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We had all hoped that whatever chaos plagued the surface would not reach all the way down to us. In hindsight, that was quite naïve, but we had no reason to believe otherwise. Scouts to the surface brought back fearful news; an undead sickness spreading across every corner of the overworld, reaching even into the nether, and slowly seeping down through the caves to us. One even mentioned that this undead army was spearheaded by something no world has ever seen before. He called it the Wither, and its destructive potential was immense indeed.
It was then that our leaders made the final ruling; we were not deep enough, and we had to venture further down, should we wish to live in peace and quiet. We knew that there was something beneath us, for the echoes we heard when knocking on bedrock were not that of empty void. And so we continued pondering the question countless generations before us have--how do we get down there? Bedrock was as solid as any dimensional barrier, unbreakable by any means of science, magic, or otherwise. If it was any consolation, the layer would also theoretically keep us safe from the Wither... if we made it under, that is.
That was when my colleague and good friend had an idea. If bedrock was this impenetrable, unbreakable barrier, then perhaps we were treating it incorrectly. Just like the nether, we had to go through the barrier without breaking it through sheer force. My colleague drew up some rudimentary schematics for such a build, but the results were daunting. To reliably open up a passageway without blowing it up in our faces--like some smaller nether portals once did--we'd need twenty times the power, which corresponded to a portal ten times as wide and twice as tall as our obsidian frames. Daunting though it was, it wasn't something we couldn't do. And besides, our other options were to scatter like ants or fight an endless army of the undead. We all unanimously agreed that this was our best bet at surviving, but there was just one problem:
The power.
The nether was simple enough; as a volatile dimension of fire and lava, all it took to bridge the relatively small gap between us was a spark on obsidian. Where we were headed, though, we had not one idea. Of course, we began with the simple and easy triggers--flint and steel, fire charges, and every potion type we had on us. Nothing seemed to work, so we moved on to the more extreme and outlandish methods. Explosions, massive amounts of fire, and even a lightning blast or two from our last tridents. The results were just as equally disappointing, and with each passing day, our scouts reported sightings of zombies closer and closer to our city.
For another month we toiled, trying everything possibly imaginable to get a reaction from whatever lay beneath the bedrock layer. Just like before, we made no progress until something most would call tragic happened--one of the soldiers, a bit too reckless with a few too many fire charges, accidentally detonated them.
In wake of the resulting blast, we saw something remarkable. The empty space we once had such high hopes for was filled with what surface-goers would call stars. But they weren't really stars, for our invention had only opened a gateway further from the sky. This we all saw for naught but a moment before the frame came crashing down, unable to sustain the link. Yet we finally had the answers we'd been pursuing for so long; the gateway had to be sustained by the power of souls.
We tried lining the frame with soul sand, soul soil, beneath the frame, but ultimately were unsuccessful again and again. Almost as if the universe was mocking us, the gateway seemed to demand only living souls.
That was the conflict that tore our city in two. Some cowards demanded us to stop, instead suggesting that we sit like ducks for the Wither to come down and end our miserable existence, while we lived out the rest of our lives in fear. Once again in hindsight, this was perhaps another reason as to why I exist today. Our once-comrades made it their sole mission to put an end to the gateway at whatever cost necessary, and we had no qualms about gathering their souls for its construction. It does, after all, rest much easier on the conscience when those we sacrifice are trying to kill us as well.
One by one, we reinforced each of the fifty-six cubic meters of deepslate that outlined our way out. Most of us were ready to hop in at the first sign of danger, whether that be our former friends or that accursed Wither. The undead horde was quite literally knocking on our doors, and the few of us who remained were fairly confident that the city was already long-lost.
No one quite anticipated anything coming out of the portal, though. It was slow at first, quietly creeping over the gateway edifice and into the inner areas of the city. Every now and then, it would snap up one of the undead, making my life just a little easier and spreading a little further each time. No one else seemed particularly keen about our new inhabitants--if they called us that--but it kept us safe.
Then came a day where the undead dared not venture into our city out of fear for their own little "lives". Yet the gateway still demanded souls, and the only ones left were those of the few who'd survived as long as they had. One might call me a monster for doing what I did, but I can't seem to recall the last time any of the survivors were useful. They have a use now, at least.
The city was empty and silent then. I had a few days to myself to make some final tweaks to the gateway, but with the Wither not far behind its armies, I couldn't afford to linger on the past. Not now, not ever.
When I returned to the city countless years later, it was clear that the Wither had insisted on leaving its mark. Everything was utterly ruined, what not overgrown with sculk instead littered with blast holes. My fellow wardens and I did a good enough job of keeping everything else away, but we hadn't the resources or knowledge to repair an entire civilization's worth of damage.
Some other civilization made its way down here, through the tunnels and caves blasted out by the Wither. I can't say much about them, other than that they recklessly built over our old history and pillaged whatever they could find, as surface-goers do. That didn't last very long, either, but their few souls were not nearly enough to satisfy the high demands of the gateway. When it closed, I sealed myself off on the upper side of the bedrock, for I wasn't quite ready to live in total darkness yet. I still wish to see these things the surface-goers call 'stars', and perhaps track down that pesky Wither if it's still out there.
There's more to this tale than not, fair surface-goers, but I haven't a need to explain it to your kind. Much of it you would find too bland or unfamiliar for your storytelling tastes, but take mine as a warning. Don't let your children wander too far into the deep, for there's more they might meet than a few undead.