Techno and Skeppy were brought to the fortress but weren't allowed inside the meeting room. They peaked through the doorway. It was inside one of those small separated rooms that you find along the bridge of a fortress. Zombies were inside there. Luckily, Bad treated them with a specific splash potion that would lose the attraction that Zombies sense when a human is around. He said that it was the only way they could come safely. Skeppy asked if it was basically just a potion that made Zombies lose their sense of smell towards them. Bad deflected the question and went inside anyway before they could stop him.

Sitting against the bridge railing, bored, Techno watched Skeppy lean over it, looking down into the pools of lava.

"Do you dare me to jump in there?" he asked casually. Techno pulled him down from the railing.

A few seconds pass by. Skeppy huffs and crosses his arms like a child. "I'm boored," he groans.

"What do you want me to do about it?" Techno asked sarcastically.

"We can go somewhere?" Skeppy offered. "He never said we couldn't."

Techno laughed. "We've been using that excuse a whole lot."

"Exactly! So what's our excuse for using that excuse to excuse ourselves from-"

Technoblade put his hands on his head. "Please stop, you're confusing me."

Skeppy laughed. "Okay, lemme put it like this: Would you rather sit here and be bored or go somewhere fun?"
Techno lifted his head promisingly. Skeppy dragged on.

"Would you rather sit here or go somewhere exciting?"

"And wouldn't you rather..."
"No."
"You're no fun."

Techno sighed and adjusted his robe. "Look, there's some pigmen over there by the stalls. You can go over there and trade with them, or something."

Skeppy jumped up and started to leave when Techno pulled him back down again. "You'll need these," he said, pulling off his golden boots and handing them to Skeppy.

"Oh, and they're to your left, not your right.

***

Traversing through the crowds of pigmen, they smiled and waved at him, as if he had been living at the fortress his whole life. He waved back. The shoes really did help with trade.

Skeppy walked by static conversations and almost got knocked over by someone running past him. They didn't even bother to say sorry.

Suddenly. a shadow loomed over him. Skeppy looked up from the ground and met with dark eyes, dark and intimidating. The piglin's build was big and stood tall over him. Skeppy gulped and was about to run out of there before the figure held out their hand. Confused, Skeppy stood paralyzed. The piglin pointed.

Skeppy looked down at where the piglin was pointing. His pocket. Reaching his hand in there, he dug out the golden nuggets he stole from Bad (in his frenzy, he forgot to collect them from Skeppy). He took the nuggets and held them out to the piglin. The piglin hesitated, looking over them carefully. Skeppy broke into a sweat.

The piglin gave a piglin noise of satisfaction and took the golden nuggets. In return, he plants a new, shiny... object. What was he supposed to do with this?

Frowning at his trade, he looked up to get a refund from the piglin, but they were already gone, somewhere in between the crowd. Confronting them about the trade probably wasn't the smartest idea, anyway.

Heaving a breath, Skeppy put the "object" into his pocket and kept walking. He walked by passing conversations, talk from the pigmen of late news, even rumors of the meeting Bad was having with the zombies. He almost felt important how he knew the ruler of the Underground personally until he really listened to what they were saying. He heard talk of how he was settling a debate about the people that ruled over above them. Humans. Animals. The wild. He heard how they were planning of bringing more people down. Chaining them up, letting the zombies thrive... He heard a voice say that the "Asmodeus of Hell" would comply with the zombies' plan, that he would help promote the plan and let it go through. He didn't completely know what they all were saying, but it sounded... Bad.

He kept his head low between the zombie pigmen and skeletons passing by him. He didn't want to be rude to them, but he couldn't ignore what he heard. He looked up once and saw a skeleton glaring at him. He kept his head lower and held onto the hoodie over his head tightly.  He looked down at his feet as he walked.

That was when he saw it. Golden nuggets. He would have picked them up and went on with his day, but there was something special about these nuggets. They had blue fiber on them. The same color as his hoodie. And most importantly, the same color of his pocket.

He walked with a faster pace. There was a single golden nugget on the path. He picked it up and went faster.

Skeppy turned the corner. He saw the piglin. They were on the ground, limp. Surrounding them were 4, tall Wither Skeletons. Their bones were dark as night, barely reflecting any kind of light. They held bows and arrows at their sides by their rib cages, the arrows tipped with a flaming dark magic. And there were four of them, standing over the poor piglin, whom he had just traded with only a few minutes ago. One of them was directly in front of them, reaching out their skeletal, bony hand toward their face...

His fight or flight instinct kicking in, he ran into the scene impulsively, thinking to save the trader. One of the Wither skeletons turned. Pitch black sockets held Skeppy's gaze, and he stopped immediately.

The others had noticed now. Angry that he interrupted them, they were slowly advancing toward him, but it felt to Skeppy that they weren't moving at all. They were just standing there, staring at him. Staring at him. They were. Them.

Just then, something jumped in front of him. A familiar black cloak whipped in front of his face, and he thought he saw blood when the red stripes decorating it crossed his eyes. The Wither skeletons stopped their advancement upon the mysterious figure's appearance. But no, this wasn't just anyone. This was BadBoyHalo, "Asmodeus of Hell."

Skeppy watched as they whipped out a sleek, wooden axe from under their cloak. He sprinted forward and gripped the axe with both hands, bringing it up and swinging it, chopping off the skeleton's skull clean off. It disappeared as it hit the ground, as well as the rest of it's body.

The Wither skeletons were raising their arrows now, and three more had come out from around the corner, right behind Skeppy. Bad noticed it and yelled, "RUN!"

Skeppy looked at him, telepathically asking him how. "YOUR ENDER PEARL! THROUGH THE CRACK!" Skeppy looked around and saw what Bad was referring to. There was a small hole in the wall, visible cracks between the maroonish-purple bricks of the fortress. Quickly, Skeppy checked his pocket. The new, shiny object was still there. Winding his arm back, he threw it as hard as he could through the hole, and there he disappeared, an arrow whipping by right where his head used to be.