Opal dragons while physically weak aside from their resistance to fire are one of the worst creatures to upset. They are instinctual masters of luck and fate magic, able to lay curses that are all but impossible to remove and should the dragon who cast the curse die it is impossible. Their blessings however only last as long as the dragon wills it and remains alive. They are good friends to have and an enemy you cannot afford to kill.

Adrian

The shadowed spider lunges at me and while I keep this one from harming me with my claws and the darkness that I am beginning to think is the void, Bryan is ambushed by another.

Rather than shiver from the chill of these unnatural shadows or scream in pain he just looks at it for a moment before laughing. The spider is soon destroyed by a blast of golden flames that he yells in the pain they cause in the short instance he is in contact with them.

A few moments later we are all catching our breath as we look around. No other shadow creatures are swarming around us and I walk the short distance to Talia and Lysan.

They don’t seem to have any injuries aside from maybe a scrape while the burns from the flames that touched Bryan are slowly regenerating as shadows are pulled to them.

“Are you alright Bryan?” I ask while staring at the tendrils of shadow that are mending his arms.

“Yeah, I wasn’t in contact with that golden fire for long and that spider shaped shadow's bite didn’t do anything. What are those golden flames anyways?” he responds.

“A mix between some sort of fire and light energy.”

“Do they hurt regular people?”

“I don’t know, neither of their flames hurt Talia or Lysan and the golden flames didn’t burn the hotel room so I doubt it.”

“Probably some sort of purification flames then. You should see if they can heal injuries but not near me.”

I nod, “if they don’t harm or even heal regular people then your shadow stuff is probably marking you for destruction. Any idea why all the shadow creatures in the vicinity rushed to attack us?”

“Unless you magic to find out what’s nearby gave us away, they must have some sort of life sense.”

Could they have felt the energy pulses I use to make the echoes? Maybe.

“Only way to know is for me not to try to magically sense them again and see if we are still attacked in mass.”

“Can we get going? This place is uncomfortable for sister and me” Talia asks and I nod.

We don’t run into anything for probably a half hour before we reach where I felt something fairly strong earlier. We stand in front of a straight up stone cathedral, stained glass windows and all. Through the open door there are murals and pews, just as I imagine an old Catholic Church would have.

“Do you sense anything?” I ask Bryan.

“Something feels strange but no, there are no undead in the area” he answers after a moment.

We enter and can hear the singing of some hymn though it is faint, as if it is in the distance. I don’t recognize the song but I wouldn’t be someone to ask for the answers to most things church related barring what my mother forced me to learn.

“I didn’t think there were places like this in Missouri” Bryan comments as he looks around at the artwork.

“Is this a chapel to the crying god?” Lysan asks.

“Maybe, is that who you know as the god who descended into the world to give his life to redeem us?” I answer her, butchering and over simplifying the Christian faith.

“No but it sounds like something he would do. When did that happen?”

“Two thousand years ago but it is debatable if it is true. Some believe it others don’t, but there should be some truth in it.”

Lysan nods as I find a set of stairs leading downwards, the music getting louder.

“Whoever is singing is this way” I say calling Bryan and Talia from looking at other parts of the first floor of the cathedral.

Down the stairs is some sort of museum and a small mausoleum further in. A crypt but the lighting does not get worse as it would on the material plane. The shadowy illumination that I am assuming is a trait of this plane remains omnipresent. The music of the hymn however ends and we are left without a guide to whatever not undead that was making it.

After several minutes of searching we do not find any exit, especially not one that would have allowed sound to reach us as it was.

“Any ideas?” I ask leaving the question open to everyone.

“The music must not have come from this building” Talia says.

“I doubt it came from anywhere else nearby and it lead us down here” I comment.

“Maybe it came from the physical world” Lysan says with little confidence.

I smile at the idea, “then there is an at least partially open connection between here and there. Any ideas on how to find it?”

“The closest thing I have to planar travel is shadow walking and I try not to do anything with it beyond barely touching this plane” Bryan says and the elves shake their heads.

“Can you sense it like you can all sorts of other things?” Lysan asks.

“I’ll try but I suck at spatial magic let alone the complications other planes would . . .” I hit my head as I realize the mistakes I’ve been making while examining Void Cache.

“What is it?”

“Nothing, I just realized something I’ve been going about the wrong way.”

I pull a book from Void Cache and open to its fictional depiction of the planes and stare at it for a moment. Some planes physically touch and blend as they have a transitional plane between them like the demi-elemental planes but others do not touch. That gap is the Void. That is where I've been stashing all my stuff. I couldn’t figure out how Void Cache bent space because it wasn’t.

It’s a planar effect not spatial, and that is what I need to figure out how to sense right now. If I can find the door that is already open we’re basically home free.

I send the book back to Void Cache and retrieve it repeatedly as I try to sense it. It’s like space but that’s only 3D and I’m wanting to find a fourth and maybe fifth and sixth direction. Time begins to slowly pass as I do this as fast as I can, trying to find out how to sense what is happening in that instance of me using this instinctual magic.

Just as I begin to feel sick from all the spent energy I find it. Not just the movement of the book but also something else. A seam or maybe a rip, a poorly patched hole that goes somewhere else right around a shrine

I stand up and walk up to it and hear Bryan ask a question. “Did you figure out whatever you were trying to?”

“Yes, this area right here is it. This is where the music was somehow getting through. There’s little holes all over to somewhere else” I answer.

“Then how are we going to get through?”

Rather than answer I try something, not Ravnos magic but I summon the blackness that sometimes coats my claws and slash at one of the holes. As soon as I do so a loud tearing sound echoes through the chamber and a hole of glowing color in this monochromatic world shows me the chamber we stand in.

“Go, I don’t know how long it’ll stay open” I manage to grunt out as I start trembling and having a hard time focusing.

The twins help me through the rip in between dimensions while Bryan rushes through to guard us against whatever is on the other side.

As soon as we are through I pull out a piece of paper and write a short note to K. It vanishes as I try to send it to her before I pass out. I don’t feel the ground as I hit it.

Bryan

I step through the portal Adrian just tore through the planes and look around the small crypt. I can feel only a single undead nearby, above us in the chapel I think. My range isn’t very good but it’s enough to keep them from ambushing us.

I turn back to Adrian and the elves to see him write something on a sheet of paper before it vanishes. The hole into the shadow planes shifting unstably behind him before he collapses on the ground. His lovers immediately check his vitals before trying to pick him up.

Trying being the key word, and as I do not notice any immediate danger I go to help them and find myself unable to pick him up.

“Why is he so heavy?” Lysan asks and none of us have an answer for it.

A moment later we give on carrying Adrian and I point to two locations where they will have some cover as I say, “we can’t move him take some cover. Set up some long-term protection spells and we’ll have to wait for him to wake up or help comes. What was on that note he teleported away?”

“All it said was to have Ria guide her and vampire kidnapping” Lysan answers.

He sent for help then, Kythia probably. I feel the familiar shiver of an approaching undead from behind to see a shadow step out from the portal. My blade flashes silver before it forces the undead to be destroyed and I feel its remnants be absorbed into me.

As soon as it is destroyed I put my blade’s tip on the stone ground, relying on the minor enchantment that it holds to keep the blade from dulling by my action as I begin to speak the prayers and incantations for several different spells. Circles of protection as well as individual wards as I make sure to keep my attention on both of the entrances to this small crypt.

The elves are likewise casting spells, and soon the air of our cabin is filled with the glowing lights of our ongoing spells. The elves breathe heavily as the last of their spells are cast, I can see a little bit of sweat dripping off their brows. Tendrils of shadow are beginning to stretch from the portal and I am starting to wonder if it is going to close on its own.

What did Adrian even do to rip that open? Shouldn’t it have started to close by now? I feel another larger undead begin to pull the portal wider as shadows with larger size and look more substantial begin to enter the small crypt. We did something stupid, didn’t we?

I stab my sword into a crack between two stones in the floor and cast the strongest protection I have against such creatures, Undead Ward. As the final syllable leaves my lips runes in a tongue I do not speak and pass into the ground. An image of a dragon of some sort spreads outwards and the shadows rushing at us are blown to pieces by the spreading silvery glow. As the sphere of effect lies just outside of the portal Adrian tore open all of the shadows were destroyed except for the arms of the creature trying to make the portal expand.

I also feel the single undead on the floor above us begin to move towards where the stairs should be. I continue to hold onto my blade as it slowly drains me of the mana needed to sustain itself, all the while I internally praise how the divine magic does not cost me additional mana each time it destroys one of the shadows; even if it may not do anything to a stronger undead.

“What have we here?” I hear a catholic priest say sarcastically as he walks down the stairs into our view, completely ignoring the gaping portal and the monster crawling out of it.

Golden flames appear in the elves hands as they glance at me to see what they should do.

“The shadow, a vampire can be talked to” I answer and they nod at me and throw the small balls at the portal.

“And what would make you think I am a vampire is this not hallowed ground?” the priest asks.

“You are as capable of sunbathing as this is sacred ground. Even if it once was you’ve been making portals to the Shadow Planes, that isn’t something that should be going on here. We are however civilized, lets deal with the portal and then we can talk.”

“Civility? Usually it’s all ‘die monster’. Very well, but I can’t close it while there is something passing through we will have to wait until it is on one side or the other” the priest says with a grin. He is hiding something in his intentions.