The stone lost it's colour, green moss dyed grey along with the rest of the world around him. A warm breeze turned to a frosty wind that made Steal's blood run cold; the wind traced across his body like an invisible hand; building to a torrent before fading away.

Invisible appendages clasped around his too-large skull, after a sudden, violent spike of pain, his body felt numb. The goblin's eyes snapped to a close, gritting through the violent pain, and when they opened again; the room was gone.

He felt his raw, bound hands come loose as his feet hit dirt, not stone.

The stone walls were gone, the wooden beam above him had faded away into nothingness; the sound of elves working, chatting and patrolling left his ears.

Just the sound of nature, crickets chirping and distant trees rustling.

The peaceful ambience was broken by a raucious, unnervingly jolly voice from behind him.

"Hello there!"

Steal span on his heels, turning around and leaping backwards to stare down the creature that spoke behind him.

His gaze met with a portly dwarf, sitting idly behind an almost pitch-black stone desk; the dwarf's clothing looked ragged, with a slightly-oversized pith helmet atop his heavily wrinkled head. His eyes widened a little as his vision focused on Steal's green skin, coal-black eyes and scrawny body.

"Aye..a goblin? Warlocks of your kind are a little odd... So you cast the Summon Familiar spell right?"

Steal didn't quite understand what to be the most surprised by, the fact this strange man and the dark, gloomy forest he was now in seemed to appear from nowhere, or the fact that the words the goblin spoke in response were in a language that wasn't his own, both alien and natural on his lips.

Daemon-Tongue Level 1 Is Now (Active)

"Yeah, I got captured by some people with pointy ears but after I cast it I ended up here... Who are you? Why are you here?"

"My name is..." The dwarves portly face seemed to distort for a moment, pale skin was covered in thick fur, his mouth elongated to a snout and his pith helmet rose from his head as black, curled horns pushed it off his head. The odd dwarves head had become the spitting image of a goat's head; and as fast as it had distorted into this freakish image, it returned to his previously jolly, pale-skinned and robust face; the horns pulled back into his skin and his hat unceremoniously fell back onto his head, albeit now a little lopsided.

"Baphomet... Just call me B."

Steal recoiled as Baphomet's face morphed and shifted; hand reaching wildly for a blade in a scabbard that wasn't there; fingers grasping uselessly at thin air; trying to find purchase of a weapon that wasn't at his side. The goblin scanned over his own body; the belts that once held his dagger in place were gone as well; along with the clothes and metal bracers that Kor'Ak had given him. The little goblin was back to being as naked as when he was spawned.

Unable to draw a weapon, Steal elected instead to simply bare his teeth.

"What are you?"

"Me? I'm a demon, naturally, and you're in my world. My realm." The dwarf-goat-demon's words were less jolly, rasping metalically from his tongue coldly, calmly and simply. "So I advise you don't show me so much hostility, even if-" His face morphed and swelled back to the guise of a goat again. "-You find this unnerving."

An odd warmth seemed to seep back into Baphomet's words; though the smile he now forcefully wore on his goat-like mouth was disturbing and unnatural; sharp angles mashed together to make a fake, flimsy lie of a grin. "Well, anyways, let's get on with this little contract thing; basically, here's the gist of it, your stats don't really do anything; all you have to do is persuade or capture a demonic being in this forest, you do that and boom you get a familiar. That's it, simple as anything."

"And?" The goblin spoke back, fangs nervously striking against his teeth as he forced his gaze to wander from the grotesque animal-headed demon.

"There is no 'and'... Actually, I said your stats didn't matter, that isn't actually true. Since you're not actually here, you're physical body is still unconscious in that dismal makeshift prison you cast this spell in, which mean's you'll be using your Mana and Mana regeneration for your health as well, if you die here, you'll just wake up where your physical body is; remember, you can always come back by casting the spell-".

A distant rumbling in the distance, a towering, warped oak toppled and fell down back below the rest of the treeline as some unknown creature let loose a titanic, booming howl.

Baphomet patiently waited for the violent, deafening echoes to finally fade "-And I think you'll be coming back a few times before you're done here."

Steal's body dropped, hands clutching at his ears when the roar struck him; something in his body screamed, something popped and tore as his hearing seemed to leave him, replaced with a neverending ringing that bounced through his skull. The goblin's eyes turned salty as pained tears rolled down his cheeks; he blinked once, his eyes catching the blurry image of Baphomet waving his hand idly, muttering something that the goblin couldn't hear. He blinked a second time; water beginning to leave his eyes as his vision focused on the hazy visage of Baphomet, long, barbed vines sprang from the ground in a perfect circle around the demon, closing around him.

Steal blinked a third and final time, and Steal was alone, with nothing but a perfect circle of disturbed earth where Baphomet once was as the only evidence there was anyone other than him around in the first place.

Slowly, and with great trepidation, the goblin picked himself up, let out a resigned, weary sigh and began on his way through this warped mess of trees and somehow malicious-looking brambles.