White gate continuation

When I exited the garden, I was greeted with a lively town of people dressed in casual German medieval clothes. I looked down at my clothes, noticing that what I was wearing before changed to a yellow, black, and red Landsknecht. "What is this," I said, weirded out by my new get up, "when did I change."

I walked into the town, passing people that had very similar clothes to mine, noticing that the buildings reminded me of classical German architecture. "At least I don't stand out," I reassured myself as I walked down the narrow streets. "Where could he be," I whispered, looking into every shop and open door I passed by.

This is going to take forever, I thought, and if he's a demon, then why would he fill the town with people you would think he would fill it with his kind, and what's with this German-style. I continued walking through the streets until I came across a cake shop, "Wouldn't hurt to have some," I mentioned to myself, looking up at the title sign. "Do I have any money," I wondered, picking my pockets, finding several coins with the words, "FRANZ JOSEPH IVGG KAISER V OESTERREICH" molded on the front with a face turned to the side. The back depicted two eagles joined at the torso with a king's crown held above them with the year marked 1763 at the bottom.

Wow, these are old, I thought as I stepped inside.

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The car ride to Elk Grove was very uneventful as they all sat quietly, listening to pop music on the radio. When they arrived on sight, police officers had set us a barrier of yellow tape restricting entrance by the public crowd that was gathered around the portal. Most of them had their cell phones out, recording the Priest and the sisters who were there praying as the police urged them to leave the area as it was unsafe.

They pushed their way to the front of the crowd, reaching one of the officers at the yellow tape, "Evan Holenberg," Evan said, holding up his ID card reading, "Evan Watson Holenberg, Born: March 17, 1999, Age: 20. The officer took the card, quickly looked at it, handed it back, and let them in.

"Why are people from the English church here," Kaira asked, looking at them in a knelt down position.

Evan went to speak, but Summit beat him to it, "They probably have a better understanding of this portal since it is talked about in the bible," Summit grinned at the thought of being helpful.

"I didn't know you read the bible," she responded somewhat curiously.

I didn't know either, Evan thought, good to know I'm not the only one who knows.

The Priest turned around after hearing their conversation, glancing at them, eyes widening as they fell on Evan's face. "A holy one," he quietly mentioned to himself, alluring the sister's attention to the Priest, then to Evan. He got up and walked over to Evan, "I suppose you're the one who was sent to deal with the holy gate," he said in a calm voice.

"Ones," Evan corrected, referring to his 5 sisters behind him.

"Right," he corrected, "the Holenbergs, correct."

"Yeah." He probably thought it was only going to be me entering, Evan thought, as being albino is referred to as "being protected from the sun by God" in the church. They all wished them a safe return as they entered the blinding gate in a straight line.

On the other side, the first thing they saw was them standing in the middle of a massive swamp surrounding them on all sides. The air was warm, but the sky was a nice mixture of light pink and blue, restricting the clarity and distance they could see ahead. "The sky kinda looks like a sunset, doesn't it," said Kaira, taking in the full view as her feet mushed around in the mud below her.

"We'll definitely need a boat to move around in all this water," Evan said, looking at the reflection of the trees in the somewhat dirty water ahead of them. "Summit, can you make us a boat large enough for 6 people."

Summit took a look at the trees around them, "They look like oak trees, so maybe, unless they are another species." she said, uncertain about the type of wood due to the low visibility. She reached out to a tree right next to the start of the water, being careful to not fall in, and reshaped the wood into a dense woodblock on the soil. She didn't know if it was enough for one boat, so she went over to the next closest tree.

At the same time, Evan told everyone to look around to see if they could find anything. When Summit was done making the boat, she had some wood leftover; Evan noticed this and asked her if she could make a lamp and candle out of it. She agreed but told him that it would take time.

The rest helped set the boat into the somewhat shallow water with a bit of trouble as the mud made them slip on multiple occasions. Summit was finished converting the rest of the wood into 4 candles and a caged lantern. They all got in the boat after not finding anything in the area. Evan came up with the gamble of heading straight in the direction the portal was facing since they had no other information to go off of.

Diamond used her water magic to push the boat continuously forward as night fell upon them. Evan took out a small pack of 20 matches, marked Juley on the cover with a logo that represented a fireplace under a brick chimney, and lit one of the candles and carefully put it in the caged style lantern with the help of Summit.

He moved over to the front of the boat and held the lantern in front of him. The light was only enough for them to clearly see 3 meters in front of them, although Evan was able to triple the distance while preserving the clarity and brightness. Nothing but trees and water, they all saw as they continued for the next 30 minutes.

Evan called it quits and told the group that would rest till morning, taking shifts alternating during the night just to be safe. When morning came, they were able to get a clearer picture of the environment they were in. As they cruise on forward, they were surrounded by beautiful greenery on both sides, colorful butterflies and birds passed by them, landing on the flowers and trees. Frogs swam in the dirty green water around the boat, the tree leaves blocked parts of the water from being hit by the sun's rays. It was a place a photographer would come to get a good photo for a publication or maybe a photo exhibit.

They continued for a few minutes after being distracted by the scenery, having their boat bump up against a mud shore. "Should we get off here," asked Priya, noticing what seemed to be giant stones arranged in a random sequence ahead of them.

"Yeah," he said, looking at his surroundings with the only strange thing around being the Stones, "I want to see why there are stones out here and who put them there."

"I think it's kinda cool," added Elissa, moving up the boat past Evan and Priya, looking at the stones as she set shoes on the mud, sinking in a bit. "Kinda reminds me of the ancient stone monuments, except those are smaller," she smiled, turning back to the group.

"There's that emotional inaccuracy," said Kaira, getting out of the boat and tightly hugging her from behind. "You're just so precious~," she continued snuggling her face into her back, "it's like you don't know what situation you're in." She laughed it off as she let her go and looked back at the group, signaling them, "c'mon, let's go."

"Really," Evan sighed, getting on to the mud, "what a contraction."

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"Gosh, I make one mistake, and now everything is going to shit," [redacted] said, "Okay, I got those 4 out of experiment 3, but I need to know how they were able to get in." 'It' looked over at the pile of indescribable figures he kept around as a reminder, "No, in the state they are in, there's no way they would have any power… DAMN IT," 'it' came to a realization, "did I let a portal go under my radar. Well, I'm sure that the damage is very minimal."

'It' continued to think, "No, don't tell me Dolafler is messing with them, na [redacted] is too unaware todo that." 'It' moved around over to a domain overlay table containing information on the 20 worlds 'it' had control over, "I should check on [redacted]," 'It' opened a window enabling it to see the ground from above Dolafler's location. "I see… WHAT IS this," 'It' was shocked to find 6 humans in and around the stone monument that Dolafler lived under. "You know what," 'it' paused, "I'll see what happens."

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While the 6 slayers checked out the monument, the noise they made alerted Dolafler. Thinking it was another animal come by to play, Dolafler headed up the stairs, opened the hatch that was his door, peeked out, catching the Holenbergs attention, freezing them in place as soon as they laid their eyes on Dolafler. As for their perspective, they were experiencing how insignificant they were in the presence of this being, as their brain wasn't even able to depict the anomaly that was in front of them, it was as if they were trying to define infinity.

"Yo, Dolafler," a male around the age 25 with brown eyes and black hair, wearing a white roman robe that covered his whole body, confidently said, coming through a portal that instantly popped up. Dolafler recognized it as [redacted]'s human form, "Sorry to bother you, but these guys got in here by accident," he continued, poking Kaira's shoulder, feeling she was stiff as iron. "Wow, it's like they are made of stone, and their expressions… their expressions." It was horror, he thought as he looked around, their faces were stuck with the single expression of absolute horror.

He walked over to Dolafler and patted [redacted] on [redacted] head, "It's okay, it's not your fault." Well, at least I know what happens to humans when they see Dolafler, he thought, and as long as they are petrified I don't need to be in my human form, I'll also want to erase their memory don't want them to go insane, and I'll need to close whatever portal they came through.

"I have to go now," he cheerfully said, reverting back to his original double-ringed, winged form, "stay out of trouble." 'It' headed back to the portal it came from, lifting the 6 humans simultaneously without having to touch them and guided them behind him, through the portal.