Forrest Cameranesi Geek of all Trades

(9x01) Virtuality Transcendent: Part 1, Episode 1

Unreckoned time after the rebirth of the Queen of Hell, Murdock and Annabelle are living a hellish existence in what has become of their world. With the sun and the moon destroyed, and darklight radiating out from the very core of the world, all Vampires and Elves have died, and both Humans and Orcs have been cast into a sleepless fugue in the perpetual twilight. Through the powers of the fiery and icy components of the darklight to control their passions, the Queen has compelled them to mate with each other to produce Dwarven offspring, born frail and feeble, to live short miserable lives, and leave behind terrifying Demons as their ghosts, which she can control through the Darklight that they depend on.

These Demons have haunted the whole of the world, torturing and slaughtering the Humans and Orcs as the Queen permits them, to free up souls for new Dwarves only to become new Demons, and by now the world has scarcely anything but Dwarves and Demons left in it. It is only by virtue of their unique immortality that Murdock and Annabelle have survived, dying at the hands of the Demons again and again only to be reborn and then die again a short time later. Now again they are caught by a pursuing Demon and die... but this time they do not awaken in that nightmare world once more.

Instead they find themselves awakening in an unfamiliar, technologically-advanced world, inside the World Ring above Earth. Emerging from stasis pods, they are greeted by someone they recognize as the Queen of Hell, but their momentary terror at her presence is calmed when she explains that she is not the Queen of Hell they know, though they are related. The Queen is an uploaded copy of her younger mind that was tortured into madness; she is the original, and none so hostile as the Queen they know. Amicably, she introduces herself as Metis.

Next: Virtuality Transcendent: Part 1, Episode 2