This is a serial, first part HERE

Chapter 51: Once more, a coffin descends to Necrobyssal

<Arrival at destination platform confirmed. Dispersing arrival platform. All systems normal, no aberrations have attached themselves to the SDC’s exterior. Display outside on main mirror?>

Doctor Bones didn’t even have to say anything. The rocks brought up the view right away.

<Strengthening dimensional shielding against necrotic forces. Warning, prolonged exposure will result in systems failure. Environment is extremely hostile to all lifeforms, and possesses binding upon unlife. Disembarking is not advised.>

The black horizon extended without end, a sky covered with a dark lid, from which things were always falling. The first layer of Nercobyssal was above them. A mass of dead and scrap, pressed up against the outside of the dimension to such an extent that they bled through into the dimension itself.

There was no sun, no celestial body to cast light. Instead what gloomy light there was came from spirits of the dead, from broken and forgotten relics. The mighty lay shattered still holding enough strength to avoid falling into the darkness of Necrobyssal. In time though, they would fall.

The light would descend and be snuffed out. That the candle went without wax or wick for so long would be miracle enough.

There was a constant rain of debris, though it was not all places at all time, but there was always someone in the Dead Horizon who could resist no longer.

Many dreamed of struggling their way to the top, to escape from Necrobyssal, but these undead had escaped their trials and judgement in countless dimensions.

They no longer would be accepted.

Below the coffin was swirling blackness. The surface of the dimensional abyss itself. Though undead, Doctor Bones had not yet reached the limits of limits, indeed, he was likely far off from that. Still, it would be unwise to linger too long.

Inside that abyss was layer upon layer of dead and broken. As you got deeper, the more dead and broken they would be.

Some claimed that at the very bottom there was pulsating void. Some claimed this void was the origin of all, that all would return to it. People claim many things…

Some claim that at the very bottom lies a paradise, a world where all ills are washed away.

Some claim that there is neither void nor paradise, but torturing fire, the wages of those who sought to cheat death.

-The lot of the once-dead is judgement and trial- Doctor Bones thought of something he was sure he had heard many times.

Indeed, whatever dimension you go to where undead arise, there exists trials, there exists that which tests the mettle of those that resist death. Of those things that the dimensions hold in common, the trials of the dead is one that worries many.

-Man, its even spookier than I imagined-

-It doesn’t look like we can pin-point that sigil thing you were talking about Director-

-T-that’s a lot of dead things-

-Too spooky-

“Does everything end up here?”

-No. Not everything. Bring us down further, into the whorl of the abyss, we’ll be able to find the patient when we’re there- Doctor Bones said.

-Here goes nothing-

-I should have stayed in Elcon-

-What kind of patient is in a place like this?-

-A spooky patient-

-What kind of illness?-

-A spooky illness-

The rocks grew silent as the coffin neared closer to the swirling blackness.

Then, the coffin passed through.