Ten thousand feet beneath the tumultuous waves south of Black-Scale Strait, the light of the upper world had been extinguished since the dawn of the mortal plane. Here lay the Abyssal Trench Courts, a sprawling range of sunken volcanic calderas and glowing hydrothermal vents that had served for ten millennia as the sacred spawning grounds of the Deep-Sea Demon Beast Tribes.
For four hundred years, the deep currents flowing through these calderas had run clear and warm, nourished by the southern root-branches of the Fourth-Grade Spiritual Vein extending from the Dragon-Spine Trench.
Today, however, the ancient spawning waters were choking in filth.
