Darkness tore asunder with the ferocity of a fiery tapestry, its intensity so profound it threatened to crystallize into tangible substance.

It surged through the air like the resonant peal of thunder, battering the room’s ambient light into submission until naught remained but a bulwark of acrimony and smoke—dense enough, one might observe, to trigger every smoke detector in the building, had anyone bothered to install them.

From this churning void emerged a shape. At its very heart stood an entity, draped in shadows so elegant they could have been tailored by a celestial couturier, every fold falling with the precision of a well-executed legal brief.

“Were you the one who summoned me?” Astaroth’s voice was hollow, brittle, and so enigmatic it might have shaken the darkness itself—had the darkness not been too busy wondering why it smelled vaguely of burnt popcorn.

Astaroth paused, tilting his head with the gravitas of a judge in the highest court of the netherworld. “I had to take three different shadow-tunnels to get here, and the last one was awful—full of other entities complaining about inter-dimensional traffic. Absolutely insufferable." The darkness curled by morphing itself into a makeshift chair and table for its master.

"Do you have any tea? Black, no sugar—I can’t abide sweetness before a ritual.” Astaroth awaits.