Welcome to Gaia! ::

As Ka'rinth placed all of the materials precisely, he began to chant as well,
To those that come from the deepest of depths,
masters of ice and fire, lords of sin and ire
Dwellers of the deep, send me what I seek.
Send me a guide to your world and ways
Send an imp to teach me the darkest of paths
Send me one of your servants and I shall become your wrath.

As the final word was spoken, the candles flickered before snuffing in unison, by the glowing embers left behind, the shadows within the pentagram writhed and compressed. Slowly a barbed tail was formed, followed by a reptillian looking body that none the less had some human features, and ending with a head that held no sign of humanity and two glowing red eyes like the embers of the surrounding candles. As it appeared, Ka'rinth smiled and holding the infant just outside the circle, pushed the contract into the pentagram and said, Sign and this is your gift, a fair enough trade for such a simple contract I believe.

The imp's eyes looked hungrily to the infant before it said softly in a raspy voice, Let me review your contract and I will decide if it is a fair trade. That said, the small demon began to read the three pages of the contract carefully. After an extended period of time, as the infant began to finally awaken from it's enforced stasis, the imp said, Well, everything seems in order, not many mages go to the trouble of summoning a demon just to ask questions and none offer an innocent life for something so simple. It then pushed one of it's claws into it's own finger and signed a name in a language that Ka'rinth did not recognize. So young one, what if your first question?

Ka'rinth smiled darkly as he motioned to the circle around the imp, the silver and iron retracted and became two lumps of metal once more. He then nodded calmly and said darkly, My first order servant is that you will not ever attempt to return to your dimension, or contact any being without my express permission. Next, you will not act against me overtly, or covertly. Finally, you will obey my every command in full and in the spirit of the words, not the letter. Do we understand one another?

The imp smiled and shook his head before saying, Not how it works kid, I'm only bound to the contract I signed, not your wishes. Ka'rinth's response was as simple as it was vicious, he picked up the contract and holding it so that the imp could see all three pages, used his magic to unmerge the two hidden pages which were signed with the blood as it had been absorbed into the initial sheet. His smile only became darker as he saw the disbelief in the imps eyes, apparently first time demon summoners hadn't been as underhanded with this demon as he was. You b*****d, let me just tell you now, I will destroy you for this humiliation.

Ka'rinth laughed and replied simply, Just be happy I am not forcing you to call me master. One other matter, you will never attempt to destroy this contract, or tell another where I place it. Now sit on the desk and wait for me to return, you are not to do anything other than exist while I am gone. That said Ka'rinth waited for the imp to fly to the desk and sit before he disappeared through his secret door to return the infant before people in his other home became suspicious and to spend some time with his captives.

Ka'rinth looked down coldly at the subjects, he did not even bother to walk into the area and instead simply streched out his aura and used the earth itself to smother those still showing signs of life, human, humanoid, and animal. He would then let the trap door fall shut once more as he drew the souls onto himself and absorbed them into his void. Two of the humanoids had been noteworthy as was the elf. They possessed skills and knowledge that interested him and he would slowly extract these things from there souls. Absorbing a soul always gave Ka'rinth a feel for the person, but not the details, and as Ka'rinth had often heard said, 'The devil's in the details'. Red eyes glowed as he said softly, I'll return later, I'm going out to excercise. When I return I hope you'll have remembered your place.

As he spoke he moved to the door and out into the crops, as he disappeared among the stalks, none so much as swayed to his passing. Ka'rinth paused for a few moments to gather some of his seeds for later then once more moved out to the edge of the woods. In a sudden fit of impulse, he stripped off his shirt revealing dark brown, weather beaten skin and seconds later ebony wings. His body lightened as his bones hallowed, and his chest and back swelled with flight muscles. A haze of dust fell away from him as he shed extra mass and with a sudden powerful jump accompanied by strong wingbeats rose slowly into the air and made his way out over the forest.

A portal appeared suddenly inside the small house and as it did an aura, not a man slipped through. In moments the entire floor writhed as though alive and literally hundreds of tendrils rose up like serpents and dipped through the portal. After several long minutes a large amount of equipment, large at least for the house, was pulled through followed by Ka'rinth. The equipment was set gently down leaving almost no standing room, Ka'rinth being unorthodox by nature slipped to a wall and was soon standing on the ceiling surveying the various devices that would allow him to begin building his base.

Once everything had been programmed and the energy and ore were processed into power cells it was a simple matter to insert a dark energy based cell into the shell made by the third machine and insert two vials of nano machines at different points. The purpose of this machine was simple, it was designed to be a nano machine plant that was slightly more diverse in use than the one that had made the machines for it. It had a large opening at the top for inserting ore, then it had a rectangular section that the material section funneled into. Next were a series of filters and the production points that the nano machines were now heading to. Finally there were what looked like mesh filters with dozens of thin filaments hanging downward into an insert for vials. The production points and subsequent vials were set in a twelve by twelve linear pattern.

Ka'rinth carefully placed the nanomachine plant on the table which warped to make a stand for it and moved on to his next project even as Shadow placed a large lump of processed ore into the top of the completed machine. That done each of them moved to reprogram the second and third machines, as they worked there was the occasional sound of dripping from the nano production unit as it created blank machines into the vials. For some reason the fact that production places were called plants was tickling a thought at the back of their linked minds.

A soft sigh escaped from Ka'rinth as he and Shadow remerged inside of one body and sent the spare away with the rest of their equipment. It took moments to look around the now empty house and place the final touch on the circle intended to bind the daemon long enough for a contract to be forged in their favor. It was a dangerous business dealing with demons and the greater the demon the more dangerous the dealings. Thus far they had used cunning to successfully enslave nearly a dozen demons ranging from imps to ogres, and even a single ice demon. It had not been a matter of being smarter, just of appearing dumber and hiding the nature of their magics. This however was dangerous, and therefore their intent was not to bind this demon, but to make a pact that would convince it to open a rift between this world and a demon dimension apart from the usual hells. The benefits to each would be high if the nature of the dimension could be controlled, however if not they would simply terminate the spell. A slight feeling of dread filling their minds suggested they had not accounted for something in their contract, yet after rereading it twice they decided to proceed.

Something within Ka'rinth twisted and he felt him and Shadow being pulled apart in an unusual way, after a moment he felt as though his stomach had collapsed and as he lost control of his magic for an instant his shirt disintigrated to reveal a hole in his torso. He felt something yank on him and even as Shadow was ripped away he felt himself pulled through the hole into another place. There was nothing in this place but shadows, sentient shadows he realized as eyes blacker than darkness opened and hundreds, no thousands of ill formed creatures moved towards the light that spilled from the opening in his chest. He felt a tenous and oddly delayed link to his brother but he sensed some purpose pass through before pain lit along the memories of neurons contained by his essence and a sensation of something forcing it's way out of his body emerged. A soft thud accompanied the arrival of the final piece of equipment and Ka'rinth quickly stood forward to protect it from the shadows.

He would soon find he needn't have worried as shadows swarmed him and fused together creating an inanimate object that bound him much as a torture wheel would have. He growled as some shadows became spikes and drove through his body to ensure he would not escape from the wheel. He prepared to gather dark energy to lash out at his sudden captors and recieved a shock when the energy was drawn from his very body and essence and too the shadows. They began growing as they fed and soon began the torturous conversion. One by one and sometimes a dozen at a time depending on sizes, shadows emerged and bit into his flesh draining his magic before forcing their way into and through the portal in his stomach. The machine was inactive and ignored behind him as an unnatural light filled the dark dimension and seemed to only outline it's thousands of shadowy residents.

On the other side of the portal, Shadow was inundated with the pain that he and his brother shared, and as the first shadow emerged from his stomach he attempted to stand, to fight, even to curse it, but to no avail. Pain and weakness consumed him even as the shadows began binding him as they had his brother, and fed to gain the strength to enter to outside where light existed. Everything they needed was in place at last, but the brothers were now bound and captive by their own deeds, ironic and sarcastic thoughts filled twin minds in narrow gaps between pain and fatigue.

Shadows formed and merged out of Shadow and moved outward exploring carefully as though all possessed one mind. One began slipping beneath the door leading outward but immediately reappeared minus half it's mass as the brutal rays of the sun burned it away. The shadows converged and the brothers each were stretched farther to pull the portals in their torso's wider so that larger shadows could also emmerge. For a time it seemed being drained of the dark energy they created by existing and reminded what feeling pain was like would be the focal point of their existance.

Each one gritted there teeth in effort as they resisted yet another probe, whatever was out in the dark abyss of shadows attempted to slip into their minds every half hour or so. Sometimes it would come earlier or later in an attempt to avoid their defenses. Each creature possessed a strong will however and it was about to be tested on multiple levels as the torture and mental attacks continued as did the passage of these shadow creatures through the portal which brought constant pain to ethereal nerves. Red eyes were slowly losing their glow as dark energy was drained away to feed what seemed to be an ever growing number of shadow creatures. It would seem that the brothers were by nature the perfect source of sustanance for the denizens of this other realm.

Five more hours of torture, and for the last four of those hours there had been no more mental attacks. It seemed that whatever the brothers dealt with, it was well versed at psychological warfare. Red eyes glowed weakly as Ka'rinth attempted to find the origin of the attacks by calling out, Show yourself! I'm sure that restrained as we are whatever manner of creature you are can speak with me face to face. The only response to him would be silence and a lack of mental attacks that left them on edge and exhausted their minds faster than continuous assaults.