Part D: Eye in the Sky
Quatre woke up. Groaning, he shielded his eyes from the light. He felt so hot, as if he was on fire. With that somewhat horrific thought in mind, he sat up.
Outside the window, he could see lava bubbling and flowing past. Occasionally white wisp appeared. Quatre was appalled to realize that the white wisp was a tortured soul and he-- and it-- were in Hell.
Quatre looked around at the room he was in. It was small, and there was a door, two windows and what appeared to be a bowl on a pedestal. He tried the door first. He found it locked and almost without thinking about it, spoke the words to summon a fireball. But nothing happened.
Panicked, he went through every spell and found himself to be entirely without magic. He checked the windows, and they appeared to be magical barriers as well. Deeply troubled, he walked over to the pedestal.
The bowl was made of pure silver and filled with water. As Quatre looked in it, he saw himself as clearly as looking in a mirror. The image began to blur, and it resolved itself into somewhere in the Kurast jungle. He could see his friends wandering in the jungle. He saw Trowa stop and say something, though he couldn't tell what, because no sound came from it.
"Trowa! Can you hear me?" Quatre asked. Trowa didn't react and he realized that it was sight only. He also realized that if he could see them, Diablo could too.
Diablo knew they were coming.
"At least it stopped raining," Duo commented.
Heero grunted.
"We're lost," Duo announced helpfully.
"No, we're not," Trowa pointed out. "We're right here," he pointed to the area he'd sketched. Duo crossed his arms, looking unimpressed. Wufei raised an eyebrow as several of Duo's undead mimicked the pose.
"Fine, we're there. Where is 'there'?" Duo asked.
"Somewhere near here, but far from over there," Trowa said. Duo cracked a smile. He knew how hard it was for Trowa to make jokes. Near their location, where ever it was, was a set of ruined walls.
A more pressing matter was the fact there were any number of small, vicious natives called Fetishes that had large knives-- the knives were half their height-- and blow dart guns delivering small but painful bolts.
One native stood at twice their height and wore elaborate robes, along with a feather headdress. He stood before Heero and opened his mouth. Heero didn't have time to react as a huge stream of fire blasted from his mouth.
"Heero!" Duo yelled and cast a bone spear at the large Fetish's chest. He was surprised to see the top half topple over, dead, and as his robes fell there was another Fetish underneath. Heero quickly took a piece out of the Fetish and it fell. Duo strolled over to look at them.
"Why don't we get moving?" Wufei suggested, slipping further into the area.
Further examination found areas with mounds of webbing everywhere. Some of the tightly wrapped cocoons looked as if they were large enough to contain people.
"That isn't a good thing, right?" Duo asked of Heero, pointing at the piled cocoons.
"No, it's not," Heero replied. He spotted a far smaller cocoon, and prodded it with the tip of his sword. It stirred, then opened up. Several small spiders crawled out, one of which tried to bite Heero's foot. Fortunately, its fangs didn't penetrate his steel boots.
Duo stepped on them as they crawled away. One managed to scramble away from the braided necromancer's wrath.
"You know, they say if you kill a spider, it rains," Wufei said. His eyes trailed the surviving spider to the body of a creature where it paused and began to feed.
"That's a myth," Duo began when the sky opened and began to pour. Duo's mouth was set in a grim line. "Wufei, sometimes you should keep your mouth shut."
Wufei shrugged, looking amused. Duo stalked away. He walked, kicking at the spider cocoons as he went. He almost missed the opening in the ground. It was heavily shrouded in spider webs. He pulled out his wand and began using it to take the spider webs away.
"Hey, I think I found something!" Duo called. The others came running. "Does this look like a spider cavern to anyone but me?"
"Have I mentioned lately I really hate mazes?" Duo said as they hit their fifth dead end. The Spider Cavern was, quite predictably, a very cavern-ish place, and while there were Fiends and Lampreys, there were also many, many large spiders. The green ones were poison spinners and the read ones were flame spiders. "And I am really beginning to hate spiders."
"Aren't we all?" Wufei said dryly. "But since we have been wandering, we have ventured closer to the far end of the cavern."
"True," Heero said.
"Brilliant," Duo muttered, turning to count his undead. They were all there. He now had three skeletons, two mages and his clay golem. Trowa had two spirit wolves, two ravens, a solar creeper and an oaken sage. Wufei had himself and his shadow companion, which Duo personally found to be very cool. Heero had... well, himself.
Seeing Duo take in their troops, a hint of a smile appeared on his face. "Are we ready to head out, Duo?" Heero asked.
Duo nodded, a spell crackling ready on his fingers. "Let's go."
Wufei threw in an electric trap to get their attention. At once, five flame spiders scuttled towards them, along with a sixth, purple spider. It waved her legs and chittered, which could have meant anything from "How dare you?!" to "Ooh, meat!".
Duo's undead raced forward in their shambling, undead way to confront the flame spiders while Heero and Trowa confronted the huge purple spider. Duo aimed several bone spears at the spider, and then found himself unable to cast again.
"Damnit, that bitch mana burned me!" Duo yelled. At that moment, a poison spinner rushed forward, hearing the sounds of easy prey. "Not another one!"
Wufei slipped behind the spider and punched a few holes in it's carapace with his katars. Duo smiled at Wufei, only to spot yet another spider. Duo yelled a warning an managed a shot or two. The spider collapsed nicely in a pile of green ichor.
Wufei and Duo turned to Heero and Trowa to see the purple spider collapse and it appeared to have a partially crushed carapace. Trowa's wolves were chewing thoughtfully on what appeared to be a spider's forelegs. Wufei raised an eyebrow and Trowa slung his great maul onto his shoulder, shrugging.
Further investigation revealed a glowing gold chest. When it was opened, they found a small pile of gold and a perfectly preserved eye.
"Ugh," Duo noted. "So, who's picking that up?" Heero sighed and picked it up. Rather suprisingly, the eye was cool and slightly dry to the touch. Heero wasn't sure if he imagined the eye trying to roll up to look at him. He deposited it into the Horadric cube.
"Let's go," Heero said. Duo made a face.
"But it's raining! Can't we camp here?" Duo asked. Heero opened his mouth to reply when they all heard a faint scratching noise. "Oh-kay, outside it is!" Duo said, doing an about face. Heero smiled a little and followed, Trowa and Wufei trailing him.
To Be Continued... *insert demonic laughter here*
Back to Act IIIc
On to Act IIIe (not available)