The hooded figure prostrates in front of the hellish statue, a naked ape-man with a skull head, tentacles writhing from its back, a sickly clawed scaly arm protruding from its chest, giant webbed feet, almost as if one had taken the worst parts of hellish statues and stuck them together.
A faint odour of glue hung in the air.
The shard of crystal hovered over his finger, but caught the ridge of skin beside the nail making a slim cut, it hurt like blazes, the figure gave a muted curse, but manage to smear a tiniest drop on the forehead of the skull.
The skull lopped to one side at the slight pressure, strands of glue stopped from becoming completely detatched, the hooded figure propped it back in place, it took a few attempts, to more muted cursing.
This chaos thing took getting used to.
"Oh dark one, I have discovered a motly band of bandit hunters who will soon do my bidding, the hapless fool of an archer I roped into my travel managed to wing a flaming hound that popped out of existence as it fell, incredible I know, but they darkness works in mysterious ways, be it flying canines or whatever"
"Entrusted with a pagan icon, I gathered a few coins, but was nothing compared to the share this feral band distributed, I can only put thy dark forces behind it all, and I shall recruit more minions to your shadowy plans"
The hooded figure bowed deeply, then stepped forward to kneel but caught a foot in the long robe, stumbling, hand outstretched to break a fall it found the discarded crystal shard which embedded itself in the flap of skin between the thumb and forefinger.
The cursing was not as muted as before.