I arrived at my portal and decided to cover the entrance with some netherack until I'll do a better job of hiding it in the future.

Back at my portal, I passed safely into the Overworld, feeling a tension that I didn't know leave my body.

"Home sweet home! Wouldn't you say so Violet?"

My monster friend made herself visible and just shrugged her shoulders before going to her room.

That was such a teenage reaction, but I won't comment on that.

I got the armor off me and drank some milk to wash off the effects on me, then started to sort out the loot that I got into my storage.

"It feels good to be rich."

The smile couldn't leave my face as I was walking from chest to chest.

After everything was sorted I took out the items that I needed for my crafting on the surface and visited Violet's room.

And as I expected she was trying to build something with Redstone, and the longer I looked the easier was for me to understand what she was trying to build.

The door that we saw for the secret room, and also reminded me of my promise to show her how it was done.

Luckily this was one of the easier doors to make and I could make something similar if not exactly as it was.

"Let me help you with that Violet!"

Once she saw me, she stopped and let me do my job.

First I cleaned up the place around my work space and started to place the sticky pistons.

There were six in total, three rows with two on top of each other.

"For this kind of secret door, you need to build it in a corner."

I placed four more blocks to make a wall and then started to build the system.

The pistons on the bottom were connected to three repeaters, and the ones on top were activated by a line of Redstone on top of them.

All of them were connected with a small staircase and a lever.

Once I flicked the lever, the pistons activated leaving one block gap in the corner of the 'wall'.

"The pistons at the bastion used, Blackstone, neterack, and Blackstone once again so you could't see the door on either side. We are going to use just cobblestones since everything is already made."

With that said, I put the nine blocks on the sticky side of the pistons and flicked the lever a few times to see that everything worked.

And as I expected everything worked just fine, and that seemed to make my monster friend happy.

"Ok, Violet I'll be going to the surface and do some crafting, don't stay all night trying to build with Redstone like last time."

With one grunt that I understood as affirmation, I left my secret base getting back to the surface after what felt like days.

But as I was surfacing on the swamp waters, something felt different than before, I could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.

But that was not possible since I was under the wooden road, and that blocked the sun.

And then I opened my eyes and saw something that I did not expect.

Everything around me was destroyed like a hurricane just passed through.

There were some blocks floating in the air, broken homes, witches' corpses, and much more horror that I was too shocked to register.

"W-what happened here?!"

I swam to the shore and started to check everything I could reach.

The huts were burned, chests were looted, slimes were killed and even the corpses were left with only their clothes on.

"Is anyone here, is anyone alive?"

I checked on the stone basements that were still intact but still no result until finally I saw the answer to what happened here.

In one of the basements that I keep looked through, I saw a corpse that was different than the others.

It was the corpse of a Piliger.

"It can't be! But how could they even get to this place? The mist is supposed to keep them away."

I quickly ran towers the enchanted wall and saw that it wasn't as I expected it to be.

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The wood was burned and the lapiz blocks were broken leaving only a few chunks that survived out of their laziness.

"The wall is broken as well, Is Froggy dead?"

Not wanting to think on that for too long I switched to thinking of something more productive.

Like where would I hide if my home is attacked, and suddenly it hit me?

The mines!

The cave system is huge underground, and mobs don't attack witches, making it the safest place to be in.

I quickly ran towers the mines, and as I expected I saw more activity there, or more exactly more corpses of both parties.

Some faces I recognized made my heart beat more loudly, and some of the enemies made me more shocked, such as the ravager. The game did not do its justice with how intimidating it looked.

But the more I looked, the more a small flame of hope formed, as I didn't recognize the face of my friend among the pile.

Finally, I arrived at the tunnels of the mines where no more bodies were scattered, which I could only guess they lost the people through the long dark tunnels.

"Hello! Is anyone here?"

I yelled at the dark with no result, but I was sure the survivors hid there, unfortunately, I couldn't search every tunnel in hopes of finding them, as it would take me a lifetime.

But I knew someone who could find them in an instant, so ran back to my secret base.

Quickly jumped into the water, almost fell the ladders a few times, and stopped in front of a noisy room.

"Violet, I need your help!"

The Enderwoman stopped flicking the lever and looked at me with confusion.

"Come *huff* with me *huff* to the surface. *huff*"

I kept taking breaths between my sentences but the message was understood.

So after a quick break, we went to the surface, where even my monster friend was surprised to see what just happened.

"I think the survivors hid in the mines, can you see them?"

She started to teleport and I ran quickly towards the mine as well, and when I arrived at the entrance she already examined the place with her third eye.

"So do you see them?"

And to my relief, I got a yes.

"Can you lead me to them?"

She looked one more in a certain direction and teleported, leaving big purple particles behind for me to follow.

After half an hour moving through twisted and abandoned tunnels I suddenly had to stop, because an arrow was shot right in front of me.

"You won't get us you filthy Piligers, I'll rather die than be your slave!"

A voice filled with rage yelled at me as another arrow tried to get me.

But that was a voice that I recognized, it was a feminine voice.

It was Sara.

"Sara, it's me, Trader, don't shoot!"

"Trader is that you? I thought you were dead!"

I managed to get closer to the tense witch without getting shot.

"I've gone mining for a few days and when I came back everything was gone, what happened?"

She scanned me up and down in my diamond armor before looking at my back.

"You weren't followed by any chance were you?"

"I didn't see a living being on my way here, so I don't think anyone followed me."

She let out a sigh of relief and tension left her body, then she started to cry with small sobs.

I tried to comfort her but two people having a breakdown in front of me in the span of a day made me scared about what was happening.

After a few minutes, she calmed herself enough to talk with me.

"Thank you, while you were gone the Piligers attacked us in the middle of the night, kidnapping people and killing those who were opposing."

"But how could they find this place? The mist was supposed to stop them from getting here."

"Brutus and some other Elders decided to betray us."

She said that full of hatred.

I instead was taken by surprise since I didn't expect one of the Elders to betray the witches.

Why?

Sure, he was a bit grumpy with me but he worked in the best interest of the Clan, what were his motives?

For how long did he plan this?

But then I remembered why I came here in the first place.

"Is Froggy ok, is he here as well?"

"Yes, he's with the others taking care of the wounded people. But now that you came here and nobody else is outside, I should probably tell the others as well."

We both walked deeper into the tunnel where slowly light started to appear until I arrived at a large cavern with twenty witches resting, healing, or trying to help each other.

To my relief, I saw Froggy well and healthy giving a piece of bread to some wounded man.

With quick steps, I arrived behind and gave him a big hug.

"Wha-Trader you're alive!"

His tired face suddenly came back to life and he returned the hug with force.

Everyone started to look at the commotion since the room was not that large.

"I know something like this wouldn't kill you! Where were you, I didn't see you anywhere when the attack started."

"Yeah, I was out and busy gathering some materials, today I arrived at the surface and was surprised by the disaster."

Once I mentioned that, his mood went down and looked around the room in silence for a few moments.

"Yes the attack took us by surprise, most of us we're asleep at that time, when that traitor Brutus decided to let the Piligers in our clan, not only that but Ellen helped them by showing the Piligers where the other Elders lived. Only Elder Flora and Elder Anastasia managed to escape alive, the others are dead or captured."

"Ellen did what?! What about the rest of the team?"

"Only me, Sara, and Walter survived, everyone else died in battle against the Piligers."

His mood went down the longer he talked, and as I was about to comfort him, a voice called my name.

"Trader, your back it seems."

I turned around and saw the two Elders coming towards me, both of them aged considerably from last time I saw them.

"Yes, I'm sorry that I wasn't here to help you fight against the Piligers."

They only gave a tired sigh as Flora continued to speak.

"Sara told us you came from the surface, is it as bad as we think?"

"Probably worse, every living being was killed, every hut was burned and every chest was broken or looted, there's nothing on the surface. Not even the wall managed to survive."

Both of them got more and more discouraged as I talked, but lucky some of the other witches decided to give us some room to talk, so not everyone was able to hear me.

"We want to go to the surface to check out as well, can you come with us?"

They were both tired but determined to pull this through.

The reason they asked me to come with them, was most likely because of my armor and my combat ability.

I didn't have any reason to refuse them, so I accepted their request which made them sigh in relief.

Froggy decided to join as well, leaving only Sara and Walter behind in case anything happened.

We walked along the dark tunnels, killed a few zombies, and finally, we arrived at the entrances if the mine.

Once we all got out, the others saw the scale of destruction and fell to their knees.

Nobody broke down, but I could see the defeat in their eyes, which only made me feel worse that I wasn't here to help them.

I don't think I could've stopped this, but maybe I could've saved a few more lives.

"What do you think we should do Flora?"

"There's nothing we can do Elder Anastasia, we are doomed."