Your head is killing you. That's the first thing that comes to mind when you come to. Definitely the last time you pick up a cute girl hitchhiking on the freeway, given how she clocked you with a wrench before you even pulled back onto the road.

Maybe she's among the throng of robed, hooded women that peer down at you. In a moment of frozen worry, you realize that you're bound to a stone slab. The leather bites into your wrists and ankles. That alone makes you nervous, but having so many candles around your naked body is equal cause for concern.

The bits and pieces of the chants the women are making escape you. Most of it sounds like gibberish. The nearest you can tell is that you are being offered to something called Xarra as a sacrifice. An unnatural glow fills the chamber, and you feel your body being wrenched up from the slab, your restraints straining to hold you down...

And then, the hooded women are gone. The ritual chamber is gone. You stand on cracked earth, a cliff overlooking a hissing ocean of flames. The thunderous clatter of a hoof on the ground makes you turn, bringing you face to face with Xarra herself.

She is very much a she, you realize as you take in her form. Xarra is a two-legged black goat, towering over you as her red eyes glare down. Gleaming dark fur, massive gnarled horns, pendulous breasts, rippling muscle all over her body, and long, sturdy fingers that end in deep black claws.

She smells like a combination of wet dog and blazing bonfire as she leans in. You try not to flinch as her humid breath seems to wash over your entire body. You wish either of you had some clothes on.

Her voice is deep and resonant, but you don't see her mouth move. It echoes within your head.

"I see my devoted have brought a new plaything," she concludes with a dark, soft laugh. She leans down, closer to you still, and reaches out with a huff of sweltering breath. Those infernal eyes burn into you as she traces a scorching fingertip across your chest, then