The first layer of the Abyss. The Horncant tribe.
In this Abyssal World of black fog and danger, holding bloody rites and putting faith in some powerful being was one of the chief roads to winning protection. Right now, the assorted low Demons mixed in among the Horncant tribe piped on bone flutes and worked their incantations, hacking the heads and bellies off all manner of flesh-and-blood Abyssal creatures, carving runes in their blood, making vessels of their entrails, devoutly calling on some nameless evil being.
Just as the crimson blood was about to twist into a mystic rune on the altar, the ground began to quake, the sound of it like some huge monster pounding at a dead run toward the altar. As the tremors grew faster and fiercer, a scaled palm, big as a small hill, thrust suddenly out of the dark. Midway it turned from palm to claw and crushed the near-finished rite in one swipe.
