The king stared ahead, watching as the rods on the ground flared to life and began to rise.
Preparing soul daggers, he started to aim as the beings in front of him completed their assembly. The heavy, near mechanical breathing of the blazes filled the room as they… simply floated there, their gazes locked on him.
Surprised, he called out "Hello, are you capable of understanding me?"
They responded by continued to stare at him blankly.
Then he tried to reach out to their minds directly, only to find a mesh of conditions and reactions, just magic and instructions instead of a true mind.
Warily, he approached them; finding that, though being be too close could likely cause burns, they weren't hostile.
Walking by them, he entered through the portal wondering just who could have built these strange, complex constructs.
As the whirling blur of the portal subsided, the king decided that more information must be gathered, since, seeing as the inhabitants of the area advanced far enough to make these massive bridges, either it or the area they lead to must be habitable and the tablet outright invited him to take advantage of that.
Soon enough, a team was assembled. It consisted of a cartographer, Monomon's apprentice, Lurien, and one of his guards.
"Your objective is simple; travel throughout these bridges and any nearby structures for at least six hours, and find information on where they lead." his majesty stated.
"Will do, your grace." Cornifer stated, already preparing his maps.
"Be aware, there are flaming constructs within the initial room, and likely within other areas. They appear to be non hostile, but do not take any chances." he warned.
Quirrel had to admit, despite the dizziness of stepping through that par-tal or whatever, he was filled with excitement seeing this new dimension. Of course, back in Hallownest there were the realms of dream and nightmare—which seemed to be more connected to reality in Hallownest than anywhere else—but only gods and moths could explore those places while being aware that they were there, unlike him.
Now though, this was entirely new, open for him to explore! There was the mystery of how the molten seas below were keeping their heat, the mystery of how and why the strange constructs that stood sentinel throughout the buildings were made, who built those bridges, and a million other questions racing through his mind!
"No, stay focused", he told himself. Although there were many exciting possibilities, at the same time, that molten sea could kill him, the constructs likely could become hostile, and nobody said the bridges creators would take kindly to them.
Looking ahead, he watched as Cornifer took note of their surroundings, including writing down the icons and arrows drawn onto the walls where several bridges intersected. Quirrel recognized them as being directions to certain areas, but he couldn't recognize what most of the icons represented.
Some of them he could understand, such as waves lapping at a shore, houses, or a pickaxe; However, he also saw some he didn't, such as two scrolls in front of a square behind them and runes flowing into them, or some object that looked similar to his majesty's horns.
Just as they met another intersection, he began to faintly hear something, almost like… rattling?
His eyes darted over as something stomped through the doorway beside them.
He had been prepared to see something unusual, or even terrifying. But those words simply didn't do justice to the shambling, elongated black forms that rushed towards the group.
As they backed up, he had a better look at them. They had the basic structure of a bipedal bug, but everything except for their heads were sickeningly slender and some parts even had sharp protrusions. That wasn't to mention how they seemed to be covered, practically oozing in some deep darkness, how they held their odd, stone nails with complete intent to use them, or how their hasty shambling reminded him all too much of the infected.
Drawing their nail, the watcher knight swung, the weight of their nail dragging them closer to the shambling things as one prepared for their own attack.
Barely staggering out of the attacks way, one of them rushed directly towards the knight, others quick to follow.
Even with the guards lightning fast parrying, they still felt pain as one slashed their shell, oddly not seeming to aim for the seams in between the parts of it, as if they weren't aware that they should.
Lurien focused, feeling the energy within him drain as a burst of light erupted from his eye and towards the aggressors.
Even as one fell, writhing from the intense brightness of soul, they were still overwhelming his knight.
And then, even in the cramped space, they managed to rush pass the knight, running behind those he guarded, preparing their strange nails.
However, it seemed that the horrific beings hadn't expected their main opponent to leap upward and slam down on a number of them, their swords still aimed forward.
The watcher knight unfortunately hadn't noticed the deep cracks in the bricks below them—presumably from years without maintenance—in the heat of battle.
They just barely bounded forward as they felt the bridge below them, and even the tower it was supported by crumble from the force of their attack, plummeting along with the rest of their attackers into the blisteringly hot sea below.
At first they cheered at their enemies defeat and the successful defense of their allies, and then they realized just what that section of the bridge collapsing meant… the rest of their group was behind them further into the bridges, seemingly without a way back to the area they came from.
"I appreciate the protection, but you really just trapped us over here in your haste, none of us can fly you insult to the gods." Lurien spat.
"I just saved your lives, besides, with how many crossroads we've found, you should be able to find your way back." the knight stated, trying to drown the shame of not noticing the huge cracks that ran through that piece of the structure.
"Well, do you want to try and prove that by getting over here? Or do you want to go run back to the king, tell him what you did, and get someone to help us?" the watcher asked.
"I'll do the latter sir. Hopefully you can find something useful in this place." the knight replied, already rushing off back to the portal.
"Well, I suppose we just keep moving forward until we find an crossroads." Cornifier stated, hoping his maps would serve their purpose well.
Soon enough, Lurien thought he saw an intersection ahead, only to get closer and notice that there was only one, small door to the side of the path.
Cautiously, Quirrel nudged open the door, feeling dust coat his face as what looked to be a rest stop revealed itself.
Looking around, he found himself in a relatively spacious room, filled with sleeping bags of a fuzzy, white hair, along with a few empty lanterns, and two other doors.
But what truly caught his eyes was the enormous map pinned to the wall.
"Cornifer, you ought to copy this down!" the scholar squealed as he realized it was a map of the entire series of paths, including icons of both what he presumed to be portals leading to what they were pictures of, and several images of beds, likely showing rest stops.
But before he checked over the map to decide where they might want to investigate later, he entered through the other doors, finding one to be a bathroom and one to be freezingly cold and containing only massive blocks of a blueish, pure ice.
At first he scratched his head at that latter room, but then realized that if it was likely just an unorthodox way of storing water, even if he had no clue how why it was such a solid blue or how it was still frozen.
"Hey, Quirrel, what do you think the icons lead to?" the cartographer asked, already modifying his own map with the new information.
"Portals to what they show, I assume." Quirrel replied.
"Why would you go through a different dimension just to travel?" Cornifer questioned.
"Good point… maybe there's some advantage to it we just aren't seeing?" the scholar pondered.
"Oh! I see a relatively simple path back to the original portal. You know what, I think I'll just take this with me." Cornifer remarked, taking the weathered paper from its place on the wall.
The king was glad to see the watcher knight return through the portal, and less glad to notice only the watcher knight returned.
"Where are the others?" the king asked with a hint of worry beneath the formality.
"They are fine your majesty, but in the process of defending them from some… entities that we met, part of one of the bridges collapsed with me on one side and them on the other." they explained.
"What are these entities exactly?" the king questioned, quickly receiving his response, "They were extremely slender creatures with the basic shape of a bug, but dripping with a strange darkness and rather hostile. They also carried foreign, stone nails."
"Did you at least try diplomacy?" he growled.
"No, they just saw us and immediately attacked, and we responded the same." the knight stated.
"You just killed living, presumably thinking beings on sight? I suppose they did attack first, but still." he interrogated.
"I'm not sure they were… really alive." the knight remarked, eliciting a confused look from their king.
"The way they walked… no, staggered forward and the look of hostility in their eyes bore an eerie resemblance to the infected." the guardian informed.
The Pale King was confused at first and then truly scared of what he had just heard. Not only was there possibly something else in this new area resembling the infection, but also he thought back to how the knight described that they dripped with an strange darkness. He knew that some of his retainers had become overcome with void, especially those who assisted in the experiments making kingsmoulds and wingsmoulds.
At least void could only spread through physical contact, unlike the infection. That meant that if they must live in the same place as these corpses overrun with it, walls and knights—physical things—could protect them.
It also meant that if there were concrete protections, bugs wouldn't be overwhelmed with paranoia, doubt and insomnia, there could be a functioning society even if they had to deal with such an affliction.
Although of course, it would take time to build walls and train more knights. Except that first problem could be solved by simply holing up in ruins, where they could easily patch up old walls instead of making their own.
No, he told himself, you're getting ahead of yourself.
"Um… your majesty?" the guardian stated, the king snapping back to reality.
"Oh, I simply was caught up in plans and ideas. Now, I order that we do send another group just to wait around the initial portal and try to study some finer details of the constructions until the first group gets back." he instructed.
Shortly, a group of sentries and the White Lady had entered through the portal, the guards simply keeping an eye out as the queen extended her roots, trying to sense any other bugs in the area.
It was only an hour or two before she could sense the magic of the mask the teacher had given her apprentice. Soon the rest of the group came running into view of the sentries.
"We have good news and bad news. The bad news is that uh—" Quirrel shouted as the queen noticed dark spots in her senses behind them.
"Hostiles!" he screeched, stumbling through the crowd of sentries.
The queens roots shot further into the halls, feeling slender, sharp beings and twisting around them, constricting them.
Once the three bugs reached their allies, the White Lady dragged the entities back towards her, feeling as their weapons slipped from their grasp.
Looking over them, she called for her beloved wyrm as she noticed that even without weapons they were still trying to attack her.
Quickly rushing onto the scene, he noticed the shambling husks ensnared in her roots.
"Try reaching out to their minds, see if they have one." she stated, not realizing that the latter part of her sentence acted as a painful reminder to the king.
Carefully, the king reached out to their minds and checked what they wer—
"DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY DESTROY"
He stumbled backward as the words overwhelmed his mind for a short moment. While recovering from the sheer intensity of their 'thoughts,' he heard that distant crackling of flames grow far louder as the blazes near the portal burst forth.
Their flames seemed even brighter than before as orbs of fire and light soared towards the entangled hostiles.
The White Lady began to loosen her roots, giving the constructs access to more areas of the entities to burn.
The things fell limp as their bodies began to sickeningly melt in her roots from the blazes' barrage.
As soon as all of them fell motionless; the blistering heat the blazes emitted seemed to partially cool as they retreated to their posts.
"Are you alright?" Worried, the king as he ran to her.
"The heat didn't bother me much. Also, I think I just realized, to some extent, what those things were." the root stated.
"Do you remember how some bizarre creatures have internal shells made of something called bones?" she continued, "Those beings looked rather similar to those shells, although of course they should not be moving on their own."
"That's possible. They could have originally possessed full bodies, but have decayed to only shell over many years." he pondered.
"Now, Teachers Apprentice, what is the good news?" she asked, turning to face him.
"We found a map of the entire area inside a rest stop. The rest stop also had frozen pure water and sleeping quarters. Judging by the map, there are quite a few more of them." he enlightened.
"Can you hand that map over?" she asked before her eyes scanned the paper, seemingly lighting up at some of the icons.
"So, although its inhabitants have become… those things, it seems this civilizations buildings and even supplies are intact?" she asked, hope filling her eyes.
"Yes, madam. Unfortunately we have not yet been able to investigate the other portals." he stated.
"I think we've found out where our new home should be." she stated.
"What?!" the king stated, "Our citizens as a whole can't deal with those things, especially if they can spread whatever makes them like that."
"A civilization cropped up here, rose to so high a level they forged these massive bridges and made portals between dimensions. If we can make or find fortifications, we can forge the kingdom anew." she pointed out.
"That only works if, assuming it can spread, it only spreads through contact. There has to be a source that started it." he stated.
"They decayed to naught but shell, wyrm. The source very well could have moved on in that time, and besides, even if it did not, settling in the ruins of another kingdom seems to be the only choice other than running the valley dry of its resources or walking endlessly through the wastelands." She spoke, voice raised, as she continued.
"If we are bringing the whole kingdom through, then where exactly are we going?" he asked.
"Well, let's see." she said, eying the map, "Over here is an icon of plants, nearby are icons of a large body of water and a bar of metal."
"It is a bit difficult to say where we should travel considering all we have to go off of are simple icons, but it seems like a good place to start." she explained.
"Right here through here and then there is the quickest way to that portal; considering how far the scouting group got, it should take a day of travel at most." he stated, starting to agree with his wife.
"How do you plan to activate and deactivate the portals?" she asked.
"Assuming Wander did not lose that artifact, it should be easy to activate them. I assume deactivating them is so that we cannot be followed, that we can truly be safe from the Radiance?" he questioned.
"Yes, and then we can finally have a new place to call home." she stated, hope filling her mind.
"Since activating the portals is done using fire and they work using infernal magic, would it not make sense that extreme cold or water—like the frozen pure water the Teachers Apprentice spoke of—can break them?" he pondered.
"Makes sense, it should cause the spell-work to become dormant." she stated.
"Aw, why did I expect this to last?" asked one of the nobles to the air.
Although Pasture Valley was nice enough to feel more like a vacation than part of the journey to a new home, everyone knew that it couldn't last, the animals were already becoming scarce and there simply wasn't enough space for sufficient farming.
Although, going through the gateway to a different dimension and walking through ruins like his majesty announced they would, was not what he expected.
Regardless, he was rather fascinated about the idea of visiting a whole other world and seeing the remnants of a fallen civilization.
Well, considering the state of Hallownest when they left, he supposed he already saw the remnants of a fallen civilization.
Chuckling at a bit at the dark thought, he stared back at the strange gateway that had been opened not far from the valley, watching as the unusual color within swirled in waves.
The citizens had to admit, the Nether was as awe inspiring as it was menacing. Seas of blazing rock rolling far below, massive bridges towering above the landscape, and constructs guarding the halls all added into one otherworldly experience.
Once everyone had crossed through, the king took a chunk of the freezing ice Quirrel had found and instead of a complex ritual, he simply slammed it into the inside of the gateways frame, watching as the swirling purple crackled and vanished in a massive burst of light.
Soon they found themselves hiking through the halls, surrounded on either side by guards with their nails at the ready. They encountered surprisingly few of the creatures that had attacked the scouting group, their own sentries outclassing them in skill.
Throughout the whole journey, the many members of the group watched the others backs: The entire group was surrounded by sentries and occasionally weavers armed with needles, young child helped their few relatives along, and mothers—including the queen—kept their children close.
What she did not know was how much keeping Wander wrapped in her roots was truly helping.
"We're getting rather close to the portal! Just a hundred or so meters!" their cartographer cheered.
The queen let down her child as they walked past more of the floating constructs.
Once Wander and the White Lady were separated though, the blazes were no longer too blinded by her brightness to see the spot of absolute darkness that now stood out to them like a sore thumb.
That darkness, that void, was one they were made to eliminate.
Their flames blazing brighter, they let their first few balls of light whizz through the air.
Wander had been caught off guard, but as the first hit and they felt heat burn their torso, their training took control. They dashed out of the way of the attack and drew themselves further from the crowd that couldn't easily mend their wounds with Soul.
Many snapped to attention when they heard the attack singe the air, some running, and others preparing like the king preparing a spell.
At first the monarch was confused at what had provoked them, then the second barrage of fire blasted towards his child and his spears of soul soared towards those vile constructs.
"What's happening majesty?" Cornifer screeched.
"Doesn't matter, get the others to the portal now." he demanded as a blaze plummeted to the ground, a hole in its head from the spear of light.
As some of the blazes began turning to him, he rushed to Wander, grabbing them as a circular seal flashed into existence in front of them at the kings command.
As heat beat against the seal, light began to coalesce near the blazes, growing brighter until a resounding boom echoed throughout the room as more blazes fell to the ground from the shockwave of the spell.
"Do you still have that, uh, the portal activator?" the king desperately asked as more blazes started to pour in from the surrounding area.
They responded by grabbing from their cloak. The king wondered for a moment just how they kept so much in there before running towards his queen.
"Take them to the portal and activate it! I'll hold off the constructs" he shouted above the crackling of flames as the White Lady began to run down the hall clutching her child.
Even as he felt one of the attacks hit its mark, he kept conjuring more spears, more seals and more shockwaves as an increasing number of blazes filled the room.
The White Lady found the rest of the group at the gateway, frantically trying to activate it.
"Wander, turn it on!" she shouted as she lowered them.
They could hear the mechanic breathing of the constructs growing closer as they tried, tried again, there! The portal flared to life.
They threw themselves through, feeling their body slam into a weathered carpet.
Getting up, they paid no mind to the still standing ruins they were in, simply staggering a few feet away from the portal and laying down, watching as bugs poured through into the building.
As the last few ran in, they could hear more booms, more crackling, and more projectiles flying through the air until finally their father ran in, quickly slamming a chunk of ice into the portal frame.
The gateway went dormant and finally everything went quiet other than the sound of labored breathing.
"Wander?" the king shouted as he looked around before spotting them.
"Are you alright? Can you heal that burn?" he asked with worry.
They responded by focusing their mind, feeling as their torso began to feel normal again.
"Okay, you're… you're okay. I must tend to my own injuries now. Guards, search the area for any danger." he ordered as he began to feel fatigue take him.
After he had healed his burns, he found a nearby carpet of some sort on the floor and simply wrapped himself in it. Quickly finding himself choking on dust, he elected to just sit on the floor and rest for a short while. Yes, that sounded nice, just figure where exactly they all were once he woke up.