn't fall on the ground or the village, she found a set of portals on the fourth floor, four to be exact, leading to what she could only describe as elemental planes, as one was made of fire, one was underwater, another was a stone cavern, and the last was up in the air. With her empowered senses she could tell that each one was overflowing with Vis, in fact when she set up the Infernal Furnace in the space provided, a flat area where the flames didn't touch her, it started to work and Octavia quickly set up the system described in the tome, before doing the same with other materials in the other three realms.

She also found that teleporting between any of the realms and her tower was far quicker than what she expected, while also being faster than the portals Pinkie had created so far, though they simply aided her in her studies of her tome as she continued to make new items and, following the whispers, made an altar on the top floor, which would come in handy in the near future.

"There's so much to learn about this world and the other dimensions." Octavia commented, where she weaved her fingers for a moment and an orb of fiery energy formed in front of her, something that caused her to create a bolt of lightning, an earthen spike, and even a swirl of water, all of which she banished once she was done testing her power out, before she had an idea, an awful one when she considered what happened the last time they tried it.

With that in mind she jumped off the edge of her structure and called upon the wind to slow her fall, allowing her to land on the edge of the lake with ease, where she dusted herself off before making her way over to the village, as she needed a single item before trying to do what was on her mind, hence why she stopped at Pinkie's, finding her friend hard at work on her gear.

"Oh, hey Octavia. Shouldn't you be resting?" Pinkie inquired, though at the same time Octavia could see that she had a few plans on how to make her tail armor, she was just putting the finishing touches on it, along with a couple of notes that had to be in case more of her transformed in the future.

"I should be asking you the same thing, but I won't. I need a Warp Scroll." Octavia said, as her plan involved heading back to the Lost Dimension to face some of the parasites, to test her new powers out before they got into a battle, so this was mostly to make sure she worked well under whatever pressure the future held for them.

"Octavia..." Pinkie started to say, the look in her eyes telling Octavia that she was worried for her, especially after what had happened the last time they had been to the Lost Dimension, but before anything more could be said she noticed the look of determination in Octavia's eyes and sighed, where she handed over a scroll without wasting a second, "Promise me you'll be safe?"

"I can't promise that, but I promise to try my hardest to stay safe." Octavia replied, which was the truth, she had no way of telling how this was going to work out and couldn't make the promise that Pinkie wanted her to make before heading to the Lost Dimension, though she took the scroll and slipped it into her pack for the time being.

Pinkie nodded as Octavia departed from the workshop, heading outside in the middle of the night to discover that none of the monsters were interested in the village, in fact the presence of three dragons might be telling them to stay away, but in that moment she slipped outside and stopped by the portal area. She took a moment to stare at the bed portal to the dimension she was interested in, once more surprised that nothing was coming out of the Nether portal, before steeling herself for the madness she was about to experience again as she touched the bed once more. Sure enough a couple of seconds later the world around her disappeared as she appeared in the dimension she was interested in, where she ended up in the forest outside the ruined city that she and the others had seen and could tell that the parasites knew that she had returned to their domain. That was the downside to the parasite Voice, it likely told the others that she was back or was in the process of returning to this world, but she wasn't about to complain about the situation as she focused on her magic for a few seconds, since that was what Octavia was here to test, and get some revenge on these creatures.

She paused for a few more seconds, to make sure she was fine with doing this, before rushing out of the forest as she called forth her magic, which swirled around her before forming into orbs of fire that she launched into the city, striking several of the parasites and causing them to screech in pain. Sure enough she found a number of black shapes running around while on fire, some of the smaller parasites burning to death as the larger ones, like the blob with scythe hands, simply walked as if nothing was wrong, even though she can tell that they were slowly burning away. Octavia quickly considered her options for a moment before creating stone spikes that she sent flying through the air, which crushed some of the smaller parasites with ease as some of the others took a fair amount of damage, but not enough to actually take them down. She figured that water would be ineffective against the monsters, and lightning did more harm than good, as she sent a bolt at a flying foe and watched as it transformed into some odd flying rib cage parasite that loosed poison bolts at her, but sending out blades of wind did some damage as well.

It seemed like magic might be the key to destroying the parasites, in addition to using a dragon's fire, which seemed to be what Pinkie was working towards, and she could tell that the being that the Voice came from was watching her, though she did stop on a fountain's roof, allowing her to stare out at her surroundings, including the black saplings that would no doubt grow into trees at one point.

"Interesting, they're slowly infecting the world around them... if they grow any larger it might be a problem." Octavia said, as she was sure that the saplings would grow into something more corrupted if time went on, even though it looked like they might need someone to be in the dimension to allow time to move on, before she swung her sword and cut down a pair of Rupters that jumped at her.

That was the annoying fact, the smaller parasites either rushed at her while they were on the ground or jumped at her while she was distracted, meaning Octavia had to keep her focus up while traveling through this dimension, least she give her foes an opening to attack her, and with these parasites she couldn't afford to give them any ground. She could tell that they were after her, no doubt to twist her into either the form that had been bestowed upon her when they first corrupted her, which Pinkie killed in seconds, or a new one that better suited her, in the words of the Voice when Octavia recalled it's promise to her. She wasn't about to let that happen, especially since the parasite wanted to twist her into a being of pure darkness to corrupt the main dimension hence why she lashed out with her new magic and blasted several of the weaker parasites to pieces, only to hear bells that followed the arrival of more corrupt saplings, which seemed to be scattering all over the city to ensure she couldn't find them. Such a thing annoyed her, since she was basically making this world worse than she had found it, but in the end she figured that it was okay, as eventually the Voice would be forced to act and then, as soon as that happened, she could cut it down and free herself from hearing it, though for the time being she loosed a larger fireball and used it to distract the parasites.

As it landed, however, Octavia pulled out the scroll and returned to the main dimension, before the parasites could grab onto her, allowing her to breath a sigh of relief as she returned to her tower so she could actually get some rest before seeing what the next couple of days held for her and her new friends.