The Deepest Caves here...and the ancient Transit Point

#1

Grim was in the midst of the toughest of negotiations between the IceWyrms and the DoomWyrm Riders when the commcrystal call came in.

His daughter Bliss had run away from the Tyr’ani school, seeking a location described in an old Uthvelor poem about the beauty of a transit point between this world and the distant shores of Vec’zne. Grim was in a panic, knowing that the impressionable young Nightmare Lord child was a potential danger in the wrong hands.

With Uriel, Tal’al’oon, Biff and Governor Gresolok at his side, Grim visited the Cave of the IceWyrm for the first time.

It was a mountain of ice and snow cut open at its base with a cave so big that ten IceWyrms could enter it at the same time, though the caverns quickly became tighter soon after. While tighter was a relative thing, the carved streets and storefronts that dotted the caverns were still wide enough for two Dragons to walk side by side.

As they approached hundreds of Bastards were waiting for them, along with other fans. They were holding signs that showed the exact same cartoonish image of Grim that Bliss had made in chalk on her floor for him. He couldn’t help but recognize that in this moment.

They cheered Grim loudly, as the hero to bring them peace after generations of war. Leaping onto a nearby column he worked the crowd and they loved him. He convinced them to meet back up that evening at a tavern known as the Jade (because of the greenish tinge to the ice because of a locally occuring moss).

Traveling deep into the bowels of the cavern system, Grim realized Gresolok would be in danger and sent him back to the surface. But not before Gresolok warned them of the immense dangers and how not a single servant nor IceWyrm had returned from the deep dungeons where ice was replaced by starlight stone.

#2

Grim, Biff, Tal’al’oon and Uriel found a Nightmare Lord transit station deep below the Cave of the IceWyrm.

Its smooth passages were made from fitted blocks. To creatures with lowlight vision and nightsight, each block seemed a glowing moonlight, but the torches the team brought inside could not cast real light more than a few feet before the darkness enveloped it.

As they approached the main tunnel into The Transit Point, Grim discovered a trap involving a Nightmare enhanced through necrotech into an organic launcher for Zela infused fuel air bombs. Sealing up the Nightmare in the wall, the team went further into the long abandoned settlement.

Grim kept his eyes on Bliss’ tracks enhancing his sight using the Leyas so that each track seemed to glow against the dark stone.

They passed an abandoned security station, and reached a room large enough for multiple capital ships to be moored at the same time. While there were multiple parking slips for a variety of different sized ships, each set of slips was in line with an obvious artifact designed to create an immense energy bridge.

The team noted that the artifacts were there to reach the dimensions of Kyr’pos, V’Crios, Dokrice, and Ses’rus. But in the middle was what was once the artifact to reach Vec’zne, the plane of awareness, once home to the Nightmare Lords. This area no longer had an activeable artifact, instead annihilation had been used to punch a hole between dimensions. Unlike energy bridges that could be opened or closed, this hole between dimensions was always open and could not be closed.

Noting the slips for ships were currently empty, and that Bliss’ tracks went straight for the hole to the plane of awareness, Grim ignored his friends desire to explore. He raced through the hole and found himself far from the planet Refuge.

He was in the ruins of an ancient Nightmare Lord city, deep below the Spaceship Graveyard on the plane of Awareness.

#3

Not far from the entrance to the Transit Point, which had an equivalent station on this side, Grim found Bliss sitting in the shadows of a massive statue of a Nightmare Lord. She was weeping into her hands. Her black ichor tears spawned off tiny nightmares that quickly scuttled away into the city that surrounded them.

Grim calmed her, soothing her, and finally asked her what was wrong. She touched his arm and showed him how when she had first arrived here she had been set upon by Undead Spacers. The undead travelers were dressed in heavy armor, carrying massive anti-vehicle cannons, and completely unwilling to speak to a child no matter what species she is. Their cannons had driven her through the city until she had hidden near the statue.

Grim promised he would handle the undead, and gathered his team, preparing to take on the Undead Spacers.

Hearing them approach, Grim began to play his harmonica, calling on ancient arts of the Songmancers of old. He remembered a little ditty a Baribur had taught him on a long forgotten battlefield, and began to play it in earnest.

An Undead Spacer stepped up through the rubble, his head covered in a cracked bubble helmet made of transparent plasteel. Inside the bubble helm was a skull with skin so dry it had ripped and torn and then left itself looking more like ragged jerky than flesh. The eyes were like fish eyes, unblinking and seemingly without any emotion. The Power Armor was old, heavy, space-suit style suits that a living being would have long discarded for being too heavy and encumbering. But for an undead who felt neither tired nor pain, it was an easy addition to its shuffling walk.

The same held true of the massive self-recharging cannons they carried, designed for vehicle deployment due to their cumbersome nature. Instead the Undead raised that cannon with the ease granted by its Leyas enhanced flesh, and began to fire.

Grim reached the height of his solo, and Leyas flowed in all directions. Zooming between buildings, it struck the approaching spacers, even beyond what he could see. As far as the song carried, Undead flesh was set alight. That dry, dry skin ignited well, but it did not burn fast enough to end the threat.

With a free hand, keeping the song going with the other, he began tossing explosives. They arced towards the dangerous threats, bouncing a few steps before exploding. Armor protected the Undead, but between song and explosives, the approaching hordes were quite weakened.

Grim signaled to his team to clean them up. Tal’al’oon moved into action, the Gun monk putting shot after shot into the enemies coming from all sides. As some fell dead, the Gun Monk found himself sliding down a trench directly into their line of fire.

#4

Above them, after the battle was finally won, they noticed the ceiling of the city was living. Then they realized, it wasn’t just the ceiling. The walls, the floors, the rooftops and even the ceiling far above were all part of the same creature. And they were inside it.

They saw above them the roof/outer skin of the creature had been breached by a large EEF munition. The unexploded bomb had come to a stop deep in a building, knocking down a nearby statue. The hole it created led up into the endless miles of the Spaceship Graveyard. Grim realized this open hole would allow more and more Undead Spacers to make their way into this forgotten city.

Using his own dark power, Grim healed the ceiling, sealing away the city from the spaceship graveyard once again.
With Bliss and the team in tow, Grim left the Transit Point, heading back to Refuge, and back to the Cavern of the Ice Wyrm.

Arriving in time for an epic party, Grim took it up a notch. Having gotten permission from Governor Gresolok hours before, Grim and Bliss led the happy people of the cave in a nightlong party that even led to the main assembly hall where even the Dragons themselves could get down and boogie.

The following day, Grim delivered Bliss back to her school, tucked her into bed, and wondered what to do about the Transit Point in the depths of the Cavern of the IceWyrm.

#5

[Grim has unlocked access to the Transit Point.]

#6

After the battle involving the UnderWyrm, Grim returned to the Transit Point to investigate the city and see how much damage It had taken in the battle and to help heal it. He proceeded to search for nests of undead and other threats to neutralize.

He also looked for any records from the city history that Bliss might like to read or take to the scholars.

#7

Traveling through the transit point, Grim found the Nightmare Lord city beyond was falling ill. It was studded by wounds. Each and every one was held open by a similar style of grapple, pulley and support crane structure that was preventing the living city from regenerating itself or being healed.

Carefully hiding, Grim was able to witness a group of Pelebor dressed the heraldry of the Poison Claw Clan wandering from hole to hole checking the tension on the tear-holders.

While armies of Lord Pelos the Fallen had suffered horrific losses to annihilation attacks, they had come back it seemed. Or maybe they had just sent a vanguard force.

Now Grim had a choice, he could use stealth to avoid the Poison Claw Clan Pelebor and make for the Hall of History in the center of the city.

Or he could take on the Poison Claw Clan Pelebor.

He knew from previous fights against their specific type of evil that A) they had reinforcements waiting somewhere offsite using their dastardly curse to moniter the memories of this team of Pelebor. If they started dying off in droves, then more Pelebor would be on the way. And B) some of these were probably cursed Poison Claw Clan Pelebor that could possibly infect grim with their broken form. And Grim definitely did not want to did not want to become broken in that way.

Grim wondered again what the Poison Claw was doing back here. With the UnderWyrm gone, Grim knew he would have to warn the IceWyrms about Poison Claw attack in either case.

#8

(before the museum)

Grim decided to keep out of sight of the Poison Claws for now. He would access the Hall of History and attempt to gather as many records and documents as he could. Filling a Shadow caccoon, he would them slip backout.

As he made his way back across the city, he would occasionally summon Nightmares to attack small groups of Pelebor from a distance, while hiding.

(after the museum is set up)

Grim approached Bliss and Bry, holding out a shadow cacoon. "Here, I gathered these a few weeks ago. I tried to recover as many of the documents from the city as I could. I hope these will help shed some insight on the city and what happened there.

#9

(After Week 10+)

Grim piled metal plate after metal plate on top of each other, then piles of scrolls obviously made from the preserved flesh of various alien species.

Bliss and Bry, the last mated pair of Nightmare Lords began to assemble the documents. They explained many types of Ancient Evils and their Fiends and their lesser Evils.

Bliss touched Grim’s hand and said, "This is a binding spell. It requires the Annihilation of an Ancient Evil of Great Power, but will banish all the rest of the Ancient Evils from this dimension. It is immensely powerful, and older than time, written here in many different parts over many different centuries from many different Nightmare Lords who pieced the secret together. It reknits the border between our Lands and their lands.
It ends the threat of the Ancient Evils…

What should we do?"