I really wished I had just been paranoid, but things are never that simple.
It turned out that we had been followed, that was the only thing I got Apollo to tell me while he and his three man squad led us to who knew where. My guess was that he saw us pass the entrance to their lair the day before and had been following us since.
When we got to the entrance I wanted to smack myself a little bit for missing it, or at least I did until the door closed and I realized they had hidden the entrance with a very clever mechanism, one that I noted in my head to figure out as soon as I could.
The inside of their base started as a narrow corridor leading to some stairs heading down. The stairs, much like the rest of the cramped area around me, was made of cobblestone. I looked at the bare walls around us, some dirt early on while stone became more frequent the farther down we went until there was nothing but it. The trip walking down took nearly two full minutes, but when we reached the bottom, I let out a gasp as the interior was massive. I wagered that even the famous Element of Loyalty wouldn't have been able to cross the span in under ten seconds at top speed. To be honest, this structure was so massive that I wondered how it could possibly stand to remain so sound with all the weight above it and the lack of any support beams of any kind. For as large as this area was, this place made no sense. It hurt to just think about as there was nothi-
"Welcome to The Bog," said our captor, Apollo.
And just like that, I made peace with how this place was still standing, and tore my eyes away from the structure to look at him.
I hadn't gotten a very good look before at his face, but now I saw it completely. His face was marred with several scars, most were small but there was a long, thick one that ran from where I guessed his left temple was down to right below his jaw line. His eyes were a rather piercing gold color that just seemed unnatural to me and sent a small wave of chills down my spine, as though they could see my soul and were judging me as he spoke.
"What do you want with us?" I asked simply in a flat tone. He hadn't been willing to answer that or much else on the way here, maybe he'd talk more since we were pretty much his captives in their home base.
He stood still for a moment before ignoring my question and walking toward a doorway a few dozen blocks away. Typical.
"Follow me, both of you," he said before stopping and adding, "the rest of you will wait outside." With that, the other Players that had come with him waited outside the room that he had slipped into only a moment after issuing his command.
Before going in, I glanced around the area and saw many Players, adults and children, looking at us from all over the large room. Then my vision went dark as we too entered the room.
"Sit," a voice commanded from the darkness.
"Sit where?" I shot back at the darkness.
"Sit," the darkness simply repeated with no change in its tone. This time I chose to do as it said, hoping Com would do the same and that we'd get some answers soon.
There was another clicking noise and soon the room was flooded with a blinding light coming from the walls. I took a glance at one of them after my eyes stopped hurting and saw that it was a new block, one that looked like some sort of stone block but shone a bright yellow color and lit up much of the area around it, despite it being embedded into the wall. I noted the stone in my head and looked at Com to find that he was paling at the sight.
"Com, what's wrong?" I asked, not liking his reaction to this glowing stone in the wall.
He ignored me for a moment and looked back at them, "How did you get in there?"
"If we choose not to kill you, then we'll explain," the one who had talked so far said. This caught my attention and I looked at the one who kept talking, leading this conversation despite not being Apollo, who said before that he was in charge. Instead, Apollo was simply standing off to the side, as though he was little more than another observer like his guards had been before entering the room. Suddenly this Player in front of us was very important.
"What makes you think you can-" I began, but got cut off.
"Craft, no!" Com said, interrupting me. I looked at him and saw only fear on his face. Something about these lights and the Player in front of us seemed to genuinely frighten him. I took it to mean that if they wanted to, they could really end our lives, not just send us back to where we started and shut up.
"Are you finished, monster?" the voice asked, his tone almost mocking. "Good, now I can get to the point. I suppose you want to know who we are, don't you?" When I realized this wasn't rhetorical, I nodded and he continued, "I'm sure by now you know of how we came to be here. Am I correct?"
"Yes." I was determined to get some answers from him, one way or another. Com's fear of this one made me realize how important this meeting could be for us.
"Good, then I can move on to my next point. We've been watching the world, much like that prince has been since we arrived here, and you are the first to arrive in a manner similar to us, ever. How did you arrive in this world?"
"I don't know."
Apollo didn't seem to like my answer and came up to me and punched me across the face. Com stood up and came to my side, and when I looked up I saw him pull out his sword. Apollo did the same, but stood his ground
"What the hell was that for?" he yelled at them.
"I don't appreciate smart talk, brat."
"I'm not being smart, I just showed up one day!" I exclaimed back, deciding to bite him if he tried that again.
He went for another swing with his empty hand, this time at Com, when the other Player simply said, "Enough, Apollo. That was uncalled for."
His fist stopped in mid-punch and Com opened his eyes, pulling his sword away from a defensive position.
He growled and returned to his spot by the corner, crossing his arms while he leaned up against the wall, "As you wish."
Returning his attention to us, and as I sat back up, this mysterious Player held up a hand, "I'm sorry for his uncalled for behavior. Even now he fails to reign in his temper, much like his father. What do you mean that you don't know how you arrived in this world? How could you come to another world and not know the method?"
"I was... I mean, what does it matter? I'm here now and I'm trying to get back. Who cares how I got here?"
He sat there for a moment, his eyes closed, seemingly contemplating my answer, and my question, carefully before answering himself.
"We came here from a portal that was made of magic energy that we harnessed in our own world." He stood up and began to walk around the makeshift desk in front of him. "Every monster that has appeared so far has been here since before we arrived, and yet now you are here, a monster that none of us have seen before. Our agents didn't notice anything out of the ordinary when you arrived."
I was getting really tired of being called a monster, "Alright, but why do you need to know how I got here?"
"If we understand how you got here, we may be able to figure a way out." His words hung for a moment, sinking in to both Com's head and my own. "So, again, how did you arrive here?"
I held my head slightly down, thinking of whether or not to actually tell him. He seemed to have some confidence in his idea of escaping the world, but why did it matter how I got in? It just didn't seem to make sense. They came by portal, and so did I. How would knowing that change anything? I looked at Com, still a little frightened from the look on his face and he looked back and nodded at me, swallowing nervously.
I looked back at him and trusted Com's nervous council, "I was teleported here in a purple portal from my own world, but I didn't try to leave my world, unlike your people. Myself, and others of my kind, got teleported, although I didn't see any other purple portals like mine before I fell in it."
"There were others?" he asked, seeming genuinely interested in my answer.
"Yes, though I haven't seen any of them so far," I said, my heart aching at the reminder that I was alone, none of my squad here to help me understand this weird, stupid world.
Somehow that gave him a reason to take a moment and think. After a couple silent minutes passed, he looked to Apollo, "Give them a room to stay and begin to brief them on our plans. I think we may have a shot at this."
"As you wish, high priest." Apollo simply bowed and walked toward the door, "Come. We can't afford to waste any more time."
He seemed pretty antsy to get us going, and Com was all too eager to follow, though his fear was hidden now if he still felt it. My guess is that he did, and I didn't blame him.
*After taking us through a small maze of rooms not far from where we were interrogated, for a lack of a better way to describe what had happened, he stopped at a room labeled 'War Atrium' and went inside. Following him in revealed a room that had a rather large, wooden table and enough stone chairs to cover every possible seat. Despite this, there were only two other Players in the room.
Apollo reached the end of the table, Com not far behind, before noticing that I hadn't gone nearly as far as them in the short time spent in the room.
"Get over here and take a seat, we have a meeting to start," he said loudly, making sure to get my attention, as though I were simply lost in my own thoughts.
I frowned, but didn't say anything as I walked toward the end where they had gathered and took a seat next to one of the other Players.
"So why'd you get us too, Apollo? I was sleeping before you had the guards come wake me up," the first one said. For talking to the one who was supposed to be in charge, his tone was very casual. Maybe this one wasn't as bad as Apollo.
"There's been a change in the schedule for our mission. Thanks to these two here," he gestured at Com and me, Com trying to shy away from being noticed for too long, "we have an unprecedented opportunity on our hands."
"Hmm, I take it you're the one they had the big guy tracking a few months back," the first one said again, pointing to the other Player that had yet to talk.
"I guess so," I simply responded, looking at the new Players with interest. The talkative one was slim, but had quite a bit of muscle on him after taking a moment to really observe him. The silent one sat there with a much more dense build that still managed to bulk more than expected.
"I'm sorry for your loss," the large one finally spoke.
"What loss?" I asked, confused where that had come from.
"Your zombie friend, I'm sorry that you lost him," he said with a sincere tone, honestly making me happy for just a moment that someone else remembered him before realizing that that must've meant he was there for the attack against us that day. Had he fought for Kaile, or had he watched on the side while refusing to help us?
The thought of that made me temper my gratitude and I simply nodded, "Thank you."
Com and I took our spots next to them and Apollo resumed talking, "You, Com, I know you recognized the glowstone in the priest's chambers. How?"
Glowstone? While appropriate for what the block did, it just seemed too obvious, not that I had a better name for it at the moment.
Com opened his mouth to talk and hesitated.
"How?" Apollo repeated, his tone more forceful this time.
He flinched under his piercing gaze, and broke his silence, "My brother and his team were sent out one day and returned within minutes changed. I never saw where he went, only that he and his friends came back completely different than they are now."
"Where did they go?" Apollo pressed him.
"I think I overheard him call it the Nether while reporting to the prince shortly after," Com said, his eyes full of sadness and his voice simple and quiet.
Ignorant to his condition, Apollo nodded and looked back to the rest of us, "Just like we thought, they've been to the dark lands beyond this world. He even named it after our own land of sin and evil. No one in their right mind would come back from that intact as they were, but minutes you said?" he turned to Com again as he asked the question.
Com nodded, "Yeah, it was only minutes but he insisted it had been weeks, months even in a world of fire and darkness like we've only heard of described in our world. Not even the worlds we found before could have been described like this. I think that's why he went so far as to call it the Nether."
I just sat there and absorbed all of that as he spoke, realizing that he had let go of his brother already once before. His death was simply a form of peace from Com's perspective, a peace that would keep him from the horrors that that world held over him.
It also explained why they were so weird when I encountered them.
"Sorry about your brother, kid. That's gonna make this job a lot harder on you I think, but bare with us," the vocal one said, catching our attention.
"Wait, what do you mean?" I asked, wondering if he meant what I thought he meant.
His response was simple, a sadistic smile on his face, "We're going to storm the Nether."
Maybe he was worse.