The sky was dark, and the night was silent. The moon was hidden, as if cowering in fear of what was to come. A sombre figure, stark naked, stood lit by a few stars, braver than the rest. Two horns rose proudly, on either side of a pentagram carved in the flesh of his forehead a moment before. The Archdemon hadn't flinched, he was the leader of their black religion and intended to act like it. This ceremony was the peak of his career, so to speak, and he wasn't about to let it be anything but perfect... On the floor, between him and the horde of nightly horrors - vampires, ghouls, skeletons, succubae, ghosts, demons, dark elves, tax collectors and whatnot -, was another pentagram. Its design mirrored the one on his forehead.

He had followed the instructions of the dark manuscripts to the letter, but had had some doubts about dimensions: "...in a circle forty-two strides wide, thou shall dig the symbol..." Ok sure, but whose stride? As an archdemon he was about a man and a half high, so his stride was clearly longer than that of a human, and even among Archdemons, he was rather tall, perhaps a head taller than his forefathers...

In the end, the long debate with his priests ended quite abruptly when the Dark God spoke to him directly "For fuck's sake! Who cares, draw the damn circle already, if I wanted to make it more precise, I would have written it so!" After a loud gulp and a few beads of sweat, the Archdemon had closed the debate and drawn the damned circle.

"...thee and thine shall sing in perfect harmony, preferably in D sharp, but a D can be accepted, as the sacrifices are brought..." Ok, now that part WAS specific so it had to matter, which was why he had briefed them all and specifically insisted on that. He had even had singing lessons organized, for hell's sake! So WHY on this cursed land was a stupid skeleton singing in G flat?! Bloody incompetent, even the sacrifices where weeping in the right note but no, this particular skeleton was an artist and wanted to improvise! Well improvise that, you pile of bones! Thought the Archdemon as his glaring red eyes shot through the skeleton. The eccentric suddenly burst into flames and Francis, Archdemon of the first level, Pope of the everlasting despair smiled: at least the fire rang true!

"...then thou shall bleed the humans as the sheep they are until their blood fill the rune, but beware for this can soil thy clothes, and it's quite the pain to wash..." He had come prepared and stood stark naked, his broad muscular figure inspiring fear and awe to the cowering sacrifices. And then the bloodletting began, it was indeed quite messy, but with a bit of magic, he and his priests had made sure that the rune be filled perfectly without blunder. They even let one sacrifice live, as there was enough blood as it was. The demon priests beamed with pride, like 5 years old successfully doing a coloured drawing.

"... in the middle thou shall stand and add one drop of thy dark blood to the mix, thus representing what he shall be: The Demon Lord to lead thee to victory, the Wrecker of civilization, the Harbinger of Doom, the Wolf amongst sheep..." And so, it was done, the rune suddenly glowing a deep purple, aubergine actually, while the whole crowd began chanting again, this time the note was free and Francis the Archdemon reflected that, maybe, the skeleton had simply mixed things up. It was a shame, it had a nice voice, he thought with a pang of regret, realizing that he could have muted it temporarily, instead of crisping it.

"... thou can add a teaspoon of whisky for flavour, but if thou do so, TAKE SOME GOOD STUFF... finally leave to rest for about a thousand heartbeat and do not worry about the shaking earth..." And so, it was done.