The scent of salt and burned paraffin hanged like a morose companion above the gathering, as the assembled silently scratched, cut and burned a cluster of concentrating symbols on the cold, damp wooden boards that made up the rooms floor. With haunting symmetry, four, gaunt looking figures continued working furiously on carving grooves and bits of the floor with knife-like bits of stone. Following their work, a pair of whispy women, one carrying a crimson candle burning with a black flame traced along the etchings, dripping red wax into the freshly carved channels in lockstep behind the maniac engravers.
The candle held by the woman burned, releasing a steady stream of red wax in copious quantity, yet... Didn't seem to shrink or burn out itself even as near half the grooves along the floor were filled. Only when the filling was half done, the flame suddenly flickered... And with theft movement, the second woman grabbed the candle from firsts hands, and shoved her outside the emerging circle.
The original holder stumbled from the shove, seemingly unresponsive as her hands were still frozen in the same position from before... Before collapsing on the floor.
Observing the ritual in full, a tall, elaborately robed man signaled to one of the people on standby, and had them carry away the fallen candle-holder as her replacement resumed the task.
Glancing quickly at a mechanical clock, an hour glass, and a slowly budding flower of a cacti, all arranged side-by-side on a table nearby, the Master confirmed: The delay was not fatal yet. Time becomes fraught with mistakes in these endeavors, but by gauging with his eyes, the mechanical clock was now only half-an-hour ahead of the hourglass, and the blooming flower only an hour early. He would have loved to have a window to keep an eye on the double full moon outside, but...
The man gave a soft sigh, and looked back on the carving ritual as it neared completion. The four engravers were finished, quickly rising up and brushing away any wood shavings as the last candlebearer trailed nearly like an automaton over every groove and crevice of the emerging symbol. And as the last bit of red wax fell in place, the four gaunt men quickly grabbed her, yanked roughly the candle out of her arms and carried her quickly out of the room as she suddenly went limp in their arms.
The man nodded, and turned toward the back of the room where ten figures stood, glad in full-plate armor and holding elaborately decorated staves. An overkill... But certainty is preferable when dealing with servants beyond the seas edge. And... He can afford to be certain. For now.
Noticing his glance, the Decade nodded and spread out, taking their spots around the circle, all facing it with raised staves hand and slightly hunched. A few took out bottles from their pouches, and gulped down its contents before discarding the bottles and continued staring down the circular engraving.
Everything in place, the master of the ceremony glanced once more at the time table. The mechanical clock showed a fraction past midnight, the hourglass was a pinch from falling empty, and the cacti bud just started slowly blooming, unraveling its pedals. The Master noted, picked up a leather-bound tome. Stepping toward the edge of the ritual, he flipped through the book, flinching unwillingly as his eyes tried to find the correct page from the ever-rearranging book.
And there it is. A page worth of rituals, conditions, descriptions and a chant, all written in crimson ink on a frayed, yellowing page. The dots of some words on the page seem to squirm and travel whenever directly not focused on, on the edge of sight, darting like eyes toward the shaking, shriveled finger methodically tracing the words describing the ritual itself. And now, once a costly double-checking confirmed everything is in place, the man gathers himself, and draws his thumb over the final red chant on the page.
Instantly, his thumb is shredded to the bone as the book devours the digits skin and flesh. The reader swallows a scream of pain, and with a shaking hand raises his thumb to this throat and draws a bloody vertical line with his bleeding thumb.
The man spasms in pain, dropping the book and barely managing to hold his sanity together enough to walk toward the edge of the circle. With a twitch, the man gave a pained, bloody smile, and opened his mouth.
The words he vomited were not his. The blood however, spittling out with every inhuman maunder was, as air flickered and swam wherever his loanwords reached. And the wax-filled grooves lit, first from the edges with a red flame, that slowly dimmed to an abyssal nothing-black as it reached its centre and the chant reached its end.
The man felt the last important loanword leave his mouth, and waited... And felt the urge to open his jaws and stick his tongue out, and with a snarling grunt forced his jaw closed with his own hands, struggling against the muscles of his jaw now unnaturally commanded, as well as his tongue trying to force itself through his closed teeth. When he felt the compelled muscles tire and the loan expire, the man breathed a sigh of relief, and took a few steps backward from the now black flaming circle, leaving the ten to do the final binding.
The lit engraving burned, the red wax bubbling in the dug canals as the camped air of the warehouse filled with a bitter smell of burned honey, sweet and suffocating. And with a blink, the carved wooden floor was replaced with a pool of ink-like liquid, still as the surface of a mirror.
The Decade of binders were ready for a horror to emerge, as the ink-pool started stirring . A valuable horror, a constructor, an ever shifting horde of flesh and bone and scale and mucus, revolting beyond compare, and weaker than a child to magic. This is what they were prepared for. Prepared to dodge tendrils of eyes, spikes of shell and spew of acid, but crumbled and humiliated by even the smallest barrier and weakest charm. The black pool bubbled, frothed and splashed. And vomited out a...
A small clump flew out of the pool in a grand arc, plinked against the containment barrier with a thud, and fell dazed to the ground. The mages hesitated, the summoner looked wide-eyed, and a small gray cat that impacted head-first against a magical blockade tried to stir from its collision. And then a dog flew out of the pool, plinking against the shield. And a rat. And a snake. And a crocodile... A whole zoo was falling through the summoning portal, with even a few naked humans flying out and with a sickening crack falling into the pile of confused and writhing bestiary.
And before anyone could properly react, a massive head of a dragon sticks out through the portal, and its breath washes the entire room in fire.
