Luke's POV

"She cut me. I can't believe she actually cut me," Zip mumbled as Alex bandaged the cut given to her by Fury.

I was shocked that Fury did that to Zip. The two girls had become great friends. They worked together well, fought side by side together and thought of plans together. And now she's gone.

"She made her choice Zip. We need to make ours," Tim said, crossing his arms.

"He's right Zip," Jade said.

Zip sniffed, rubbing her now bandaged arm. "I guess."

"We need to keep moving. Zip, where do we need to go now?" Tim prompted

Zip shakily reached into her jacket and pulled out her notes. She flicked through them.

"It keeps saying 'the centre' but the centre of what? "

"Minecraftia," Alex said. "The centre of Minecraftia. We can't be far from it."

"We should head out tomorrow morning. No sense in wasting time," Tim said.

Zip nodded and went to her tent, putting her sword next to her head and rolling herself in her blankets. I felt bad for Zip.

"We should go to bed too." Jade went to the tent that he and I shared. I followed him inside. Taking off my jumper, I got into bed, overhearing Tim saying that he would take the first night watch. I drifted off to sleep, only to be woken up again by Tim a few hours later. I groaned. I hate the night watch.

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The trip to the Centre of Minecraftia was very quiet. There was very little talking, very little unnecessary sound and no mob attacks. Zip didn't speak at all the entire way: she just rubbed her bandaged cut and stared off into the distance. Alex didn't talk either, but that's normal for him. Tim was the most vocal, but he only talked to tell us that we should find somewhere to sleep for the night.

We reached the mountain and the massive door set in the side of it. In the door was a faded inscription. I struggled to read it, but eventually made it out.

Enter in those pure of heart
And with care, ye shall depart
Beware those with an evil thought
Lest your journey comes to naught

"I don't like the sound of that," Alex muttered

"Should we go in?" I asked. The inscription made me nervous for some reason.

"We have to," Zip said, her voice croaky from lack of use.

She opened the door. Despite being the biggest thing I have ever seen, the door didn't creak or groan as it was opened. Zip had pushed it only a little bit but the door opened fully all by itself, revealing the stunning scene that was behind it.

Bright multi-coloured lights shot out from a central column that rose up to the ceiling far above. To the left and right were rows and rows of shelves, each with thousands of little glowing bottles neatly lined up. As I watched, more spawned out of thin air to add to the collection. On the floor was a detailed map of Minecraftia, the ends of the map going further than I could see. The map seemed to be 3D and little coloured dots moved around the vast landscape. The air was filled with the sounds of laughter.

The central column was made of some sort of material that I had never seen before. It changed colour and glowed, showing pictures and faces. At its base was a gap, like something was supposed to be placed there but it had gone missing. Just in front of the column was a dark oak table with decorations carved into the side, top and legs.

"So, I'm guessing we make the potion here," I said, resting my hand on the table.

"Yeah, I guess." Zip pulled out her bundle of sheets. "I've got the instructions here."

Tim put the bag of items on the table as Zip flicked through her notes.

"Okay, so the first thing we need to do is power the column with the Ender Crystal," she said.

Tim fumbled in the bag and pulled out the miniature Ender Crystal. He tossed it to me and I walked up to the column. The sounds of laughter grew louder as I approached and the colours seemed to pull me in. Very carefully, I placed down the Ender Crystal in the gap. The crystal started turning and a beam of purple light shot up the column. The column made whirring sounds and a glass bottle filled with water appeared on the table.

"Well, that's working. Next, we put 3 sugar pieces, 5 ender pearls and 2 bone meals into that water bottle," Zip read.

Tim obediently took the necessary items out of the bag and added them to the bottle. The liquid inside turned a deep green colour.

"Uh, is it supposed to look like that?" Jade asked.

"Probably," Zip said, shrugging her shoulders. Making the potion seemed to have taken her mind off her fight with Fury.

"What next Zip?" I prompted.

"Next we need to..." Zip squinted at the sheet. "Um, 'Using the enchantment table, draw out the enchantments of the Axe of the Zombie King and place it in the bottle.' Anyone have any idea what that means?"

"Enchantment tables can hold certain enchantments for a limited amount of time," Alex said, pulling his book out of his pocket. "I believe it says how to do that in my book."

"Great, you can do it," Tim said, placing the enchantment table next to Alex.

Alex took the Axe and placed it on the table. He muttered and did some weird thing with his hand and the Axe glowed. Taking the bottle off the table, he put it on top of the Axe. The glowing passed from the Axe to the bottle. Alex picked up the bottle proudly.

"What's next?" he asked.

"The last ingredient is glowstone. It's finished after that," Zip said, putting away her list.

"So we need to go to the Nether," I confirmed.

"We knew that already. The only question is how we are going to make a portal," Zip told him.

As if it heard her question, a beam of light shot out from the Ender Crystal, disappearing into the dark.

"Are we supposed to follow that?" Tim asked.

"Can't hurt can it?" I said, heading in the direction of the light.

"It probably can," my brother muttered under his breath.

The beam of light lead us to a very big Nether portal. And I mean VERY big. It was almost as tall as the ceiling and as wide as the entire mountain.

"Well, that solves that problem," Tim said.

"Why is there a portal here?" I questioned.

"It's the Centre of Minecraftia. It would make sense to have a portal to the Nether. I bet there's a portal to the End too," Alex told us.

"Should we go through?" Jade asked.

"We don't know what's on the other side. It's not safe," Zip cautioned.

"We wouldn't know what's on the other side even if we made our own. It's faster this way," Alex told her.

Zip sighed. "Fine."

"I'll go first," Tim said. He got his axe ready and walked through the portal. Alex went next, followed by Jade. I was about to go through when I noticed Zip looking back the way we came.

"Zip? Are you coming?" I asked.

"Yeah I just... I'm just hoping that she will come. I...just want to say sorry. I never got to say sorry to her." Zip rubbed her eyes to wipe away the tears that had started to gather there.

I didn't know what to say. "It's... Don't worry Zip. After we've reversed the curse, we'll go find her okay? Even if we have to go back to the End. We'll find her and... we can put everything back to the way it was."

Zip gave me a small smile. "Okay Luke."

I smiled back as I gestured for her to go through the portal first. I went in after her, taking one last look around. Somehow, I felt like I would never come back.