"Basalt?" You echoed in disbelief.

The Villager in front you nodded. Apparently he wanted to spice up his home with it, for whatever reason. Seriously, what does a cleric need basalt for?

Up until now it has been your average every day morning, until this guy knocked on your door.

You leaned against the doorframe, stroking your chin as you were deep in thought.

"Basalt.....", you mumbled. "I have heard of it... But never found it in the overworld..."

The cleric 'hm'-ed and handed you a book. You took it and eyed the cover.

'Rare Items and Hard to Obtain Materials' was its title.

You raised your eyebrows. "So this is meant to help me find it?"

The Villager nodded. "Hm."

"Hard to obtain, huh? That's why you want me to go get it. So you can stay safely at home." Huffing, you put your hand on your hip, looking at him in disapproval.

He smiled widely and nodded again. "Hmhm!"

You huffed again in disbelief and shook your head. "And what do I get in return?"

Your interlocutor turned serious. For a few moments he rummaged around in his robes, before pulling out an item, wrapped in a piece of cloth.

As he showed it to you, you carefully lifted up the cloth and gasped at the sight.

It was an eye of ender!

Your mouth slightly agape, you stared at it in awe for a minute.

"I guess that's a fitting reward..."

The cleric nodded, before quickly stuffing it back into his robes, much to your dismay.

Contemplating the deal a bit longer, you eventually nodded. "Alright. I will bring you some basalt."

The villager nodded, clearly satisfied. You exchanged your goodbyes and he turned around to walk back into his village, which wasn't far away, just around the hillside.

And you, you turned around and walked back into your cozy little wooden cabin.

Sitting back down at your kitchen table and resuming drinking your tea, you had made before the cleric came, you opened the book.

Your search for the page about basalt didn't last long. There was a sketch of the block in the middle of the page, showing its supposed looks. Curious about the material you began to read.

Basalt
(Material, a non-gravity-affected block)

Variations: basalt, polished basalt, no slabs or stairs

Location: Basalt is commonly found in the Nether in two biomes. In Basalt Deltas and Soulsand Valleys. It appears in columns, that mostly make up the terrain of Basalt Deltas.

Other Information: It's a fairly weak type of rock, that can be mined with any type of pickaxe. So far no uses other than decoration purposes are known.

"In the Nether? It's a dangerous place... And no one has been there in ages! Not since.... Since... The last battle, I think....", you mumbled, shuddering at the memory of that old legend you heard tons of times as a kid.

"No wonder he's offering an eye of ender as a reward... Those things are rare after all..."

Guess we're going on an adventure., you thought, while finishing your tea.

<^> <^> <^>

Around five minutes later you were already packing your backpack, preparing for your upcoming mission.

"If I have to go to the Nether, I need a portal, right....? But I don't have a diamond pickaxe yet... I can't mine any obsidian."

You kept thinking out loud as you packed your iron pickaxe, iron sword, some beef, water bottles and some cobble, in case you needed to build a bridge somewhere.

After weighing out your possibilities, you settled on creating a portal via the 'speedrunner bucket metod' next to the lava pool in your mines. All you needed to bring were two water buckets for an infinite water source.

And flint and steel of course. Needless to say, these things went into your bag as well.

You shouldered it and grabbed the buckets, heading out to your mines.

<^> <^> <^>

Twenty minutes later you arrived at the desired destination. It was a bit of a walk, across the plains and a river towards the mountains your mine resided in.

Once it started as a simple caving tour. But you liked the cave so much, that you turned it into your permanent mineshaft, starting your own tunnels at the very bottom of the cave. And you made the make shift bridge, that lead over the river directly to its entrance, a lot better. Much more stable and with railings at its sides.

Right now you were walking through the cave part of your mine. The air was chilly and smelled like a mixture of moist stone and the smoke coming from your torches.

Smaller and bigger holes in walls and floor showed where you already had mined out all resources, leaving nothing but the bare stone.

As you ventured deeper and deeper into the cave, the temperature rose. It became warmer and warmer, until the warmth faded into an almost unbearable heat.

It got harder to breathe as the air became more stuffy and the smell of molten stone and hot ashes became almost too much for you.

An orange glow in front of you showed where your desired destination was. You rounded the last corner and squinted your eyes at the extreme heat that smacked right into your face.

You were already sweating profusely, and now your eyes started to tear up. All mechanisms your body came up with, to keep itself from getting to dry or to hot in the extreme heat.

Not wanting to be there for too long you set to work.

An infinite water source was quickly set up. Then you build a placeholder portal frame with cobblestone and placed water in one corner, letting it flow down. This should enable you to build half of the portal.

Next step would be to scoop up lava into one of your now empty buckets. However you've never done that before.

Would the lava even stay in the bucket? What if it were to melt a hole into the metal? And what if you burned your hands while doing so?

You sighed. "Only one way to find out..."

Carefully edging closer to the lava lake, you kneeled down. The heat almost burned your skin, but you had to keep going.

You held out your hand holding the bucket and carefully dipped the metal object into the molten stone.

You watched in disbelief and amazement, as the thick, semi-liquid fire oozed into your bucket, which didn't immediately melt upon contact.

When it was full, you pulled it out and stood up. It was like a miracle, nothing spilled out the bucket, and the bucket still didn't melt.

Grinning in amazement and victory you carried it over to your make-due portal frame amd used it to place your first block of obsidian.

This process repeated itself nine more times and voila! Your portal frame was done!

You removed the last water and wiped the sweat from your forehead.

"Awesome! Now I just need to light it and then I can get the basalt!"

You flicked out your flint and steel and kneeled down in front of the frame.

You took a deep breath. You were going to light up a portal to the Nether. A hellish and dangerous dimension, housing dangerous creatures.

You knew that after the last battle, when Notch spoke his curse, all portals got shut down and disconnected, sealing off the Nether. Since then you haven't heard of anyone activating a new one. So.... What if activating a portal broke the seal?

Nonsense. It was just a legend.

You shook your head and raised your flint and steel again.

Hitting the two pieces together, a few sparks emitted from them.

As soon as these sparks hit the obsidian, the portal ignited.

You stared up at the strange, purple, twirling substance that appeared within the frame. It was almost hypnotizing.

Suddenly a low rumble was heard and ripped you out of your trance.

It sounded like something was collapsing and slowly got louder. You looked around in fear, afraid that it might be your cave. But it wasn't. The noise seemed to come from no particular direction.

A feeling of dread washed over you. The curse was just a myth, a legend, right? Right?

You weren't so sure anymore.

As sudden as the noise had started, it was gone, leaving you fearfully sitting on your cave floor with hot and cold shivers running up and down your spine...