The ancient column was covered with withered vegetation, dead vines spiralled along the surface. The Marine steps toward it and passes through a dimensional rift, a shimmering wave of energy passes around him and he suddenly was standing in a flourishing forest on a foreign planet, a line of rabbit-like creatures hopped through the grass in front of him. A short distance away, flanked by flowering bushes stood the column. It's vines were now thriving and green, leaves hung from the strands and gently bobbed in a light breeze.
The Marine approached it and sees a hieroglyphic writing emerging on the vines and leaves, the symbols would quickly fade and remerge elsewhere on the vegetation. He steps around the column following the characters in fascination, the foreign text was mesmerizing. Strange voices whispers in his mind and a vision of a beautiful alien world is revealed. He sees massive trees holding homes weaved from its live branches, lightly clothed aliens walk along vine-woven foot-bridges connecting to other tree-top houses. Nearby tall slight stalks of giant mushrooms crowned with spotted golden caps reach high above. Another village was established under a large tree, the many structures were woven from living plants below the spanning canopy.
The vision fades away, the Marine continues to study the hieroglyphic text along the pillar and another vision manifests. He sees the same world as before, but it was burning with hell-fire. Winged and bloated hovering demons swoop above mobs of demonic invaders, formations of spear-wielding soldiers formed from villages near and far fought for their lives as archers shoot clouds of arrows into the reddened sky overhead.
The vision fades and he finds an aged alien man standing close by. The alien was bearded, seven feet tall with a metallic-coloured skin, wearing a brown robe weaved with intricate colourful designs and holding a long wooden staff.
The man silently smiles upon seeing the Marine and makes a bowed greeting.
"Who are you? What's going on?" The Marine asks.
The alien man remains silent.
'He probably doesn't speak the language' the words ring in his head.
The man seemed to meditate for a moment before approaching the pillar and moves his staff over the emerging and fading characters, the Marine watched closely. A hieroglyph flares with fiery energy and insights of the alien and his world began to fill his mind.
The alien before him was a mystic shaman from another world and in another dimension. Part of the hell dimension was composed from the shaman's old home world that was taken over by the demons. His kind were saved by a divine force that appeared in their darkest hour of the demonic encroachment. It showed them how to build a portal to a parallel dimension for the purpose of reaching an identical instance of their home world.
The insights continued coursing as the shaman again moved the point of his staff along the pillar.
Many thousands of war-weary Mortick people were moved through the portal and into a place much like their planet before the invasion, they were welcomed by the Mortick people that lived there. The divine force came with them to their new home, it identified itself as 'Vega'.
An entire Mortick religion sprung up around Vega whose presence continued to persist. After some time, Vega made it known that it would have to leave our world, but before he left, he gave to us the Prophecy of the Slayer. Vega foretold that a mortal man will come to hell with the means to save their doomed planet.
The shaman in his presence pauses from his work and reaches into his robe, he pulls out a small stone statue and holds it out for the Marine to see. It was a carving of a space marine whose armour was identical to his own, the figurine holding a weapon he had never seen or held before, a double-barreled shotgun. It was lightly cracked and looked ancient. The Marine was astonished, a long-winged insect lands on his shoulder. The shaman continues to reveal insights.
The technology on their world before the invasion was formed from plant-material and the most advanced types of these depended on the use of rare energized crystals. The crystals were stolen by the demons and still exist in hell. Should they be released, the shamans in the other dimension will be able to channel their energy and move their world back into its home dimension with much same type of phenomenon that the demons used to take it into their realm, using large numbers of advanced shaman practitioners focusing on the vibrational energy of their lost world and using inter-dimensional energy focusing equipment to create a portal.
The crystals were brought deep within a castle built by the Mortick hundreds of years before the hell invasion, it was one of the first things captured by the demons and became their most important base. The castle of Krata still stands in hell under demon control, a far journey from the pillar, in an mountainous territory flooded with pools of lava and intense demonic activity.
The Mortick shaman unravels a long scroll of parchment, it reeked with age. He points to a drawing of what appeared to be the Earth and moon, complete with existing orbiting satellites. The Marine could recognize the satellites' unique shapes but could no longer remember their names nor which aerospace company each belonged to.
He looks up from the scroll, the shaman points to him then to the picture of the Earth.
'They can help me get home' he realizes.
The shaman nods, a wide smile was upon his face. He steps to the pillar and runs his staff along it again.
A hopeful vision appeared. Even if it were saved, the doomed Mortick world might not be habitable for a long time, but another vision showed him that many Mortick people still suffer in hell and that the planet can become life giving again, but time was running out. The shaman rests his staff and approaches the Marine. He reaches into a pocket, and hands a black key to the Marine, it was quite large and strangely shaped. The shaman notices the damaged part of his armour.
He reaches into his robe and pulls out a few small vials. He tests the armour with some different fluids and formulates a solution, he dashes powders from a pair of different vials into the gash, followed by a few drops of brown fluid. Tiny vines materialize from the mixture and seal the gash, they harden and a flower blooms over the weld and forms into a solid convex red circle. The shaman steps back, admiring his work, the small white orb drifts into view and toward the Marine.
The shaman bows his goodbye to the Marine as the forested world around him began to disappear and the interior of the gore nest took its place. He looks at the key in his hand.
'Is this the key to that castle?' he wonders, wishing that all of this didn't seem so impossible.
He walks to the open passage of the gore nest, the white orb hovering by him. Loud thumping was shaking the ground from outside. As he walked closer, he hears a deep roar. He moves through the fanged passage and finds a massive cybernetically enhanced demon was waiting for him.