Week 1 Insurrection Mission: Into the Nightmare Lord Tomb

Twain tweaked the activator on his gloves. Just in case he thought, calibrating his sniper rifle for the third time and coming to the exact same point as the sweet spot. So far so good.
His sight was on the doorway that lead to the room whose wall the Kasanthians had dug into to open up the tomb. There were an unknown number of Kasanthian agents in there, he thought to himself, pulling out a small pad for his off hand and scribbling a few notes. He planned on keeping track of his kills.
He looked down at the Blackheart Security position. They were arrayed professionally outside the door. They had cordoned off the area and were keeping the crowd away.
A single courier carrying a crate snuck through the Black Heart security blockade while the Blackheart Security guards were dealing with a shadow cultist trying to sneak in. The Cultist was dealt with, but Twain watched as the courier slipped into the tomb. He didn't like the way this was looking. Twain activated his radio, he would call into the local Blackheart guy in charge, and tell him whats up.

Peshareen got off the radio with Twain a few minutes later wiping his brow. The special op talked a mile a minute but at least his intel was good. A civvie, a freaking courier was able to sneak past the line.
Say it, thought Peshareen, the civvie went into the tomb. Peshareen hated the tomb. Childeen had said that the galaxy offered nothing but hard choices, and he knew his boss hated everyone of them, as his second in command he was privy to some of the communications. Something seemed twisted about all of it. The Quall and Dahumb were the most reasonable beings they had dealt with, the EEF pacifists, and the Iron republic eagerly tripping over themselves to hand the TRILAT victory.

Really the only things that made sense were the TRILAT. Besides the relative quiet of the Angels of desolation they had acted exactly as everyone expected.

The tomb area had been sealed off from all but Blackheart personnel. Now it was time to act. Lightwards had been set up to cover the tomb and Firedome city. They had cost a pretty penny in donations to the universal church. Pesh wondered why Childeen could be so masochistic at times.
He also had the emergency control to blast the UV lights. It would certainly slow down the night mare lord. If the lord did awaken he would find it damn near impossible to shadowjump out of the dome.
Peshareen then checked the plans. Ohh noo,thought Peshareen as he looked at the final order paperwork. The Boss had meant shadow wards, something to stop the Vamps from Shadow Walking around and flanking them. Instead the order sheet said light wards. He looked around at the light based artifacts some of his team carried and noticed they were dim or completely shut off.
At least he had the UV lights.
Peshareen picked up his comm, and commanded, "I need a team prepped and ready to go. Immutabled only."
They prepared to enter the tomb.

Meanwhile deep inside the tomb, Kasanthian Captain Valiant Martinez was having a terrible day. He had reached the tomb only to find a Da'uhnb guarding it. If the creature had attacked them outright it would have been easier to deal with. Instead it just stared at them menacingly.
The tomb complex was three concentric rings with the center being the stack of bones and the sarcophagus above it.

Far far away on the planet Refuge, Admiral Layne Yr was swinging in a hammock above a grassy field in a full silver and white ballgown. Her heels were tipped with nightmare dragon claws. She rocked back and forth and finally picked up the comm crystal.

"So Explain again to me how you screwed up this simple mission," the Admiral loudly and without regard to the supposedly master vampire she was demeaning.

"Admiral, I cannot believe it, as we arrived in the tomb, there was a Da'uhnb already waiting. You ordered us not to attack Da'uhnb unless specifically attacked, and he's just standing there watching us. He hasn't even drawn his weapons. What should we do?" said Captain Martinez, the old vampire was obviously shaking. Many would consider it a fair response, not a single Kasanthian troop had returned safely when in an operation that involved a Da'uhnb attack.
Admiral Layne Yr frankly didn't care. But she also knew not to stoke sleeping giants.

"Calm down Captain, take a deep not breath. Ha-ha-ha Not breath? Undead joke? Come on smile you fanged ftard," said Layne Yr, "Hold on Captain my emergency commstone is beeping. Hide in the shadows and watch the Da'uhnb. Your soldiers are undead Captain, hopefully you can wait him out until he makes his move."

"Sir?" said Captain Martinez as him commstone blinked off.

The Captain looked over at a courier in a white uniform who was gaping at him. The Vampire smiled and growled, "Boo!"

The courier backed away from clean shipping crates. When the vampire said boo, the courier scurried away and back out of the chamber leaving his task only half done.
The courier was caught in the third outer ring of the tomb by Peshareen and his immutables. They grabbed the boy, and Peshareen said, "Take him back topside, I want him checked up and down for any taint. Unity, Nightmare, Vampire bit, I don't give a damn if he got the damn mummy rot. You find it and keep him in quaratine until you're sure he's not infected or turned or anything."

Peshareen's comm bleeped, "What is it Agent T?"
"We got an entire Uthvelor Army that appears to be coming in. Luckyforyouimonoverwatch. The Uthvelor are led by Celyse. Its EEF Major General Celyse leading the Uthvelor."

Pesh's entire team took a deep breath and a sigh of relief. Taking on a bunch of blood mad Uthvelor would be the type of fight a warrior has bad dreams of for many years afterwards. To know they were friendlies made his life so much easier. But he had a job to do. They walked up past the Da'uhnb who simply nodded and said, "You know it won't budge don't you. After all the sarcophagus was impossible to move."
Pesh looked at him with confusion, "Sorry? The sarcophagus was? Don't you mean is ?"
"Time doesn't work quite the same for us, my little pink fleshy friend," replied the Da'uhnb

Only a few minutes earlier.

Deep in the Plane of Awareness, rows upon rows of uthvelor warriors stood in silence as they awaited their orders. Their commander, a deceivingly small, heavily armed woman dressed in dull black armor, walked down their formation, observing her men with a critical gaze. When she finished her patrol a large uthvelor male approached her, bowing low in respect.

“Zaodonai Hajima,” he spoke softly as he straightened himself up.

“Are our men prepared?” Celyse asked.

“Yes,” the male officer responded. “100 raiders, 25 blood-dancers and 25 wyrm riders as commanded, Zaodonai.”

“Good,” she turned around and nodded towards the two loremancers stationed before her. “Open the energy bridge,” she ordered. “It is about time the uthvelor make their presence known in this universe.”

The soldiers did as they were told and one hundred and fifty uthvelor troops stepped through the gate and on to the world where the nightmare lord’s tomb rested.

The commander marched in front, her narrowed eyes taking in everything and everyone before her. She stepped on the back of a false wyrm, murmuring something in disgust beneath her breath, and signaled to the rider to take flight. Having a better view of what she’d be up against the woman began to speak in a loud, reserved voice.

“I am Zaodonai Celyse Hajima, leader of the uthvelor. I am here to neutralize the Nightmare Lord’s tomb so none will ever be able to disturb it. I suggest you step aside and allow my men to work otherwise you will be removed by force. Consider this your only warning.” She reached for a large, jagged sword on her back, her gray eyes turning bright silver as she does so. Shorter swords remained accessible in their sheathes along her belt, in addition to a glowing white scepter.

She raised the sword into the air and leapt from the wyrm, falling at a controlled rate to the ground. The troops marched forward behind their leader; ready to destroy anyone and anything that gets in their way.

Celyse landed with a wave of air Leyas and came to a soft stop. She marched up to the Blackheart lines, "I want to talk to your commanding officer."

"Sorry ma'am" replied the security officer, "He's inside the tomb."

"Either you get him up here right now or he's going to be walled in," said Celyse, "And I don't want to do that to a man whose probably just doing his job protecting people."

"Yes ma'am, I'll have him brought ma'am," said the Security officer, clicking a radio, "Pesh, Sir we got we an Uth Zaodonai, highest warchief of the Uthvelor and Pelebor, up here demanding to talk to you. and threatening to wall you in."

Captain Martinez was tired of being down in the tomb hiding from the Blackheart Security. The Immutables gave up trying to move the immovable object, and walked out of the tomb. The Kasanthian Captain breathed a sigh of relief. Suddenly the room shook.

His stomach unused as it was, flipped and rolled and tumbled as if he were in free fall.

Then after a painfully long time his commstone blinked again.
"Admiral, nothing has changed except there was a shaking," said Captain Martinez.

Admiral Layne Yr laughed. She wondered if a vampire could soil themselves, "Ok Captain, good news and bad news. First the bad news. The Zaodonai of the Uthvelor showed up to the battlefield. I am definitely not taking her on in combat. Luckily you are safely inside the tomb. Her Loremancers set up a pair of energy bridges on your location. You are trapped between dimensions in an endless loop."

"Ohh," said Captain Martinez, if he was a living human he would have just hurled.

"Good news, look around do you see a set of crates in the corner?" said Layne Yr, "Ones delivered by a courier?"

"Yes" said Captain Martinez, having noticed them on the way in. The only new objects in the entire tomb. They had been set by the side of the door. The courier had obviously ran screaming from the Nightmare Lord tomb.

"Now you are going to assemble the device inside. Its a Unity Shadow Satellite, it comes with instructions. You just have to get it assembled and it will open a portal between your location and our reality. I'll be there personally with a pair of Kasanthian Nanoplague Juggernauts and my personal bodyguard to relieve you. Then we set up a fireman's bucket brigade and pass the artifacts back through the portal until the Da'uhnb bitches. When he does I will take up diplomatic conversation with him...and battle if necessary."

Layne Yr clicked off the commstone, reminding herself to stake Captain Martinez for cowardice if he survived the mission. Superstitious Vampires had no place in the military, and military vampires didn't retire well.

She picked up her emergency crystal, smiled showing her bright white teeth, and said, "Its the time for diplomacy"

Meanwhile back on Druzi Prime, the Uthvelor finished closing up the entrance to the tomb. Peshareen once again thanked his lucky stars that Twain was on overwatch otherwise they would have started a fight with the Uthvelor on principal alone. Celyse was standing beside him waiting for the last of the dust to settle.

The tomb is sealed and it flips through dimensions as far as the EEF and Blackheart is concerned and the rest of Druzi Prime and their I.R. masters are concerned.

Then a full Alien fleet appeared over Druzi, a larger fleet of warships. All made from harvested biological flesh.
They attacked the dome in force, deploying E-strain across the city.

As Peshareen and Celyse watched in horror a ship like a giant shark was deploying thousands of E-strain directly into the Druzi Prime Fire Dome city through the hole in the roof.
They rushed down into the crowds who had gathered for the giant celebrations. Many would note that the Manslayers did not kill any innocents but were not paid a similar honor. Blackheart Security opened up on them. And the rooftops opened up as well as TerraNova wetwork teams moved into position to defend the dome.
The E-strain got closer and still more were cut down outright by the 100 caliber dragon killer smartguns with plasma rounds. Others were shot and killed by Brethren who were acting crowd control on the celebrations grounds.
The battle raged for twenty minutes and the toll on the E-strain was high. The whole force of E-strain were destroyed by the assembled forces. But the fear is that they may have deposited eggs.
A day of what should have been celebration ended badly, with a slaughter and gunfight that killed as many labelled as collateral damage as actual targets.
Meanwhile the E-strain team leader quickly shadow gated back to the Megalodon Starship immediatly reporting back to President Ragman of their failure. The location had been closed off long before they had arrived.
of the 1000 E-strain who flooded the Druzi Dome only 150 escaped with their lives intact. No samples could be taken.