Zaraphiston pronounced the last invocations and looked towards his master for the final act of the ritual. The Orc held bound an Arakkoa identifiable as Blacktooth Grin by a rotting emblem on her robes, securely in his vice like grip. With a single slow swing of his Daemon Sword. The Orc cut from shoulder to hip. Letting the split cadaver fall limply. The Orc thrust his sword into the altar before him. Rivulets of rich blood ran down the blade and seeped through the idols, totems and fetishes that covered the shrine. The alter began to shake, crimson tendrils of smoke spiraled up from it, coalescing into a fanged and horned visage that gazed down on the Orc and his Sorcerer. Zeraphiston addressed the apparition.

"Hrangore, spirit of the nether. I command you in the name of the thirty seven powers to speak."

A billowing vaporous claw reached out from the apparition to stir the think blood on the altar, which bubbled vilely in response. The daemonic manifestation spoke with a voice like a howling gale.

"I have expected your summons, Gar'Mak thrice-cursed. I will tell you what you wish to know but heed well, you will pay a higher price than this offering. One day, your soul will be the plaything of the Flesh Hounds."

The Orc raised his talon and reached inside the crimson mist. For a moment his hand burned with a dark flame and the apparition howled in pain. The Orc leaned closer.

"You dare threaten me? I think not, learn to serve with grace, little daemon, or suffer the consequences. The Nether is full of whispers about this world. Tell us what you know."

With a last twist he withdrew his fist, crimson tendrils dripping from his claws. The Daemon hissed and smoldered but lowered its gaze.

"In the shade of Azeroth, beneath the mountains of mist there is a new type of death. A sacrifice of men, but the precious souls are not consumed, they are cast adrift. Many are the daemons that wait like carrion to feast on the leavings from this rich table."

Zaraphiston turned excitedly to the Gar'mak

"Dreanor is in the shade of Azeroth, and the mountains of mists are the Noctis Labyrithus, the augurs were ture."

The Gar'mak nodded then fixed his gaze on the daemon which recoiled before him.

"Show me more. What is in the Labyrithus?"

The daemon form blurred and contracted into a pulsing ball of crimson ichor. As if squeezed by an unseen hand the pus oozed onto the alter, covering it in a grizzly sheen in which shapes twisted and formed. The Orc saw a great chamber of basalt, around it towering machines of antique silver stretched endlessly upward. Set in the floor was a vast sarcophagus of adamantium and gold. From each of the machines in turn a flickering beam of unimaginable energy flowed in a glittering arc to the sarcophagus. Outside the summoning chamber. The Garm'mak's bodyguards heard an unfamiliar sound, the harsh, grating laughter of their Master

Swathed in blackened rotting robes, it pushed itself clear of the tomb, the solid stone unraveling atom by atom and reshaping itself into a swirling black shroud. More and more of the stone disintegrated to form the concealing darkness of the creature. Soon all that was left was the slab of the tomb with the final piece of the metal burning brightly in its surface

Gar'mak had a barley-perceived vision of a gaunt beaked face with twin pits of yellow glowing weakly from within. There was an unquenchable thirst for suffering in those eyes. A cloak of ghostly darkness hid its true form, a pair of rotted bandage swathed arms, all that penetrated its nebulous outline. One limb ended in long grave-dirt encrusted talons. The other in what appeared to be a huge blade of unnatural darkness, angled like a vast scythe.

As the creature rose to its full height, Gar'mak saw that it towered over the mortals beneath it; swirling darkness at its base snaking around the bodies of those not quick enough to escape.

The cloak of darkness swept two of the alien figures up. The scythe arm flashed, passing through their armor and bodies with ease, and their withered corpses dropped, no more than shrivelled sacks of bone.