You are floating through oblivion. Everything is quiet in the never ending darkness. Brief images appear to you in the void and quickly fade away. Obscure images they are, of warm hearth fires & fresh baked bread and beautiful landscapes of trees and rivers. Some scenes include the specific individuals but you don’t know if they are friend or foe. Some of these beings seem vaguely familiar, others completely unknown. A few of the scenes include shining crystals and otherworldly landscapes.
Soon the fires of the hearth grow cold and the bread begins to mold and rot. The forests burst into flames and hordes of demonic soldiers begin marching to war. You see the individuals suffer and die horrific deaths. Blood and torture follow all of the twisting scenes but you have no feeling or concern of that here in the dark emptiness. Accompanying some of them are faint whispers but you can’t make out what they say. Are they memory or visions? You cannot be sure.
Somewhere beyond the images in the depths of darkness are two yellow ovals. Perhaps they are eyes watching. You care not. No feelings, desires or pain exist here.
Eternity passes and you continue in quiet existence. Then the whispers begin to get louder. Images of fiends battling become more frequent. The whispers become talking, then loud screams of pain. The blasts from explosions make the dark void shake! Something is happening around you!
With a gasp you reach consciousness and your eyes flare open to a blinding red light followed by a thunderous boom! While you try to blink away your light blindness, you can hear a battle raging and inhuman screams echoing very close. Another flash of light sends a wave of scorching air over your body making it hard to breathe. With horror you realize that you are strapped down and cannot move your arms or legs.
As your eyes begin to adjust, you begin to realize that you are in some sort of dank, torch lit, grey stone chamber. A scan of the area shows that this is some sort of bizarre laboratory filled with a clutter of alchemical equipment. Other beings, some unmoving, are strapped to the same type of bloodstained stone tables that you now realize you lie on. Everyone is clothed in only dirty, torn breeches and have nasty scars, stitches and bruises on their bodies. Your brain aches trying to make sense of it all but you cannot remember who you are or how this came to pass.
Another loud crash and gurgling screams issue forth from behind a huge solid iron door in the far wall of the room. A series of metal bending thunks echo through the room and the shape of large, clawed fingers begin to form and push their way through the door! Two black, razor sharp claws pierce the iron and begin to bend and rip it back to form a jagged hole.
More horrid screams echo along with the clang of steel. The huge claw retreats from the door and the sound of ripping flesh and breaking bones follows. With a final blood curdling shriek, you hear a squishing slap followed by a deep, throaty roar that reverberates through your skull. In an instant another fiery eruption releases beyond the door with such a force that the center of it folds inward, nearly breaking off its hinges and jets of white hot flame pour into the room through the gaps in the frame and clawed holes! The force blasts over tables, destroying equipment and the room becomes a furnace while you feel your skin begin to burn and blister. The taste and smell of brimstone invades your mouth and nose and you begin to suffocate as your lungs burn.
Thankfully, the heat quickly subsides and so do the sounds of battle. All is eerily quiet except for crackling fires now burning items on the tables nearest the door. Shadows dance around the room from the flames, but otherwise no movement can be seen.
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