A sharp pain on his side awoke him once more to the feeling of being dragged carelessly across the ground. Pain coarsed throughout his body as he tried to open his eyes, but could only open his right eye, the other felt as if all the weight in the world was set upon it. Sheer darkness enveloped him aside from the soft glow of fire light reflecting off of the walls, giving him only enough to see his blood soaked, crumpled up body being twisted and turned forcefully by a man or two men, he wasn't sure, he wasn't sure of a lot at this point. He could barely remember what he was doing before it became black in his mind. He was at a gathering of friends & co-workers at the local pub celebrating the completion on a new bridge that would allow more travelers into the town and free up the conggested highways surrounding Surlington. While downing a few pints of beer, he noticed one of his friends, in a drunken stupor, start a fight with a gentleman who was at least twice as big as his pal. He decided to step in and get his friend out of trouble, but the overlysized man took it the wrong way and threw a punch which knocked his friend out cold. Everyone in the pub saw this and a massive brawl ensued, after this he doesn't remember anything until he was jerked out of the darkness by a kick to his ribs. He coughed up blood all over the ground and tried to look up, but someone planted their boot to his head and before losing conciousness once more, felt his shoulders lifted off the ground as if someone was getting ready to move him.

Coughing up more blood on himself, he tried to turn his head to see if he could get a look at anything that would tell him where he was, but could only see a dirty floor and brick walls that looked like time had done considerable damage to the work as a lot of the wall was chipping away or looked to be ready to crumble at any moment. A realization gripped him at that moment as blood trickled down from his mouth and god knows where else, he may not make it out of this alive. His wife and 2 children back at the cottage would never know what happened to him. His entire family & friends would search endlessly to find him, and if they were lucky, or unlucky, they'd probably find him dead out here, rotting or being the meal dinner for some pesky bird. The thought would have paralyzed him with fear had the pain he was feeling not paralyzed him already, but that icy cold feeling in his gut was there and a terrible saddness raged in his heart, this was not how it was supposed to be.

Low whispers from above him forced his attention away from his depression. He abruptly felt himself hit the ground at a dead stop and saw a hooded figure lean his head over into his field of vision. Because it was dark he was unable to see under the hood, but for some reason he felt a terrible evil radiating from the being, as if it was evil itself.

"So, this is him?" The being said in such a cold, dark voice that even in his weakened paralyzed state he still shivered.

"Yes My Lord, we did exactly as you asked, we found the one with the most potential with your special trick. Because if the commotion and with the added help of the ale he was partaking of, he was easily captured, no problems."

"This is most pleasing news Durius, tonight will be the dawn of a new weapon, a weapon not even the fools above can withstand, it will change the course of everything we all know."

The person who dragged him stepped into view and at the sight of him he tried to scream but nothing came out. This thing was a huge, muscular thing with red scales covering it's body and two huge hooked white horns resting on the top of his head. yellow eyes shown down on him and at his hip was strapped a sword that looked to be able to topple trees.

"You can smell the fear wafting from him My Liege, it's almost too much to resist."

"Patience Durius, you can have your bloodshed, but not with him, we need him for our...needs."

He was afraid to venture a guess at what exactly that meant, but he somehow felt comforted that atleast he wouldn't be made to suffer from this Durius character.

"Tonight is the beginning of the end Durius, bring him to the alter so we can begin."

Durius nodded then bent down and picked him up off of the ground and followed the hooded figure through an archway that led into another hall of darkness. Feeling his flesh against Durius's scales made it burn as if he had a torch against his skin, he wanted to scream and jump off but could only lay there like a sack of potatos and be lugged around by this hideous beast. In the darkness, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a small shimmer of light that took his focus off of his skin and put it infront of him where he was able to barely catch the outline of the hooded figure guiding them towards the light. As they got closer he could see the outlines of other hooded figures kneeling before a stone rectangular table, on it was the corpse of a person, what sex it was he didn't know as it was so mutilated that nothing was left to say who or what it was..the smell made his stomach ache. When they entered the lit area, Durius sat him down against a wall, facing the corpse, then walked over to one of the hooded figures, leaned down, and started whispering to it. This gave him time to get a good look at the corpse, whos eyes were missing. It's mouth was hung open like in a frozen scream, the scalp forcibly removed from it's head revealed a skull broken in two and the brain missing. A pool of blood drew him towards the rest of the body where the stomach was exposed showing ropes of intestine hanging out of the side. The arms & legs of this person were missing and looking towards the genital area, could see nothing there but a bloody patch. The sight horrified him more then anything that has happened thus far, he couldn't imagine what kind of people could do this to a person..the pain must have been so...so...hellish...he didn't want to dwell on it.

"The time has come, please stand so we can begin."

"Like a blur the figures were standing and he felt himself lifted off the ground once more, somehow Durius had crossed the room and got to him without him seeing."

"Durius, set him on the table and dispose of that body, afterwards wait outside until I call for you, it may take some time so feel free to have some...bloodshed."

He couldn't see Durius's face, but he could tell there was a grin on it as Durius carried him to the alter, kicked the body off, and placed him right ontop of where the corpse once was. He shivered at the cold feel of blood and human insides on his skin and desperately wanted to flee out of there faster then a rabbit being pursued by a fox. He heard Durius pick up the body and walk out of the room, leaving him with these robed figures who enclosed around him and laid a hand each on his body.

"I know this is new and risky, but if we prevail tonight then this war will balance in our favor, death itself will forever change and we'll put that no good "Holy Ghost" in such a brew that he'll have no idea what to do. Now, remember everything we've learned up to this point...let us begin making The First."

Feelings of hot & cold, pain and joy, misery and depression, water & fire, and good & evil washed over him like a torent flood of emotions. He felt himself begin to shake terribly and his chest heave up and down as he tried to breathe. In his heart he felt the icy touch of death itself begin to take over, and as he started to fade away the last thought on his mind was his family and his beautiful wife...he would never see them again.