[color=red][center][h2]In Hunting Beasts and Monsters[/h2][/center][/color]
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[color=00aeef][center][i]"Good evening fair Hunter. I trust you've had a pleasant rest? I'm glad you made the journey in one piece because I'm afraid you'll have to sleep a little longer. Please don't fret...I promise the monsters under your bed won't bite."[/i][/center][/color]
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There are many interpretations of Hell, some of which become incomprehensible to mere mortal minds. Personal Hell. Eternal Hell. Physical Hell. This was Hell. In every sense of the phrase and forevermore. Or rather that’s what it seemed to be. It certainly was Hell for those lost in the endless nightmare, forced to walk alone in this realm of twisted notions.

The Temple seemed to breathe on its own. Dusty, dank, and molted breath, almost like a noxious vapor used to kill pestering insects and other infestations. As decrepit as it may be, it was the closest thing Iredele had to a church. Thinking about it a little more broadly, it was perhaps the last standing place of worship in this nightmarish realm. The World of Wasted Dreams. A plane wrapped in eternal night.

The room must have been in one of the lower branches of the Temple, the lowest in fact. The gathering point where all fresh meat was gathered to display for the haunted souls of this damned place. The room had dirt flooring and no windows, the area being enclosed by sandy brown bricks. A single wooden door separated the room’s occupants from the interior hallways, and the beginning of their escape. The ceiling lay low overhead with several carcasses of dead bugs plastered on its surface like old pieces of candy, and a salty dank smell reeked throughout the place. 

There were several occupants locked away in this makeshift prison. A predator and his daily meal. Things were supposed to run smoothly. Get the new ones initiated, make a little threat here and there, maybe promise them some false hope that would never come. The others, those who had been brought to this place on this very night, were trapped in the room in more ways than one. As each of them would wake up one by one, they would find themselves in low darkness. That, and they were all tied up rather nicely. Ropes binded their legs, wrists, and ankles together, while a simple dirty cloth wedged between each of their pretty little lips silenced them.

From the corner, a veteran of this world just by his smell and appearance alone, began to scratch away at the ground with loosely shattered teeth. His skin was both ashen and blackened at once due to some unknown cause, and his torso found itself locked in a rather torn and aging leather jacket. His hair lay matted and sagging over his shoulder to one side and he gave a soft sighing sound with each creak of his heavy step. Each of his eyes had been gouged out with dried blood crusting down his cheeks, and he crawled around on the floor in vain, gradually getting closer to the bound children. His voice was one of quiet endurance, the barest of whispers. 

“Meat. I smell….food. Yes…fresh flesh with warm blood running in your bodies to sate my thirst and make me full and make me happy again. He comes. He comes for you and me and everyone….heheh, he comes, he comes!"

The man paused suddenly, as if he saw or heard something the newfound occupants of this world could not, and then continued with his madness mantra.

"I can smell his handiwork…you all….tied up nice and…[i]tight[/i]. Makes the sweat and the blood collect all over your squirming masses. He cares after all…"

The man's voice began to pick up into a keening wail, almost a scream of intense recognition.

"A gift for me! He knows how I like them to struggle! Thank you…oh blessed your black soul! He comes, he comes to sing us a nice tale and song!”

The man was foaming slightly at the mouth now, his presence gradually closing the distance between him and those trapped. Outside, the sound of metal clanging on metal resonated and reached into the ears of those trapped. The sound of things in the night, escaping their Hell, now let loose to wander these halls freely.