In a place of unspeakable horrors, she walked, treading silently upon
the, rugged blood-stained bricks of the tomb. Demons and mortals alike
littered the ground, their foul stench permeating the air, and corrupting
the very spirit within the sorceress. The sorceress walked on, dark green
and red robes twisted scantily around her figure, and midnight black hair
cascading upon her muscular shoulders.
She treaded silently, with practiced calm, and kept her lengthy staff at the ready. She crouched low in a defensive stance defending herself from both the dangerous creatures that populated the labyrinthean dungeon and the foul stench.
She bared her courage and walked on, for she must find the cube of horadric lore. The perfect transmutor.
Crimson stained the walls, and pooled at the corners, and light from torches that burned bright glinted off of their gruesome surfaces. Torches that hadn't gone out in ages. . .
And yet she walked, throughout all this horror, her set visage, betraying no emotion.. The horrible things within the Halls of the Dead tainted her soul and poisoned her heart. More deeply tugging at her sanity was the memory of the corrupted rogues. The horrible beings that were no longer human, but still did not belong in the world of demons. A wandering soul belonging to nothing, doomed to travel about, eating dead humans who were former friends. Eternally damned and cast from the mortal world, but never able to pass onto another. Even when they were killed, they were trapped inside the lifeless body of what once was a proud Amazon warrior, fighting against the forces of Diablo and his minions.
What she had seen and done in the corrupted monastery, and around the Rogue Encampment had deeply affected her, and her spirit was to be forever altered. She did not believe in virtue anymore. She simply believed that she must rid the world of the Prime Evils. Before, she believed that Necromancers were deeply evil. But, now, as she had seen things that would drive any hardened warrior mad, she seriously considered seeking the companionship of a Necromancer.
Her face was of milk, and her eyes used to be of the deepest emerald. They had dulled with what she had seen and heard. The vile beasts and undead creatures she had thrust forth against, gave her more rage at every moment. She only wondered how her dead companion, Raalt-Kaen would have acted. His rage was abominable. He was set off by the smallest things. He would scarcely be able to focus if he felt the anger she was battling against. If he had this rage, he would lose to it, and madness would consume him. There were torches every twenty yards or so, and the hallway she now trotted through was cast in flickering light, shadows from the small tan bricks fluctuating back and forth.
She shrank to the wall, and crawled around it, going around a dark corner. She immediately dodged a blow from the swipe of a crude cudgel.
Dashing backwards, ebony tresses flying in front of her, the fearful sorceress thrust her palms forward, releasing a massive bolt of lightning, lighting the entire intersection and both hallways.
For a moment, things seem to stop in mid-air, as everything was lit starkly, and the scene was surreal.
The sorceress, leaping backwards, back against the wall, releasing a mighty wave of lightning exploding forward, breaking the cudgel wielding skeleton into tiny pieces. The cudgel, shattering upon impact and scattering pieces about the place. A hollow, sunken-eyed creature called a Hollow One in the ancient scripts, lumbering forward. Deep coals of crimson, glowing within the darkness of the those evil, sunken eyes, seemed to give the entire, skeletal creature, ornamented with scavenged armor, and some remaining skin hanging over exposed ribs a menacing look. It's hand in the air, hanging limp, red energy surrounding the gnarled bones that shouldn't be made to move. The creature that looked as if it couldn't hold his own weight, carried heavy plate mail upon him, and he looked evil to his very core.
The skeleton shattered, and the Hollow One dragged itself forward, uttering a growl that didn't seem possible. There was no chamber of muscles to create the growl, so how, I asked, could that be possible.
As if in answer to my thought, a voice like a knife scraping over coals pierced into my brain. "Evil can make anything possible."
More hideous, toothless skeletons rallied unorganizedly behind the Hollow One, and the sorceress set her stance to release another bolt of lightning from her palms. Before she could thrust her palms forward, the skeletons charged from behind the lumbering magician and raised their primitive weapons and tried to hack the sorceress to pieces.
Taking heed of a warning Raalt-Kaen had given her long ago, she bared her staff and swung it forward with all her might, knocking the head off the nearest skeleton and sending it slamming into others. This caused a confusion in the mob of moving bones and blood, and they seem to lose face for a moment.
Taking advantage of their confusion, the sorceress muttered an enchantment under her breath, and a spiral of cold swirled around her figure, occasionally sending a lone spark of ice into the air. She then ran through the herd of writhing skeletons, stiffening them, causing a blue tint to spread all over the bones of the dead. She emerged on the other side and immediately flung a coalescing sphere of flame through the air. An explosion of flame occurred on impact to the Hollow One, and then, as he fell backwards, the sorceress sprang deftly forwards, firing a slow moving bolt of ice back at the crowd of heedless skeletons, who were now fighting amongst themselves.
She turned a corner as she heard the shattering of many bones. She pressed her back against the wall, soaking her already ripped garments with vile demon blood. Or it could have been human blood. I feared the answer.
"I need to consult Greiz," she breathed. "I must hire a mercenary to help me momentarily, so I may fight my way to the cube."
She undid the pouch hanging from her sash, and fished out a scroll bound with a blue ribbon binding it. She untied the ribbon, and rolled out the scroll. She quickly said the enchantment for the portal.
"Tula keran Verass kalano! Zeren poroos! Nola teelasa raltaka shinkeahh! Re Lut Gholien!"
The scroll dissolved, and a hole opened in the air, a blue and white energy fluctuating from within it. The portal was used much by the sorceress to get out of tough situations. Usually, she would use it after she got out of a tough battle and was injured.
She stepped into the fluctuating blues and whites, and stepped out in the town square of Lut Gholien.
"Hello, Jada, it is nice to see you," She heard Deckard greet.
The man was standing directly in the center of the town square, leaning upon the broken outer shell of a passage underground. No one used it anymore, and it served as the centerpiece of Lut Gholien. He was the last of the living horadrim. He was considered wise my many, and he had chosen to travel with Jada. he had traveled with Jada and Warriv, who took a caravan east after the passage had been secured.
He wore his traditional belted dark gray robe, and held his staff, looking as if that was the only thing tat held him up. He was very old. The worry lines on his face made him look much older. There were multiple crinkles at the corner of his dark eyes, and his forehead was creased with careworn lines, but his smile conveyed that he was happy now.
"Hello, Deckard, it is nice to see you too," Jada replied.
On the other side of the Central Plaza was Fara, the local blacksmith, and healer. Someone had told Jada that she used to be a paladin of the Zakarum.
"Fara," she called.
Fara turned, her vibrant red hair bristling around her. "Yes?" She was adorned in traditional leather armor gear.
Jada seemed as if she was ready to say something, but she silenced her, and placed a hand on her chest. Immediately, Jada felt a kindly warmth that washed throughout her entire body. And for a moment, she felt nothing but joy. But, then, the pain began. The pain of wounds sealing and then scabbing over, amd then quickly fading away. The pain of bruises and blood blisters reversing. Which meant that I actually remembered the pain that I had felt causing the wounds.
"There is more injuries that I cannot repair with my simple magic, but I urge you, Jada, to visit Elzix, and tell him that I sent you. He'll give you a room for free."
"Thank you, Fara."
Jada walked through the plaza past Fara, and cast a quick glance at Lysander, the local alchemist. He had a scoundrel look about him, and he seemed always to be suppressing a menacing grin. Jada weaved in and out through the huge broken shelves full of waxed bowls and other random goods, as she led her way to the tall inn with Elzix in front. She clomped over the tan bricks that made up the surface that covered the sand.
The heat from the blazing sun baked her shoulders as she came upon a dingy light brown building towering above the desert sands.
Jada winced as Elzix greeted her. It was a shock whenever she saw him. One of his legs was missing and one of his arms was missing. In their places where gruesome metal shafts that served as fake limbs. In one degree, she felt sorry for the poor man. But in another portion of her mind, she felt he deserved it in a small degree. He was supposed to have been quite a thief in his day, and would snatch whatever presented itself.
"Fara sent me," Jada replied at the greeting.
"Ah," said Elzix. "I've to stop letting people get in free just because Fara sent them." He sighed and beckoned her in.
Jada opened the door and went up the lone set of stairs that led to the circle of doors at the height of the Inn. She took the first door and quickly flung herself upon the bed. . .
Raalt-Kaen had flung himself between the art of the barbarian and the art of the paladin. He had momentarily decided on the paladin, and began training in the Zakarum temples in East Kurast. But, his faith in the light faltered, and his rage did not allow him to follow the light wholeheartedly.
So, he fell back on his barbarian training and went to train in Raladsat near Mount Arreat. His rage was perfect for the art of the barbarian, and thus he became.
When his training was complete, he traveled to Kurast to show his friends what he had become. Jada happened to be there, visiting her friend Ralasia in Upper Kurast, and they happened across each other. From then on, they traveled together and fought together. When the troubles with hell began, they started to fight with more conviction. But Raalt-Kaen had never dealt with demons before. . .
It was night. Jada and Raalt-Kaen were in Upper Kurast talking, when suddenly, an entire tribe of demons bust through the surrounding wall.
Hideous twisted demons with knives as big as their heads, and the same kind carrying blow guns with poisonous darts just waiting to be fired. Tall female magicians carrying deadly poleaxes, dashing forward with inhuman speed and strength, white robes flying about them.
Talented demon magicians firing bolts of lightning and raining down bolts of freezing ice. Giant beasts with gaping maws rushed forward and tried to tear us apart. Raalt-Kaen was a powerful man, but he was not trained in resistance to magic. Ultimately, a spike of ice shoved through his chest and out his back, freezing his blood. Jada watched it happen. She watched the horribleness of it. She couldn't pull away, she just couldn't. But the images haunted her dreams every time sleep touched her mind. The sight of her trusted companion exploding into shards of ice, frozen particles of blood sticking into her, drawing her own blood. Tears washing the stains.
It was then that she first truly felt rage. Rage like Raalt-Kaen had been battling. She screamed in anger. She was extremely indignant. And as she screamed and involuntarily discharged great bolts of lightning, ice, and fire, she screamed one word over and over. . . "WHHHHYYYYYY?!"
Jada woke with a start, her garments soaked with sweat, and beads of perspiration dripping from her forehead. Her eyes were wide, translucent even. She was feeling a fragment of the rage she had felt that fateful day. Indescribable rage. It probably exceeded what Raalt-Kaen had felt in the worst of his days. The young sorceress swung her legs over the side of the bed, and her hair clung to her forehead, as it fell in front of her.
She massaged her temples and tried to erase the terrible images. She feared that her sanity had been breached by her experiences. Sometimes she wished she had died along with Raalt-Kaen that day. But she hadn't. She didn't remember what happened after the terrible fit of anger, but she remembered that she awakened in the grass, and the buildings around her was smoldering. Demons littered the ground, and she was taken away by a kind person named Hratli.
Hratli had wished that she would stay, but she immediately went to the docks and took a boat to Lut Gholein. There she met Warriv, who took her to a rogue encampment, for apparently there had been troubles there. After she had finished, she came back to Lut Gholien with Deckard Cain. Meshif, a man who used to live in Kurast, but was then living in Lut Gholien demanded that she tell him of the event s in Kurast, but Jada didn't. She wanted to spare him the news of his homeland. She told him he would have to wait to find the knowledge. She was not ready to speak of it.
She stood up and opened the door, walking out into the hallway, and traveling down the stairs. She ran to the door and opened it, immediately being assaulted with cold. In the desert, it was mind-bendingly hot in the day and extremely cold at night.
Elzix was surprisingly asleep, leaning against his Inn. He slept outdoors all the time, She walked into the central plaza and noticed that no one was out. Deckard Cain would be sleeping in the Inn most likely, and Fara, and Lysander? Who knew? But Jehryn was likely asleep in his palace, as with his guards and the mercenaries. Atma, the tavern keeper supposedly slept at her tavern in a bedroom in the back. And a;ldskf, the drunk, who knew where he slept?
Jada noticed, to her pleasure, that the portal that she had come to town in was still intact. Jada knelt beside the blue and white spiral and retrieved her staff. Immediately, she felt more energy enter her. Her staff was enchanted, as with most sorceresses'
She took a deep breath, and stepped into the portal once again. The air around her drastically changed. The cold stayed pretty much the same, but the smell was vastly different. The air smelled of burnt flesh and the blood of demons, along with the additional smells of and old tomb filled with moisture and dust. It was dark and dank, and she could scarcely see.
She concentrated, and a swirl of ice blossomed around her body, not only shielding her from whatever she might meet, but also providing a bit of light.
Jada walked forward, turning the corner, and found a passageway that led to a small dented chest that looked as if it had tried to have been opened, but the try was unsuccessful. She knelt beside the denting chest and fired a little bolt of electricity at the lock, shattering it. She opened the small chest and drew out a pouch tied with a damp strand of rope. She hastily untied the rope and dumped the contents of the pouch into her palm. They were gems!
A topaz and a sapphire to be exact. Gems could be used to amplify the power of items that had been crafted with magical sockets. The higher quality the gem, the higher quality power that would be imparted to the item.
Jada could see that the gems were slightly flawed, but could probably be useful. She slipped them into the knapsack attached to her sash, and moved on, pushing forward through the invisible layer of death and despair, trying desperately to push through, but longing to turn back with every step.
Jada readied her staff in defiance, as if telling the evil forces at work that they didn't scare her. Suddenly, she realized that she had forgotten to speak with Greiz She cursed herself silently, but pressed on anyway.
After walking along for a few minutes through the dark chambers, she came to a large open area, and immediately stepped back, for hordes of demons thrust themselves forward. She ducked behind a wall and steadied her breathing. And then suddenly, without warning, an arrow whizzed by her ear and sliced a few hairs off.
Jada whirled to stand in front of the demons, and had to dodged the arrows of reanimated hordes of skeletons, their evil grins plastered on their faces, carrying giant bows that looked as if their body couldn't support much less carry. Jada thrust herself forward in the face of all this evil, and immediately concentrated her energies and sent an electric wave of shock around herself, exploding from her center, and shattering the bones of the skeletons.
Several Hollow Ones lumbered forward, sending black stars of energy across the bloody floor of the tomb, causing bones to come back together and form into a dilapidated figure of their former self. A skeleton with a arm where its head was supposed to be walked slowly forward and had a deranged look on its face, which happened to be imprisoned in his ribcage.
The monstrosity leapt forward, knocking the sorceress down to the tainted floor and opened its toothless mouth and prepared to feast. . .
Jada thrust her palm forward, sending a slow moving mass of ice forward, that froze the skeleton in place. Jada kicked the creature off of her, and it cracked into a million pieces as it slammed into the wall.
The untidy black hair with cockroaches crawling within their depths, hung from the elongated skulls of the Hollow Ones as they circled the harrowing sorceress and allowed more dilapidated skeletons to approach her in the "human" wall that they had made around Jada. Summoning forth all of her will, she caused several electrical novas to explode from within herself, causing everything in a relatively large radius to shatter and litter the floor with powdered bones and blood that was no longer needed.
Jada ran up to one of the hulking mannequins of relentless evil and shot a wave of fire from her outstretched hands, scorching the beast with wave after wave of the inferno. The monster fell, making noiseless shrieks, hitting the ground and the twitching, even though it was already dead.
That's something, I thought. When they're dead they move around and try to kill, and when they're vanquished once again, they twitch. These things can't just be still.
There were a whole crowd of others, though, and she had to deal with them before she pondered the irony. She tossed a sphere of fire at the sightless, voiceless beasts, causing it to explode on contact and send up a fiery torrent that engulfed their greasy black strands of remaining hair. They all fell with noiseless shrieks as well. A sight that tormented her soul.
Jada stepped backwards through the thin film of blood that encrusted her boots and put back up against the wall.
She fought down the food rushing up into her throat and coughed, pushing the terrible images from her mind into the vast pool of horror that collected her memories.
Channeling her horror into rage, she rushed down the next corridor, and slammed her jewel encrusted staff into a skeleton's ribcage, shattering it and littering the floor. She leapt over a lunging horned beast, kicking it backwards behind her, skidding on it's massive green chest and slamming into the wall.
Without looking behind her, she fired a bolt of lightning that lit up the entire corridor. She heard a shriek, and pushed it away. I must be cold- blooded. That is the only way to survive. She thought.
In the next chamber, a mass of skeletons rallied in an unorganized fashion, and rushed forward, brandishing axes and swords and things that they shouldn't even be able to hold.
Jada leapt backwards, and gathered energy in her hands, the mass coalescing above her head, glowing white. She threw her delicate ivory hands in front of her, and several swirling masses of electricity rushed along the ground and tossed several undead bodies into the air. She discharged again and again and again and again!
Jada breathed and stepped backwards, surveying the mass of bones and odd pieces of charred flesh. They littered the ground around a massive golden chest. A chest glowing with an inner light. Encrusted with a silver stone upon the lock.
She stepped forward, brushing her hair from her eyes. She knelt at the chest and undid the lock, and carefully opened the chest. A ray of golden light washed over the chamber, and a box embossed with strange runes and encrusted with gold and copper floated into the air. Jada took the box in her hands, and held it to her chest.
"I have the horadric cube."
She turned, holding the box between her hip and her arm, and fished a scroll tied with a blue ribbon from her knapsack. She unrolled it, holding the box carefully with her elbow to her hip.
"Tula keran Verass kalano! Zeren poroos! Nola teelasa raltaka shinkeahh! Re Lut Gholien!"
A door cut into empty space and glowed with a blue and white light, casting shadows below Jada. Jada stepped through the portal and stepped out in the town plaza once again, carrying the horadric cube. Cain immediately noticed, and ran up to Jada from the abandoned mine shaft and seized the box.
"You have found it! You have found the box! Do you know what this means?!"
"I think so, Cain, but explain to me anyway."
"You can use this enchanted box to unite the shaft and headpiece of a horadric staff!"
She treaded silently, with practiced calm, and kept her lengthy staff at the ready. She crouched low in a defensive stance defending herself from both the dangerous creatures that populated the labyrinthean dungeon and the foul stench.
She bared her courage and walked on, for she must find the cube of horadric lore. The perfect transmutor.
Crimson stained the walls, and pooled at the corners, and light from torches that burned bright glinted off of their gruesome surfaces. Torches that hadn't gone out in ages. . .
And yet she walked, throughout all this horror, her set visage, betraying no emotion.. The horrible things within the Halls of the Dead tainted her soul and poisoned her heart. More deeply tugging at her sanity was the memory of the corrupted rogues. The horrible beings that were no longer human, but still did not belong in the world of demons. A wandering soul belonging to nothing, doomed to travel about, eating dead humans who were former friends. Eternally damned and cast from the mortal world, but never able to pass onto another. Even when they were killed, they were trapped inside the lifeless body of what once was a proud Amazon warrior, fighting against the forces of Diablo and his minions.
What she had seen and done in the corrupted monastery, and around the Rogue Encampment had deeply affected her, and her spirit was to be forever altered. She did not believe in virtue anymore. She simply believed that she must rid the world of the Prime Evils. Before, she believed that Necromancers were deeply evil. But, now, as she had seen things that would drive any hardened warrior mad, she seriously considered seeking the companionship of a Necromancer.
Her face was of milk, and her eyes used to be of the deepest emerald. They had dulled with what she had seen and heard. The vile beasts and undead creatures she had thrust forth against, gave her more rage at every moment. She only wondered how her dead companion, Raalt-Kaen would have acted. His rage was abominable. He was set off by the smallest things. He would scarcely be able to focus if he felt the anger she was battling against. If he had this rage, he would lose to it, and madness would consume him. There were torches every twenty yards or so, and the hallway she now trotted through was cast in flickering light, shadows from the small tan bricks fluctuating back and forth.
She shrank to the wall, and crawled around it, going around a dark corner. She immediately dodged a blow from the swipe of a crude cudgel.
Dashing backwards, ebony tresses flying in front of her, the fearful sorceress thrust her palms forward, releasing a massive bolt of lightning, lighting the entire intersection and both hallways.
For a moment, things seem to stop in mid-air, as everything was lit starkly, and the scene was surreal.
The sorceress, leaping backwards, back against the wall, releasing a mighty wave of lightning exploding forward, breaking the cudgel wielding skeleton into tiny pieces. The cudgel, shattering upon impact and scattering pieces about the place. A hollow, sunken-eyed creature called a Hollow One in the ancient scripts, lumbering forward. Deep coals of crimson, glowing within the darkness of the those evil, sunken eyes, seemed to give the entire, skeletal creature, ornamented with scavenged armor, and some remaining skin hanging over exposed ribs a menacing look. It's hand in the air, hanging limp, red energy surrounding the gnarled bones that shouldn't be made to move. The creature that looked as if it couldn't hold his own weight, carried heavy plate mail upon him, and he looked evil to his very core.
The skeleton shattered, and the Hollow One dragged itself forward, uttering a growl that didn't seem possible. There was no chamber of muscles to create the growl, so how, I asked, could that be possible.
As if in answer to my thought, a voice like a knife scraping over coals pierced into my brain. "Evil can make anything possible."
More hideous, toothless skeletons rallied unorganizedly behind the Hollow One, and the sorceress set her stance to release another bolt of lightning from her palms. Before she could thrust her palms forward, the skeletons charged from behind the lumbering magician and raised their primitive weapons and tried to hack the sorceress to pieces.
Taking heed of a warning Raalt-Kaen had given her long ago, she bared her staff and swung it forward with all her might, knocking the head off the nearest skeleton and sending it slamming into others. This caused a confusion in the mob of moving bones and blood, and they seem to lose face for a moment.
Taking advantage of their confusion, the sorceress muttered an enchantment under her breath, and a spiral of cold swirled around her figure, occasionally sending a lone spark of ice into the air. She then ran through the herd of writhing skeletons, stiffening them, causing a blue tint to spread all over the bones of the dead. She emerged on the other side and immediately flung a coalescing sphere of flame through the air. An explosion of flame occurred on impact to the Hollow One, and then, as he fell backwards, the sorceress sprang deftly forwards, firing a slow moving bolt of ice back at the crowd of heedless skeletons, who were now fighting amongst themselves.
She turned a corner as she heard the shattering of many bones. She pressed her back against the wall, soaking her already ripped garments with vile demon blood. Or it could have been human blood. I feared the answer.
"I need to consult Greiz," she breathed. "I must hire a mercenary to help me momentarily, so I may fight my way to the cube."
She undid the pouch hanging from her sash, and fished out a scroll bound with a blue ribbon binding it. She untied the ribbon, and rolled out the scroll. She quickly said the enchantment for the portal.
"Tula keran Verass kalano! Zeren poroos! Nola teelasa raltaka shinkeahh! Re Lut Gholien!"
The scroll dissolved, and a hole opened in the air, a blue and white energy fluctuating from within it. The portal was used much by the sorceress to get out of tough situations. Usually, she would use it after she got out of a tough battle and was injured.
She stepped into the fluctuating blues and whites, and stepped out in the town square of Lut Gholien.
"Hello, Jada, it is nice to see you," She heard Deckard greet.
The man was standing directly in the center of the town square, leaning upon the broken outer shell of a passage underground. No one used it anymore, and it served as the centerpiece of Lut Gholien. He was the last of the living horadrim. He was considered wise my many, and he had chosen to travel with Jada. he had traveled with Jada and Warriv, who took a caravan east after the passage had been secured.
He wore his traditional belted dark gray robe, and held his staff, looking as if that was the only thing tat held him up. He was very old. The worry lines on his face made him look much older. There were multiple crinkles at the corner of his dark eyes, and his forehead was creased with careworn lines, but his smile conveyed that he was happy now.
"Hello, Deckard, it is nice to see you too," Jada replied.
On the other side of the Central Plaza was Fara, the local blacksmith, and healer. Someone had told Jada that she used to be a paladin of the Zakarum.
"Fara," she called.
Fara turned, her vibrant red hair bristling around her. "Yes?" She was adorned in traditional leather armor gear.
Jada seemed as if she was ready to say something, but she silenced her, and placed a hand on her chest. Immediately, Jada felt a kindly warmth that washed throughout her entire body. And for a moment, she felt nothing but joy. But, then, the pain began. The pain of wounds sealing and then scabbing over, amd then quickly fading away. The pain of bruises and blood blisters reversing. Which meant that I actually remembered the pain that I had felt causing the wounds.
"There is more injuries that I cannot repair with my simple magic, but I urge you, Jada, to visit Elzix, and tell him that I sent you. He'll give you a room for free."
"Thank you, Fara."
Jada walked through the plaza past Fara, and cast a quick glance at Lysander, the local alchemist. He had a scoundrel look about him, and he seemed always to be suppressing a menacing grin. Jada weaved in and out through the huge broken shelves full of waxed bowls and other random goods, as she led her way to the tall inn with Elzix in front. She clomped over the tan bricks that made up the surface that covered the sand.
The heat from the blazing sun baked her shoulders as she came upon a dingy light brown building towering above the desert sands.
Jada winced as Elzix greeted her. It was a shock whenever she saw him. One of his legs was missing and one of his arms was missing. In their places where gruesome metal shafts that served as fake limbs. In one degree, she felt sorry for the poor man. But in another portion of her mind, she felt he deserved it in a small degree. He was supposed to have been quite a thief in his day, and would snatch whatever presented itself.
"Fara sent me," Jada replied at the greeting.
"Ah," said Elzix. "I've to stop letting people get in free just because Fara sent them." He sighed and beckoned her in.
Jada opened the door and went up the lone set of stairs that led to the circle of doors at the height of the Inn. She took the first door and quickly flung herself upon the bed. . .
Raalt-Kaen had flung himself between the art of the barbarian and the art of the paladin. He had momentarily decided on the paladin, and began training in the Zakarum temples in East Kurast. But, his faith in the light faltered, and his rage did not allow him to follow the light wholeheartedly.
So, he fell back on his barbarian training and went to train in Raladsat near Mount Arreat. His rage was perfect for the art of the barbarian, and thus he became.
When his training was complete, he traveled to Kurast to show his friends what he had become. Jada happened to be there, visiting her friend Ralasia in Upper Kurast, and they happened across each other. From then on, they traveled together and fought together. When the troubles with hell began, they started to fight with more conviction. But Raalt-Kaen had never dealt with demons before. . .
It was night. Jada and Raalt-Kaen were in Upper Kurast talking, when suddenly, an entire tribe of demons bust through the surrounding wall.
Hideous twisted demons with knives as big as their heads, and the same kind carrying blow guns with poisonous darts just waiting to be fired. Tall female magicians carrying deadly poleaxes, dashing forward with inhuman speed and strength, white robes flying about them.
Talented demon magicians firing bolts of lightning and raining down bolts of freezing ice. Giant beasts with gaping maws rushed forward and tried to tear us apart. Raalt-Kaen was a powerful man, but he was not trained in resistance to magic. Ultimately, a spike of ice shoved through his chest and out his back, freezing his blood. Jada watched it happen. She watched the horribleness of it. She couldn't pull away, she just couldn't. But the images haunted her dreams every time sleep touched her mind. The sight of her trusted companion exploding into shards of ice, frozen particles of blood sticking into her, drawing her own blood. Tears washing the stains.
It was then that she first truly felt rage. Rage like Raalt-Kaen had been battling. She screamed in anger. She was extremely indignant. And as she screamed and involuntarily discharged great bolts of lightning, ice, and fire, she screamed one word over and over. . . "WHHHHYYYYYY?!"
Jada woke with a start, her garments soaked with sweat, and beads of perspiration dripping from her forehead. Her eyes were wide, translucent even. She was feeling a fragment of the rage she had felt that fateful day. Indescribable rage. It probably exceeded what Raalt-Kaen had felt in the worst of his days. The young sorceress swung her legs over the side of the bed, and her hair clung to her forehead, as it fell in front of her.
She massaged her temples and tried to erase the terrible images. She feared that her sanity had been breached by her experiences. Sometimes she wished she had died along with Raalt-Kaen that day. But she hadn't. She didn't remember what happened after the terrible fit of anger, but she remembered that she awakened in the grass, and the buildings around her was smoldering. Demons littered the ground, and she was taken away by a kind person named Hratli.
Hratli had wished that she would stay, but she immediately went to the docks and took a boat to Lut Gholein. There she met Warriv, who took her to a rogue encampment, for apparently there had been troubles there. After she had finished, she came back to Lut Gholien with Deckard Cain. Meshif, a man who used to live in Kurast, but was then living in Lut Gholien demanded that she tell him of the event s in Kurast, but Jada didn't. She wanted to spare him the news of his homeland. She told him he would have to wait to find the knowledge. She was not ready to speak of it.
She stood up and opened the door, walking out into the hallway, and traveling down the stairs. She ran to the door and opened it, immediately being assaulted with cold. In the desert, it was mind-bendingly hot in the day and extremely cold at night.
Elzix was surprisingly asleep, leaning against his Inn. He slept outdoors all the time, She walked into the central plaza and noticed that no one was out. Deckard Cain would be sleeping in the Inn most likely, and Fara, and Lysander? Who knew? But Jehryn was likely asleep in his palace, as with his guards and the mercenaries. Atma, the tavern keeper supposedly slept at her tavern in a bedroom in the back. And a;ldskf, the drunk, who knew where he slept?
Jada noticed, to her pleasure, that the portal that she had come to town in was still intact. Jada knelt beside the blue and white spiral and retrieved her staff. Immediately, she felt more energy enter her. Her staff was enchanted, as with most sorceresses'
She took a deep breath, and stepped into the portal once again. The air around her drastically changed. The cold stayed pretty much the same, but the smell was vastly different. The air smelled of burnt flesh and the blood of demons, along with the additional smells of and old tomb filled with moisture and dust. It was dark and dank, and she could scarcely see.
She concentrated, and a swirl of ice blossomed around her body, not only shielding her from whatever she might meet, but also providing a bit of light.
Jada walked forward, turning the corner, and found a passageway that led to a small dented chest that looked as if it had tried to have been opened, but the try was unsuccessful. She knelt beside the denting chest and fired a little bolt of electricity at the lock, shattering it. She opened the small chest and drew out a pouch tied with a damp strand of rope. She hastily untied the rope and dumped the contents of the pouch into her palm. They were gems!
A topaz and a sapphire to be exact. Gems could be used to amplify the power of items that had been crafted with magical sockets. The higher quality the gem, the higher quality power that would be imparted to the item.
Jada could see that the gems were slightly flawed, but could probably be useful. She slipped them into the knapsack attached to her sash, and moved on, pushing forward through the invisible layer of death and despair, trying desperately to push through, but longing to turn back with every step.
Jada readied her staff in defiance, as if telling the evil forces at work that they didn't scare her. Suddenly, she realized that she had forgotten to speak with Greiz She cursed herself silently, but pressed on anyway.
After walking along for a few minutes through the dark chambers, she came to a large open area, and immediately stepped back, for hordes of demons thrust themselves forward. She ducked behind a wall and steadied her breathing. And then suddenly, without warning, an arrow whizzed by her ear and sliced a few hairs off.
Jada whirled to stand in front of the demons, and had to dodged the arrows of reanimated hordes of skeletons, their evil grins plastered on their faces, carrying giant bows that looked as if their body couldn't support much less carry. Jada thrust herself forward in the face of all this evil, and immediately concentrated her energies and sent an electric wave of shock around herself, exploding from her center, and shattering the bones of the skeletons.
Several Hollow Ones lumbered forward, sending black stars of energy across the bloody floor of the tomb, causing bones to come back together and form into a dilapidated figure of their former self. A skeleton with a arm where its head was supposed to be walked slowly forward and had a deranged look on its face, which happened to be imprisoned in his ribcage.
The monstrosity leapt forward, knocking the sorceress down to the tainted floor and opened its toothless mouth and prepared to feast. . .
Jada thrust her palm forward, sending a slow moving mass of ice forward, that froze the skeleton in place. Jada kicked the creature off of her, and it cracked into a million pieces as it slammed into the wall.
The untidy black hair with cockroaches crawling within their depths, hung from the elongated skulls of the Hollow Ones as they circled the harrowing sorceress and allowed more dilapidated skeletons to approach her in the "human" wall that they had made around Jada. Summoning forth all of her will, she caused several electrical novas to explode from within herself, causing everything in a relatively large radius to shatter and litter the floor with powdered bones and blood that was no longer needed.
Jada ran up to one of the hulking mannequins of relentless evil and shot a wave of fire from her outstretched hands, scorching the beast with wave after wave of the inferno. The monster fell, making noiseless shrieks, hitting the ground and the twitching, even though it was already dead.
That's something, I thought. When they're dead they move around and try to kill, and when they're vanquished once again, they twitch. These things can't just be still.
There were a whole crowd of others, though, and she had to deal with them before she pondered the irony. She tossed a sphere of fire at the sightless, voiceless beasts, causing it to explode on contact and send up a fiery torrent that engulfed their greasy black strands of remaining hair. They all fell with noiseless shrieks as well. A sight that tormented her soul.
Jada stepped backwards through the thin film of blood that encrusted her boots and put back up against the wall.
She fought down the food rushing up into her throat and coughed, pushing the terrible images from her mind into the vast pool of horror that collected her memories.
Channeling her horror into rage, she rushed down the next corridor, and slammed her jewel encrusted staff into a skeleton's ribcage, shattering it and littering the floor. She leapt over a lunging horned beast, kicking it backwards behind her, skidding on it's massive green chest and slamming into the wall.
Without looking behind her, she fired a bolt of lightning that lit up the entire corridor. She heard a shriek, and pushed it away. I must be cold- blooded. That is the only way to survive. She thought.
In the next chamber, a mass of skeletons rallied in an unorganized fashion, and rushed forward, brandishing axes and swords and things that they shouldn't even be able to hold.
Jada leapt backwards, and gathered energy in her hands, the mass coalescing above her head, glowing white. She threw her delicate ivory hands in front of her, and several swirling masses of electricity rushed along the ground and tossed several undead bodies into the air. She discharged again and again and again and again!
Jada breathed and stepped backwards, surveying the mass of bones and odd pieces of charred flesh. They littered the ground around a massive golden chest. A chest glowing with an inner light. Encrusted with a silver stone upon the lock.
She stepped forward, brushing her hair from her eyes. She knelt at the chest and undid the lock, and carefully opened the chest. A ray of golden light washed over the chamber, and a box embossed with strange runes and encrusted with gold and copper floated into the air. Jada took the box in her hands, and held it to her chest.
"I have the horadric cube."
She turned, holding the box between her hip and her arm, and fished a scroll tied with a blue ribbon from her knapsack. She unrolled it, holding the box carefully with her elbow to her hip.
"Tula keran Verass kalano! Zeren poroos! Nola teelasa raltaka shinkeahh! Re Lut Gholien!"
A door cut into empty space and glowed with a blue and white light, casting shadows below Jada. Jada stepped through the portal and stepped out in the town plaza once again, carrying the horadric cube. Cain immediately noticed, and ran up to Jada from the abandoned mine shaft and seized the box.
"You have found it! You have found the box! Do you know what this means?!"
"I think so, Cain, but explain to me anyway."
"You can use this enchanted box to unite the shaft and headpiece of a horadric staff!"