CARPENTER TALES SCIFI HELL (2021)

Born in the Underneath... trapped in the Overworld... the calm, inhuman visitor known as Kartkas is charged with helping a human team visit and explore his stomping grounds... the regions beneath... commonly known throughout history as Hell. Their journey only starts in the Bermuda Triangle, aboard a ghost ship - a haunted tanker. Beneath that, a violent steam tunnel breaching the Atlantic Ocean floor. And beneath that ...?

The mission clock is ticking for the Cal-Ex spike team, the scientist, the troubleshooter, the witch, the murderer, and KARTKAS, the emissary from the Underneath. But first, they have to ride the "Bullet," the capsule that will deliver them unto Hell. And the trip may destroy them before they even set foot.

Communications with the surface cut off, besieged by sand-crawling, piranha-like predators, the CalEx subsurface strike team finds itself in deep combat from the moment they step out of the hatch with no immediate prospect of return to the Upworld they left behind. Stef, Samples, Dix, and their half-breed Underworld guide, Kartkas, must find their way in this strange, hostile new environment while still trying to achieve their mission directive to recover the rare mineral discovered by Dr. Correll. If they can survive long enough to do it.

Stef, Samples, Capt. Lamb and the entire CalEx strike team have incurred casualties the moment they set foot into the blistering purgatory of the Underneath.  They are the first human beings to venture into this alien landscape, with a convicted murderer, a drunken scientist, and a half-human, half-reptile native as their "guides."  But first they have to contend with an entirely new enemy, a previously unglimpsed form of armored, mantis-like soldier bred solely for combat, engineered to protect and kill!

Battered and burned from their engagement with the savage insectoid Stalkers, the CalEx strike team is now fractured into three parts, all lost in the Underneath: Brandon Samples, alone and suffocating; Stef, half-blinded, her group ravaged by the conflict in the Crystal Cathedral; and the remnants of Capt. Lamb's unit, captured and herded by more Stalkers than anyone can fight. At the end of their quest: actual demonic gargoyles, the overlords of the Underneath! They're not only in charge -  but they already know how to speak English!

Gargoyles in Hell? they're real! Captured, jailed and used for arena combat and lab experimentation by magnificent living monsters from Earth's medieval past, the surviving members of the CalEx incursion team must figure out whether escape - or survival - is even possible down in the Underneath. These creatures have always been with us. Waiting for their chance to come back, topside... and reclaim the surface-world of Earth for their own.

All Hell breaks loose, in the thunderous conclusion of the saga of the Underneath! The survivors of the CalEx strike team have one hole card left to play... Meanwhile, the demons of the underworld have a workable invasion plan to dominate the surface of the Earth once more... and only our team, with the uniquely alien Kartkas, can stop them.