Chapter Text
Deathly silence sweep through a courtroom as the spectators: representatives of numerous nations of the known world, and spectators from numerous towns and cities across the continent are watching the judge. A young soul, with soot-stained auburn hair, covered up by a glowing hat of orange hue, with skin darkened by endless days laboring under the sun, with simple working clothes covering their body. Even with her less than regal appearance, the moment she stood up from her chair, looking down at a man of sea-blue skin, and markings of two pillars etched onto his face, the whole court turn their attention to her.
“This court, empowered by the will of all the nations on the continent, find you guilty of terrorism, attempted murder, attempted thief and destruction of global wonders, attempts to destroy the Assembly of Nations assembly hall, serial property damage, and harassment against dozens of individuals. Your sentence shall be 45 years in exile within Greenland, starting the moment you take your first step on its frozen grounds. Guards! Take him away!”
The blue-skinned man fists tightened between his chains as he yell out “Bullshit! This is a filthy circus of a courtroom! I’ll bruta-” before he could continue one of the guards bash him with the butt of his axe, roughly, before they take the now unconscious man away. With the courtroom watching this happening quietly, before turning their attention from that, back to the auburn-haired woman
“Everyone may leave now, dismissed.” She finally spoken after some more moments of silence, with vast majority of the audience, jury, and guards beginning to leave...Except a certain individual.
“What is it Seb?” The auburn-haired woman asks as she goes to walk down from the judge’s podium, looking at the man who was ‘technically’ her superior due to him being the leader of the nation she was apart of, but they’re more equals than anything else.
Seb, or known as SebStar, is grinning lazily at the auburn-haired woman. He himself has snow-white skin with stripes going from his fingers, to the sides of his arms, chests, head, and presumably the rest of his body. Causing his part to have a natural distinction of where his arms end, to when his chests start, where his head ends and where the neck begins, so on and so forth. “Well Inert, the fact is that I need your help with something, I already talked with our favorite half-breed at the mini-peninsula, and we want your help in creating a proper nether highway between our settlements, that includes the exploration…Which I do find weird how you haven’t explored it”
“Well, I was busy, well...still busy building numerous towers and monuments with my town and all of that. The only real reasons why we go to the nether is for the lava and to mine every single piece of netherrack or whatever projects we’re doing. And listen here you moldy snowball, I don’t need that from you, you only been digging a giant inverted pyramid into the ground and making a tower from the lowest point!” Inert snorted out as she jab a finger into SebStar’s chest
“H-hi! Fine, we can’t say shit about each other on that front, but are you in or not?”
“Yes I am in, but I’m keeping seventy percent of the netherrack mined, alright?
“Fine, fine, you can have those, but in exchange you also give me your spared bones”
“All of them?"
“All of them.”
“Ugh...Fine, I’m sure Soul and the farmers won't mind that, less work for them at least.”
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"Come on people, mining netherrack is literally one of the easiest materials of mine! I could mine this faster! Infact, you, give me your damn pick" Inert yelled at one of the miners, whos chipping away at netherrack rather slowly compared to the rest of the miners, who jumped and stare at Inert before she gestured at him to hand over the pick "Come on!" She yelled at him, with him handing over the pick immediately and scampering to the back, watching quietly beside some other workers. Cartographers more specifically, meant to keep track of the distance between the settlements so that when excavating and building the highway, it can be done without overshooting it.
"Ma'am...Uh, are you sure its safe to do this without exploring the area first? I mean, what if we find ghasts, rogue piglins, or even blazes! I mean, this could be rather dangerous!...ma'am." One of the cartographer goes to step forward, holding a map as he interrupt Inert's first swing of the pickaxe. Which caused her to stare at the cautious cartographer with a raised eyebrow before speaking after he finished, "You might have a point there, however, I can easily defend all of you with my own weaponry, and if push come to shove, all of you can retreat if its a lot of enemies. Simple and easy, and I'd be doing the most dangerous work if any enemies do come up, so don't worry about it. And any structures like that won't pop up around here, I mean what are the chances of a god-forsaken fortress appearing behind here!" She laughed out at the prospect of one of those great structures, so close to her settlement, along with her peer's settlements own portals. That would be absolutely hilarious, and heart wrenching due to how idiotic they would be.
"Ma'am...Uh...We found something." One of the miners yelled something as the rest stop and gawked into one of the holes they made.
"What? What is it, let me see." Inert turned to face the miners and walking over to the hole, pushing them aside as she look inside...
A hallway, built from ancient netherbrick lined her vision, with the hallway spanning to her left and her right. With the natural netherrack acting as its walls and roof, something that wouldn't be found unless by one of its entrances, or by accidentally mining into it. With the hallway itself streaching beyond her vision and into the crimson fog of the Nether. "Well...That is a problem...Everyone! Go back for now! I'll explore this and make sure its safe to continue the highway." She turned around to face all of the workers as she said it, having them all leave the work area as Inert goes to create a large enough opening to go through it to begin her exploration of the abandoned fortress.
"Bow...Axe...Arrows...Chicken...Yeah, I think this is good enough" She mutter to herself as she cautiously knock her diamond helmet, she never did go nether exploration, too risky for her taste, so she is stuck with diamond instead of the stronger netherite that other major players of society tend to have. Even than, she haven't repaired her armor for a decent time, epically her helmet which has seen better days...But it should last long enough for this trek into the fortress...It have to anyway...
Inert begin to walk down left of the hallway of netherbrick, looking around with her iron axe at the ready, trying her best to keep her footsteps quiet as not to alert any creatures that might be roaming its decayed structure...