In the center of the clearing, beneath the black sky, sat an even darker figure, hooded, surrounded by a circle of half-melted white candles. Before it lay a strange collection of mysterious-looking materials. There was an altar of some kind with a bowl of a pungent herbal mixture burning on it, its smoke curling into the air in ghostly tendrils. The figure looked up from the altar, straight at Jory. It stood. Jory screamed his lungs out and took off in the other direction. The figure gave chase.