Rolling fields of yellow and green. All around, there was only a semi-flat, endless plain. It stretched outwards for miles, to the horizon and beyond.

[….Booting…]

The inanimate form of Exploratory creaked as its servos whirred to life, turning and moving, pushing the bot into a standing position. As its sensors began to hum, dirt and dust sloughed off its form. A couple basic checks later, it pieced together three things.

One: The portal must have succeeded. In its final moments, the intangible barrier between worlds was pierced for but a moment, just enough for Exploratory to slip through.

Two: The portal was most definitely destroyed in its entirety in the moment after activation. Exploratory’s near-death could attest to that. Thus, delivering information to Earth would be impossible at this time. Encrypted plans for the device lay deep within its data storage, but the materials required would be enormous. Construction of a new portal would likely require control of the whole planet, if this new world even had enough of it to constitute a new gateway of such magnitude.

Three: Current location was unknown. There was no information about what was in the new universe, so Exploratory was effectively in the dark.

Thankfully, it was already obvious that the fields of grass extending in every direction were quite normal and Earthly in appearance: a yellowish, wheat-esque tall grass. Perhaps this world shared multiple similarities with the original universe.

First action: Retrieve and don a sturdy earthen-colored cloak to reduce natural wear on its metallic body, provided before the mission by a technician, placed directly in its spatial storage module buried in its stomach.

This cloak additionally served a secondary purpose, concealing its metallic inhuman nature. The majority of its body was grayish sterile metal. Any native creatures would be much less frightened or angered at the sight of a familiar dirty brown than a shiny hostile gray.

This brought to light another query that needed to be answered as soon as possible. Was there sentient life present on this planet? If so, at what level of civilization? Without proper organization, Exploratory was more confident in the elimination of external threats and the successful subjugation of the world to its own ends, but an intelligent society in a state of sufficient expansion would certainly serve as a problematic obstacle to circumvent.

In the event of sapient and conscious life above the threshold that it could reasonably deal with, a prudent option would be to conceal itself as one of its members. Staying hidden in less explored regions was much more difficult than integrating into society successfully, whereupon the large resources that civilization possessed would be much easier to exploit.

Such was the robot’s thoughts in a single fleeting moment.

Exploratory stood tall and took stock of its situation once more. In its current form, it stood at roughly 6 feet, shaped similarly to a cheap store mannequin. No surprise that the people, in their hubris, shaped their greatest creation after them. Despite its human shape, its surface was mostly featureless, except for the head. Reminiscent of glass, it was capable of observing its surroundings in 360 degrees, and formed of a different material to enable its visual abilities.

[Only grass…]

Exploratory pulled the hood of its oversized brown cloak over its head, wrapping it wholly around itself, before setting out at a trot. It didn’t take much processing power to figure there would be yet a long way to go, and it never hurt to record extra observations on its way to wherever.

The Endless Plains, as they were called, surrounded the West Chappie Kingdom from 3 sides, leaving only the ocean to their backs. Due to the circular nature of the continent, this left the kingdom vulnerable to land-based attacks from 3 sides, most notably from the Northern Hammer State and the Southern Anvil Republic. Since the Eastern Collective was separated from the kingdom via the Void Nest that lay in the center of the continent, magical defenses were lackluster compared to the careful preparations laid by the two states bordering the Chappies.

At this moment, Exploratory was in the Chappie Kingdom, near the border they shared with the Hammer State, wandering in the direction of the border.

At that border…

The constant clang of metal on metal filled the ear, discordant tones of warped iron and the scream of swords glancing off of shields. A raiding party of 1500 just caught the nearby garrison, numbering only 1000, off guard.

“Colonel Vetrean.”

“What is the state of the city?”

“The Hammers have gone and raided the villages outside the city. Now they’re harassing the garrison manning the wall. It should be alright, though; the new tower shields you commissioned work wonderfully with the pikes we already have. Their cavalry can’t get through the gate, where we’re deploying. We’ve peppered them with a decent number of arrows too. They’ll probably withdraw soon, before casualty rates rise above 10%.”

Vetrean stepped out of the turret to survey the battle with his own eyes. All around, he could see the barbaric peoples of the Hammer State surrounding the detachment at the gate, trying to push past the pike + tower shield combo. The cavalry had long abandoned their attempts to rush down the defenders, some dismounting to lead the charge on foot.

The infantry fared better, but not by much. They could knock the pikes aside, but had a hard time breaking the shield wall, as an opportunistic soldier would stab his sword in between the shields, catching a Hammer off guard every now and again. As Vetrean’s assistant predicted, the Hammers quickly realized they could not win with their limited number, and ordered a hasty withdrawal.

Vetrean leaned against the battlements. He had been in charge of defense for the city of Bulwark for nearly 50 years, and every so often, the Hammers would raid their territories, stealing all manner of crops, tools, anything the villages had that was useful.

It was almost like clockwork. At some point, the constant skirmishes between forces was so easy to predict that the soldiers began slacking off and sleeping in the week preluding the skirmishes, so they could wake up fresh and ready on the day of the battle.

“Someday, you’re going to have to do this every day. Sending out your men to die, and having to look them in the eye before you do it. When you eventually take over for me, Ritehan, I’d like for you to request a larger budget from the royal inspector. Bastard won’t give me the time of day.”

“What brought this on, sir? Usually you don’t start complaining about the inspector until the evening.”

“Watching these pointless skirmishes day after day… it’ll grate on you.”

“That’s just how it is, Colonel. Not even the Void Nest can deter the petty squabbles of man.”

“There you go again, acting like some philosopher or something.”

Ritehan turned away to stare out into the empty fields.

“I’ve been stationed under you for a while, and I just… I can’t help but think. Why do we have to kill each other so often?”

“Greed, Ritehan. That’s all.”

They cast their sights to the horizon, watching the sun dip below the horizon of the Endless Plains.

They were safe… for now.

Humanity was a terrible force, turning from a lackluster fringe species to eventually conquering the entire continent. Even though the emergence of the Void Nest rent the Human Empire into pieces, the humans were still, by far, the most prevalent species in the 4 superstates that controlled the North, South, West, and Eastern edges.

Unfortunately, no one expected the desolation that the Nest brought with it.

Miles upon miles of corrupted vegetation constituted the centre of the continent. The deeper one penetrated towards the exact center, the more dangerous the local fauna became. Combined with the deaths of all the warriors and magicians that lived in the former Empire, the force that the people could bring to bear was much too weak to perform a reasonable reconquest of the ruins of the Empire.

Constant attacks from the Nest continually wore away at the buffer states between the 4 superstates, forcing them to reinforce these less fortunate kingdoms. In between the skirmishes with each other and with the Void, there were little resources left to put towards research of lost technologies and the like.

High above the world, among the stars, a streak of blue light carved its way through the night sky.

In a remote village, in an unimportant country, at a non-specific location, a little child, not even five, looked out of his window, from the small cottage they lived in. The kid, remembering what his dad said to him about shooting stars, made a wish. And in that moment, the meteorite shifted just a little, trajectory nudged to the right place, at the right time.

Elsewhere, a dark figure gathered energy, isolated from the world.

The King of Hammers turned his gaze skyward.

Exploratory pushed on.

And by sheer chance, a legend was born.