Part D: A Strange Darkness
The party blinked at each other and went across town to find a scholarly man squinting at his book and muttering. He looked up to see them. "Oh! You must be the heroes!" Drognan said. The party shrugged. "Excellent! I need your help. You see, this eclipse is not natural. It is the work of the Claw Vipers. I believe they are performing some type of ritual to block the very sun from our skies! They may even be trying to bring about the ascension of Diablo himself!"
Duo leaned over to whisper in Heero's ear. "We have to go to the Claw Viper Temple anyway for the head of the Horadric Staff. It can't hurt to help. In fact, we may be able to kill two birds with one stone, as it were."
"Hn." Heero looked at Drognan. "What must we do?"
"You need to find the altar they are using as a focal point and smash it. After that, the spell should break up and we will have light again."
"'Should'?" Duo said, eyes narrowed.
"It could also blow up the sun!" Drognan said cheerily. "Off you go!"
As they walked away, Duo rolled his eyes. "Blow up the sun... oi."
They stood at the mouth of another large, desert land. Duo squinted at the map. "The Lost City. Population: More nasty things. Home of the Viper amulet. Points of interest, the Claw Viper temple."
"It's not lost, someone stole it," Quatre murmured.
They wandered about, killing sand leapers and other creatures as they went. They passed by an ill-concealed trap door and after searching the Lost City, they found...
"Nothing! Damnit, I was sure the temple was here!" Duo said, hitting something in frustration. Heero blinked.
"Umm... ow?" he said.
"Oops, sorry Heero."
"Why don't we take a look down there?" Quatre said, pointing to the trap door. The others looked at each other and shrugged. Suffice it to say, there was nothing of interest down there. Except, perhaps, a lot of undead.
"Well, that was completely pointless," Duo said as they returned to the City. Quatre ducked his head.
"Sorry... wait, look over there! There's a stairway going down," Quatre said, pointing wildly. The others turned. Duo grinned.
"Yessss... maybe the temple is over there," he hissed in delight. They headed off to see what they could see. What did they see was more of the Lost City. And lots of things that tried to kill them.
"Hey, there's a passage over there to the," Duo consulted the map, "Valley of Snakes. Well, that sounds likely, doesn't it?"
"I'd say so," Quatre said.
"Who knows, you may even be right this time," Wufei said dryly. Duo flipped Wufei off. Down they descended into the Claw Viper Temple.
The halls were made of sandstone, and the temple was crawling with creatures, mainly salamanders, which were large, human sized creatures that had two arms and a long snake tail. They were quite nasty. The first floor of the temple was thoroughly searched, and they quickly found the exit to the second floor.
"If this one has three levels, I'll put in a complaint..." Duo muttered. As they walked forward, they spotted an altar in the center of the room.
"Can we say too easy?" Wufei muttered. At that moment, a horde of salamanders, led by a huge purple one, appeared.
"Wufei... do me a favor? Shut up..." Duo muttered, signaling his minions to go forward. One took a swipe at the purple one and was engulfed in electricity. It shook its head stupidly and attacked again. This time the electricity was too much and the skeleton fell in a pile of bones to the floor.
"Not lightning retribution again..." Wufei said and whined rather uncharacteristically. Quatre pointed at the other salamanders.
"Duo, help me kill the big, purple one. Everyone else, get the others," Quatre ordered. Duo grinned. Wufei, Trowa and Heero charged around the other side of the altar. They beat on the ordinary salamanders and pounded them into the floor, while from a safe distance Quatre cast hydra and Duo cast bone spear. Finally it fell in a shower of blood, lightning and gold.
"Woo!" Duo said. "We killed Barney!"
The others sweatdropped massively. Together they stepped up to the altar. Trowa lifted his maul and the others put a hand on the maul, lending him their strength. Together they smashed the altar. A bolt of light shot straight up, making a hole in the ceiling, shooting straight up.
"That's gonna leave a mark," Duo commented as fresh sunlight poured in through the hole. The light caught something and glittered softly. Trowa picked it up and it hummed in his hand.
"This must be the Viper amulet. They must have used it to block the sun," Trowa said, showing it to the others.
"We need to get back to town," Duo noted and Heero nodded.
"Let's go back to town," Heero said and they wandered back. The trip was blissfully uneventful, because they'd killed all the creatures the first time. Duo raised a few more undead and Trowa called a few spirit wolves to him, which seemed to like Quatre a great deal.
As they returned, people all over marveled at the return of the sun. Deckard Cain greeted them as they walked into town. "You have returned! Look! The sun shines again! Do you have the amulet?" Trowa pulled out the amulet, while Wufei held up the staff. Deckard Cain's eyes misted over. "I never thought I would see the day... Thank you all so much. Now it is time to bring back the Horadric Staff and enter the Tomb of Tal Rasha..."
They nodded and opened up the Horadric cube, placing the staff and altar inside. Heero placed his hand over the cube. "Transmute," he intoned. There was a blinding flash of light, then the cube opened. A beautiful staff floated out, rotating once in front of them and dropped into Heero's free hand.
"The Horadric staff! Please, go to the Tomb of Tal Rasha and defeat the evil within. Drognan too wishes to speak to you." The party nodded and walked across town to Drognan. He was nearly bursting with happiness.
"Good to see you! I've been doing some research, and I haven't quite figured out where the tomb is, but I've got a pretty good lead. You see, there was a man who was known as the Summoner who kept demons as slaves. He also kept an eye on the Tomb. He has an Arcane Sanctuary around here somewhere. Perhaps you want to talk to Jehryn."
Heero nodded slowly. "We will, thank you."
"After we sleep," Duo added. Heero smiled faintly and bowed his head in acquiesce.
"Indeed." The party trooped to an Inn, nodding to Atma who waved back wearily. They reserved three rooms, two doubles and a single. Heero and Duo shared one room, Trowa and Quatre shared the other and Wufei took the single.
To Be Continued... *insert demonic laughter here*