Lead Underground.net: Uncanny Erotica

War­locks as a rule were a secre­tive group. Their spells, meth­ods and rit­u­als closely guarded from the out­side world. The pow­ers of demonic magic were not to be taken lightly, nor their respon­si­bil­ity handed to magic users who could not han­dle it. Cer­tain groups within the war­lock ranks were even more hard­core in accept­ing new ini­ti­ates. One of these such groups was The Broth­er­hood of the Skull.

This secre­tive sect of war­locks believed that the dark arts of demonic magic trumped the pow­ers of all other magic users and that war­locks would even­tu­ally be the rulers of the mate­r­ial world. Also they believed secrecy, tenacity,and throw­ing crazy keg par­ties once a month. For a new war­lock (or evily inclined arcade wiz­ard) to join the group they had to pledge their inten­tion and then, once they reached a cer­tain point in their train­ing, they were asked to offi­cially join the group through an ini­ti­a­tion. No out­siders knew what exactly this test was and none who had gone through it wished to speak of it. Only the most crazy and power hun­gry of war­locks would even think of join­ing The Broth­er­hood and of that group only a few were able to make it through the haz­ing. And in the past twenty years, no new mem­bers had been admitted.

“A prac­ti­tioner of the demonic arts must be ruth­less! You must be ready do what­ever it takes for power. This path of magic is not for the faint of heart or whin­ers. You must be pre­pared to do things oth­ers might find ‘evil’ or ‘deviant’ and be will­ing to sac­ri­fice every­thing at the drop of a hat should you have to. A war­lock must have a will of steel but you must remem­ber not to have too much pride as that will result in your most untimely and painful death.” An elderly gnome war­lock stood on top of a podium in front of a group of ten young Broth­er­hood hope­fuls, all dressed in black robes as dark as the shad­ows lurk­ing in the cor­ner of the cave in which they were gath­ered. The old magic user punc­tu­ated each state­ment by smack­ing his pipe on the wal­nut stand send­ing a resound­ing crack echo­ing through the cave. Many of the ini­ti­ates stand­ing in the group tended to twitch a lit­tle at the noise like scared chick­ens in a coop.

“The pow­ers of the demonic over­rule the petty squab­bing of the Horde and Alliance. All war­locks are on the same team and it is best you real­ize this. The ongo­ing ten­sion between the fac­tions is sim­ply an incon­ve­nience for those of us who walk the dark path. Are their any ques­tions so far?” The gnome’s voice was high pitched but raspy, as if he had spent most of his life yelling in bat­tle which was actu­ally the case. One stu­dent in the back raised his hand slowly and the hawk-like black eyes of the gnome focused on him.

“Yes?”

“Maybe you explained this before…but why exactly are we here? We’ve heard the whole ‘Wel­come to the Dark Arts 101′ speech before,” came a rich tenor voice from the stu­dent, a cer­tain obvi­ous tone of con­de­scen­sion clearly heard by the group. Those who had been through the cer­e­mony before knew that this proud stu­dent was about to get that sly smirk smacked right off of his pretty face.

“What is your name student?”

“Uh…Alvar Hrunt­ing sir.”

“Step for­ward and take off that hood.” The old war­lock stared down at the group of new ini­ti­ates as if watch­ing ants on the ground as he motioned with one wrin­kled hand. There was a shift­ing of many bod­ies and the hiss of whis­pers exchanged as Alvar pushed through the group to the front row, the hood of his black robe pulled down to reveal the obivous pointed ears and gleam­ing green eyes of a Blood­elf. He bowed before the mas­ter war­lock, his long golden hair falling for­ward to cover his face. Two older war­locks, the Gnome’s assis­tants, shook their heads and smirked at each other from the dark shad­ows of their hoods. They knew exactly what was com­ing; there was one smart ass in every class.

“Do you fig­ure he’ll use Curse of Agony this time? I always enjoy watch­ing that one…” the watcher on the left hissed to his companion.

“I do so love the screams. I bet you five gold that he passes out; those High Born are such pan­sies.” A hand shake was exchanged, the large green one of an orc cup­ping the rough brown one of a human before the two turned to watch the action.

(more…)