Chapter Text
“Oh come on, man!”, Xb called out, throwing his arms up as he looked around at the mushroom trees lining the remarkably empty campsite he was currently standing in.
Well, at least it wasn't one of the past worlds… Actually, this might be worse.
There, he had been familiar with the area, which, generally speaking, was a good thing.
With a huff, he turned to the very obvious lectern in front of him, skimming the page.
»You should have stretched«
“The heck's that supposed to mean?”, he mumbled, slamming the book shut with much more force than necessary.
He couldn't believe he had actually felt pity for that…that little shit.
Wherever he was, there was no weird, glowing interdimensional rift in sight, so it didn't look like he could easily get back. Meaning he needed food and gear… And something to slam over Kerilson's head when he found him, it? Whatever. It didn't matter.
Running a hand through his hair, he trudged toward the nearest building labelled "road builder's guild". Huh.
When walking onto the front porch, he nearly fell through a hole in the creaking wood. That seemed like a safety hazard.
Just how long had this place been abandoned if the building was decaying like this?
Or maybe whoever had built this was just a horrible designer. He chose to believe that version.
A quick search of the building revealed no food but… three diamond shovels? Great. Just great.
If he ever needed a ridiculous amount of dirt, he'd be good now.
Also, he now had three things to hit Kerilson with.
Stepping back onto the camping ground he noticed another lectern, the book placed upon it detailing instructions for some sort of game between Emperors.
Just what kind of world had he been sent to?
Confusion settling over him, he started following the path leading away from the campsite, almost falling into a small ravine with lava at the bottom. Scratch the house being a safety hazard, THIS was a safety hazard. And it looked handmade.
Who in the Universe put a death trap next to their campsite?!
Shaking the thought, he quickly continued on, choosing to ignore the weird red sheep minding its business directly next to the path.
After some walking, he came to a round structure made of various different types of stone and dark wood.
Curious, he stepped through the archway leading into the open circle, the electrical feel of magic making him shiver.
It kind of felt like the rift, or Grumbot, or even Kerilson, just so much more… clear. Instead of weighing him down and compressing his chest uncomfortably, this seemed more like a breeze, or moving through calm waters, powerful yet – to him – harmless.
The contrast made it clear to him just how concerned he should be about everything that was going on in his home and with his friends.
Swallowing heavily, he walked further into the circle, eyes landing on a statue in the middle of the place, clad in shiny armour, pointing slightly upwards at the rising sun.
Although the area seemed to be as abandoned as everything else he'd seen, vines and moss covering parts of the walls and what appeared to be almost rotting chests placed on the edges of the circle, the statue itself was pristine, sunlight glinting off the metallic armour.
Huh. That was odd…
When stepping closer towards it, the feel of magic got stronger.
“You seem alright. Do you happen to have some food for me? Or directions to find a little shocked dude?”, he asked jokingly, looking at it.
There was no answer, which was kind of disappointing: “I'll take that as a no. Thank you anyway”, he paused: “What – or who – even are you?”
As he said those words, a ray of sunshine fell onto a lectern in front of the statue, making Xb notice it.
Atop of it, there was a book, leather binding coming apart as he opened it.
It was adressed to the king of Mythland and talking about an upcoming battle.
That… didn't sound great.
He doubted the statue was the King the book had spoken about but it was apparently meant for him. And had something to do with… a war?
“Did ya win?”, he jokingly asked the statue, not expecting anything to change. After all, it hadn't answered the first time, why would it now?
And while his surroundings stayed the same, the magic shifted, like gentle waves around him, a deep feeling of melancholy washing over him with no discernable source.
“Oh”, he breathed.
Well, this was awkward.
Mumbling an „I’m sorry“, he spared the statue one last glance before starting to rummage through the chests in search of food.
The only things he found were a bunch of discarded building materials he ignored and an apple.
That king of Mythland definitely had bigger problems than some fight if that was all the food his kingdom had to offer to some…magical statue?
With a sigh, he took the apple, choosing to ignore the fact that it looked like it had been harvested yesterday.
“Thank you”, he said to the statue, giving it a half-bow before leaving the circle, continuing on the path.
Eventually, the forest thinned, opening up into a field.
He looked around, trying to find any signs of current civilization and tried not to get his hopes up too much when he saw houses made of wood and stone in the distance, just beyond a giant river.
But he wasn’t particular successful in his attempt to stay calm and composed, picking up his pace and almost running through the shallow water, though stopping dead in his tracks when he saw more of the weird, red sheep meandering through the city – kingdom? – on the cobblestone paths lining the spaces between the buildings.
He took a deep breath, trying to shake the uncomfortable feeling. He had followed a little puppet thing that looked oddly like one of his best friends through an interdimensional rift with the help of a weird robot thing from an alternate universe, he had absolutely no right to be this unsettled by some red sheep.
Happy with this conclusion he had come to, he continued, following the main road through a beautiful town made of two storied buildings with arched roofs that were partially caved in, the once beautiful white walls turned to a dirty grey yet still having an imposing and frankly breathtaking look.
In the distance, he caught sight of what appeared to be the towers of a castle. So he really was in a kingdom then.
Who knew, perhaps this was Mythland. If so, the king had an incredible building style.
Despite the impressive appearance of the kingdom, however, the bad feeling in his gut continued to grow the further he walked inside the town’s boundaries, following narrow, cobbled streets and humming a tune under his breath to distract himself. There was no reason to be this concerned, because, from the looks of it, the most dangerous – and the most alive – things here were the sheep. And they didn’t seem to care about his presence in the slightest.
After a while of walking, the road opened up into what had probably been some sort of marketplace and Xb froze as the heavy weight of magic crashed onto him, nearly knocking him off his feet and pressing the air from his lungs, leaving him gasping as his vision turned black for a second and the world turned.
The streets and buildings as well as the vague shape of something dark in front of him were swimming in front of his eyes, distorting unnaturally and taking any sense of direction from him.
Frantically, he grabbed at his own chest, trying to regulate his breathing and keep his suddenly alarmed mind from racing, barely keeping himself standing.
His sight came back after a few moments and the world slowly stilled as well, but he continued struggling to get enough oxygen into his respiratory system and if he didn’t know better, he’d be convinced he had anvils tied to his limbs.
Looking around, his gaze landed on what looked to be an altar made of blackstone, a red liquid dripping from it into the crater that had presumably once been normal cobblestone flooring below. Red tentacle…things…were protruding from the edges of it, reaching a few meters up.
The magic was radiating from it and Xb just stood there, frozen, watching the steady stream of red pour over the otherwise pristine blackstone, mesmerizing, frightening runes etched into it that seemed to pulsate ever so slightly.
A wave of dizziness crashed over him and it took all his strength to rip himself out of his unmoving state, to convince his body to obey his will, to turn around and run.
He couldn’t breathe but that hardly mattered because he had to get out of here, now!
That altar had been bleeding!
If possible, his breathing became even more frantic and despite his body screaming at him in exhaustion, he didn’t slow down until he had stumbled through a hole in a broken down, incredibly high and long, wall and all of the weight on him suddenly disappeared, sending him to his knees, heaving and shaking much more than he’d like to admit to himself.
What in the everloving multiverse had he just seen?
Tears were stinging in his eyes and he didn’t know if they came from the shock or the overexertion or both but he didn’t care either, laying down on the grass wherever he was and crying over everything and nothing at all.
His body felt like it was dying, like someone had sucked all the energy out of him, leaving him trembling and barely able to move at all. Not that he tried to. His breathing was still ragged and a sudden hopelessness had washed over him, weighing on him.
He just wanted to close his eyes and wake up back in his bed, at home. But this had been to terrifying to be a dream. That was probably the most horrible part of it all. It was real. He couldn’t just write it off as a nightmare, no matter how desperately he wanted to.
And so, he stared up at the blue sky while what had just happened crushed him.
How long he lay there, he had no idea, it didn’t matter, but eventually breathing became easier and he didn’t feel like a complete wreck anymore, daring to sit up and take in his surroundings, firmly ignoring what he had left behind him, behind that wall.
He was sitting in a swamp now, a bunch of what had probably once been wooden buildings around him. It wasn’t much more than poles in the soggy ground and some remaining walls here and there.
It seemed a lot more peaceful than where he had been before which, granted, wasn’t very hard to achieve, but there was something heavy hanging in the air nonetheless. Nothing magical, no, this was different…It was like the buildings had been carved with sadness that was now set free.
Or, maybe not sadness, perhaps it was loss? Grief? Guilt? He didn’t know.
Trusting himself to stand again, he pushed himself to his feet, trudging through the place in search of…anything.
Walking inside one of the better preserved buildings, a cod head sitting atop a wooden pole caught his eyes. And like the statue, it was in perfect shape, placed so obvious it was hard to miss.
“What the heck?”, he whispered, stepping closer but not touching it.
How had he found a weird statue, a horrifying blood altar thing, and now a codhead but nothing even remotely relating to the magic he had felt around Kerilson, Grumbot and the rift?!
Groaning, he left again, very much not looking forward to scouring this entire world for something that could get him out of here and back home, or, preferably, to wherever it was that dumb rift had brought his friends.
Once all of this was over, he swore to himself, he would never ever take a chance of dimension travel again. This was horrible and he doubted it was particularly good for the fabric of existence either.
And so, he started wandering the world.
The sun set – he chose to hide out in a small cave – and rose again as he followed paths and came across more ruined structures and sign posts until he was led to a giant crater.
So far, the hum of magic had been his constant companion, but here, it was silent. Like all the energy that had once been here was gone.
Making his way past the remains of what he assumed had once been the outer wall of another kingdom, he glanced down into the abyss, finding that the hole itself wasn’t that deep but appeared to spread over the whole width of the kingdom, at least he couldn’t see any ruins of buildings. The only thing that pointed to something having been here were the sporadic pieces of a dark wall.
What in the world had happened here?
Still, this place was better than the first place he had seen, because although this was certainly ominous and he didn’t even want to think about what it would take to blow a whole kingdom to smithereens, at least it was calm. And it actually looked kind of pretty.
Nature had started taking back the place and little patches of moss and grass were growing all over the stone and dirt in the crater. Oddly enough, he could see a lot of the red shimmer of redstone ore between the greenery and there were even some stalagmites reaching up from the ground. Interesting…and really weird, like everything else in this world.
For a while, he took in the scenery, appreciating the beauty that had come from whatever tragedy had destroyed this place – and potentially this whole world – in the first place.
Sometimes, he wished he’d asked Joe more about his life, about the things he had seen. Considering how long the guy had been around, Xb was certain he had a million stories to tell about kingdoms and Emperors and life and death and everything else. Maybe he even knew something about this world.
He’d ask him…whenever he found him, found them all.
Sighing, he continued his journey, leaving behind the crater and the history hidden somewhere underneath the stone and greenery.
The further he walked, the more his surroundings changed, flat open spaces turning to hills covered in trees until, eventually, he ended up on a mountain plateau, the magic almost screaming into his ears.
What really disturbed him, though, was that, contrary to every single thing he'd come across so far, this place wasn't run down and falling apart.
Multiple buildings lined the side of the cliff that lead down from the plateau and a majority of the area was covered in buildings and streets and even a marketplace further ahead. There was even a tower a little separate from the rest of what he assumed to be another kingdom.
However, for some reason, the whole area seemed incredibly wrong, and not only because it wasn't decaying.
Now, Xb had no idea how this place was supposed to look, but something inside him told him this wasn't it.
Most of the buildings were red and black but in the sunlight his eyes caught golden glints and white shimmers amidst blue contrasts as well.
It didn't fit, like one colour scheme was corrupting the other. He just couldn't tell which one was harming which…Though, judging from the… altar… he had seen, he had a suspicion which one wasn't supposed to be here.
That theory also fit with the loud rush of magic in his ears. It sounded and felt like heavy waves crashing against each other, pushing and pulling him along, like a fight for control, one power trying to drag him down into the depths while the other fought hopelessly to keep him afloat.
He shuddered. Best to quickly get through this place. Because the good power seemed to be losing and he didn't want to be here when it did.
Hurriedly, he started making his way through the narrow streets, climbing stairs to different levels of the plateau, to different buildings until he came to another flat area in front of a big building where the magic was loudest and froze again, for the second time since entering this world.
The ground in front of him was a deep red, and a perfect circle at that. And once again, red tentacles were protruding from the edges of it.
But, the most horrifying part of it was the person laying in the middle of the circle, dressed in white robes with blue and gold accents all of which seemed more red because of the wound in his chest, caused by a golden sword lodged firmly in his stomach. His eyes were liveless and Xb wanted to throw up at the sight.
Judging by the state of the rest of the world, the only thing that should be left of this gruesome sight was a skeleton. However, even from where he was standing, he could see the tear tracks on the person's face, like they had died mere minutes ago.
…Why weren't they respawning?!
Was death a permanent end to your life here? Was that why everything was abandoned, why he hadn't seen anyone? Were they all dead?!
His breathing became shallow again as panic crashed onto him and he felt like he was being pulled underwater.
He hadn't even considered the possibility of something deadly happening to him here, of losing his life forever.
Thoughts were racing through his mind as he stared at the corpse.
‘Murdered’, his brain screamed and he choked on air, frozen in place by panic and shock, not able to turn or even as much as look away.
“Oh, a visitor. I see you've found my brother!”