Issac and Ilvir spend what felt like hours traveling throughout the caves, the undednibg gray stone walls almost making both of them mad as they slowly tried to move closer to the ever elusive source of the corruption with it seemingly getting further away with each heavy step they take.
By now, despite their supernatural bodies's having immense endurance and strength, Issac's form was too heavy for either of them to move at a decent pace.
I've absorbed too much. Even my strength can't help me move at all. This is bad. Issac thought to himself. But what could he do? He wouldn't leave the petrified statues behind no matter what but their weight was too encumbering. They would simply have to keep moving in hopes of finding some solution to their problem.
Gritting his teeth, Issac and Ilvir heaved together trying with all of their might of help Issac's body move, using a flickering light spell cast by Ilvir as a source of light in the dark caves.
As they moved slowly progressed, the two former paladins had started to notice subtle changes around them.
The mild temperature within the caves had started to slowly drop, not bothering either of the two Corrupted beings but still giving cause for concern. A strong draft had started hitting them from the front, the sounds of wind rushing echoing into a soft melody as it traveled throughout the cave tunnels.
Then as the made their way around a bend, the wind getting stronger and more vicious, they find themselves looking towards a blue swirling portal, glowing brightly and made of a cloud like substance shifting contorting softly in place.
"A portal... this is where the wind is coming from, but where does it lead to?" Ilvir asked, moving in front of his master should anything come out of the portal to attack.
"Interesting, so far this is the only thing we've found that could possibly take us closer to the source, any other way to the source we've either missed or was blocked off." Issac noted, feeling the magical energy emanating from the portal.
"But it could also lead us further away from the source as well. What should we do?" Ilvir said looking up to Issac, a childlike look on Ilvir's face.
"Backtracking would take hours, however let us not go into this portal blind, perhaps the Lexicon will shed some light on this." Issac said, pulling the arcane Lexicon out from his body, watching as the tome opened by itself, rapidedly flipping to the page Issac wanted.
The Lexicon stopped at a journal entry with a hand drawn depiction of a portal similar to the one that was before Issac and Ilvir. A passage below the drawing read
Scattered around the world but common near areas of great magical activity are portals that lead to pocket planes, planes of varying stability and size that lay between the veil of the Human world and the Otherworld, each one having its own elemental affinity that drastically affects the plane's landscapes and inhabitants. Known pocket planes include Panick the plane of elemental chaos, Poseidon the plane of elemental water, and Vol the elemental plane of fire. A plane of divine magic had at one point been speculated to exist as well but due to the counteracting nature of divine energy and the Otherworld, such a plane would be too unstable to exist.
Pocket planes usually tend to have atleast two portals if not more depending on their stability, with said portals leading to different locations on the pocket plane, even if they are only feet away in the material world
Issac stopped reading there, taking in the information. Most of it was useless to him if he was honest, he was a paladin, not some wizard researcher, however know that he had some idea of what he was getting into, he felt much more comfortable. Judging by its appearance, Issac guessed the portal led to a pocket plane of air, which didn't sound too dangerous. Issac thought.
"Alright, well it seems our only choice would be to step in. Let us go Ilvir." Issac said, walking to the portal of vibrating thuds.
Ilvir nodded, and together they entered the portal.
As soon as they completely entered, they both felt an incredible rush of air and suddenly, when they blinked their eyes. They found themselves standing on an island completely made of cloud, floating isolated, in an endless blue void.
In the distance a gigantic White Castle stood before them and a midday sun gently warming their bodies.