Padding back and forth across the docks, Ran-ran complained, having gotten out of her bonds and getting her sholder gaurds from Necromi from Cain. It was a thoughtful present, she had to admitt, she'd have to get him something in return.

"But no amount of gifts with rectify the fact that he just left!" Ran-ran said fiercely to Meshief, who was sitting cross-legged on the egde of his boat, smoking a long pipe and listening to her, being the only person who wasn't still sore about her poking him randomlywith a stick. Hell, he thought the whole fieasco was helarious!

"Well," He began,"He is right about one thing, you were seriously hurt. Should've seen yourself, pale an' bloody. Sholder was a compleat mess. An' Necromi was a sight, he was so worried that he didn't leave your bedside till you got some color back and were so full of antidot you were talking in yer sleep, supposudly."

"Really?" Ran-ran asked, slightly amazed.

"Yes indeed. He's only making you stay cause he cares about you."

"Is that the reason he tied me up?"

Meshief nearly choked on smoke,

"Tied up! So thats why you took so long gettin' out a' bed!" Meshief laughed while Ran-ran sat down and sighed.

Suddenly she lifted her head and smiled,

"I've got an idea! I've earned a fair share of gold of my own, I'll go buy Necromi a kick-ass bone shield! Then I'll go to the Arcain Sanctuary and prove that I'm perfectly fine!" Ran-ran said and bounced up, taking up her crossbow and racing off for the market.

Silently, Meshief took a hit from his pipe and blew a few smoke rings.

"That girl is going to kill her and that necromancer one day, with all that insanity in her head." He said to himself as he watched Ran-ran dissapear into the ruch of people in the market.

In the Desert, W00t

Elsewhere, Necromi approched the Alter of the Sun, deep in the lair of the Claw Vipers, many of them laying dead around him, with his almost full-

Crrrrrruushhhh

Well, now full horde of skeletons, and one iron golem, wandered, making sure the enemies stayed the way they were suppose to, dead.

The sandstone table had many arcane ruins etched into it, among other things. But Necromi hardly stopped to noticed, and started bashing the alter several times until it crummbled under the force of his blows. Out of the rubble Necromi grabbed the Snake Amulet, blowing the dust off of it and put it in his pocket.

Through some mysterious hole in the ceiling, a ray of pure sunlight shone down apon the ruined alter, its brightness making Necromi squint.

"Damn, and I was enjoying the dark, too."

Shrugging off his longing for the safe, inky darkness, Necromi summoned a portal and stepped through, looking forward to greeting the probably aggitated Ran-ran.

Once on the other side, Necromi and his horde made their way over to Cain, where he asked,

"Cain! Where's Ran-ran?"

The old mage pointed him in the direction of Meshief, who was still smoking on his pipe.

"Hey, Meshief!" Necromi began, looking around, but seeing no Ran-ran, "Do you know where Ran-ran is?"

Meshief banged the tobaco out of the pipe and said,

"Aye, the little insane one went to go get you a gift and to go kill some demonies in thheee Arcane Sanctuary...? At least I-"

"The what! Shit! Cain warned me about that place!"

Necromi turned and bolted down the street twards the palace.

After making several unseccessful attemps at convincing Jahrem to let her into the palace, even after she shocked the lord with telling him of the harem's deaths and such, Ran-ran eventually gave up on getting in the palace the front way. Fortunately, she was fairly good at climbing, so she got in through an open window.

Now she was down in the celler, sniping down demons and drinking an excess amount of specially made potions from Lycander, suppose to help heal her sholder wound faster. A bone shield that she got for Necromi was strapped to her back, providing a small amount of protection incase she was hit from behind.

Finally, after about three hours after she had come down there, Ran-ran reached the portal to the Arcane Sanctuary. The two white spikes that protruded from the ground came to touch and cross just a bit at the top. Sitting atop them was a spiked circle... thingy.

"Cool! Portal!" Ran-ran said hyperly, about to jump about in victory, but then she stopped. She had no clue how to open a portal!

Growling in annoyance, Ran-ran glared at the portal while thinking of ways to open it. She tried talking to it, saying special words, even giving the damn things hugs, but to no avail.

After a trial and error period that lasted roghly half an hour, Ran-ran yelled at the portal,

"Why won't you open!"

The portal only stood, silent and still.

Ran-ran growled again, approched the portal, and kicked it with all her might. She soon regreted the decision, hopping back till she tumbled and fell on her rumb. Ran-ran held her injured foot, giving up hope and about to simply give up and sulk in the silence and wait until Necromi found her.

A sudden creaking sound brought Ran-ran's attention back to the portal, where atop it the spikey circluar object had begun to spin. Slowly at first, but then it began to pick up speed and when Ran-ran looked down slightly, she saw that a blood red spot was forming. It grew as the circular spike spun faster and faster, untill finally Ran-ran found herself looking at the fully formed portal.

"Yosh." Ran-ran stated to herself slowly, picking herself up and approching the portal. Just as she was about to rush into the portal, a faint echoing caught her attention. Stopping, Ran-ran turned at the fairly familiar voice as it got louder.

"Necromi!" Ran-ran finally relized who it was.

"Ran-ran!" Necromi's voice called, getting closer.

"Uhh, wtf!"

"Don't go into the Arcane Sanctuary!"

"Why not?"

"Because it dangerous!"

"Well DUH!"

Ran-ran hessitated a bit longer, rialed up for a fight, she ran through the red gate.

"Ran-ran!" Necromi asked, but recieved no answer. "Ran-ran! RAN-RAN!"

Quickly he raced through the basement, ignoring the fact that he was leaving his minions behind in the first place, and not really caring enough to stop.

Eventually Necromi got to the open portal, with no Ran-ran.

"Shit!" Necromi cursed before looking up at the portal, and without a second thought, ran through the portal.

When Necromi got to the other side of the portal, he looked in awe at the new dimension.

"Amazing..." He said quietly to himself, not noticing that all of his minions were now right by him.

The portal lead directly down by two set of stairs lead to a platform, which had a waypoint on it. The floor was a pure white marble, and four pathways streched in diffrent directions. Off in the distance Necromi could see many more platforms, stairs, and what seemed to be monsters.

As Necromi walked down a path to his left, he thought of the current situation,

"Alright. Have to go kill old possest mage, but first I have to find out which on of the tombs in the Canyon is the true tomb, which is why I would have to come here in the first place, Diablo himself is probably looking to reunite him and his brothers, and the cherry on top of all of this is that the little insane girl I am suppose to be watching over and protecting, has run off on her own! And why? To prove that she can kill a few demons!"

Slowly Necromi noticed how frequent dead bodies of demon goat men begining to appear, ecspecially since he could barely walk through the pile of them.

"What the hell?" Necromi said, slightly annoyed, kicking the corpses off the edge of the walkway. "Ran-ran must have come this way..."

Necromi pulled out a bolt from a fallen demon, concluding that if he followed the trail of carnage long enough, he'd find Ran-ran.

Hmm... Ice Cream...!

Trying to hold in her giggling as best she could, Ran-ran shifted slightly in her bonds. Yep, once again she was tied up, and she'd been there for around and hour and a half. Only this time it was by enemy forces. But then what why was she giggling? Simple, before her stood the great and powerful mage, Horozon, who created the Arcane Sanctuary and enslaved hundreds of demons... Or, well, the person who was pretending to be the summoner. A total nutcase, he was.

"Like rivers your blood shall flow young one! With your soul I shall become more- WHY are you laughing!" Horozon's impersonater questioned Ran-ran, who was rolling on the floor, still tied up.

'Great, first all I had to worry about was getting caught sneaking out to see my boyfriend and Christmas break being just a few weeks away, now I have to deal with insane wannabe summoner dudes? Doesn't he know his pants are half-way down!' Ran-ran thought to herself, trying to control her laughter and, again, failing miserably.

"Stop laughing! STOP LAUGHING!" Horozon's wannabe screamed, holding the sides of his head and causing his demon minions to look at him strangely.

That is, before a huge bone spear shot through Horozon's wannabe chest. Looking down at the bloody hole, the impersonater barely murmmered anything before falling over in a pile of dead.

Suddenly the demons fell into a frenzie of battle. Ran-ran had stopped laughing and was now staring in minor entertainment as the demons were killed enough for her to look through the crowed to see the bleach-white bones of skeletons and watch as the familiar face of Necromi worked his way through the battle over to her.

"Ran-ran!" Necromi said, his voice held a mix of annoyment and relief as he knelt down and cut her out of the ropes with a dagger.

"What happened? Are you ok? Why did you run off like that!" Necromi asked questioned as the two stood up.

While Ran-ran waited for her necromancer to calm down, she collected her crossbow and armor, which had been taken off after her being captured. Finally, Necromi had settled down enough for her to answer his questions

"Dude, I'm fine. Now c'mon! Lets go kill stuff!" Ran-ran said, offering no further explination as she approched a thick book and opened it to a completely random page someplace in the center of the book. Suddenly a red portal opened in to center of a circle of symbols set in the center of the platform.

Necromi looked causously from the portal to Ran-ran.

"You knew that was going to happen, didn't you?" Necromi asked, wryly.

Ran-ran's only response was a smile as she grabbed her friend and they both dissapeared through the portal to the.

Oooo, Portal

As the two appeared in the Canyon of the Magi, Necromi looked about the large canyon, with is broken statues and high cliff tops that had to be no more than 2 miles all around them.

"Oooo." Ran-ran said, looking at the beautiful surrounding sceanery. The shadows were long, due to it being so late in the day, about 5:30 pm.

Necromi turned toRan-ran and said,

"Well, lets go kill something big."

Smiling Ran-ran nodded and took up her crossbow.