A shipment of fresh, nubile concubines for the Dark One.

In a vast and incalculable universe, there are many worlds with many different forms of life

One planet several-hundred lightyears left of Hoag's Object -- a world slice down the middle and hollowed out like a bowl -- floats in a geocentric orbit between three white dwarf stars, ten moons and a particularly stubborn planetoid.

This unique and theoretically impossible number of astrological characteristics generated enough combined thermo-dynamic energy and negentropy* to fill the bowl, allowing this improbably planet to host life.

Not just life, but magic.

At the very center of the planet's internal curvature sits what other planets would call a "core"; an incantesimaly large pool of nickle, iron, siderophiles and unholy power that allows this inhospitable wasteland to foster monsters and sustain life of its own. In the capital of Core-Country stands a castle, carved out of igneous rock, and within that castle, sits a creature most fowl. A being with a soul blacker than coal (or maybe it didn't have a soul, no one bothered to check) and power that struck fear in all who see it.

This was the palace of the Dark Lord.

There is a train of caravans, pulled by quadrupedal beasts on a path in the molten marshes of Core-Country.

Packed like cattle in their mobile cages were women. Many human, some non-human species native to this world. Some wore tattered rags, others in varying states of undress, some **** to ride with nothing but the whipped-skin on their backs. They were chained in place to prevent any hope of escape.

Black dragons and hell-spiders and various other monsters watched atop spires and within lava pits, standing guard but doing nothing, for they knew that these vehicles were gifts for the Master.

The monstrous humanoids and undead soldiers that staffed the castle lead the enslaved cargo by their chains and led them in, climbing steps and opening massive doors with ominously sculpted depictions of eternal suffering on their mantle.

"Lord of the Core," rasped the mummified throat of an undead soldier, dressed in the rusted armor he died (and was later resurrected) in. "Offerings for your continued mercy."

Some of the women were quaking and sobbing to themselves, others stood firm and stoic, thinking that showing fear would only worsen their already unpromising fate.

Sitting in the center of this grand cathedral of wickedness, was a throne, and in that throne, sat the Lord and Master of the castle.