In a dark part of town, cultists chanted. They called for the birth of things - which had been lost in antiquity – they called for things to awaken from the miasma of the æther, to return to the place that had once been home to their unnatural forms and lives. Kneeling in their brown robes the acolytes formed a circle, each facing towards the center, and supplicated themselves in prayer.
A large man with a scarred face towered above the worshipers and guarded the only exit from the underground temple. Arms folded across his naked chest, his upper body showed gears and brass where muscle and flesh should have been. He was slack-jawed and his eyes were glazed over as he stared past the scene in front of him. He was there as an honor guard, and in case any of the people within came to their senses and attempted to flee.
A tall, thin man whose bald head gleamed in the flickering light of the braziers led the prayer, surrounded by symbols carved into the stones of the unused sewer. He was bare-chested and wiry muscled, chiseled in a way that spoke of strenuous diet and harsh labors. His skin was covered with puckered brands that had been burned into his flesh. The angry red symbols on his body and the nearby stone glowed in the fervor of the ritual.
The priest held a long, thin blade that had a deformed squid-like pommel bent perpendicular to the shaft of the ceremonial weapon. The tip was pressed to the naked flesh of the young virgin who was held down by four cultists. As he had done on each new moon for almost four years now, he led the unholy hymn as the crouched figures around him swayed.
He could feel the veil growing thinner, and knew that soon it would be pierced, and his glorious master and its servants would once again walk the realm of man, and claim what was rightfully theirs before they were banished eons ago. He had personally stopped the only man that could change that, three decades ago in the Dark Land - a man named Tridington.
Aetheric Elements: The Rise of a Steampunk Reality Page 28
