The night is quiet and peaceful around the Den. Those who stay out late at night have settled to their methods of relaxation for the evening, others have been sleeping for hours. Families and friends can be heard going about their lives with in the safe confines of their homes, the park the Den Circle and other well lit places. The Den Fangs and guards make their rounds, shifts end, time goes on...

Later in the night, the moon far overhead the spring night grew colder. At the six portals to other realms, those best forgotten, the portal from earth gains a frosty ring of ice around it and glows with an icy blue, then opens. Through the portal the low and eerie moans can be heard, groans of unworldly things. After a few moments time, the skeletal form of a wolf steps through the portal, glowing red eyes, its bleached yellowish white bone standing out in the night. Red eyes scan the area around the portal and beyond them, then it turns back to the portal as if waiting.

Its wait wasn't long, only a few short moments, until the icy blue shimmered and quaked. Through it stepped two skeletons with the same red glow in their eye sockets, two human like zombies moan as they shamble through as well, their flesh ripped and torn. Behind them comes a swarm of rat corpses at the feet of their mistress.

A feminine form, wearing hooded flowing black robes over a form fitting set of flexible black and grey leather armor, the only features that could be made out from under the hood would be a black lupe snout with white ash lines drawn along it. Charms, bracelets and necklaces made of bone, charms made of metal and gems hang here and there. Black leather boots on her feet, she steps to the ground, the icy chill radiates from her form the trees, grass and the ground around the small company freezes with the black aura, she seems to have dancing around her feet. She cradles an orb in her right arm which is six-inches in diameter and made of pitted and scarred iron. Red sparks and at times flames fly from the orb as she holds it.

The hooded form takes a moment to assess her surroundings, her minions stand guard in their timeless sauntering. The rat corpse swarm moving like a small ocean around her feet, she lets the freezing aura fade, though the air remains cold. The portal behind her closes and the life fades away from it as it goes dark. With a sneer on her features she makes her way into the shadows. Her small following shambling around her as she moved.

As Artisia moved through the shadows she heard the singsong rhyme and a grin came over her lips. The auras around her form danced and seemed to meet and lap at the evil which drifted past her through the darkness. She felt something on the air, an imprint of what might have once been, Ameretto.

~A delightful little song you sing and even more invigorating to the senses, is the playful evilness that seems to dance around your presence~

A paw with long claws would hold the pitted iron orb and the other would reach out and move along a wall, she would use a spell to discern the area around her, the grin came back to her lips as she saw what she wanted in the area and would move, down a dark and abandoned path.

Through the dark of night she would walk, the minions she had brought with her fanning out in the night to survey, their mistress' newest hunting grounds. She soon found what she had been searching for, just at the edge of the den wall, she found a large seemingly long forgotten sewer maintenance grate, covered with moss, weeds and tall grasses. Makining a motion with her free paw and the old lock on the grating rusted and fell away. She opened the grate door and stepped into the sewers, calling her minions with a silent signal, they would soon follow her into the darkness.

In a short period of time the undead minions would damn up an area of sewer under the den, hidden deep in the darkness, Artisia would set up her lair there, a necromancers study and a few other areas so she could do her dark magics, studies and rituals in peace and still have some slim connection to the world above

(grr)

~The gift of the dead, aye a gift and much more. Death is my pet, my company and my entertainment as of late it seems.~ -she responded to Amaretto as she grinned, those blind folded eyes probably closed a moment as she thought, then she would look around the small lair her minions had formed for her-

-Artisia would conjure up a desk and chair up as well as some other tables and an alchemy set, she had made herself quiet the little study and living space. She takes a book which seemed to be crafted from flesh from somewhere in her robes, long clawed fingers would caress the tome a moment before she laid the book on the desk and opens it, she would conjure up a metal three pronged stand there on the desk and the iron pitted orb would be sat upon the stand, its red glowing light putting off an eerie red glow against the grimy, mossy green walls of the sewers-

The undead, though there were few at the moment would linger around the lair, some keeping watch others moving out of the lair through the sewers, perhaps hunting or just becoming familiar with the surroundings, each having their link with their mistress and each being careful to not bring attention to her pressence for the time being

~You seem lonely and looking for entertainment yourself spirit~ -She was amused and didn't mind this spirit, haunting her for the time being-

-Artisia would sit studying from the tomb and scrolls...she soon would take out a small bag from her robes, she must have had more than one dimensional spot in the robes, to hold things...the bag had charts of anatomy for many different life froms, she would put a few up on walls around the study-

Steps carried Artisia to the desk, her long clawed fingers would move to the pages of text laid open before her, ash drawn muzzle moved into a grin as she turned to face the spectre which has chosen to haunt her, she was used to spirits both tortured and tame popping up from time to time, the black silk blindfold still over her eyes, it seemed she could still see all that was around her well, her finned tail flicked idly behind her under the robes as she nodded-

"I have learned much of death...and un-death, and living beings yes.." She paused a moment as if studying the energy in the air, around them both. After a moment she looked to the orb which was still setting on the stand.

"yes it is a wondrous thing." -she lets her paw move to the orb and caress it once more, as it was touched the glow of red on the walls of the sewers cast an even stronger eerie light, red sparks erupted around it and she grinned, Amaretto might have felt the pull of magic perhaps even felt the need to either turn and flee...or maybe even the longing to become closer to the lupe who controlled the orb...but feelings would soon settle and pass as Artisia moved her paw from the pitted iron orb.