The nausea stopped as Sam beheld the Nether. There was less lava than he imagined, although it was still a large cavern. He peered down the edge of the cliff his portal had spawned upon. The drop was steep, leading down to a small pit of lava, surrounded by the red rock: which he broke and confirmed that it was, indeed, netherrack. Above the lava was an outcropping, in which a large, dark-red bricked castle stood. With a flourish of his book, and a jump, he soared through the air and landed. His vampiric featherfall, combined with his own spell and his power armor caused him to not even take half a heart.

The gate was menacing, built to look like a large red skull. He equipped his sword and wandered in, listening for the sounds of mobs… which there was a distinct lack of. He hadn’t even seen any basic mobs around where he was. The eerie silence and desolation continued to the throne room. Inside, golden statues of some goatlike centaur crowded the walls. The red carpet stretched onwards down a large room until it ended in a throne, built, like most of the thrones in his new world, for an equine to comfortably sit their entire body down on it, only this one was twice the size of him.

He walked down the plush carpet before feeling the stone throne. He ran a hand down the armrest, turning around and sitting down, curious on how whatever maniac who built this place could get satisfaction from staring at a room full of the same golden statue all day.

The hall was long and spacious from where he sat. The emptiness bringing a desolate feeling, atleast until the sound of hooves on the floor greeted his ears. Through the doorway he had come in came a small pink pegasus. Her blue, two-toned Curled mane bobbed as she trotted in. Sam gave her a puzzled look, which… she couldn’t see behind his helmet… Regardless, she seemed to perk up at his presence.

“Excuse me mister, I’m incredibly lost…” the little pegasus, Sam believed they called the females, fillies, said in a brooklyn accent.

Sam stood up, his blank helmet seemingly giving the apparent filly a short pause before she continued trotting to him.

“I- I was practicing flying, and my fweind… His parents say he’s getting late magic surges, well, he was practicing and sent me here… But I-” Her words were interrupted by Sam switching to his sword and swinging it down beside her. She flinched, backing away after falling down.

“M-mister..?” She shakily said. Sam looked at her for a few moments more before equipping his sword.

“Apologies. The denizens of the Nether are evil Incarnate. I had to make sure this version didn’t have shapeshifters.” Sam knelt down, but didn’t get close. Afterall, he had just drawn a sword on her, although he still didn’t take off his helmet.

“N-Nether? This isn’t- I mean, th-that wasn’t so scary…” Sam stayed kneeling as she got up. He couldn’t imagine her journey throughout here.

“How long have you been here?” He asked gently as she got closer, he was probably the first thing that hadnen’t seriously tried to attack her. Or atleast apologized afterwards.

“Golly… I don’t know mister, my hooves are sore and hot, and I’ve slept twice… I just want to go home…” Sam debated in his head for a few moments before wanting to slap himself. This was very clearly a filly, not some evil Nether demon or ghast!

“Right, well, I have a secret way out of here, but you have to promise to tell nobod- Nopony, I’ll tell you how to get past the traps you’ll see on your way out meant for others trying to escape. If you can, you think you’re brave enough to tell me what you encountered here?”

“Uh-huh mister, promise not to tell. a. Soul. And it wasn’t that scary! I’m the bravest filly around here mister, so sure!” Sam laughed at her bravado. Getting up they walked out of the fortress. He talked about his portal, and the ways to get around the traps they set around it to prevent the mobs coming through and causing trouble.

In return, she described how the Nether was split into atleast three territories she had been through. The most northern part was filled with fiery lava pits, all manner of creatures immune to lava sat bathing all day and fighting everything they saw. East of the fortress laid a territory filled to the brim with sticky webbing and dark whispers. And finally the west was pretty barren except for a single structure in which the denizens fought eachother.

They parted ways at the portal, with her disappearing through it as he waved goodbye. He’d probably tell Ashton when he got back. Right now though, he had work to do. He needed two things, blaze rods and wither skulls. He supposed he’d go north first, which he might find blazes, or something equivalent.

The journey wasn’t that hard, this nether didn’t seem to require much vertical scaling, and the heat couldn’t get through his power armor. He just needed to avoid stepping in lava, which he hadn’t seen until he crested a ridge. Below stretched hundreds of pools, and he could barely make out a variety of creatures bathing in them. To him they looked like mutated dragons, but he saw plenty of leathery skinned animals, which as far as he knew, weren’t normally lava-proof.

He dropped down, his armor and his feather falling ensuring he took no damage as he landed. The first thing to notice him was a large mass of sentient lava, which turned and began to slink towards him, very different from how the Cube version hopped around in the distance.

He switched to his sword in his hotbar, remade after it had broken in the fight with Vargas. He kept his spellbook in his inventory, he probably wouldn’t need it for a simple magma cube… slime? Whatever he was calling them, he moved forward and struck down vertically on the mass of lava. It lurched away, far quicker to compress itself than it was at expanding to move, before the magma slime tried to wrap around his wrist.

With a twist of his wrist, he slashed vertically upwards, ignoring the half heart of damage he took from touching the creature as his sword ripped through it, causing it to recoil in surprise and pain as part of it's form fell to the ground and bubbled away to stone, no longer supported by it's being. Upon realizing he was not prey, the slime immediately tried to flee, pulsating quickly as it squirmed to escape his blade.

He ran after it, slashing down with his blade on the remaining mass. Watching as one more half bubbled away before he swung once more, this time it bubbled into nothingness. With no loot he began walking deeper into the area. His regeneration having already healed the half heart he had taken… only to be tackled by a very scaly unicorn with a split horn and fiery mane along its body and tail.

He struggled as his head was repeatedly bashed against the hard red stone as they tumbled, before finally getting a leg between himself and the odd fiery unicorn, pushing it off as he quickly rolled backwards into a crouching position as he took in the creature with more detail.

It, a she if the long eyelashes were a good indicator, was glaring at him and seemed to have snake-like fangs and could breath fire if the small gout of it coming from the sides of her muzzle were any indication. The fact her horn glowed with a pinkish red hue as she screamed and charged at him likely meant she could use some kind of magic…

He sidestepped her charge, only to be kicked backwards as her front hooves dug deep into the stone and bucked behind her. His hearts ticked down as he was lit on fire by her hooves. It ended quickly though, but he skidded backwards, his head stopping right above a lava pit, the other creatures that had been in the vicinity having disappeared.

This pony did not seem to be as friendly as her Equestria counterparts, since the instant she saw him near the lava pool, she jumped on him and began hitting his helmet with her forehooves and breathing fire in his face, no doubt trying to end him before he killed another member of the region.

He did his best to keep his head above the lava, ignoring the ticking of his health from the fire and heat, only barely mitigated by his regeneration. The hooves however… Despite dealing half a heart per hit, she was still quite strong. She was also standing on his arms. Luckily, he didn’t need to move his arms to access his inventory. His spellbook appeared in his hand, it’s pages rapidly turning to his leaping spell.

With a quick look on the opposite side of the lava pool, he activated the spell. She was thankfully surprised enough that he was able to turn himself midair and punch her off of him. He grunted as he landed on his chest on the other side, the strange unicorn wasn’t as lucky, landing at the edge of the lava pool with a smack as she dropped into the lava. He got up and took a breather, and a regeneration spell.

Only for the mare to leap out of the pool, even more furious now! She had some clear damage, in the form of a red welt on her stomach and face where she belly flopped onto the lava, but seemed completely unfazed by being completely submerged on the liquid death!

He sighed. The fire in this fight was wreaking havoc on his health. And he couldn’t mimic what he had done against Vargas. He wasn’t getting any chance to bite her, nor did he think it would be smart with her on fire. He checked his health as she came at him once more. Half health…

He used his spellbook to build a wall in front of him, leaping backwards to get some distance as he equipped his sword in his other hand. Her surprise had worn off, he was now ready.

Luckily for him, the mare simply stumbled out from behind the wall, a bit dazed as she calmed down a bit, her flames flickering a bit as she looked around to try and find her target. When she finally did, she growled once more and rushed at him again, clearly not going to go down easy.

He himself hissed as he made a note of another lava pool several meters behind him. He put his hands in front of her head as she rammed him, pushing him back to the lava pit before he kneed her chin, ignoring the heart and a half of damage he took in the process.

He couldn’t exactly drag her with him without constantly burning himself, so he left her there as he started moving towards the biggest pool he had seen in the distance earlier. It was strange that few of the creatures attacked him. Only the magma slimes did really, the others seemed to back off or run away when he got too close.

That didn’t mean he left them alone. He killed several of the creatures, but stopped chasing them down after none of them dropped anything of what he needed. He really hoped those strange fire unicorns didn’t drop them, since they were a gray area in his view. Were they some variant of unicorns? If so, they fell under his responsibility as Prince Consort, which meant he couldn’t just indiscriminately murder them.

Speaking of which, he did keep an eye out for any more trying to ambush him. He hadn’t seen any more of her kind though. At least not until he came up to the large lava pool. There were several relaxing inside the lava like it was a hot spring.

He stopped before they saw him. Admittedly, he was ambushed earlier, but he barely survived a fight with one of them. How he wished for a potion of fire protection right about now…

The ones relaxing in the pool were having a fun time, or atleast what passed as a fun time for them as they fought over relaxing locations, the best eddies and generally insulted each other. They all paused however when a bipedal figure covered in metal, a strange thing to be covered in near the lava pits, where most of it would melt, flew through the air after having been tossed.

The book in his hands turned its pages as he leapt midair, preventing him from falling to a molten demise, and instead landing on the opposite side of the pool. He had just been kicked by the biggest fire unicorn he had ever seen. She stood there, looking across the lake at him with scorn.

She was only a foot shorter than Celestia, but that just meant instead of coming up to his waist, she came up to his neck. She wore nothing indicating any status, but her size was probably an indication of her leadership through pony logic. He healed himself, she had taken a single heart off of him, as she spoke across the lake.

“What do you think you’re doing here, mortal? Do you think you stand a chance against us Nirik’s!?” She called out angrily and somewhat rudely. She clearly did not think much of him, despite having survived being hit by her at full force.

He laughed. Although at what he didn’t know. Maybe it was stress, maybe he had finally lost it or whatever, but the condescension, mixed with the image of the Nirik as she called herself, just created a funny image in his mind.

He removed his helmet. If they were talking, he might as well be partially cordial. His crimson eyes stared at her as he smiled, his fangs showing. “Prince Consort of Equestria, Sam. I’m quite busy, so if you could show me where some Blaze rods, these yellow rods that are really hot, are at, that’d be nice.”

Her eyes twitch in rage and her flames burn ever brighter, turning a deep purple, almost black, as she growled dangerously at him, saying, “You will leave these lands, or you will die by my hooves. NOW.”

“Heh. I’d like to see you succeed!” He yelled as he put his helmet back on. Already casting his regeneration and strength spells.

She screamed in rage as she charged across the pools of lava, as if she were walking on solid blocks or stone instead of molten rock and death. She lowered her horn, intent on impaling him it seemed, before suddenly leaping and exploding in those black flames and coating the area in soul flame.

He had already dodged out of the way. His sword in hand as he leapt over the flames. He swung his sword down on where she had landed, obscured by smoke as she was. Luckily for him, he nicked her. Unluckily for him, he pissed her off even more by doing so, making the flames even hotter.

Sam retreated out of the smoke. The fire was slightly outpacing his regeneration, so he had to change his tactics. Checking his debuff, he would be on fire for twenty seconds. While he wouldn’t die, she would literally cause him to respawn out of attrition at that rate. He had to think of something and fast…

The answer jumped into his lap. Literally as one of the nearby Nirik jumped at him, missed, and landed against his lap. And she looked clearly confused by the misjudgment, looking around for the fleshy infiltrator as she could only see a metallic statue. Seemed she was under the lava when he was spotted by the others.

He grit his teeth as the idea literally fell into his lap. His helmet retracted as he grabbed the Nirik’s head and body, biting down on her scorching flesh. It felt like drinking boiling water as his healing from drinking barely covered the health loss. His fire debuff renewed, but it didn’t matter due to the buff below it, fire resistance.

The Nirik leader spotted this as the smoke faded away, and she froze up, unable to believe what she was seeing. “Vam… Pony…?” Then her flames burn ever brighter and hotter, turning the nearby netherack into a more malleable form as she roared in rage while charging at him once more.

He quickly discarded the Nirik into the pool of lava, she’d be fine, if just woozy. His entire form was lit up in bluish purple flames as he deflected her charge with the side of his sword, bashing her upside the head as well. She grunts in surprise and pain as her head gets knocked to the side, her horn scraping his armor worthlessly as she passes by him.

While she was momentarily stunned, he cast his spell, a wall rose up behind her which he leapt atop of, before boxing her in with three more. “Give up, your flames can’t hurt me anymore.”

She looked around, shaking her head to focus, before looking up at him and growling faintly. “And why should I?! You’re here to attack and kill us, aren’t you!? Who sent you? The spider queen in the weblands!?”

“I think you should clean the stone out of your ears, I said I was the Prince Consort of Equestria, what part of that introduction included anything involving spiders!”

“The fact that someone from that WHORSE’S castle would NEVER be down here willingly! So you’re lying!”

She didn’t even see as he jumped down, kicking her in the head. She did feel her horn be squashed upon the slowly melting floor however, pushed underneath his boot. “Spawn from the nether have no right to say such things about my fiance...”

She felt the boot be raised off of her, before she curled up into a ball as the wind was knocked out of her by the same boot.

“F-fiance,,,? S-Sombra… H-how are you…?” She asked before passing out and letting her flames die down to how they would normally be.

He hissed as he mined the blocks he had raised away. The other Nirik’s gasps as their figures were revealed. He drove his sword deep into the stone beside the leader’s head. “You have bore witness to my strength, as you all seem to make abundantly clear through violence. I, Sam, claim your territory as my own, any objections?”

When no one spoke up he nodded, grabbed several blocks of stone, and made the most uncomfy chair imaginable as he sat down in it, waiting for the Nirik leader to wake up.

Author's Note

IT'S ALIVE!

I truly do apologize for the extreme delay on this chapter, but both mine and my co-author's lives have been... Busy, to say the least. Delays, hopefully, will not be as long as this.