The two of them traversed through the cave without any problems. There were times every-so-often when one of the stalactites would drop and nearly hit one of them, but they managed to dodge and get out around them in one piece.

The caves were almost like an entirely different world from what Alex was used to. There was something to discover at every turn that she hadn’t known existed. Spending her life with the villagers kept her isolated from anything that wasn’t nearby. She wondered what more the world had to offer, and if Steve’s sudden appearance was her calling to make a move. Along with her, Steve would look around in frightened awe. Anything that caught his attention was instantly mined, and he would ask questions about whatever he saw.

This was new territory for both of them. They traversed through the wide dripstone cave and made their way into an underground jungle. Beautifully hanging from the ceiling were long vines carrying glowing orange berries that illuminated the entirety of the cave. They reached close to the ground and on occasion blocked the path. On the ground and walls were a mossy-green texture that beautifully contrasted the light blue of the ponds and clay scattered about. Tall blades of grass rose from the moss and ponds. It was unlike anything they’d ever seen.

“Steve!” Alex eccentrically shouted while peeking into a pond. Steve was preoccupied with pulling a berry from the hanging vines. “Steve come here!”

As soon as he grabbed the berry, he took a bite while walking toward his eccentric partner. “What is it?” He asked with a full mouth.

“Look at it!” Peeking over the water, a pink fish-like creature with four short legs and six external gills smiled at Alex and made a cute blup as it made circles in the water. Alex’s eyes, wide and full of energy, couldn’t steer away from the axolotl as it played in the water. Steve, on the other hand, was the complete opposite and completely uninterested- even disgusted.

“What is that thing?”

“An axolotl! Isn’t it cute?!”

“Cute is the last word I’d use.” They continued watching it swim. “I can feel its eyes... insulting me.”

“Can we keep him?!”

“Not while I’m here.”

“Whaaa?! Why?!”

“I don’t want to be here longer than we need to.” Steve turned to the remaining bright orange berries. “We should head back to the house.”

“If you remember the way back,” Alex let out her hand to pet the axolotl. “We’re in completely uncharted territory. Even if we were to get back to the surface, we might not be where we entered. If that happens, we will be forced to survive a night, if we’re lucky.”

“Then we go back to the mineshaft.” Steve replied.

“You haven’t forgotten about the spiders, have you?”

“No, but if we can get there, we could outrun them back to the entrance.”

“I’d rather not take the risk.” Alex said as she walked away from the creature. “Besides, there isn’t anything of value up there. If anything, I say we go deeper in the caves.”

“Deeper? Are you crazy?”

“We haven’t found any diamonds since that first chest. Our best bet is going back to the dripstone cave and following the water.”

“What about the monsters?”

“Stick to your promise and there’ll be no problems.” Alex began walking ahead and equipped her sword. She followed the torches back to the stalagmites and left Steve behind. “Let me remind you that we came down here to get stronger. I’m not returning to the surface without a full set of diamond armor.”

Steve turned to the lurking axolotl with narrow eyes and sighed looking at its stretched smile. Equipping an empty bucket, he scooped the creature from the pond and threw the bucket back in his inventory.

They quickly returned to the river they landed in during their escape. The handy placement of torches removed any difficulty from the trip back and smoothly allowed them to look back up at the mineshaft above them. The spiders that once hunted them down had disappeared and were nowhere to be found, though that didn’t relieve any of the worries they had. Alex picked up the torch she placed that was on the platform surrounded by water and turned to Steve, who was frighteningly staring up into the dark.

“They likely forgot about us.” Alex comfortably answered. “The monsters usually stop following when you get out of their sight.”

“Is it a territorial thing?” Steve asked.

After a single shrug, Alex started walking along the water path toward the darkness ahead of them. Steve, still cautious followed with his sword in hand. The further they walked, the darker the stone around them became, and along with it, their surroundings. Steve took some time to collect the dark stone while Alex wasted no time.

They continued to go deeper into the cave following the path set out for them. Steve mined a wall into a larger cave made up of dark stone and called his partner to investigate. Both curious about what could be waiting for them, Alex placed the second to last torch at the broken wall and set out holding the last one. Steve always kept close to her, which meant he couldn’t set out to collect the raw iron he noticed in the walls.

Alex only had eyes for diamonds.

All of the other ore awaiting them in the vast cave was irrelevant as far as she could tell. Her venture and drive for power had overtaken her senses, and all she could think of was being covered in the hardest resource.

The caves were sprawling with monsters. It was like at every corner there was something waiting to kill them, and they quickly took care of that. Steve noticed that their precautionary torches to track their steps deterred the monsters. They didn’t have an infinite source of torches, but the ones they had did the job.

“We‘ve been looking for so long,” Steve said in the middle of placing a torch. “I don’t think there are diamonds here.”

“There have to be. We can’t go any further than this.” Earlier in their dive, they came to a point where they couldn’t go any further down. The rock at the very bottom of the world; bedrock.

“And if you’re wrong?”

“I’m never wrong.” She stopped in her path and turned to the builder standing behind her. “We’ll get out as soon as we find enough of the stuff to make ourselves some armor and weapons, okay?”

“How much do we need for that?”

“About a stack… Give or take.” She turned back to the given path.

“So, we’re never getting out of here.” Steve’s impatience was beginning to get on her nerves, but she didn’t want to snap at him.

“Keep your head up, Steve. It won’t take long.” With a roll of his eyes, they continued down.

The dark stone absorbed a majority of the light emitting from the single torch and kept them in the center of what felt like a dark void in the middle of nowhere. Seeing anything past a few feet was near impossible unless there was a rouge ore sticking out of the rock, or a lava source that helped them along the way.

The absurd number of mobs spawning quickly became a hindrance in their quest. After several armor breaks, and weapon shatters, the two of them decided they wanted to make camp.

With a kick and a groan, Alex placed her last torch and glanced around at the wide walls and tall ceiling. She reminisced about the lush cave they visited for a moment and hoped they’d come across something like it again. Regardless of how dedicated she was, she could admit that this quest had been going on far longer than it should’ve.

She turned back to Steve, who had placed a crafting table and was experimenting with the new ore he had acquired. The gold and iron they were acquainted with had no value unless smelted, and he knew that, but there were two new ores he found along the way. Redstone and Lapis Lazuli, both of which he got in large quantities.

“Did you figure something out?” Alex asked looking over his shoulder with a squint. From her view, the items Steve placed on the bench had a large shadow cast over them.

“The fake diamonds are absolutely useless,” Steve replied with a sniff. “All I can do with it is turn it into a blue dye.”

“What about the red stuff?”

“I’m not sure. If I combine it with gold it makes some sort of night and day machine, and if I combine it with iron, I get this,” Steve pulled out a compass from his inventory and showed it to the ginger standing in front of him.

With no clue as to what it was, Alex watched the red line in the center sway left and right with no intention of slowing down.

“What’s it doing?” She asked.

“I was hoping you knew,” Steve replied. “Don’t they have something on it in the villager books?”

“Not that I know of.” She looked back at his curious stare. “How are you doing on space?”

“Not good. Lots of deep slate and raw iron.” While looking at his inventory, he was reminded of the axolotl that he scooped up in a bucket. Its smiling face stared into his soul, and its face tentacles wiggled about.

Alex threw the compass into her inventory before responding. “Do you have any food? I ran out.”

“Same here.”

The two of them sat on opposite ends of the single torch and watched as its dimming light slowly faded. The whir from the flame with the wind and crackling of the wood filled the air, and the stench of ash nauseated their senses. Steve pressed his back against the crafting table and let out a groan. Everything he feared would happen is happening, and he knew if they did what he requested they wouldn’t be in this situation. The girl in front of him was responsible, but one glance at her dull green eyes and hanging orange hair emptied his heart.

Alex pulled out the single diamond and threw it toward Steve, which caught him off-guard. Nearly smacking his head, he managed to catch it in all of its sparkling magnificence. Its beautiful blue reflected the orange light coming from the torch and captured its heat within its carbonated body. Steve could see himself staring into the gem and the dark void behind him. The complete silence and emptiness felt familiar yet distant.

“Be careful not to get entranced.” Alex chuckled. “It’s easy to get lost and full of delusions.”

Lowering the gem, Steve saw Alex’s wry smile and glistening green eyes and noticed the torch’s light had gotten softer on her skin.

“Sorry for wasting your time.” Alex said turning her cheek. “There probably isn’t anything down here.” Steve lowered his eyes without a response. The sound of the flame continued to fade away.

They were out of wood and that single torch was the last one they had access to. Alex’s preparation for the quest wasn’t enough for what she couldn’t have predicted. The countless hours they spent underground were beginning to get to them and fatigue was settling in. The slight warmth coming from the torch was enough to keep their bodies cool enough that they wouldn’t have to worry much about it, though its waning presence could quickly become a problem.

“We should get out of here as soon as we can.” Alex said, waiting for a response from her partner, yet nothing. “I say we retrace our steps. The pools of lava we-,”

“Sshh!” Steve’s sudden intrusion surprised her, grabbing her attention instantly. She turned back to the man and saw a half of his head glued to the ground and butt arching upward. He had placed his ear against the cold, rough deep slate and been patiently listening in on something Alex couldn’t hear.

Steve suddenly rose his head and reached into his inventory, pulling out an iron pickaxe and looking at Alex with a grin.

“What is it?” Alex asked.

“There’s lava nearby! We can reignite the torch and keep going.”

“But what about food and-,”

Suddenly, a decaying green forearm was thrown against her chest and flopped onto her thighs. Its grainy and slimy texture, paired with the abhorrent stench and color grossed Alex out. With a squeal, she threw it against the wall and blew out the remainder of the torch in the process. Now in complete darkness, they had to rely on each other’s voices to understand their positioning.

“What the hell!” She shouted at Steve.

“When in doubt,” Steve answered.

“I’d rather starve!”

“Suit yourself.” Steve began to mine his way down to the lava he heard, and the sound of the deep slate breaking alerted his partner.

“Wait for me!” She snatched the unlit torch from the ground and fell into the short hole Steve had already dug.

Breaking apart the last piece of deep slate separating them from the lava was like looking directly at the sun for too long. Their eyes had adapted to the dark so much that when they were brought face to face with the lava, they had to cover their eyes and turn away. The heat also came at them, raising their previously cool temperatures.

They followed the familiar sound of bubbling and sizzling until they found themselves in the face of a lava lake, and even more cave to explore. In awe, Alex walked ahead of Steve and looked around completely speechless. The underground was like a world of its own, and that was a fact she couldn’t begin to fathom.

Large deep slate pillars reaching from within the lake to the ceiling of the cave were spread out, and small patches of hot water combined with the lava to create a strange purple stone, tuff, and dripstone spread about. It was unlike anything they had seen before.

“There’s no way.” Steve whispered.

“Just how far does this go?” The lava lake seemed infinite in its reach down the cave. She stepped closer and moved the torch closer in to the lava beneath her. The torch quickly went ablaze.

As soon as the light spread around them, Alex turned to Steve and noticed a sparkling blue light shining in the darkness. Speechless, Alex shook her partner’s shoulder and stole his attention from the vast cave around them.

As he looked at her in complete shock, Steve followed her eyes and widened his eyes in shock.

A wall of three, no, four blue gems that shimmered in beauty were staring back at them. The wide smiles that formed around their faces were contagious and overflowing.

“DIAMONDS!” They synchronously shouted with glee.