Part B: The Halls of the Dead
"See, we did some good," Quatre said as they walked across town to meet Deckard Cain. He was standing not far from a red-haired woman standing in front of a blacksmith's shop. He smiled and greeted them with an upraised hand.
"Hello!" Deckard Cain called out merrily. The old man had come with them from the Rogue Encampment in an effort to guide and advise them. They nodded back. Heero stepped forward, presenting him with the scroll.
"We found this in the sewers. We were wondering if you could interpret it for us," Heero said. "Please," he added with a well placed nudge to the ribs.
"Certainly, certainly," Deckard muttered as he began looking over the scroll. They watched intently as Deckard hemmed and hrmed over the scroll. Finally, he exclaimed, "Ahh... The lost Horadric scroll! What a fortunate turn of events..."
"Horadric scroll?" Duo mouthed to Heero who shrugged. Deckard ignored them prudently.
"As the last living Horadrim, I alone have knowledge of it's meaning." Looks of exaggerated patience were passed around the group. "Now, to read the Horadric runes it bears... Hmmm..."
"How hard can it be?" Duo muttered. Deckard shot him a reproving look and began to read.
"The Horadric Mages, after binding Baal within Tal Rasha, magically sealed off his burial chamber from the mortal realm. Those same Mages also crafted the fearsome Horadric Staves and imbued them with the special power to open the chamber's hidden door."
"So where is Tal Rasha?" Duo asked. He gestured vaguely outside the city walls. "Is it a big place?"
"Tal Rasha was a who, not a what, Duo," Deckard Cain said gently. "He was the greatest of the Horadrim, a brave man indeed who took Baal into himself to be sealed away for all time, or so the ancient Horadrim hoped." Duo looked sick. "I will continue. After nearly losing one to thievery of a rogue sorcerer, they divided all the Horadric Staves into two parts-- wooden shaft and metal headpiece-- hiding them separately to safeguard them."
"So how do we find one?" Quatre asked.
"The Horadrim foresaw our current plight and designed the hiding places to reveal themselves to worthy heroes like you." The group exchanged uncertain looks. "Collect both parts of a Horadric staff an unite them using a Horadric cube. Then, you may enter Tal Rasha's Burial Chamber."
"But we still don't know how to find them," Heero pointed out. Deckard handed them a blank sheet of parchment. Duo took it numbly, and yelped when lines began drawing themselves on the parchment. They saw Lut Gohlein, and a vast expanse of desert. It demonstrated that they had to pass through the Rocky Waste to the Dry Hills and travel to the Halls of the Dead to find the nearest, the Horadric cube.
"Our mission, should we choose to accept it or not..." Duo muttered. Heero nudged him.
"Luck to you," Deckard said as they trooped out of the town gates. Before them was a huge, rocky wasteland of desert. Bones and ruins of small settlements were everywhere. The area was outlined by high, rocky cliffs.
"This place is so lovely," Duo said dryly. Trowa felt uneasy, looking at the desert. There was too much sky showing, and not enough plants. Quatre appeared more comfortable, though he kept muttering about the desert not being healthy enough.
As they traveled, they were attacked by hell slingers, warriors that appeared to be half cat and half human. There were other creatures such as undead scavengers which appeared to be vultures, but were no more natural than Duo's minions.
They also ran into a group of scarabs which appeared to have natural lightning retribution, which they stayed far away from. Wufei scouted ahead and reported a passage from the canyon. Duo consulted the map. Magically, the name and information appeared on the page.
"Dry Hills, location of the Horadric cube is in the Halls of the Dead," Duo read out.
"Lovely," Heero commented dryly. Duo's jaw dropped at the word.
"Did you... just make... a joke?!" Duo managed. Heero nodded, face betraying no laughter. Duo burst out laughing and nearly fell over. Wufei decided to scout ahead, looking for any likely place. Concentrating, his form became hazy, as if being seen though a great fog. He slipped past his enemies, only to stab them in vulnerable necks and backs. Wufei didn't think such behavior would be considered honourable to people like Heero, but then, little about this war was.
Wufei quickly found what appeared to be an artificially made cave, with carved symbols around the edges. There were several stone torch wells that burned around the edges. Wufei poked his head inside the door, then quickly departed to inform the others.
"I have found--" Wufei began and watched, amused, as all four of his companions jumped. They hadn't seen or heard him. "I have found the Halls of the Dead," Wufei said.
"Give me a heart attack, why don't you?" Duo muttered to himself. Wufei hid a smile as he turned to lead his companions in. The Halls were made of sandstone, cracked and weathered by time. There was a layer of sand that had come in from the cracks beneath the stone, making the footing somewhat unsteady. Large, circular columns held up the high, dusty ceiling.
"This place smells like de-- er," Heero said, hastily rewording and coming up blank.
"I smell it too. It smells like undead," Duo muttered, taking a few steps forward, only to see a spear fly by his shoulder and narrowly miss him. It hit the wall and clattered to the ground. He never did see what attacked him. Wufei tossed what looked like little darts on the ground, which opened up to pyramids that released bolts of electricity.
From the ground sprouted what at first looked like a plant made of fire until Duo noticed they had faces. The three headed fire hydra turned towards the enemy and began spewing fireballs. Trowa turned, facing a different direction and two small tornadoes spread from his outstretched fingers, not harming the floor but doing significant damage to the undead nonetheless.
Duo and Heero looked at each other and blinked. Heero recovered first.
"Which way do we go?" Heero asked. Duo pondered.
"Right," Duo said. Heero nodded and once the others had recovered from their high speed casting, they turned right. They walked down a small set of steps and continued into the hall. The door was open, and cautiously Wufei tossed a few charged bolt sentries-- the pyramids-- into the room. They heard some electrical discharges and when they poked their heads in, they saw undead bodies scattered over the floor.
"Handy little things, aren't they?" Duo said, walking into the room. There was a circle of torches around the center of the room, though there appeared to be nothing of significance. There was, however, another door.
The door was a movable slab of sandstone, which when touched disappeared into the floor. They walked up another small set of steps and into a large group of undead and Spear Cats, apparent cousins to the Hell Slingers in the desert. Duo and Heero led the charge this time, by attacking the first two. Duo cast his amplify damage curse moments before Heero hit the first two, taking them down with impressive swings. His scepter was tucked away somewhere, and now he possessed a beautiful crystal sword. The blade was dark copper and did impressive things besides, cutting through enemies like butter. There was a faint buzzing sound when it passed through the air.[1]
"Now that's impressive," Wufei noted as the last one fell. Heero sheathed his sword and bowed, breathing heavily. Once Heero had his breather, they proceeded into the next hall, which had another small set of steps.
"Now I know why it's called the halls of the dead..." Duo commented. Quatre rolled his eyes.
"I knew you were going to say that, I just knew it..." the blond sorcerer muttered.
"You know, talking to yourself is a sure sign of insanity," Duo said brightly.
"Not funny," Quatre shot back. "I--- Erahh!" Quatre managed, spotting the Spear Cats at the top of the rise, in a wider area with many broken columns. A wall of fire blazed to life, forcing the Spear Cats to burn themselves while walking though. No sooner that they had walked through one wall, but another sprung up under their feet. The third salvo of firewall dropped them to the ground in crispy agony.
"Nice reflexes," Trowa noted, and Quatre blushed, nodding his head. They continued down the hall to a doorway with a set of steep, stone steps going down. In single file, they walked down the stairs, into another set of halls, one going left, one right and one straight. This time they went left.
Walking forward, they saw a number of orange winged creatures drop from the ceiling. Desert Wings, as the creatures were called, were quite shocking-- literally! However, the shocking creatures could not resist a crossfire of firebolts and fell to the ground in crispy heaps.
As they continued, they fought more undead and creatures that strongly resembled Radamant, though were not as powerful. They launched dark, spiky disks at them, and Heero countered with what looked like the exact same spell, only they were white. Duo wondered about this, but was too busy being pushed back by the undead.
It was too late when he saw himself get into Heero's line of sight. He flinched as the white bolt came towards him and, for some reason, he didn't feel bad, in fact he felt better. He looked at Heero curiously.
"It only hurts enemies. It heals allies. Watch..." Heero shot a bolt at one of Duo's weary undead and suddenly it seemed to gain a certain amount of-- life was not quite the word...
"That's so nifty," Duo marveled.
They continued until they found a door leading down to the next level, leading them deeper into the halls. Their first decision was at a junction of three hallways.
"Do we go left or right?" Quatre asked, peering ahead into the darkness.
"Left," Trowa reported after a moment. Doing so brought them to a door. Opening that door bestirred the ghouls, Shock Wings and Spear Cats. They continued down the hallway until they got to a hallway that seemed to lead them around in a circle. One door was at the end of the hallway, guarded by a few Spear Cats-- they quickly discovered it just back to the beginning-- and a doorway down.
"Party of five--er, several, going down," Duo said as he opened the door, which sank into the floor.
They were greeted by more Shock Wings, as well as skeletons and another Radament-like creature. They were defeated quickly, and their bodies littered the floor.
"I'll look down that way," Wufei said, pointing to the hall along the right. He rounded a corner and disappeared. Moments later, he reappeared, shaking his head. "It just goes around in a circle," Wufei said.
"Then we go left. Left! Left! Left right left!" Duo said, walking down that hallway. He walked through an archway, a hallway and another archway before he came upon a door.
He opened the door almost without thinking about it, which was a mistake. He got one good look at a Radament creature before it attacked. Then a fireball flew over his shoulder, hitting the creature in the face.
More fireballs appeared, slamming into skeletons, charring their torsos. Duo sent a salvo of bone shards towards the skeletons. It was a nice feeling, knowing you had people at your back that would protect you. Duo frowned suddenly. People who he cared for too much died.
"I think whatever we're looking for is through here," Heero murmured to Duo. Duo half-turned.
"Well then, lets not keep them waiting!" Duo said brightly and continued. At the end of the hallway, there was a doorway. Duo quickly ran a few curses through his mind-- actual curses, not foul language. Duo turned, and could see another fireball spell on Quatre's lips, as well as Trowa speaking softly to his wolves and ravens. Duo smiled grimly. None of them wanted to be caught in an ambush again. Not after Tristram.
Duo turned back to the door, and opened it. Almost immediately, a blue skinned Spear Cat approached him, but she never had the chance to attack. Duo released his curses, then with a flash pulled out his own special weapon. The last thing that Spear Cat would ever see was a blade slicing down to strike, and a pair of violet eyes.
Spells from the others took out the Spear Cat honour guard. Duo walked in, slinging his weapon back to nestle hidden against his back. He knelt before a gold, glowing chest. Opening it carefully, he found gold, and resting on top of it, a large cube, which hummed with power.
You know, I wonder what it means that the treasures keeping Tal Rasha's tomb safe are all Diablo's minions... Duo thought absently as he waved the others over. Duo opened the cube, and found a handwritten note. "Horadric recipes," Duo read out. "Recipes? What, do you cook with this thing? Add three healing potions to three mana potions to transmute into a rejuvenation potion. Transmute three rejuvenation potions into a full rejuvenation potions. Hey, we could make a killing on this!"
"We don't have time for commerce. Where's the next location?" Heero asked mildly. Duo opened the map.
"We are here. See the red blinking dot?" Duo pointed. There was no dot, but there was a set of five pale blue squares that indicated their position on the map. "And we have to go all the way to the Far Oasis," Duo traced a path with his finger. "And we are looking for the staff of kings in someplace called the... Maggot Lair," Duo said.
"Oh great," Quatre muttered.
1- Hah! I've stolen Logic's lightsaber! Er... In Diablo, there is an uber rare item called Lightsaber, which does impressive damage and ignores enemy defense. Keep in mind, it does not look like a lightsaber from Star Wars, nor the beam sabers from GW, nor the energy sword things you see a lot of in other anime/movies. Not withstanding, it's one of the coolest weapons out there, and my friend Logic has one for his Paladin. Lucky bastard... To Be Continued... *insert demonic laughter here*