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It shows up on an unassuming morning, bright and glittering in the centre of town. Purple swirls in a pitch-black frame, dancing in the sunlight like nothing Mumbo’s ever seen before. When he looks out his window, he can see it.
He goes to work like he normally would, though the takes a wide berth around it, following the throws of people also straying from their usual paths right across the market square. The café he gets his breakfast at is emptier than usual, and he has a sneaking suspicion that some Grimm fae have decided to avoid the square altogether.
Mumbo can’t, though, since he works here.
The Royal Grimm Workshop, the most prestigious engineering lab someone could possibly work at, stands proud between the market square and the castle, looming in a way that should feel threatening. Instead, it feels almost holy to the Grimm fae that pass it. Their technology is being used to keep the Grimlands safe, what could be nobler than that?
The windows of the Workshop reflect the purple light in them alongside the morning sun. Mumbo walks to the door, just like he does every morning, and then walks straight past it. Instead, he ducks into an alley next to it, climbing up two sets of rusted stairs that lead into a dusty attic space.
Zedaph’s Workshop of Wonders has none of the space that the Royal Workshop does – and certainly none of the funding – but they have free reign of what projects to take on. Mumbo was on board before Zed had even finished his pitch, Royal Workshop invitation left crumpled up and abandoned in the trash.
Besides, Mumbo thinks, the view’s the same.
Zed’s stood at the windows when he enters, sipping on a cup of tea as he scribbles something on a piece of paper on the windowsill. It’s a normal position to catch him in.
“I want to go in.” Zed says, not even looking up from his work as mumbo enters.
“Good morning to you, Zed, did you have a nice weekend?” Mumbo asks as he sets down his bag on the tiny corner of empty space still left on his desk.
“Yeah, yeah,” Zed waves him away, “Anyways, in?”
“Zed,” Mumbo sighs as he walks over to the window, sidestepping contraptions along the way, “we don’t know what it is.”
“It’s a portal.” Zed answers, leaving no room for arguing.
“Okay,” Mumbo says, “where does it go?”
“That’s why I want to go in, I don’t know yet,” Zed says, finally tearing his eyes away from the swirling purple to grin up at Mumbo.
It takes… less convincing than Mumbo would like to admit before he’s packing a heavy bag. He tried to convince Zed to get some guards together – or at least tell someone where they’re going – but he’d refused. Count fWhip’s forces are supposed to stop them from using any unauthorized tech. They haven’t done a good job at it so far.
So, they’ve packed two heavy leather bags to hang at their sides, and short swords to hang at the other. Zed decides that they should go after the workday is done, sneak in under the cover of night. Mumbo points out that they’ll be tired before they can even get going. Instead, they decide to leave first thing in the morning.
Attempts are made to be productive throughout the day, though the looming of the purple swirls outside the window make it impossible for either of them to focus much on their latest projects. Zed’s fulfilling a contraption order for Rivendell – the type of deal they close under tables in shady bars – while Mumbo’s developing new crystal harvesting systems for the Crystal Cliffs. Neither of them get anything done.
Not for the first time, they sleep in the workshop. It’s an uneasy night.
Zed’s alarm clock wakes them up before sunrise by dumping water on their feet. It’s as uncomfortable as it is ingenious, and Mumbo almost fits at the man before remembering why they’re up so early. Instead, he grabs some clean socks and his bag, pulling on his shoes by the door before Zed’s even managed to turn off the clock. His shoulder bag digs into the side of his neck as he checks it for essentials, and his sword hangs heavy on his belt.
The sneak onto the plaza under the cover of darkness, and Mumbo thanks his lucky stars that none of their gear clanks loudly enough to wake up the engineers that are undoubtedly sleeping in the Royal Workshop, or to alert any of the guards. The portal itself stands unguarded, which Mumbo suspects is a consequence of nobody wanting to go anywhere near it.
Zed reaches out for it with a sort of reverence he’s not used to from his friend. There’s a sound, he notes as he steps closer, almost like rushing water. It gets louder as Zed’s hand reaches the blackened frame of the portal. Then, in a single ordinary moment, the water rushes louder and his dearest friend is gone.
For a hysterical moment, Mumbo is absolutely convinced that Zed’s dead – that the swirling purple is the mouth of some horrific beast, come to eat the world – and then he realizes that if he is, Mumbo’s out of a job. So, he reaches out.
The first thing he notices is the nausea. It’s the kind that sticks to the back of your throat like milk stains on a suit and redstone under nails. The second sensation is the heat, which quickly becomes all-encompassing enough to drown out the nausea, bar the taste of bile. He cracks open his eyes just the tiniest bit, barely managing to see the vague shape of Zed next to him – not dead, then, which is good – before it feels like his tears are boiling on his eyes.
“We’re through!” Zed yells, as if Mumbo had somehow not realized that they are decidedly not in the Grimlands anymore.
When he manages to open his eyes for more than a split second, he notices little more than the red. It’s a sickly, dark shade that looks more like mangrove wood than anything else. The ground beneath his feet is spongy, though, feeling more like he’s walking on slimeblocks instead. If it weren’t for the dryness of the heat, he could’ve been convinced they’re just in a weird part of the swamp the Salmon used to live in.
Zed’s pressing something into his hands, which Mumbo quickly identifies as a pair of welding goggles he gladly accepts. They’ll hinder his vision somewhat, but at least they’ll stop his eyes from feeling like they’re boiling out of his head. He opens his mouth to speak, and finds it absolutely devoid of moisture.
“Where are we?” he manages to croak out.
“No clue!” Zed yells back. He sounds excited.
When their eyes are used to the light, they manage to spot another portal across the spongy ground. It’s stood on the top of a cliff that overlooks a lake made entirely of lava – something Mumbo only realizes when he’s perched by the other edge of it, at which point he barely manages to stumble backwards with a squeak. Zed’s only just waited for him before setting off towards it.
It takes them some time – they’re not sure just how much, it’s not like this strange world has timepieces or a sun – to reach it.
“There’s a ceiling,” Zed comments idly, as if Mumbo hadn’t spotted the floating cliffs haunting their ascent to the heavens. As if he hadn’t yet spotted the lack of sun or moon or stars.
“There’s a ceiling,” he echoes. Zed helps him up the final cliff to the second portal.
They stand in front of it for a moment. It’s an exact replica of the one in the Grimlands square and the one they came out of into this hell world. Then, Zed extends a hand to Mumbo, who takes it before launching them both through.
Now, the welding glasses do a good job of protecting them from the light instead. The room they find themselves in is grand and bright white, with tall windows showing a clear blue sky and the sun shining bright in it. It’s been some hours, then. Once their eyes adjust to the light a little, it becomes apparent where they are.
“This is the Academy,” Zed whispers, as though the Crystal Cliffs’ most notable building is somehow to be kept a secret.
“You are, and you are not supposed to be here,” a voice speaks up behind them, though their Grimm is notably out of practice.
Mumbo squeaks and drags them back through the portal, barely catching a glimpse of the wizard that had addressed them, though her stern eyes follow them into the underworld.
“That was the Crystal Cliffs!” Zed exclaims as soon as they’re back through, when Mumbo’s still borderline dry-heaving from the sudden blast of nausea and heat. It’s easier the second time around, that doesn’t mean it’s pleasant.
“Mumbo,” Zed says, turning to his companion excitedly, “do you know what this means?”
“That we’re wanted for trespassing in the Crystal Cliffs?” Mumbo coughs out.
“Who cares about that, we can use the portals to travel between empires much quicker than ever before!” Zed says, “This is absolutely revolutionary,” he says as he starts laughing, planting his hands on his knees.
Zed launches upright suddenly, running a hand through his hair while still grinning.
“I have a map somewhere in here,” he says as he starts looking through his bag, “we can figure out where all the other empires are!”
“Don’t we want to know why this is happening?” Mumbo asks.
His question falls on deaf ears as Zed finds his map and pulls out a piece of paper and charcoal to go with it. He sketches out the rough path they took from the Grimlands portal to the Crystal Cliffs. Then, he draws a straight line from the Crystal Cliffs portal – one that follows the same angle as the straight line from the Academy to Rivendell City.
They both look in the approximate direction Zed’s indicated, where a third portal sits even higher up. A tall black column looms next to it, and for a moment Mumbo swears he sees movement.
This hike goes much the same, though the sheer amount of time they’ve spent in the heat is starting to get to them. Zed’s beet red by the time they reach the last slope, and Mumbo’s gone against all his principles and has tied his suit jacket around his waist, tie hanging loose aside his opened buttons. There’s a shuffling sound near the top of the slope, and Mumbo motions for Zed to quiet down and get low. Carefully, he peeks over the top of it.
He almost screams when he catches sight of them.
A little ways past the portal, in a small valley, lies the entrance to the black shape that had been watching their ascent. Out of it march rows and rows of pig-headed creatures, gold weaponry in hands. Their eyes are empty as they march on, and Mumbo notices that there are no guards. They line up facing the portal.
At one point, Mumbo is certain one battalion’s eyes glide past him, though no alarms are raced. Their milky white eyes seem almost blind.
“We have a problem,” Mumbo hisses, joining Zed a ways down the slope, “we’re not alone.”
“Other people have come through?” Zed asks.
“Not exactly.”
They scramble away from the Rivendell portal, making their way to the path back to the Grimlands.
“You’re absolutely certain they were aiming for the portal?” Zed asks again, like Mumbo hasn’t gone over this ten times this past hour.
“Yes, they were lined up perfectly to charge into it. It seemed like they were just waiting for the go-ahead,” Mumbo says as he struggles up the hill. They’ve made it back to the Crystal Cliffs portal unharmed, which makes him feel considerably more safe.
“So now what?” Zed asks, almost to himself.
“I have no idea, Zed,” Mumbo says, exasperated, “it was your idea to even come in here, and now we’ve discovered some army of pigs on the verge of attacking an empire we’re not even allied with.”
“So we should just do nothing?” Zed asks, eyebrows raised.
“No! I just- there’s no protocol here, Zed. Do we report this to the Count? To the Wizard Gem? Do we go straight to the Overgrown to talk to Lady Katherine? Would any of them even believe us? I mean, we’re going to sound insane-“ Zed grabs his shoulders, effectively shutting him up.
“Mumbo, when I asked you to join my workshop, what did I promise you?” Zed asks.
“Decent pay and bad coffee?”
“No rules, exactly!” Zed exclaims, “You and I don’t do protocol, Mumbo. We’re going back home to grab more gear and unload what we don’t need, and then we’re heading straight for the swamp.”
Mumbo nods mutely. That’s a step-by-step plan he can follow.
They reach the Grimlands portal faster than they’d left it, aided by the downwards-sloping elevation. Once again, Zed reaches out his hand, which Mumbo takes with more certainty this time. There’s the nausea when they go through, as well as the brightness and the sudden loss of heat. Most importantly, there’s yelling right next to him.
The problem of the Grimlands portal’s positioning – a problem they hadn’t thought of as they’d snuck in with no problems – is that it’s in the dead centre of the empire.
The guards are on them before Mumbo’s properly aware of his surroundings, ripping Zed from his side and almost managing to grab Mumbo, too. In a last desperate move, Zed yells out – loud as he can and clear as day even to Mumbo’s shaken brain – to follow the plan. Then, a heavy boot hits him in the chest as he tumbles backwards into the portal.
It's the most disorienting experience he’s had in a while, traveling through the portal twice quickly enough that he doesn’t really have time to process either. He’s on his hands and knees when he lands, graduated from dry heaving to regurgitating the contents of his stomach onto the sickly spongy underground. The thinks it would match well with blood. The heat hits him with the smell of boiling vomit, and he recoils from it so fast that he almost stumbles backwards into the portal again.
He scrambles away, half expecting the guards to follow him in. Nobody comes through. Mumbo is alone.
Before he can think too hard about it – about Zed’s fate and the smell of burning bile – he starts walking South.
It takes some time before he sees the swamp portal. First, he manages to stumble across the Mythland portal, which he enters as quickly as he exits it, nearly ending up throwing up again, though his near-empty stomach protests the action. He manages to get down one of the hiking bars he’d packed, though the back of his throat still tastes like bile and heat.
The swamp portal is only a few minutes from the Mythland portal, and Mumbo locates it easily.
On shaking legs, bent over and dry-heaving, with sweat pouring down his forehead and soaking through even the jacket tied around his waist, Mumbo enters the Cod Empire for the first ever time, breaking about fifty laws in an instant.
“Help,” He manages to get out in his very best Common, “I need help!” he calls out.
From outside the cave he’s found himself in, two guards rush in. One supports him for a moment before noticing the make of his clothes and letting him fall back against the cave wall.
“Where did you come from?” the other guard asks, “are you a spy?”
“No, I-“ Mumbo takes a breath as he finally manages to straighten up. Both guards have their swords aimed at his throat. “The Elves need help. I have information.”
The Cod he’s taken to is kinder than the iron trained at his neck or the grip the guards have on his wrists. He nods to the guards as they release him, dumping him back onto the floor. He realizes now that the dry heat of hell had been a blessing – here, the sweat had no place to evaporate to.
“So,” the Cod starts, almost conversationally, “how’d you end up here?” his Grimm is good – natively so – and when Mumbo looks up it’s into fae eyes.