I arrived at my house with quick steps, not knowing if the rain was going to catch me or the Elder's anger.

"Well I have more then I asked for, but now I don't think I have enough quartz."

I could hunt some skeletons to get their bones and continue to grow my wheat, or I could make a portal go into the Nether and get more quartz.

In the end, I decided to make a portal, I still planned to do one so I could connect it to my base, and what better time to start than now?

I checked around the house and nobody was there to spy on me.

So I went down to my secret base where my friend Violet made herself visible once again.

I didn't even bother to ask her what she was doing on the surface, I can't read her that well yet.

After my clothes had dried, I got up, equipped my diamond pickaxe, and made another small room where I built the portal.

The walls were made with dark wood whole the floor was gray from the stonebrik blocks, and the ceiling had lanterns with oak planks.

After everything was done, I took some Flint and steal to lit up the portal.

The space started to bend trying to connect two separate dimensions before finally the red dimension appeared.

"I should make some preparations before I go in."

I went back to my storage and took the enchanted crossbow, fireworks, shield, arrows, potions, blocks, diamond sword, and a diamond pickaxe.

After this, I took all the gold I had and made myself an armor that should keep me cool in that hot dimension.

With everything ready I went back to the portal and crossed, but since I had the golden armor on me I only felt a slight breeze.

I looked around and saw only netherock and nothing else.

It seems that I was in an underground tunnel.

I started to walk more and explore the place and I could tell this was all naturally generated and not mined by hand.

At first, I went a little deeper but didn't find anything besides a few blocks of quartz which I quickly broke, and then I went upwards until I arrived at the surface.

The entrance wasn't that big so it could easily be overlooked if you weren't looking at it specifically.

I could just cover it up here and nobody would ever find it.

Of course, I should plant something that I can use as a sign, so I won't lose it as well.

For now, I decided to leave it open and explore the surrounding area, in case there was a settlement that I had to look out for.

If they were Piglings, I could maybe trade with them, but if I found some Brutes, then I could also trade with them, but I had to be careful not to be robbed once they saw how much gold I had.

I didn't have time to walk for too long before I found the first sign of civilization.

An arrow stuck into a red tree.

Most likely someone was hunting after a hogling in here but forgot to pick the arrow back up.

Some may say that this could be a skeleton arrow, but usually, those tended to be of a worse quality, you couldn't use it more than three times before it broke.

Of course, you could still get good arrows from them but those were very few.

And from the quality of the arrow, I could tell it wasn't shot by a skeleton.

I walked around with more careful steps, my ears were listening for any unusual noise while my eyes were looking for something that didn't belong in there.

Unfortunately, I didn't have an invisibility potion on me, so I couldn't use that method to stay hidden.

Suddenly I heard laughter after the small hill.

With silent steps, I got on top and looked to see who was making all the noise, and the results weren't that pleasant to see.

At the bottom of the hill, three brutes were laughing while butchering the hogling they just killed.

Looks like the arrow I just found was more recent than I thought.

After a successful hunt, the brutes took their spoils and left the red forests with me following close behind them, trying not to be found.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

We walked for a few hours, and I tried to memorize the path so I could go back until they arrived at their destination.

And what a destination they had.

What I saw in front of me was the home of every brute, The Bastion.

It was more imposing than in the game, and it wasn't such a ruin, I could see some bridge made with black bricks, walls of protection, and mighty statues, it was a whole settlement.

The question now was, should I go inside?

Unfortunately, my decision was quickly taken from me, as a voice yelled from behind me.

"You there! Why are you sneaking around our fortress so much, are you a spy?"

I quickly turned around to see a brute with a golden Chestaple, helmet, and exe pointed at me.

Behind him were another three brutes that were pointing their crossbow at me ready to shoot at the signal of their leader.

This was not a good situation to be in, where did they even come from, I looked around when I arrived here.

"Even if you're a big deal in another bastion, that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want here, no matter how much golden armor you have. Speak now or I'll take your life."

"Stop! My name is Trader and I'm someone that likes to travel through the Nether and trade with whoever I find."

"Trader? That's a stupid name, what do you have to trade oh wandering one?"

"I have an enchanted crossbow, some blocks from the other world and I'm also willing to buy."

"Blocks from the other world you say? You managed to get something out of those weird guys from the East. Do you perhaps get some of their armor as well?"

"Unfortunately not, they rather die then sell it to us."

*ptsu

The Brute spat on the ground out of disgust.

"Those stupid-looking people don't have any spirit to trade, they don't even appreciate the shine of the gold, instead they salivate over those green rocks."

"Yeah, I heard they called it emeralds."

"That's what I heard as well, you said you bought some blocks from them?"

"Yes, they're called cobblestone, it's harder than the common netherock and two layers can stop the blast of a ghast."

"Only two you say? It's not that bad then, come with me stranger you'll be my guest for today, no one shall harm you under my protection."

Everyone lowered their weapons and got closer to me.

Bad memories of being forced under house arrest came to me but shook them away.

This time was different, while I couldn't kill them without attracting the attention of the guards, I could run away and they couldn't catch up with me.

But this was a good opportunity to get inside the bastion, and I was confident that I could get out of any cage they tried to put me in.

They quickly surrounded me in case I was trying to escape, and I was ready to take my diamond sword at any sudden movement, but we arrived at the huge gate with no problem and then we stopped.

"Open up! The powerful Nugie got back from his hunt."

I heard a few grunts on top of the wall and soon a head looked down at us before yelling at the others to get back on their jobs.

I was shocked by two things, the name of the brute sounded very similar to Nuggets, and he dared to make fun of my name.

The second thing was the huge red wooden door that was not made with the help of the System.

I could see it was made from slabs that were placed vertically, but I didn't see what made them stick together.

One thing was for sure, it was very heavy to move, and four brutes were using all of their strength to move the huge gate.

Once we had enough space to pass through, we moved without looking back at the tired men's.

"Welcome to our Bastion, it's not the most beautiful out there but it's our home, and I hope trading would be enjoyable for you."

The place wasn't big, there was only one opening where I could see the ceiling of the Nether, everything else was walls and rooms made with black stone.

All brutes had some kind of golden weapon in their hand, and I could feel that anyone would gladly start a fight if they had the chance.

Even the women, who I could hardly distinguish from the males, seemed thirsty for blood.

The only thing that I saw much stronger than that was the light in their eyes when they saw gold.

Most of them traded in golden nuggets, but the bigger purchase required golden bars.

We walked towards the center, the temperature started to rise and I could see the reason once I got down at the bottom.

Down here was a huge lava pool that had a few blocks placed here and there on the surface, but in the middle of all of that was a platform, and on top of the platform was an iron cage.

Besides the cage were a few blocks of gold just staying out in the open, even though everyone looked with greed at them.

"This is our prized fighting arena, I know the lava seems dangerous, but that's with intention. We believe that the higher the challenge the greater the warrior would come, that's why our fighting cage is more special than the others you saw at the other bastions."

Everyone has cages like those?

No wonder everyone calls them Brutes, but I have to act like I'm not that surprised by what I see, otherwise my cover would be blown.

"I did wonder why there's such a huge lava lake in the middle of the settlement, but with such great warriors, there must be a great prize as well."

Everyone started to laugh weirdly around me once I said that.

"As you said Trader, the higher the risk, the greater the reward. You can see all of those riches placed around the cage, those are the prizes of the winner, and it's enough to set a warrior for life. Why my father got his fortune from this, and my family can still thrive from it."

That was fascinating to know.

"So where do you get all this gold from?"

"Once a week we put animals in the cage to fight, or maybe a warrior with an animal, everyone that wants to see has to pay two gold ingots to see, and once a year the final tournament would happen, where the champion would take all the glory and its gold."

"I see, are you a warrior as well by any chance?"

"Not yet, I'm still collecting gold to make my armor as per tradition, I also hope that I'll manage to enchant it. But once I have all of those prepared I'll be competing for the gold, and make my father proud."

"Aren't you afraid you're going to die while trying?"

"A small price to pay for riches."

That's an interesting mindset, but it shows results when anyone dares to attack a bastion.

Every citizen in this place knows how to swing a weapon.

There's a reason why the Stone Kingdome decided to trade with the Brutes, even though they were underequipped compared to them.

One of the kings did try this and even succeeded, but the casualties were so great that it was decided that the king brought too much shame to the kingdom and had to step down.

Now they choose to trade with them, since it's not worth the hassle of battle, no matter how eagerly the brutes are for another bloody war.

"Thank you for showing me around the place Nugie, but I came with a reason here."

"Yes indeed, and what did you say about those blocks from the other world?"

Looks like I found my first customer.