The storm raged on and the newly released inmates were quickly broken against the rocks as the tempest thrashed them around and sent them flying through the air. The equipment they had brought with them on loan from The Warden was of no use or protection to them as they were flung like rag dolls across the island, buffeted by the ground, debris and occasional lightning strikes. The hidden cameras, while not perfectly able to capture the images of what was happening in the hurricane, were able to occasionally witness the grisly sight and aftermath of a few inmates slamming against the jagged rocks that dotted the landmass.

When the storm finally died down and no more bodies were seen falling from the sky after a ten or so minutes, The Warden detonated the explosives in the inmates’ necks. This was a final act of mercy to any who managed to somehow survive the destruction that the Sea-People had unleashed, as they likely were mortally wounded. As The Warden and the Royal Family watched through the cameras, the King could no longer contain his frustrations.

“Hell and Damnation! While we expected them to be crushed, they weren’t supposed to be done in so quickly and easily! These were supposed to be the worst of the worst, and yet they died even more easily than my own guard! What happened to the ‘Pseudo-Hero Project’ survivors? We must send them out to deal with these monsters!”

The Warden sighed and fixed the positioning of his glasses. He had known this was coming but had secretly hoped that it would not be demanded of him. The ‘Pseudo-Hero Project’ was a joint action carried out by the victorious Luminas Confederacy after the Great War and was designed to create a new breed of superhuman soldier to fight on behalf of the Confederacy. The Project was scrapped after the last in a long, long line of failures had created what came to be known known as ‘The Beast’. The Beast was still locked up deep in the prison and the mere thought of releasing it was considered a potentially treasonous act by any and all nations.

That the exiled King of Anglond had even considered its release at this moment was both a sign of how dire he felt the situation was and how arrogant the blue-bloods had become. You could release The Beast, but you could not control it. You could point it at a target, but once the target was destroyed The Beast would begin to destroy everything. With some of the best and brightest unable to control the thing and only barely able contain it, The Warden realized he and everyone else in the Black Site were in a no-win situation.

Do they let the monsters stay there and pray they don’t manage to repair the portal system, or do they release a walking apocalypse and hope for the best?

They didn’t have the luxury of being able to freely contemplate the gravity of both choices, as the barrier that protected and obfuscated the Portal Room on the surface was shattered by an enormous bolt of lightning. With the second to last major obstacle out of their way, the monstrous Sea-People moved in and began to try and fiddle with the portal device.

…

With several high-rank Naga standing guard, a group of Necro Naga ‘High Sirens’ (Elite Magic Casters) began to manipulate the large, mana-crystal lined ring that was likely the way by which the surfacers of Anglond were able to escape. It was an interesting, albeit risky, device. If the crystals were not perfectly in tune with the ones on the other side, then any number of things could happen to the user and if one device was damaged too heavily then only one-way travel would be possible. Still, the High Sirens were able to figure out the rough coordinates of where the portal went by reversing the polarity of the device for a single second a few times. This gave them enough of an idea to know where the portal led, but not enough of an idea to know what lay down there or where the proper place to set their own portal’s exit point.

Thus began a brief period of experimentation in which they would open up portals almost a centimeter in diameter and send a single undead minnow through. This gave them a rough idea of where each portal led and therefore helped them slowly narrow down the area they needed to search. Sure, more than a few undead were crushed instantly as they exited the unstable portal and ended up embedded into the ground, but this was small price to pay to make sure that they found a suitable entrance/ exit.

The Necro Naga High Sirens were much more efficient than any Human mage, as they could draw their power not only from Kain, but also from Zalga and their own self-replenishing font of magical power. This meant that they could repeated cast a ‘simple’ one-way portal spell, chuck an undead minnow through and then close the portal immediately afterwards if the result was not what they wanted. 30 minutes in and the Necro Naga, along with their living counterparts, began to hold a contest to see who among them would be the first to find the elusive hole that the surfacers had squirreled themselves away in. Soon after that, none of the Necro Naga High Sirens were cooperating and thus none of them knew where the others had tried.

Three hours after the competition began, one of the Necro Naga High Sirens hit pay dirt. The undead minnow exited the portal and dropped about ten stories, landing in a large, circular room with the same portal device as its counterpart. Just like the one on the surface, the underground device was embedded into the floor and ran around the perimeter of the room, however there were fifty cages scattered about the edge of the room and a massive pile of woefully inadequate equipment in the center.

Laughing like a typical noble villainess, the triumphant Necro Naga High Siren closed the magical wormhole and opened a more stable two-way gateway and slithered through. With their tongues clicking, the rest of the Necro Naga High Sirens opened their own portals and entered into the underground Black Site. As they came together in the room, they closed their gates behind them and then generated a giant two-way entry that led to the beaches the invasion had come from.

As the servants of Zalga the Deep Empress surged through the breach in the previously unassailable Black Site’s security, an alarm rang out as the pile of gear vanished. Thirty minutes later and the previously unbreakable doors slid apart and the 1st Abyssal Legion of Atlanti’lyeh came face to face with the hastily arranged 1st Anglish Penal Army.

The battle between monsters in form and monsters in mind began as the two sides charged towards each other with the intent to kill. Spells and arrows were slung in equal measure as flimsy, sub-par, purely iron weapons of the Penal Army clashed with the magically-enhanced steel of the Abyssal Legion. If it were not for the bombs implanted in their necks, the fact that there was no escape and the drug induced madness they were afflicted with, then the Penal Legion would have surely turned tail and ran. Unfortunately, even with these there was still no way they could hope to beat beings who could survive at the deepest depths of the oceans. Cheap equipment that would be tossed aside by even a desperate outlaw was no match for the quality gear that adorned the Naga, and one by one the drug-crazed maniacs were put down.

Blood flowed like a river through the corridor that led away from the portal room. It was a crimson red, and thus was not the blood of a Naga. Not a single scratch adorned the triumphant Deep Ones who used their power to cause the blood, gore and bodies to part. As they advanced down the hallway, an observer could see that their arms and armor still sparkled like new and neither their equipment nor their flesh was marred by scrapes nor the filth of their foes. As the Naga moved on, they were followed by several different types of monstrosities that greedily consumed the remains of the fallen.

To the sounds of crushing, grinding, slurping and tearing of bone, meat and blood, the invaders continued their warpath, all the while the tide began to flow in and push in through the portal.