AN: As promised and on schedule part 2 of 2 =)

Disclaimer: I do not own Diablo or Diablo 2. All copyrights are still in effect and property of Blizzard Entertainment. No money is being made, I'm just having way too much fun playing around in their world!

WARNING: The following chapter contains some extreme GORE and scenes of torture towards the end. This fic is rated M for a reason. The material contained herein is NOT suitable for younger readers and I urge everybody to use your best discretion when reading.

Boiling Daggers

Chyemme

"What part of you need to be silent don't you get back there blondie?" Xialah spat obnoxiously from two feet in front of me. I growled in distain. The rest of the group had gathered around something on the riverbank and I'd almost walked directly into the mercenary's back while I was distracted.

"Just stuff it and do your job," I hissed at her with loathing.

Vendra snorted from beside me. "Wow…I'm sensing a little tension here," she added lightly.

"Why'd we stop?" I demanded, starting to become increasingly irritated.

"If you'd have been paying attention snail-legs you'd already know," Xialah retorted before she pushed me starkly backwards. "Move! You're standing on the rope!"

I regained myself instantly, every inch of me twitching with agitation as I looked down. There was some sort of log raft in front of us and I'd been standing on its mooring line sure enough. That still didn't justify her pushing me. I was about to tell her so when Scorpious distracted me with a more pertinent question.

"Chyemme, Piricus, were either of you injured?" he asked routinely.

I checked myself over briefly before answering. "I'm not. Piricus might need you to-" I was quickly rebuked by a harsh hiss and a painful stomp on my toes.

"I have never and will never require the paladin's assistance. Let's keep this circus moving imbeciles, I think my boots might actually be growing mold while I stand here," he asserted nastily as he covered his injured wrist from view with his other hand. To my relief, the bleeding had stopped once he purged the venom; however he still seemed significantly weaker and was still uncharacteristically pale.

Scorpious didn't even attempt a second offer. "Very well. Everyone onto the raft," he insisted plainly.

"I don't like the looks of this," Ryelass protested as he eyed the raft in the jungle darkness. "Can all of us fit onto that thing and still be able to maneuver if something happens?" he asked dubiously.

"Not ter mention if it kin hold alla' us," Alminus added, looking down himself.

Xialah snorted as she eyed the pair of them. "This thing can hold twenty fully-armored Iron Wolves so of course it can hold all of us. Do you honestly think I'd get onto this thing if I thought it was going to sink?" She retorted sarcastically.

"I don't know. If all the Iron Wolves wear the same amount of armor you do I'm having second thoughts already," I found myself replying rudely.

"That not mention there probably no twenty of you when all gather," Sovellis added both with humor and his own reservations.

"Oh, so we have a lot of jokesters here, do we?" Xialah snapped peevishly. "Well this raft is the only way we are going anywhere so get on or go back," she commanded as she stepped aboard and seated herself at the front of the slowly bobbing craft.

"We can all fit on here properly if we organize. To minimize the chance of capsizing we need to distribute the weight evenly. That means Alminus and Gaia will need to sit on opposite ends. Cloudyous will need to sit with Gaia to keep her calm and likely your wolves will sit near you as well," Scorpious advised. "Therefore to balance them Laurella and Vendra will need to sit near Alminus. Bibo shouldn't make any difference since she weighs next to nothing. Piricus, since you're wearing roughly the same weight in armor as Cloudyous with his furs, sit next to Vendra and Laurella. Sovellis sit up front across from him. Ryelass and I have the heaviest weighted armor so we'll balance each other out if I sit in front and he sits in the back next to Chyemme, who'll be in the middle," Scorpious proposed, calculating each of us respectively.

I felt a grain of irritation in my subconscious as my mind registered his plan. It was logical and practical, but it meant I'd be in close proximity to Ryelass. I exhaled a displeased breath when Laurella shot me an icy glare. I glowered back, willing every ounce of body language to proclaim that I had nothing to do with this current arrangement and I was just as ill-tempered over it as she was. Given the choice, I'd have been sitting next to Piricus and if that wasn't possible, I definitely wouldn't have opted to be crammed into the middle of the raft like a sardine.

"Scorpious are you sure that's such a good idea?" Vendra asked scathingly as she eyed Piricus. "I might be tempted to push him in."

"Don't look at me," Laurella insisted coldly when Vendra turned to her. "I don't particularly want him near me either. He smells like dead frogs," she growled.

"Why don't you draw straws?" Ryelass suggested snidely, aimed directly at Laurella.

Her cheeks puffed with air and I knew she was struggling to keep from whatever reply was on her tongue.

"Enough," Scorpious insisted irritably as Cloudyous herded his entourage to one side of the raft and Almnius carefully made his way to the other. Laurella continued to eye everyone around her with contempt, especially Ryelass as it came time for her to fill her position.

"Get a move on," Scorpious demanded once more as he watched the childish display. "I shouldn't have to remind you someone's life is on the line!"

Laurella turned her irate glare toward him for a brief moment, and then a petulant smile spread over her mouth. "Whatever you say, Commander. Come on then. Truth be told, frog smell or no, I'd much rather sit next to you anyway. Anyone is better than Ryelass," she scoffed at the warrior as she looped her arm around Piricus' left elbow.

If my jaw wasn't attached, it would have come off. I was stunned by her behavior, and so was everyone else, including Piricus. Three things shocked me enough to the point of coughing. One, she'd just sassed Scorpious, two she'd just blatantly insulted Ryelass, and third and most shocking of all, she'd just casually entered into Piricus' personal space and grabbed a hold of him.

Piricus had been completely taken off guard and surprisingly he hadn't blasted the little whelp off of himself. His reaction was interesting to say the least. I think he'd been so stunned he'd actually frozen in place a moment. When he regained himself, he scowled nastily, grabbed two of Laurella's fingers and jerked them sharply backwards, pulling her hand and her body in that direction. He then roughly tossed her the opposite direction and onto the raft with an unsteady impact. The craft flopped dangerously out of the water on one side, threatening to crack with the newly introduced pressure.

Laurella landed on her hands, scrapping the palms of them, and then sprang onto her feet angrily. She opened her mouth to yell, but was silenced by Piricus' icy voice.

"Sorceress," he started with a dangerous calm in his tone, "I suggest that if you value the little girl's life, you'll conveniently decide to place yourself beside her and I'll sit on the edge."

Vendra looked between the two of them and I think that she knew, as I did, he was serious in what he said and was about to blast someone. For once, she didn't sass him in reply. She looked at Laurella and shook her head with a heavy sigh when she climbed onto the raft beside her.

"Remember this, will you, the next time you start acting like a brat," she mumbled to Laurella as she sat down.

Piricus stiffly moved onto the raft behind them, tripping slightly when he stepped onto its surface. It was a subtle movement, one that I'm sure only he and I noticed, judging by the furtive, but furious glance he shot me from the corner of his eye. He plopped down nonchalantly on the very edge of the raft, and as he did so, my inner sight, or maybe just my knowledge of his character, told me he was still trying intently to recover from his recent battle. The color was starting to flow back into his neck and under his jaw but his face remained peaky and I knew he was struggling to recoup his energy.

One by one we filed onto the rocking raft, which depressed several inches into the water with the weight. In all honesty, I was surprised that we didn't sink. I did the best I could to settle into the foot of space I'd been issued without brushing into anyone else, especially Ryelass. Failing to find adequate space to sit down, I remained standing, doing my best to feel the motion of the raft under my feet and not fall over. I glared at Xialah spitefully when she passed a four-foot wooden paddle toward Alminus, which almost hit me in the forehead.

"Make yourself useful, and follow my lead," she insisted to my barbarian friend as she took up a paddle herself in the front of the boat.

Alminus shrugged but did as he was asked. "Alrigh'. Which way r' we goin' first?"

Xialah pointed directly in front of herself with a punctuated movement. "Straight and just go straight until I tell you to stop," she insisted. "I'd sit down people. Especially you, blondie. You need a bath for sure, but if you fall in we'll lose our nice, even balance," the haughty mercenary added, eyeing me where I stood.

"What was it that you said about this thing holding twenty people without a problem?" I growled at her. "Because I certainly don't see a place to stand, much less sit."

"Here," Ryelass offered, shifting himself backwards so that his back was pressing against Vendra's foot. "Sit next to me."

I tried not to scowl; after all, he was being practical, but I still didn't like the fact that he was the one trying to accommodate me. I inched to the right as the raft shot down the stream, propelled by a surprisingly strong current.

The unexpected turbulence caused my right foot to slip and catch in a groove between two of the raft's panels. I had zero space to do anything but ride the fall to the floor and to my extreme displeasure I landed on my side, directly in Ryelass' arms. Having an impeccable sense of timing and being fast, Ryelass caught me as I fell, though I could tell with the weight of my body and my armor, it had been slightly difficult for him. Nevertheless he gave me a charming smile.

"Watch your feet," he chuckled softly as I struggled to get out of this awkward position.

"Blondie you've got to be the most uncoordinated person I've ever met. And no one wants to see you and your boyfriend making out back there. When I said sit down, I meant by yourself!" Xialah snorted without turning around.

"He's not my—"I hissed, feeling anger and embarrassment flush onto my face at the same time. I took a deep breath to calm myself, and then quickly settled into the small, but open space I had originally intended to occupy.

"Why is it when you fall, there's always someone there to catch you?" Laurella pointed out sourly from where she sat seething beside Vendra.

"I guess I'm just lucky that way," I shot back at her hotly. My mind simmered with agitation for the next several moments as Ryelass, Laurella, and Vendra all continued to stare at me like I was some sort of festival attraction. Ryelass, I knew must have been delighted over what happened, Laurella was infuriated, and Vendra was smirking with hardy amusement.

I chose to look at something else, or rather someone else. Piricus was watching me and the spectacle that'd just happened with a removed air. The sharpness had gone out of his emerald orbs; they were no longer alight with green spite and exhaustion was present in its place. It occurred to me more and more, the longer I sat still, just how tired I really was. Piricus hadn't managed any more sleep than I did, judging by the dull glimmer that stirred periodically in his eyes. I could tell he was having trouble staying awake by the way his eyelids half-closed every couple of minutes. I'm sure the dramatic loss of blood was also a large contributing factor. I was astonished he'd been able to purge such a distinct amount of poison with such little effort, however removing the venom had done nothing to heal his injuries or replace the blood or life energy he'd lost. He frowned as he noticed my attentions and the moment my eyes met his, he wordlessly shifted his gaze ahead of us to where Xialah was steering.

I wasn't the only one to take notice of Piricus' unusual decline in energy. Scorpious gave him a questioning glance from the corner of his eyes. I could tell that the holy man was debating something in his mind, unspoken to the rest of us.

Sovellis took this particular moment to stretch his long arms overhead stiffly and then yawn.

Vendra rolled her eyes and gave Ryelass' back a stern press with her foot, prodding for even an inch more space if she could get it. "Don't start that, blockhead. You know yawns are contagious. Before you know it everyone else will be asleep," she teased him lightly, yawning herself as she observed him.

"I can no help it, feisty one. I tired, you tired too, and we connected, so it make worse," Sovellis protested with a fatigued, but sincere grin in the darkness.

A soft orange light sprung into being around each of us, pulsating like flickers of flame into our skins every few seconds fueled by a familiar spiritual power. For whatever reason, tired though I was, energy began to seep back into me and soothe my weary body. I knew what the energy was, but Xialah didn't. I watched in amusement when the she-wolf mercenary nearly dropped her paddle in the water, startled. As it was, she jumped about a foot off the raft from the unexpected sensation. I wanted desperately to watch her fall in the water, but I had to admit, that woman had some serious dexterity. She was able to combat whatever tension she had and return gracefully to the surface of the raft in one soft movement that barely rocked the craft despite the weight. She was almost as nimble as me and that was saying something.

She turned to us stiffly at first, but then quickly replaced her unease with her attitude. "What the hell was that?" she demanded, rounding on Scorpious. Apparently, she didn't need to be told from where her aura had come.

"Relax," Scorpious insisted in an even voice. "You're not being harmed. I'm sure as a mage you could already tell," he added with reassurance. He settled into a meditative position from where he sat and closed his eyes, even as Xialah continued to seethe at him.

"Why the hell didn't you say something first, moron? I thought we were under attack!" she continued crossly. "It's common courtesy to tell your allies you're about to work magic into their personal aura!" she spat.

"There's something you wouldn't know anything about," I snorted, thoroughly enjoying her irate reaction and Scorpious' usual, collected demeanor.

"Don't make me come back there," Xialah hissed at me irately. "It'll trample you like I did last time. And as for you," she furthered still storming at my paladin friend," don't ever do that again without my express permission, or something very unpleasant will happen I promise!"

"What's your problem?" Vendra asked her skeptically. "You don't strike me as an initiate and anyone above entry level would know enough about magic to know he's helping us."

"She's scared," Piricus announced plainly. "You rarely-remembering morons seem to conveniently forget that we're in zealot country. This merc's got some practical sense, seeing that she doesn't trust the paladin not turn into a demon any more than the ones before him."

Xialah sneered at Piricus. "I'm not afraid of our mellowed tin can here. I'm not afraid of any of them," she countered blatantly. For some reason, I knew she was telling the truth. She wasn't afraid of Scorpious at all. Intrigued for the briefest of moments, I directed a twinge of my inner sight towards her mind. It was no more than a fraction of a spark. I certainly didn't want her to notice, being an arcane user, and all I was interested in was obtaining a tidbit of whatever her emotion was.

My probe for information returned an answer. Xialah wasn't scared or nervous, she was angry. Judging by the amount of emotion I received from such a brief inquiry, she wasn't experiencing a mild quality of it either. She was royally infuriated.

I thought my unseen poke into Xialah's emotions was going to bore me or in the worst case scenario give me cause to dislike her further. I never imagined that it would cause me to become more interested. Why in the world was she so enraged by someone trying to help her? Was she like Piricus in that she hated the paladins? Or was she also like Piricus in the aspect of just hating assistance from people in general? The latter of the two seemed the most likely, but somehow I intuitively knew there was more to it than that. She'd been rude to Cloudyous when he assisted her earlier, but she wasn't, from what I could tell, anywhere near as enraged as she was at this moment.

"Well blind anger towards a comrade is just as helpful," Ryelass declared with animosity as he watched her sour expression continue to linger.

"You've got absolutely no idea how their magic works? Do you, short-stop?" Xialah countered venomously, narrowing her eyes at him.

"Can't be all that complicated," he shot back, "if a tavern skank like you understands it."

I had to suppress an amused smirk when Xialah's nose wrinkled like an obtuse Amazionian squirrel-hound. The way it made the rest of her features scrunch up was definitely brought a strong comparison to mind, and those had to be some of the ugliest animals in Sanctuary.

"It would be a solid philosophy," Cloudyous remarked casually. "Know thy enemy."

Xialah turned her back to us flippantly as she continued to paddle down the stream. "I'd stake my life on saying that none of you save your scraggly dead-raiser back there and your resident reverend here know how their magic actually works."

Vendra gave a characteristically indignant snort upon hearing Xialah's claim but as the seconds passed by, no one refuted it.

"See there?" the she-wolf mercenary announced with arrogance.

"Well, since you know so much," Laurella growled at her, "why not enlighten us?"

"You didn't say please," Xialah taunted without turning around.

"And I won't," the young archer insisted bitterly. "Groveling would be beneath me. Especially when I could just go ahead and ask an actual paladin. Scorpious, care to elaborate on this matter?" she asked, directed at the meditating man.

Scorpious nodded. "I will. But only because this information serves a legitimate purpose toward protection out here," he consented.

"Wha' tha heck is tha' supposed ter mean?" Alminus asked in confusion.

"It means," Piricus answered coldly, "that the paladin's been keeping the secrets of his bumbling order until now because he hasn't wanted anyone to figure out how to disable his 'holy' falsehoods. It might be a little bit of a letdown for the followers of his insufferable religion to realize that 'God' isn't acting through them and putting something around you, but rather the paladins themselves are invading your personal energy and manipulating it with their own," he explained with a dark demeanor.

I could hear the strength coming back into his voice and the color of his skin was starting to recuperate, courtesy, I guess, of Scorpious' aura. For this I was glad, but I was positively shocked to hear Piricus' explanation for paladin powers. So was everyone else apparently.

"This be true, Scorpious?" Sovellis asked, intrigued.

"Don't lie paladin. It's one of your cardinal offenses," Piricus reminded him with a disdainful scowl after the holy man hesitated for a moment.

"I wouldn't. Not about this," Scorpious sighed reluctantly after hearing Piricus' dripping distaste. "As usual, Piricus, you tell things without regard for the finer details. Anything to make me look bad, it seems," he continued, still without moving from his stationary stance.

"You're just now figuring that out?" Piricus snorted with a sarcastic tone. "Good work, genius."

"Fair and balanced have never been Piricus' strong suits," Cloudyous admitted comically. "Let's hear your side of this, Scorpious," he encouraged.

Scorpious sighed heavily once more. "Piricus, has it ever occurred to you that using my own abilities and calling them God's would be highly hypocritical to my beliefs to begin with? Lying as you say is a deadly sin. Not to mention it would also be highly illogical. If I honestly did not know that my power, meager though it is in the grand scheme of things, came from an outside source, would I really be going around saying God's responsible for them in the first place? Why should I not take glory in what you say are my own natural magics? If what's mine is mine, why should I not proudly pronounce that to the world and use them however I see fit? What point would exist in me giving credit to some 'imaginary' deity, when I could be raking in enormous prestige and power for myself? It would be a grotesque blasphemy according to my faith and my human nature. Did it also occur to you that I must have some substantial proof backing my beliefs? Otherwise I'd just think this was a load of propaganda like you," he countered, starting to fidget where he sat.

"Proof is subjective paladin and you're dodging the question," Piricus retorted.

"Well he does kind o' have a good point," Alminus admitted after hearing Scorpious' words. "It would be kind o' pointless."

"Not to mention dangerous," I added, giving my thoughts to the group. "That is considering what he went through during the crusades. Why the hell would anyone go through that willingly for something they didn't believe in?"

"So he didn't get put down with the common rabble that refused to submit," Piricus replied across me. "Paladin, I didn't cast a curse on your tongue. Why in the name of Trag 'Oul haven't you answered the question by now? Unless, of course, I've exposed the truth and you don't want to lie and cover it up," he insisted maliciously.

"Is it true that your auras manipulate our personal energies?" I asked Scorpious directly, cutting off any other senseless remarks from my traveling companions.

Scorpious opened his eyes to look around at all of us seriously. "The simple answer to that is yes. I will not deny that. That is how an aura must function if you think about it. I take an energy pattern that I know has a specific effect and channel it through my individual aura first. This is how auras are able to protect your entire body; they are mixed in with your life and mana currents, which are produced from every pore of your skin. Then I reach out with my charged energy and intertwine it with your personal auras. Hence, you're all granted an ability that you don't know how to use as long as I am committing an energy flow between us. Logically, when my energy leaves you, so does the aura. That's a physical explanation for what happens and true, it's is easy enough to understand," Scorpious educated as most of us listened intently. Xialah and Piricus seemed to be bored by these revelations and weren't paying much attention.

"So theoretically, any mage in Sanctuary that knows energy manipulation and these particular spells could do what you do?" Ryelass suggested.

Scorpious shook his head and a small smile crossed his lips. "That would be the case if everything depended solely on arcane knowledge and principle. Here is where we get into the deeper facts of the matter, the more complex ones that are sadly overlooked by non-believers. There has never been a single mage in history that can do what I do as a paladin. Can you dispute this, Vendra or Sovellis?" he inquired of the magi pair.

"I've never heard of it happening," Vendra confessed.

"No me either," Sovellis affirmed.

"And that is because it takes an enormous amount of energy to continuously alter anything metaphysical and especially when those manipulations are shielding mechanisms like I occasionally use. If you think about the beatings that those shields take, even from weaker demons, that alone should be enough to expend all the energy from a single individual shielding themselves, much less an entire group. Before you ask, Ryelass, I know that there are exceptional people in this world with vast amounts of magical energy, but even they can't create or sustain an aura. The energy expenditure would render them dead in minutes I suspect. Don't you agree?" Scorpious furthered at Vendra and Sovellis.

"I do. It take much, much energy to even protect self. Most powerful mages only do for short time against many demons. Protecting group like this, can no be done for more than brief instant before mage die," he agreed.

"And we all know what happens when a mage uses all of their spiritual energy," Vendra muttered darkly, reminiscing, I knew, about Lut Gholeign.

"So what you're saying is that your power comes from somewhere else; fueling an aura with your own energy would kill you. That would have to be the case since you're still here with us," I concluded.

Scorpious nodded. "Yes. It would be impossible for me as a human being to shield ten people during a battle with my own personal energy. Aiding you like I am now just sitting here would have rendered me unconscious ten minutes ago."

"But you said that you use your energy to connect with ours," Laurella pointed out.

"Yes. That's true. I initiate the process with my own spiritual energy and then use my energy as a guide into all of yours. There is another complexity right there. I don't so much initiate as I do call out for the source of my energy—my God. I know what you must be thinking. Why is my personal touch even required if everything is coming from a deity to begin with? It's because every one of us here is a natural being from the plane of Sanctuary, including Cloudyous' animals. We all have natural, earthly energy. Your energies recognize my energy and therefore don't suffer any sort of dramatic reaction. I suspect if God were to touch us with his divine, astral energy directly, we'd likely explode from the contrast. On that note, this is another reason why simple mages can't use auras. As a paladin, I've been blessed by God to receive and distribute these divine energies without combusting. But back to my original point, this is also why people like Piricus, who don't believe me an inch on religious matters, are affected by my auras as well. I am an earth-dwelling being and so is he. Our energies do not clash violently against each other. My energy provides a connection into his and thus he's able to reap the benefits of my god-given auras without believing in God himself."

"Do your offensive auras work the same way?" Ryelass asked, intrigued.

"Mostly," Scorpious answered. "An aura that deals damage is still mostly defensive. The damage dealt out is in direct alignment with the person the aura is around. Generally an aura will discharge an attack against anything without an aura that gets too close, or anything that attacks us in general, but this is not always the case," he clarified. "Along with the intense spiritual power that fuels these auras, there is also a divine consciousness from what I've been able to discern. My auras are selective in who they will work against sometimes. For example, I have walked into a village before with an offensive aura while I was on one of my crusade missions," he added with a frown. "While it worked against some of the villagers, others it simply would not touch, even when they attacked me."

"Why do you think that is?" I asked, interested in this tide of new awareness. This was a potential loophole in an enemy's aura.

Scorpious shrugged. "I can only speculate. My current theory is that there are some people that God does not wish to be harmed by his power. A majority of the people that the aura failed against while I was in that village were just defending themselves and probably innocent of extreme wrongdoing. Though my spiritual energies failed against them, it didn't stop my personal agenda or my steel," he admitted with a pained grimace. "But like I said, these offensive abilities are selective on who they will affect. The defensive auras always work without fail," he relayed.

"You just said the word fail," Xialah interjected, speaking for the first time since the conversation began. "Does this imply that your pitiful powers are going to fizzle out on us at some point? Are they going to inconspicuously 'fail' against the Zakarumite demons?"she sneered.

Scorpious shot her a rueful glance at the mention of the word. "Fail perhaps wasn't the best choice of vocabulary," he admitted. "I've never had an aura completely give out on me and I pray I never will because that would mean I've displeased God in an egregious manner. As for the demons," he scowled, "you don't have to worry. Their energies are completely negative and no longer even remotely human. They're as much a blight to God as they are to us, if not more so. I've never seen any aura, from anyone I know, fail against one of those."

"You're not getting what I'm saying, helmet-head," Xialah snorted. "Those things you're speaking of are your everyday run of the mill monsters. I'm asking you if your auras are even going to touch the Zakarumites, which everyone knows were paladins just like you."

"Do you think that those demons can still use auras?" Cloudyous added, a grave look across his face.

Scorpious shook his head. "If the former faithful are indeed demonic, as all the claims lean towards, then their energy patterns are no longer human and they are certainly no longer pure. I have no doubt that my auras will continue to function the same as ever; perhaps the Lord might even make them stronger in the presence of such blasphemous taint. To address your question, Cloudyous, I highly doubt that they will be able to use any of their former holy powers. One of the greater intricacies of our auras is that they are granted to us by faith. This is also another reason why you don't see mages casting them. They don't have the fuel, and they can't, for some odd reason, learn these energy patterns or even seem to grasp the concept of them. I have heard of religious mages before, and these seem to be able to understand the principles, but cannot use the abilities. With that said, Paladins must fast, pray, and study our doctrines rigorously before we are even permitted to learn the concepts on paper. However, the final deciding factor is one's faith and conviction in the Lord. You can study all you want, but if you do not believe in God's power and have the right heart, you will not learn an aura. This process too, is selective, and the judge is the almighty. I've seen three cases in my own lifetime of promising paladins that failed to receive their auras. And they had possibly the best training and the best backing from our elders. Case and point: these abominations no longer believe in or serve God. Suffice to say, I don't think they will have working auras anymore. Nothing holy anyway," he finished.

"Fascinatin'," Alminus remarked admirably as he watched his energizing aura flicker around him.

"That certainly does seem to put things in new light," I admitted, looking at Piricus and waiting for his inevitable rebuttal.

"Am I the only one who sees a lack of detail here?" Piricus responded in exasperation. "The paladin just told you that something else fuels his auras, but even if that's true, he has no idea what that something could be. He just assumes, naively like always, that that something is his God. In actuality it could be some demon that has the lot of them wrapped around its little finger, playing them until it's time to strike. He conveniently left out the fact that the demon paladins were supposedly listening to this same 'presence'. I don't know about you people, but that screams warning bells to me."

"You might be the smartest one in your lot, necromancer," Xialah stated simply. "And I'll wager the one that survives the longest."

"No, he's just the most paranoid," Vendra corrected, shooting Piricus a contemptuous glare.

"Piricus has a valid point," Cloudyous supported. "We don't know what it is that Scorpious or any of the other paladins are or were listening to, seeing as we're not paladins ourselves. They could be the same thing, or two different ones, like I'm inclined to believe."

"Cloudyous, are you seriously saying that Scorpious is a demon's puppet and he's going to turn on us with the drop of a pin? I think you're the one that might be going crazy if you agree with that," Vendra scoffed.

"I didn't say that," my druid friend answered, resting each of his hands on one of his wolves. "I just said it was a possibility. Natalya said back in the square that something caused the paladins to turn and that they still didn't know what that was. In my personal opinion, I truly think there are two different influences because not every single paladin turned against humanity. There are two orders, the New and the Old and only one of them is corrupt to our knowledge. If you want more of my hypothesis, I'm also guessing that the corruption is region-specific. To my knowledge, the members of the old order stayed here and never left, while the members of the new order are like Scorpious and travel all around Sanctuary," he reasoned.

The moment Cloudyous was done speaking I couldn't help but feel an odd sense of déjà vu. It took me a few moments to place why that might be, but when I did, I soon became lost in my own thoughts. While Scorpious' aura was regenerating my energy, I knew to feel truly at my best I needed to sleep. What parts of my mind weren't actively needed for battle and survival strategies I had closed off until just now to preserve my dwindling focus and stamina. Something about what Cloudyous said, about the Zakarum corruption being regional, reminded me of the dream I'd been having since we left Lut Gholeign. It was mostly the same dream every night and none of the elements made sense save the one at the end. I always saw a monstrous demon made of completely of stained bones and living malice. It was a gruesome sight and one I knew to be Mephisto, the Lord of Hatred. I'd promised to tell Piricus about it, but hadn't gotten the chance yet. Maybe he'd be able to make something out of it.

I ran over the details of the dream over and over, cataloguing them to make sure I didn't leave anything potentially important out when I talked to Piricus later. I took mental note of the sights, feelings, smells, and sounds. One by one the details started to become so vivid, I felt like I was on the verge of a waking vision. I braced myself for the psychic experience, but was rudely interrupted by the most unpleasant of sounds. Something that sounded very similar to scampering rats was racing toward the left riverbank and soon I was hearing their jittering, nerve-grating chatter.

A hollow sound like wind through reeds accompanied the cacophony of irritating noise along with a barrage of tiny, narrow darts. My inner sight told me immediately where our attackers were and what weapons they were using. By my estimate we had two seconds before the first wave of minuscule missiles made impact.

"Scorpious!" I alerted swiftly, illuminating our opponents and their incoming darts with my inner sight for all to see.

Our auras shifted from demure orange to brilliant gold in a blink, encompassing the encroaching darts and dropping them into the water around us harmlessly.

"Ugh," Vendra grumbled, eyeing the line of rat-men lined up on the banks like a hellish welcome wagon. "These little bastards again!"

"Well we know what work," Sovellis asserted as he eyed them, showing a strong expression of irritation himself.

"And it will work even better because they're standing in the water," Vendra agreed, taking inventory of our opponents.

I swiftly scanned the banks with both my eyes and my inner sight, specifically seeking any of the deadly fire-breathing combinations that might be present. I didn't find any immediately around, but intuition told me that there were some nearby.

Brilliant lightning arced over Vendra and Sovellis' hands simultaneously, wrapping their illuminated arms in electricity. Vendra nodded to something unheard between them before the pair raised their arms overhead and worked in unison to form two halves of an expanding ring in the air above the raft. Exhaling an enchanted chorus at precisely the same moment, the lightning ring above us discharged in all directions, disseminating an ear-popping crack that even startled the demons.

The electric spell reached its targets in a blink. The demons that had actually entered into the shallows of the river to obtain a better shot at us were instantly and violently blown apart by the intense power surge conducted by the aqueous environment. Even a few of the demons on land had been fried into twitching heaps on the ground.

The resulting angry screeches from the multitude of miniature survivors sounded like a flock of attacking eagles. Following the same behavior pattern they had exhibited on the docks, the dying cries of their fellows spurred the demons into a higher level of savagery. After running amok for a few fractions of a second, the remaining demons reorganized themselves along the river bank. Intelligently, they'd spaced themselves further apart so another attack aimed for the group would be less effective.

Movement at the far right flank of their line caught my eye and I noticed a trio of the little menaces trying to run into the woods. Having nearly died in a similar scenario earlier, I didn't need to be told where they were going.

"Get those three before they escape!" I insisted aloud, reaching for a javelin on my back only to be immobilized by my close proximity to my comrades. My hand became roughly trapped between Ryelass' chest and Scorpious' opposite arm. I swore loudly, realizing I didn't have any room to even move an inch, much less throw a four foot javelin with so many people behind me.

"Which ones?" Ryelass replied apologetically.

"Those three," I emphasized crossly, redirecting my inner sight exclusively to the three fleeing monsters.

"Wha's so important 'bout them?" Alminus asked, trying to steer our boat straight despite the attack.

"They'll bring the shamans," Cloudyous answered him from the opposite side of the raft. "But I don't see why that matters unless we're going ashore here or somewhere close by. The current's picking up exponentially. If we just let Scorpious continue to shield us, we should be out of range in another minute or so," he assessed. "Xialah?" he added questioningly to her.

"I wouldn't get too excited," she announced blandly, "We've still got a couple of miles to go down this river. But," she continued, watching the row of demons begin to fall behind us, "I'd go ahead and pick as many of them off as you can. Those little hairballs are vicious and are going to be waiting for us wherever we make land now that they've seen us. And butch blondie back there does have a point, seeing as she remodeled her arm with a flare this evening. I'd kill those sprinters first, because those are three you know for sure will bring the bakers," she replied cynically.

"I don't think so," Laurella growled as she lined her bow with three arrows simultaneously. "That plan ends right now," she declared irritably and released her bowstring. The three arrows sailed through the air, taking on a white glow. Even as the three fleeing monsters tried to diverge in different directions, the arrows followed them accordingly and embedded deeply into their backs, stopping their mad dashes for assistance.

"Nice shot," Vendra remarked casually, as she dispatched a fireball from her palm at the monsters behind us.

"It was," Laurella agreed with an apathetic voice as she continued to fire at the demons.

"I think I'll join in. Can't let the ladies have all the fun," Ryelass insisted as he conjured a fireball in his own hand. It had been a while since I'd seen him use magic, but his control over it seemed to have improved slightly. The size of the projectile varied unstably for a moment, but then held consistent before he threw it. Dying jibbers followed us from downstream, suggesting strongly that the two acts of magic had found their way into something sentient.

"How much further?" Scorpious directed at Xialah from where he sat, still sustaining our radiating defiance auras. We were out of range, but not out of danger as we all knew.

"About another two miles if the current continues this way," she replied cleanly. "And I'm hoping it does," she added in a stony tone.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Laurella replied sourly, picking up like I did, on the implications in her tone.

"You said the currents change here because of the riverbed ore," Cloudyous recalled. "How often does it happen?"

Xialah gave him a petulant glare. "Often enough to be a real pain in the ass. Usually it takes a full cycle of the sun and moon, but not always. Everything out here is as random as, pardon the expression, hell," she informed with sarcasm. "And speaking of it, I'll be pissed as hell if we start going ass-backwards. That'll really put a damper on your night," she insisted.

"What? Your attitude or going backwards? Because both would give me the same amount of non-existent joy," I replied sarcastically.

"Save it fire-licker," Xialah retorted. "I'm just pointing this out, in the interest of time. If we get delayed, the kid gets flayed. That is if she hasn't been already. Interesting bit of poetry and realism in that sentence, remind me to write that one down," she sneered.

"You act like this is a game," Scorpious suddenly interjected with all manner of seriousness. "It isn't," he added sternly with a deep-set frown. "Jenny's life is on the line, not to mention the rest of the children those things took."

"What point is there in life if you don't have a little fun now and then?" Xialah replied dismissively with a shrug. "But, the fact of the matter, restless reverend, is that you couldn't be more wrong. This is a game. And it has the highest stakes of all. It's a thrill to them, you see. Those little pack rats aren't that much different from wolves," she added, giving Cloudyous' animal pair a glance. "They hunt as a tribe, but the hunt is a game. They don't hunt to eat; they do it for the hell of it. Literally. They mess with their targets, in here," she informed, taking one hand off of the oar she was holding to tap her forehead.

"How?" Alminus asked from the rear of the raft. "They don' seem tha' smart ter me."

Xialah scoffed. "That shows what you know. Stick to rowing back there. Thinking clearly isn't your strong suit. That's part of their guise. They act stupid, to draw unsuspecting, would-be heroes in. You saw them disperse on the bank back there. They made themselves harder to hit."

"But intelligence only does them so much good," Vendra pointed out. "They scatter like mice when one of them gets hit."

"What does any of this matter anyway?" Laurella grumbled, and for the first time in a while, I agreed with her. "We just need to do what we always do: kill the little bastards when they show up and then move on."

"You make it sound so simple," Xialah chided with a click of her tongue.

"It is," Laurella retorted coldly. "For those of us who are capable, anyway."

"If I didn't know better, I'd say that was an insult, shortcakes," Xialah snorted as she eyed Laurella.

My guess was that she had some sharp-tongued comeback on hand, but she never got a chance to use it. Our raft pitched forward without any warning, throwing us all uncomfortably into each other in awkward positions. However, no one had a spare moment to gripe over it because suddenly we were barreling downstream at a rate three times of what we had been before.

"What the hell is going on?" Vendra called out from underneath Alminus' leg.

My barbarian friend had slid several inches forward during the unexpected lurch and ended up kneeling to steady himself, which fortuitously placed Vendra underneath him without being crushed by his weight, albeit she was huddled nose-first into the raft.

"Let me find out," Cloudyous' voice replied, obscured from underneath an intertwined mass of bear and wolves. Cloudyous struggled from under Gaia's furry side, and over Sky's bushy tail, emitting a shrill cry to Bibo, whom had flown into the air the moment the raft pitched. The ebony bird cawed loudly and flapped her wings wildly. She raced uneasy circles in the air around our raft, looking in front of us at rapid intervals while continuing to fuss.

Cloudyous' grimaced as he interpreted her response and finished worming his way out from under his grizzly with a grunt. Belthem gave an irritated yip as the druid clambered over one of his back legs and plunged his entire arm up to the elbow into the water beside the raft. He started chanting something feverishly in the druidic tongue, trying to interpret his bird's frantic screeches between breaths.

"Well?" Piricus asked irritably after a few moments of undistinguishable muttering.

"We're about to hit an enormous waterfall!" Cloudyous blurted in a single breath. "I'm trying to redirect the current!" he furthered, giving the response only a moment in the middle of his chanting.

"Have you enough time?" Sovellis asked him swiftly, surveying the swirling water with skepticism. "That huge task for mage, even for druid like you."

I could understand Sovellis' reservations. Although our raft started to slow, we were still shooting downstream like an arrow downwind. Cloudyous' spell intensified and I could visibly see the strain he was under, even in the almost total darkness. The raft quaked tangibly, rocking side to side under the friction of Cloudyous' spell as he tried to divert our course. The water around our raft began to churn and then rotate before we were cast sideways and Cloudyous was forced to recant his efforts with an uncharacteristic curse.

"It's too strong," he groaned, "and we're picking up too much momentum."

"How did this happen?" Ryelass snorted hotly, turning to Xialah. "If you knew there was a waterfall like this on the way why the hell didn't you say something before now?"

"That's just it, half-pint," she retorted with bitterness, "I didn't. This wasn't here before."

"How can a waterfall just appear out of nowhere?" I griped at her incredulously, fully backing Ryelass in his fiery assertion. "Especially when we've just been going straight this entire time and haven't exited anywhere?"

A thunderous noise pounded through the eerie, muted jungle as our gurgling river suddenly gave way into a tumultuous waterfall about two hundred feet away. I could tell by the sound, and by the way the wind whipped by us and was sucked downward into dark nothing that this was no mere dip in the waterway. This was going to be a serious plunge and we only had minutes left to avert disaster.

"We need to come up with something quick! We can figure out what happened later!" Laurella declared tensely, expressing the inner sentiments of everyone on board.

"How many of you lot know ice magic?" Xialah assessed quickly, though somehow even this simple statement still managed to contain an element of rudeness.

"She and me," Sovellis answered, looking to Vendra with a nod.

"It's not elemental, but I can also assist you with some of my magic if you're thinking what I'm thinking," Cloudyous assured, though with a fatigued posture.

"If you're thinking about freezing this wild ride solid, you'd be right," Xialah affirmed as icy vapor puffed into crystalline clouds around her wrists. "Give it everything you've got you three. I don't want to do all the work."

"Yeah, yeah. This isn't a pissing contest," Vendra reminded irritably as she and Sovellis prepared simultaneous ice spells and Cloudyous started humming a strange, but stirring melody that felt mildly of magic. "As it is, the shot we have at this succeeding is slim."

"We don't need it anywhere but in front of us," Xialah informed while taking aim, "So eyes on the prize people. We're not aiming to stop this whole damn river, just to ice ourselves in so we don't go topsy-turvy."

"M' gonna say a lil' less talk n' a lot more castin'," Alminus stated nervously as we watched the impending dead-drop speed closer.

The three conventional magi took aim directly in front of the racing raft and loosed a torrent of intense, freezing energy. The three of them overlapped their wide, silvery-blue beams into a column of icy magic that hissed as it made contact with the water's surface. The dark water under us began to crack and crystallize, but their efforts were too little too late. They managed to freeze a section of water just as our raft surged over it, rendering their arcane ineffective. I watched anxiously as the edge of the pounding waterfall loomed into actual sight through the darkness.

The stale air around us started to move and in the moments afterward, our surroundings dropped several degrees in temperature. A cold chill passed over my exposed skin; predominantly on my face and I felt a nip in my cheeks. Cloudyous' melody had become a whistling echo, and I realized a moment later, that this supernatural wind was whispering back. The mass of animated air wrapped itself securely around Cloudyous, causing all of us to shiver once more across any flesh we had exposed, before it tunneled around his arms and over his hands. The wind met the water, joining the three magi's ice spells at the base and giving it three times the power. Thickened ice the color of snow elongated in front of us, creating a wintery barrier that our raft hastily collided into. The motion jarred everyone sideways, but it seems we had halted completely about thirty feet shy of the severe plunge.

"Well that was exciting," Vendra remarked sarcastically after we'd stopped. "Let's get off this thing before—"

A tumultuous cracking noise silenced everyone's temporary relief and to our dismay, the frozen wall began to give way. Unfortunately, it seemed like we'd underestimated the power of the free-flowing current behind us and it crashed our ice barrier into splinters. The raft surged forward, propelled by the intense suction of the waterfall. I was at a loss on what to do, we only had a second to figure out a course of action and nothing came to mind.

"Everyone hang on!" Cloudyous shouted loudly above the roaring rapids as he threw radiant waves of green-brown energy into the water around us in last-second desperation. I could feel the huge energy expenditure from whatever spell he had just cast and for several moments, his entire body quaked dangerously. Dizzied from the acute loss of mana, he stumbled and lost his footing. Cloudyous started to fall backwards toward the water, and none of us were able to reach him fast enough to stop his fall. Belthem was the only one remotely able to act; the silver wolf snapped onto the top of one of Cloudyous' leather boots and yanked backwards using only his jaws and neck, though under great strain. Belthem growled and grunted as he tried in vain to pull his human friend back onto the raft with just his upper body in the confined space. He failed miserably, but luckily he was soon aided by Bibo, who flew down from her anxious vigil above us and latched onto the sleeve of his linen shirt with her talons. She flapped her wings madly in a backward direction, doing her best alongside Belthem to pull him back into balance on our raft. The desperate labor of the animal duo succeeded in pulling Cloudyous back toward us at the last possible moment and he fell directly and without the slightest manner of grace on top of Xialah. I didn't hear what I knew must have been a string of unpleasantries, I was too distracted by the multiple, jagged spires of faintly sparkling rock as they spiked through the water around us wrapped in druidic energy.

Our raft collided sideways into the first one and actually lost a portion of the siding. The force of the crash turned the raft a complete circle in the water, though we ended up traveling in a horizontal direction thereafter. The raft hit another adjacent rock as it sprung up from nowhere and bounced us roughly into one beside it. Three more spires sprang up in front of us, effectively protecting us from the waterfall. After a few more moments, a solid barrier of unyielding earth had formed across the entire river and the diverted current drove us horizontally onto the right riverbank with a vengeance. Sand and mud sprayed into the air as we plowed across ten feet of ground before coming abruptly to a halt that threw a few of us into the soggy dirt. I had to smile at my fortune; for once, I wasn't one of them. To my utter delight, Xialah was.

Cloudyous must have dragged her over the edge with him; it looked like part of her scaled left sleeve had caught in his muskrat-hide shawl and linked them together. As it was, both of them were covered all over their fronts in rank-smelling mud and decaying plant foliage. Xialah shoved at him angrily and managed to slide out from underneath him only because she was plastered in slippery goo. She glared at him spitefully as he rolled over and grimaced apologetically.

"Sorry," he managed in a mild tone as he returned to his feet shakily. He staggered as he tried to step forward and stumbled, catching Xialah's trailing arm to steady himself as he fell.

"You should be," Xialah growled in disgust and yanked her arm out from underneath him, causing him to fall onto his knees. "Now I have shit all over me. If you're too weak to stand on your own then just fall down and stay here," she demanded heartlessly. "I've no time for the weak or injured."

"Come on now. Tha's jus' cold," Alminus reprimanded, hearing her remark as he tried to brush the stale gunk off of his skin. "Considerin' tha' he jus' saved all o' our asses, includin' yurs."

Xialah glowered at him, unmoved by his logic in the slightest. "I already had a plan," she countered plainly, "I didn't need his help, or anyone elses'. He just acted a split second before me."

"Yeah right," Ryelass snorted. "I find that a little hard to believe."

"Believe what you want, short-round. No one ever said you were smart," she retorted, still with the same arrogant air.

"Wow," Vendra scoffed, "I'm starting to think jackass might have found a soul mate in you," she added with a brief glance between Xialah and Piricus. Both of them scowled at her, wearing nearly identical expressions.

Vendra's comment didn't sit well with me, even if it was meant in a taunting manner. A part of me instantly experienced a pang of jealousy the moment the remark left her lips and I strained against the emotion with my logical mind for several minutes. Even I couldn't deny that the two were strikingly similar in many ways…..

I shook my head, forcing the thoughts clear for the moment. This was petty and right now, it was out of place. Besides, Piricus hadn't shown even the slightest bit of interest in that tavern trash up to this point and as abrasive as their personalities were, even if he did, those attentions were sure to fade quickly. Somehow I didn't think Piricus could stand having a twin personality around without killing something.

Scorpious assumed his normal position of party leadership once he'd assessed our current position. "Xialah," he directed, "Do you know where we are right now?"

With a final animosity-imbued expression in Cloudyous' direction she turned to him and rolled her eyes. "Of course I do!"

"Are you serious, or are you just saying that? Considering that thus far, your guidance has been terrible. You had absolutely no idea how to deal with those frog demons and somehow you also managed to lose track of a towering waterfall," Laurella reminded bitterly, scanning the area with her eyes suspiciously. "If I didn't know better, I'd say you were trying to get us killed," she added in a calculating voice.

The faintest of shivers passed through my spine as Laurella spoke, and suddenly I was looking through the darkness as well. The presence was distinct; we were being watched by several creatures in the shadows. My instinct immediately registered the demonic, and I knew they must have been the rat men from earlier. I was mildly surprised that the little bastards had managed to disguise themselves from detection so well; I couldn't feel but the slightest trace of them amidst the jungle and the energies of my traveling companions. Maybe it was because I was still somewhat sluggish and just getting sloppy. Either way, the other odd factor here was that the little frenzied freaks hadn't made any move to attack us yet, which was curious behavior for them. Piricus watched me keenly through the dark, and then looked just beyond me to Laurella. Neither of them said anything, so I decided to hold my tongue as well and listen for another few moments. Perhaps one of our unseen watchers would give themselves away or I could glean some type of intention from them.

Xialah crossed her arms over her copper-toned half-breastplate. "Now why in Sanctuary would I intentionally try to kill you? Seeing as if all of you die, I wouldn't get paid. Secondly, maybe you didn't notice freckle-face, but I'm not suicidal. I would NOT have gotten on that raft knowing there was a waterfall at the end that'd crunch my carcass like a bug under marble. Use your brain if you're even old enough to have one," she scoffed haughtily.

"It's not her fault," Cloudyous interjected, rubbing his thigh sorely and leaning against Gaia's massive side for support.

"Then explain to me how this hapless mercenary could logically lose a waterfall of that size, druid. For once I'm actually interested in the answer," Piricus responded dryly as he too scanned the area around us.

"The riverbed rock that I pulled from the bottom was tampered with recently," Cloudyous replied in earnest.

"Well Xialah say they shift often," Sovellis reminded him as we all listened.

Cloudyous draped his arm around Gaia's neck when he started to slouch, endeavoring fiercely to remain standing. The gargantuan bear exhaled a deep breath through her wide nostrils, but didn't give any other adverse reaction to his close proximity as Cloudyous continued.

"I don't mean the ore shifted in polarity. That would be natural, and besides, we only went straight in one direction. I mean that something, some other sentient entity, with incredibly powerful shamanistic talents, raised that portion of the ground up into what we just saw. That waterfall was artificially created, and my guess was sometime in the recent past. I believe wholeheartedly that Xialah is telling the truth. This river used to be flat until something changed it," he declared in all seriousness.

"Wha' do ya think it was?" Alminus asked quietly, though it seemed like he already had the right answer in his mind.

"Do you even have to ask?" Ryelass breathed sourly. "It had to be him. He knows we're on his trail and he's trying to trip us up. Besides, what else do you know of out here that has that kind of power?"

"Nothin' as far as I know," Alminus admitted.

Scorpious silenced the pair of them with a heavy and exhausted sigh. His shoulders seemed to sag under the weight of his silver platemail as he addressed the group. "Right now, that doesn't matter. This mission is to rescue Jenny and the rest of those children that the rat men took. We're getting grossly off the mark and that's something we cannot afford. Xialah said she knows where she is, therefore, it's time to resume moving."

"Paladin, I fail to see how this occurrence is not of consequence," Piricus countered as he continued to watch the shadows. "If the Lord of—"he started, speaking the concern in everyone's mind.

"How long ago can you date the energy?" I asked Cloudyous across him, trying immediately to ascertain the likelihood of another encounter with a Prime Evil. I couldn't deny that if Diablo was indeed somewhere in this area, we were at a serious disadvantage to fight him. We were all running on nothing more than adrenaline and whatever hour of sleep those select few of us had gotten earlier. Not to mention neither Piricus nor Cloudyous were in good enough condition for a battle of that caliber.

Cloudyous' expression relaxed a small amount as he answered. "If I had to guess, two days ago. I think we're in the clear, especially because none of them are acting up," he said, gesturing to the group of animals huddled around him, "and I also think you and Laurella would be able to sense him if he were here. I agree with Scorpious, we need to move quickly."

"R' ya in any shape ter travel?" Alminus asked him dubiously. "Tha' wers some serious castin' back there."

"I'll ride on Gaia's back for a while and I should be fine," Cloudyous assured as he pulled himself onto the grizzly's shoulders.

Xialah snorted as she watched him. "Take the lazy way, why don't you? Well don't get too comfortable wild thing, you don't have any time for a nap. We're actually about ten minutes away from our intended destination anyway. Imagine that," she said sarcastically.

Vendra raised an eyebrow in disbelief. "Really? We're that close? Why haven't we seen any demons then? I thought those little bastards were keen on keeping out intruders?"

"What about demons of earlier?" Sovellis added cautiously.

"They're watching us right now," Laurella announced. "They're everywhere," she continued, gesturing around with open arms.

"And why didn't you say something before now?" Ryelass grumbled at her, reaching for his sword.

"Don't, Ryelass," I demanded, instantly halting his movement. "They haven't attacked us yet," I answered for Laurella, coming to the same conclusion that she must have. "We still have the element of surprise. They don't know that we know where they are. They're going try to ambush us, and if we go along with it for right now, we can make a counterattack and catch them off guard. We can probably draw them in so closely that we can finish them off all at once," I explained, sharing my hypothesis with the others.

"That would be preferable," Ryelass agreed and let his hand hang at his side. "Those little pricks are incredibly difficult to pick off one by one."

"All this hangs on the fact that they don't know what we're saying right now," Vendra pointed out, trying to act casual. "Are we sure that they don't? Otherwise it'll be us that fall into the trap."

"What do you think, Xialah?" Cloudyous asked respectfully, completely ignoring her earlier contempt of him. "You have the most experience dealing with them, seeing as they aren't anything out of the ordinary here."

"You're asking her?" Laurella snorted begrudgingly. "Where's Maria when you need her?" she muttered as an afterthought.

"Gone," Piricus growled in a nasty tone, suddenly becoming livid at her mere mention. "Which is where that murdering bitch should stay if she wants to prolong her life. When I find her, she's going to die a vile and painful death," he vowed with more animation than I'd seen from him since the frog attack. His eyes flashed eerie emerald in the dark and the tone in his voice was sinister as he voiced his promise. Not even a single person questioned the verity in it, everyone knew he was balefully serious, even Xialah, whom to my knowledge, had never met Maria.

"Sounds like that unlucky bitch made the top of your hit list, string bean," Xialah declared in a nonchalant manner. "What'd she do? Steal your last cookie?"

Piricus glowered at her. "It's none of your business mercenary, get back to your job or you'll take the assassin's place on my list."

Xialah smirked and gave him an appreciative half-nod. "So this Maria's a Viz-Jaq'Taar, huh? Can't say I blame you, for once. I've never liked those sorry snots an ounce and it pisses me off royally that Hratli decided to give Natalya a position on the Dock Watcher's Counsel. Give the bitch a little extra hell when you catch her, she more than deserves it just by the nature of what she is."

"I intend to," Piricus admitted darkly. "When I'm finished, reincarnation will no longer even be possible for her."

"Stop it!" Scorpious demanded after listening to their exchange with a bitter and pained face. "This retched conversation doesn't even have a place in our current circumstances!" he insisted sharply after the momentary pause following his outburst. "Xialah, stop wasting time," he ordered in a no-nonsense tone.

Although he didn't say anything else to Scorpious directly, Piricus narrowed his eyes onto him. A cold smile fleeted across his lips. "Apparently it works both ways," he said vaguely before falling silent, leaving everyone to guess at what he meant.

Scorpious turned away from him without a word and waited on Xialah's response.

I didn't need to be a genius to know that the two of them had stabbed into a very tender nerve. The heartstrings were the most painful and vulnerable area of any person and Scorpious was no exception. His reaction was completely human, but not completely normal for my friend as I knew him. He usually shrugged talk like this off because that's all it ever was. Talk. However, more and more, it was becoming apparent that something was changing in him. I could only hope that his current ill-tempered mannerisms were caused by fleeting circumstances. Fatigue, the loss of Khalim, and the stress of Jenny's abduction were only a few of the unpleasantries he'd been forced to endure without the proper time in which to cope. I'd only observed ten minutes or less of them interacting physically, but from what I'd seen in Scorpious' mind earlier aboard the ship, Jenny was someone that held a significant place in his life. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him to randomly meet her again after all these years and in such awful circumstances. Add to that the short duration of their reunion and then her kidnapping by horrid, murderous monsters, and I could see why he'd be responding to things more rashly than usual. Maybe when we found her and returned her safely to the docks, his disposition would return to normal. That was…if she was still alive when we found her. My stomach knotted over the grim, but very real possibility that we might find her otherwise. I inwardly prayed to Zerae that we'd find her safe, and soon. I didn't like the sickening feeling in my gut when I thought about what her loss might do to Scorpious.

Xialah shrugged apathetically as she acknowledged Scorpious' demands. "Whatever you say, you're the boss right now and time is money. Getting back to your question wolf-wrangler, those little puke piles have no clue how to decipher our language so we're safe in that regard. What's our plan for taking them out? Because we need to start moving soon or they'll get too suspicious and attack us anyway," she asked looking around at us and then casting a furtive glance into the shadows.

"Sovellis and I can probably handle them the quickest," Vendra suggested. "Jackass could be useful in this case too if he wants to be," she added with a contemptuous glare in his direction.

"Cloudyous too, if you up to it," Sovellis continued, looking at the druid atop Gaia's back.

"I think I can come up with something," he offered with a light-hearted grin.

"How about it, jackass?" Vendra asked again, looking directly at him. "Are you up for doing something useful?"
Piricus snorted. "Unlike you, spell-slinger, I always do something useful. What I'm planning for our little stalkers is most unpleasant," he assured with a malicious twinkle in his eyes.

"I hope so," I encouraged him, taking silent inventory on the positions of our attackers. "I'm certainly not going to show the little bastards any mercy. Speaking of which, Scorpious do you think that you can shield us with your fire-repelling aura from earlier? I sense four more of those shaman things nearby," I informed, letting my inner senses settle on the vertical two-demon combinations in the darkness around us.

"You didn't need to ask," he assured, as rings of blood-orange light pulsed out of our skin and around our armor. "That aura is a given in this situation. Xialah, seeing as you are the head of this group and one of the most at risk, accepting this aura is not optional," he added to our guide after a moment. My paladin friend made it very clear in the sternness of his tone that this matter was not up for debate.

The ill-tempered mercenary offered him a displeased scowl in reply, but even she had to realize the benefit such a thing would provide her. "Very well, seeing as I really don't want to barbecue like blondie did earlier. But don't make this a habit reverend," she replied, icy as always. "This way," she announced and walked to our left like nothing could go wrong.

"We need to hurry," Laurella proclaimed to the group at large, just as I opened my mouth to deliver the same warning. "The demons are a little upset over our auras. They're beginning to catch on."

I knew what she said to be the truth. There had been a shift in the demons' energies. The unseen rat men had become increasingly agitated since the moment Scorpious encased us openly in his aura. If we wanted to gain some ground before the fight broke out, we needed to be quick about making headway.

No one spoke as we followed Xialah around several winding gaps in the trees. The going was slow, but I knew why she was walking a zigzag. We had to stay in as open an area as possible and avoid walking through potentially entangling clusters of vines or moving through tight spaces. Taking a direct path, even through the dense jungle underbrush, would have been undeniably faster, however the risk of the demons attacking in those moments was high.

As we moved, I was becoming increasingly aware of more living entities in our area. I focused on the new patterns and identified them as more rat men, much to my chagrin. I tried silently to gain an estimate of their numbers, coming up with somewhere in the range of forty. I grimaced and I felt the negative expression tighten the muscles in my face. With the ones in front and the ones around us, our total opposition now numbered somewhere around eighty demons. This could only mean one thing. We were about to walk into their actual stronghold and into the ambush the demons prepared. I had to admit, they were clever little bastards. They stomached our presence long enough to allow us into a two-pronged trap. Well, unfortunately for them, they were dealing with an amazon warrior with superior senses.

"We need to spring the trap now," I decided for the group at large. "There are about forty more of those little bastards waiting for us ahead. We should pick them off out here, and draw the ones in there out to us. That way they can't lie in wait and jump us all at once."

"You're sure?" Scorpious reiterated without turning around.

"Paladin, when has she ever been wrong about something like this?" Piricus scoffed irritably. "That's just as well," he affirmed to me without looking. "I was getting tired of waiting around anyway. Severius sanguinia vitalia…" he muttered, raising both of his hands to shoulder-level and throwing a powerful scarlet glow around himself. The red rays of light circled around his arms before shooting out in multiple prongs that traveled in all directions around us into the darkness.

A plethora of angered screeches told me that whatever curse Piricus cast had just taken affect and the rat men around us where none too pleased about it. They came charging at us from all sides; some jumped out of the trees, others surfaced from their concealment in the jungle brush, and the rest simply came bounding over the spots they'd been following from.

"Why is it that jackass gets to decide when we attack?" Vendra muttered as she and Sovellis mimicked their actions on the river and started to conjure their hemispheres of electricity.

"Ya got a better plan? This fight'll go a lot easier with tha less o' 'em we got ter worry 'bout!" Alminus reminded simply as he flung a throwing axe the size of my head into the face of an on-coming rat demon. It died with a grotesque squeal and was quickly trampled beneath its stampeding fellows.

It seems Laurella and I had the same idea; both of us projected our inner sight around our respective areas. Together, we unmasked our forty predators and their four, fire-breathing shamans.

I grabbed a javelin from my back and took aim at the closest one, which was about thirty feet away. Much to my pleasure, another of the four was running directly beside that one. I side-stepped, giving myself a more direct shot. I pooled my spiritual energy around my throwing arm and then merged it into my javelin, charging the metal tip and even the wooden shaft. I concentrated all of my muscle power into my bone-covered forearm, and loosed the sparking weapon. My rejuvenated flesh under Piricus' armor gave me a satisfying tingle, as if it were a conscious part of my being and it wholly appreciated the revenge I'd just enacted. The lightning javelin actually skewered the top part of a singular rat man's face before plowing point-first into the side of the top demon of one shaman pair. Continuing with electric vengeance, it burnt cleanly through that demon and into the one beside it. The enchanted javelin traveled five more feet before embedding itself into a nearby tree and exploding in a spectacular display of flashing light, killing four more demons.

"Heads up!" Vendra warned a split second before a ring of pure lightning boomed out around us in a circle, focused about waist-high. The ten demons that were unlucky enough to be in the front of the charge instantly exploded upon contact with the mages' spell, spewing gore everywhere.

Cold magic filled the area like a fresh snowstorm as a swirling disc of ice hurled through the air and expanded into a misty, freezing ring. As the crystalline vapor washed over the second wave of jittering demons, they froze solid. Moments later, they were broken into shards by the physical ice rotating like a throwing star. Even those that hadn't been subjected to the freezing mist were still lacerated into scrap.

"That was impressive magic, Vendra," I called to her over my shoulder.

"It wasn't me," she answered quickly. "That was Xialah," she corrected with a tone of genuine respect in her voice.

"Yes. It seem she very good ice magess," Sovellis complimented after witnessing her latest display.

Their compliments toward her soured my mood, petty though that was. "I take it back," I revoked grouchily. "It really wasn't that impressive after all."

"Sure coulda fooled me," Alminus laughed as he moved by and kicked an attacking rat demon in the face, which conveniently held enough force to snap its neck. "It killed enough o' 'em."

"There's nothing to be jealous of," Ryelass directed at me as he sliced through three demons around himself at once with his sparking sword. "Magic is cheap. It takes a real woman to kill demons using nothing but her own steel and strength."

"Thanks a lot, hypocrite," Vendra snorted sarcastically. "In case you forgot, you're technically a mage now too."

"I guess," Ryelass admitted as he impaled another demon on the tip of his lightning blade, "but I still prefer cold steel to hot magic."

"To each his own way," Cloudyous contributed to the conversation with a smirk. "I'm thinking I should lend Laurella a hand," he surmised aloud as he watched the young archer come into range of a barrage of darts. The wind around us started to rotate as our druid friend created a mild cyclone at the edge of our battle site. It wasn't enough to physically deter any of the remaining demons; however it was enough to sweep their projectiles grossly off course.

With the projectile threat gone on her side, Laurella stood out from behind the tree she was using as cover and pegged three blow-gun wielding rat men with one shot. Then, turning expertly, she fired two arrows at once from her bow, killing both the top and bottom components of the shaman sneaking up on her. Laurella was lucky to have inner sight, I thought to myself grimly. As it was, that shaman was probably about an inch of out blasting range when she stopped it.

"We've almost got them," Ryelass assessed, drawing our attention to the three remaining demons and their shaman.

The three minion demons were sizing up Piricus with frightened expressions, judging by the way their dull, black eyes were blinking rapidly every few seconds and they were starting to quake at the knees. Whatever curse he'd used definitely left an impression on the little bastards, and they knew who it had come from. Piricus' emerald eyes flashed with loathing as he stared the trio of demons down. I laughed when one of them actually dropped its knife and started running away from him.

"I don't think so, cowardly vermin," Piricus exclaimed apathetically. His eyes narrowed on the demon and a sickly yellow light encircled its legs. Within seconds its flesh, muscle, and bone disintegrated into dust, dropping the now legless demon onto the ground writhing and screeching in torment.

"Think about that for a minute or two," Piricus hissed at it coldly and turned to its fellows. One swift blast of venomous energy on each of his hands ended their existences. Having dealt with the immediate threat, he sauntered up to the pitching, legless demon and stomped mercilessly on its miniature back, breaking it. The paralyzed demon screeched in agony one final time before a barbed spell blasted its head clean from its shoulders.

"That a little much I say," Sovellis declared as he watched the brutal display. "Not to say I feel sorry for demon at all."

"I think he's a little pissed off," I observed frankly. "And I don't blame him in the least."

"That should be the last of them," Vendra announced, looking around.

"No. One shaman left," Sovellis reminded, causing all of us to search the area for it immediately.

A bright spurt of orange flame showed us where the demon was and underneath the intense fire, I could see a gleam of silver. I realized instantly Scorpious was trapped within the demon's magic and I grabbed a javelin, preparing to assist him.

I drew back my arm to throw, but knew in a moment's notice there was no need. The top demon in the shaman duo screamed in agony as a silvery sword erupted from the back of its head. The flame died away simultaneously to reveal an aggravated Scorpious. He was drenched in thick layers of sweat, and other than a sooty hue over the front of his armor he was completely unharmed.

Scorpious savagely flung the lifeless demon from his blade and toppled it off the other's shoulders. The remaining demon tried to flee, but he grabbed the back of its neck in his armored hand, stilling it in a vice-like grip and then ran it through.

"Speakin' o' pissed off. I'd say Piricus isn' tha only one," Alminus stated comically as he admired Scorpious' short work of the troublesome demon.

"I wish it had gone this smoothly the first time," I grumbled bitterly. "Then we wouldn't be out here to begin with."

"What's going on?" Ryelass asked, suddenly alert and watching the demon blood splattered all over the ground.

Having called my attention to the odd phenomena occurring at the moment, I watched curiously too as the blackish blood of our recently slain foes seeped onto the ground and then evaporated into a fine, red mist. The grisly vapor floated in our direction and then swirled into a solid, crimson cloud that gathered just shy of Piricus' body. He whisked his hands through the scarlet smoke with a contented expression, absorbing it into himself. The effects were immediate. The bruised, crusty gouges in his wrist and forearm from the earlier frog battle shriveled into themselves and then disappeared. His skin darkened momentarily around a bruise under his chin before it too disappeared. His peaky skin tone returned to a normal coloration and he stood up completely straight without any sign of exhaustion for the first time all night. I knew exactly what he'd done without asking. After all, he'd once used that same variety of curse on me.

"Wow, look at you," Xialah snorted as she watched him. "Better in a flash. That was a pretty handy combo you threw out just now, but I'm still thinking mine was more impressive."

"Combo?" Ryelass asked with loathing as he watched the pair of them.

"Piricus employed the use of a weakening curse for the group and life-tapped their essences in the process," Scorpious explained briefly as he walked over. "Now that we've settled—"he started.

A lurid scream shattered our stilled atmosphere and the rest of Scorpious' sentence. The unexpected noise started all of us for one, grim reason. That scream had been entirely human and judging by the pitch, it belonged to a human child.

Scorpious didn't waste another second on conversation or on planning. Readying his sword, he bolted through the darkness without Xialah's leadership in the direction of the scream. He disappeared so quickly that the only sign we had of him was the trail of his blood-orange aura.

Well, it wasn't like I thought he was going to get legitimately lost. From the sound of it, that scream couldn't have been more than a quarter mile away at most and the direction was distinct. Another blood-curdling scream rang through the air followed by two more from different voices. After another split second, the air was so alive with the sounds of excruciation it sounded like we were listening to a symphony of the damned.

"Xialah, how many kids did those things take?" Alminus called loudly over the demented ruckus as we all started running after Scorpious.

Even Piricus joined in our charge. However, I suspect it was because he was more keen on extracting revenge on the demons for costing him is time and effort rather than rescuing some of what he would probably call half-crazed, useless children.

"At least four that I know of," she answered and for the first time, she forewent any sarcasm.

It was a sentiment she and I could agree on. The chorus of agony around us was unsettling and every single scream passed through my corporeal being and into my soul, filling it with anxiety, tension, and dread. I could only come to one conclusion about what was happening, and it coincided perfectly with what Xialah told us about the ratmen playing mind games earlier. We'd effectively broken their ambush in half and killed a large number of their tribe. We were dangerous to them, and there was no way anything intelligent would come out of their stronghold after us given the strength we'd just displayed. Their best chance at survival lay in pulling us into their own territory where they could execute the other half of the ambush. The foul creatures were using the children they'd captured from the docks earlier as bait for us. They must have been saving them for something, however when we showed up, they must have started to torture them because they knew it would likely bring us running. And it did. But, what these vermin failed to realize is that we already knew where they were and given what they'd just done, we were going to plow through there with a wrath unparalleled to anything they'd seen yet.

I could make out several walls up ahead that were about chest-high and just beyond those were the tops of what appeared to be thatched huts. The agonizing yells where coming from behind the walls, and so was the concentration of demon energy. Ahead of us, I could see Scorpious, wrapped in his flaring aura. He turned his shoulder to one of the walls and plowed straight through it, creating an entryway for us through what was unmistakably mud. I heard the shrieking of the demons, signaling they'd acknowledged Scorpious' dramatic entrance into their primitive village. My paladin friend shouted a battle cry that I know Alminus was grinning over from behind me and then the sounds of battle broke out.

We weren't long in reaching the entrance he'd created for us; however the majority of us found it easier and less time consuming to simply run through the brittle earth on our own. I was one of that majority. Shouldering the impact like Scorpious had done, I plunged against the dry mud and burst through it with ease. The dirt I stirred upon entry caused me more of a hassle than the wall had; I breathed some of it in and coughed profusely. The dirt temporarily clouded my vision and I wiped at my eyes. When the haze cleared, a grizzly sight greeted me.

Like I thought, we were standing in a small, primitive village within a cluster of small huts. There were tiny torches burning all around this demon establishment, ignited from leaves and the like inside hollowed human skulls that had been placed on pikes assembled from more bones. From the firelight and the crunch underfoot, I noticed that the entire floor of this place was coated in a collection of stained, yellowed bones that had been stripped clean of flesh. Many were unmistakably human, but there were quite a few animal bits mixed in. The bones all around us were also marked with browned splotches and gouged by small teeth marks at jagged angles, suggesting their former owners met a miserable end.

Blood was omnipresent in this demonic environment as well. A reddish-brown coating tainted what little ground was visible underneath the mass of osseous matter and adorned the sides of the reed huts in haphazard splatters. The scent of death was nearly overwhelming and provided a hellish prelude to what I saw next.

Ten feet ahead of us, surrounded by waist-high demons, were three, flat carving tables. Upon each one, was a thrashing child. Everything within me revolted with horror. Being taller than both the demons and the tables, I could clearly see the atrocities the rat men were committing. The girl on the table closest to me had several layers of her skin flayed off. The tops of her thighs were missing; one of her shoulders was split open down the front, displaying everything within and one of her feet had been cut off at the ankle. The worst part of this carnage was by far the fact that she was still alive and gushing buckets of blood everywhere.

Rage instantaneously accompanied my utter revulsion. I threw the javelin I had in hand without really aiming; I knew there were too many of them not to hit something and I couldn't see the demon holding the knife they were using. As it was, I maimed one in the front through its left arm before the javelin found its way into three demons behind it. Not satisfied in the slightest, I grabbed another javelin and threw it fiercely, aiming this time and killing two more. Once those two dropped, I had a clear shot at the weapon-wielding rat man and I took it without hesitation. I charged this particular javelin with a serious amount of spiritual energy; I poured all of my vengeance and repulsion into it, and prayed with every fiber of my being that Zerae would combine her own will into it for the administration of justice. I locked my eyes solely on the demon torturing the child and as I did, my entire being overflowed with outrage. I felt my throwing arm begin to shake and then pulse before a blinding white light burst into being. Power, such as I'd never felt washed through Piricus' armor and over my skin, causing every pore in it to vibrate. A white hot spiritual energy coursed through my metaphysical senses burning with unparalleled intensity, though I was not harmed in any way by it. It took me a moment to realize that this energy was my own and when I looked at my arm, I found that instead of an electrically charged weapon, I now gripped a bolt of pure lightning in its place.

I didn't take even a second to ponder the mechanics or the marvel. I launched my lightning bolt without another thought. I blinked and the demon was dead, fried to a crisp instantly by the lightning bolt that traveled faster than my eyes could register. What was more, upon impact with the offending demon, the one lightning bolt branched into three more and each found their way into another grouping of two or three demons. As they fell, I knew I must have just killed fifteen or so monsters with one shot.

My blood was still boiling when the tormented cries of the child on the slab recaptured my focus. Any hope I held of rescuing her instantly vanished as I reassessed the situation. I'd killed her attackers, but anyone with eyes knew that she was beyond saving. Even the most skilled of healers would have paled if asked. There was only one thing I could do to stop this poor girl's agony, and even the thought repulsed me. I found it entirely repugnant to kill a child, especially a human one. However, the only way to save her from this horrendous torture was to end her suffering quickly. Every ounce of my heart cried in anguish as I approached the table, oblivious to everything around me. The closer I moved, the worse the physical carnage became. But this child's physical suffering was nothing compared to the abyss of torture her psyche wrapped around mine. My inner sight screamed with unpleasant emotions strong enough to make a trail of tears leak out of my eyes.

The girl was oblivious as I approached. She was in too much pain to even realize the nightmarish torture had ceased. I drew my crystal sword as another tear fell from my face. My tear landed on her cheek as I hovered over her, a mourning executioner.

"I'm so sorry," I breathed tragically and drove my sword into her chest through her heart. The child who couldn't have been more than seven years gave one final outcry of intense agony before she fell silent and still. The assault on my psychic senses faded abruptly, but not my rage or my pain.

"I'm so sorry," I told her again, hoping that somehow her soul could still hear me, but from better place. "I promise you that you won't have died in vain. I will avenge you," I vowed. "Rest in peace."

I was seized roughly from behind and grungy, coarse hands grabbed at my throat. I didn't need to see to know it was a rat demon. And judging by the height, I'd just been seized by a shaman. True to character, searing heat blistered the back of my neck as fire sprayed around my head. Thankfully, I was still encased in Scorpious' protective aura and the fire passed to either side of me. I turned my sword in my hand and shoved the blade under my arm mercilessly.

"Not this time, you vile bastard!" I snarled as the demon behind me died on my blade. I twirled around, pulling my sword loose and arcing it down with every ounce of strength I had. It turned out to be more than enough and I cleaved the bottom monster of the demonic duo in half. I sensed something behind me and I pivoted, bringing my sword overhead to finish the next monster off. When this one was dead, I move on to the next. After that, the next. I wouldn't stop until every cursed monster in this area was dead. This wasn't just about rescue anymore. At least, not for me. Now, it was going to be about extermination.

Scorpious rapidly blocked my sword with his own, barring its path toward his face. "This part of the village is clear," he informed me as he lowered his weapon. He cast a pained and grave look toward the corpse of the nameless little girl I'd just killed and then placed his hand on my shoulder for wordless comfort.

"I had to," I choked out in anger and sadness.

"I know. There was no other way," Scorpious assured sympathetically. "You did as you must. Ryelass had to do the same."

I sighed as I looked around, noticing the other members of our group for the first time since we'd entered this hellish place. Ryelass was standing near Alminus, fuming about something. Alminus was just standing there shaking his head grimly; he must have been trying to console him. Vendra and Sovellis were standing next to Xialah, looking around quietly. Cloudyous was tending to a scratch on Sky's side with his animals around him. Piricus was standing in the middle of a bone pile and busy repairing his armor as I would expect. Laurella was, to my surprise, cradling a crying child against her side protectively. She was stroking the boy's hair soothingly and trying to tell him something. The make-shift bandage wrapped around his eyes proclaimed his story without words.

"Was he the only one to survive?" I asked sadly, already knowing the answer before Scorpious spoke it.

"Yes. I've seen to his injuries and he'll live. But he'll be blind for the rest of his life. Those wretched blights plucked out both of his eyes," Scorpious hissed angrily.

"No sign of Jenny?" I inquired, noticing her absence.

Scorpious shook his head. "No. Nothing. Not even a trace, but we're not done here. Xialah says there's still a small sector in the back of this damned inhabitance and that's where I'm going to go!" he declared emotionally.

"You said we got all of the demons out here?" I reiterated.

"Yes. We're moving into the last sector now, are you ready?" he answered.

I nodded resolutely as we made our way to the others. A thought occurred to me as we walked and I had to voice it aloud. "Hey Scorpious, I just remembered that I never thanked you for saving my life on the docks earlier," I recalled.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about Chyemme," he admitted earnestly.

"You used your aura, and saved me and Jenny from being flambéed alive," I reminded. "Without you, we'd both be dead."

Scorpious turned to me with an odd expression on his face. "Chyemme, I didn't use an aura over you on the dockside," he informed strangely. "You were already out of the fire when Ryelass and I found you."

I blinked. "You didn't use your aura?" I asked skeptically.

"No," he reaffirmed.

I paused to consider this new information carefully and then shook my head.

"Chyemme?" he asked, noticing my pause.

"It's nothing then. I was probably just in a daze and can't remember what happened clearly. Let's move on," I suggested as we rejoined the others.

"Lead on Xialah," Scorpious said simply as we arrived.

"We'll be at the back, and I'll keep you by my side," Laurella explained to the traumatized child softly.

"They'll… they'll come back! They'll eat me! They'll eat you!" the boy jabbered in terror as he shook from head to toe.

"No they won't," Laurella vowed. "Because I'm tougher than the lot of them combined and I will protect you with my life," she coaxed tenderly. "Nothing will get you while I'm here."

"I'm scared," the boy confessed as he wound his hand tightly in the fabric of Laurella's archery skirt.

"It'll be fine," she continued compassionately.

The boy didn't look inclined to believe her, but he wordlessly allowed her to lead him alongside the group. All of us followed Xialah around more demon huts and carnage until we arrived at a large, stone wall. This wall was too tall to have been made by the rat men; it must have been the remnants of a long-passed human settlement. Several noises were coming from behind it, like before. Xialah gestured to us silently, signaling us to move around it. As we did so, we came across an utterly bizarre scenario.

Present in this twenty feet of cubic space were six shamans and twenty more rat men. The demons were gathered around three large stakes at the back of this space. Large, bubbling cauldrons anchored each stake and a human child was brutally bound against each one with their lower halves submersed in the heated water. Two of them were unknown to me, but the one in the middle was clearly Jenny. The breath caught in my throat when I recognized her and the situation all three were in. I immediately assumed the worst. Fire roared beneath the cauldron on Jenny's right; the boy in the water had been boiled alive as evident by the hideous blistering on his maimed flesh. His feet bobbed grotesquely in the cauldron every few seconds as the demons in front of them chattered obnoxiously.

I reached out with my inner sight, searching for signs of life in this graphic and terrible situation. Relief washed over me as my gifting told me that both Jenny and the girl to her left were still alive. I craned my neck to get a better look and realized that the girl beside Jenny was actually wide-eyed awake, though she appeared to be paralyzed by fear. Jenny herself was slouching against her stake with her eyes closed, although she was still breathing. Oddly, I also noticed that the fires beneath Jenny's cauldron and the one of the girl's next to her weren't lit. It was strange, seeing as one of the shamans kept belching fire onto the kindling beneath the cauldrons and they still wouldn't ignite for more than a second without dying. It was like a non-existent wind was repeatedly extinguishing the demon flame every time one endeavored to light it.

This phenomenon was apparently a source of great agitation to the demons and the cause of their nerve-grating and indecipherable chittering. One of the other shamans was barking at the fire-starting one and it was squeaking back in rapid sequence. It seems like they were having an argument of some sort. Another demon shaman stepped up beside the first and joined in its attempt to light the cauldrons, but even the combined powers of the two failed to start a lasting fire.

"Are they?" Vendra breathed nervously from beside me as she eyed the two girls.

"No, the girls are still alive," I whispered, directed more at Scorpious than Vendra. "Both of them."

Scorpious' entire body visibly proclaimed his relief. "Thank God… Praise God…" he whispered in profound gratitude and he looked briefly through the jungle darkness toward the sky.

"Somehow I think it has less to do with God and more to do with whatever weirdness this is," Xialah snorted quietly as she watched the now three demons try in vain to start a fire. "And I wouldn't bank on whatever it is to last much longer. Everybody with some ranged talent pick a shaman," she suggested. "One, two, three."

We sprang from our concealment behind the wall as though we'd rehearsed it, and for once we had an easy time of things. Piricus quickly threw another weakening curse over the group and then fired off several bolts of corrosive poison, toppling two of the six shamans. Xialah, Vendra, and Sovellis managed to kill ten of the twenty minion demons while Belthem and Sky ran into the fray alongside Ryelass and Alminus, taking care of the rest. Gaia, Bibo, and Cloudyous stayed behind next to Laurella, who took careful aim and fired four icy arrows into the face of a shaman. She swiftly changed her arrows from ice to fire and killed the lower half of the shaman pair by shooting it through the throat.

I threw a lightning javelin that nailed the top demon of another shaman to the stake of the dead boy and watched as Sky jumped on the bottom demon, ferociously tearing out its eyes and then ripping into its chest.

Scorpious made his way over the bodies of the fallen and engaged the last shaman in a brief battle that went much like his last one did. The shaman saw him charge and tried to spew fire into his face, but his aura rendered it ineffective and he cleaved both demons, top and bottom, into four separate sections.

Scorpious didn't pay the deceased demons even a second more of his attention; he raced directly to Jenny's stake and sliced the ropes with the edge of his sword. He took her in his arms as she dropped limply from her bindings and placed her on a clear patch of ground. Beside him, Alminus freed the other child.

Scorpious placed two of his fingers against Jenny's throat, feeling the quality of her pulse. Once he seemed satisfied, he removed thin a bandage from a pouch at his waist and started to dress the bruised and bleeding gouges in her shoulder.

"Clara…How's Clara?" Jenny's strained voice asked, catching Scorpious by surprise. He pulled a little more tightly on her bandage than he'd meant to and she squeaked in pain, although she still didn't open her eyes.

"She's fine. She looks a lot better than you, ya sorry little brat," Xialah answered for him in an almost playful tone of voice as she walked over and knelt beside them.

"Xialah?" Jenny murmured, registering her voice.

"Yeah you little bratlet. It's me. What's wrong with you? Getting grabbed by a demon and making me travel with these losers all the way out here to come get your sorry ass?" Xialah continued, still with that misplaced tone.

"I know. I know. You'd rather be sleeping. Trust me, so would I," Jenny groaned back, although a smile was starting to appear on her bruised lips. "I didn't do this on purpose."

"Bratlet, you get into more trouble I swear," Xialah scoffed, though it was light-hearted.

"Wait," Ryelass began slowly, listening to the off-sounding display. "Are you two related or something? Why in the world would Xialah care enough to come out here after you? She's a heartless bitch."

Jenny coughed and tried to sit up in Scorpious' arms. "Don't say that. It's not true," she protested in Ryelass' general direction.

"Don't lie," Xialah snorted. "You know it's true. I hate everyone equally, except for you. Now quit lying around bratlet. I don't know about you, but you could have picked a much better spot for a stroll," she insisted sarcastically.

"I still don't get it," Ryelass replied watching them.

"You're not meant to, half-pint. Reverend, can't you do anything to speed her up a bit? I'm getting antsy and I want to be back in time for breakfast," she directed at Scorpious.

"Reverend?" Jenny asked strangely.

"Not exactly," he replied. "Jenny, this is Scorpious. Can you open your eyes?"

As if his name were magic, after a few seconds of straining to do so, Jenny's eyes cracked open. She looked directly into Scorpious' face and then a genuine smile did cross her mouth. "I knew you'd come to rescue me," she admitted. "You guys too," she added, catching sight of Piricus and I.

"This had nothing to do with you street-shrimp," Piricus snorted rudely.

"Ignore him. I'm glad we found you, Jenny," I offered kindly, truly meaning what I said.

"Don't scare me like that ever again," Scorpious demanded, though gently, bring her attention back to him. "You're lucky to be alive right now. Can you stand?"

"Luck has nothing to do with it," Jenny insisted. "I'm sorry, but I think I'm too weak to walk right now," she answered, giving her legs a shake from where she lay on the ground. Judging by the amount of pain such a small movement caused her, there was no doubt in my mind somebody was going to have to carry her.

"Then I'll carry you," Scorpious volunteered, not to anyone's surprise. "I'll try to heal you as we return. I don't think I have to ask anybody if they're ready to leave," he finished, looking around.

"No, ya sure as hell don'," Alminus assured, speaking for everyone. He effortlessly lifted the girl, Clara, onto his shoulders. "Hold on tight, I don' want ya ter fall off," he cautioned as she squeezed his massive neck tightly. "There ya go. Tha's a good grip," he assured as he walked over with her.

"Alright. Move it, move it. To hell with this place," Xialah snorted with a last contemptuous look around.

"I don't think we need these auras anymore Scorpious, if you want to start Jenny's healing," Cloudyous suggested as we prepared to leave.

Scorpious nodded and our auras vanished. Moments later, a soft blue light emanated from his skin, wrapping itself solely over Jenny. Scorpious shifted his arms underneath Jenny's back and legs, lifting her carefully into carrying position.

"Now then let's—" he started, but was interrupted by a vengeful and ear-splitting shriek.

My inner sight warned me of this aberrational shaman's presence a second too late. The demons, garbed entirely in a vivid blue grass adorned with glistening red pebbles and full human skulls, raced out from behind what looked like a dilapidated pedestal to the far right of the three stakes. Screaming a full demonic war cry and wielding a peculiar-looking dagger, the shaman lunged after Scorpious and Jenny, spraying deadly fire from its wide mouth.

Calling out a warning would be useless; the two of them were already in its fiery trajectory and had already seen the demon. My heart thundered in my chest as I reached for the last javelin I had, knowing full well that Scorpious didn't have time to change his auras when the attack started. I formed all of my nervous energy into one solid mass of electrical justice and hurled it at the shaman. In a blink of light, the bolt streaked through the foul thing's center and upon impact, sent a branch of lightning down through the head of the demon beneath it. Both components of the unexpected shaman fell to the ground in a smoking heap. The knife the top one held clattered to the ground and bounced to a halt, ending at Sovellis' feet.

"Scorpious! Jenny! Are you two…!" I began, panic forming in my chest as I ran toward them alongside some of the others. To everyone's surprise, both of them were still alive, and physically untouched. What should have been a charring fire hadn't left as much as a scorch on either of them, or even on Scorpious' armor. My paladin friend's face was plastered with a strong sense of shock as he stared down at the girl in his arms. When I realized what was going on, I was taken by surprise too.

Two auras were melding around the pair of them in an array of beaming blues and oranges. Two similar, but distinct spiritual energies were present in the air fueling the respective auras. One was Scorpious', and the other, the one that I recognized as having saved my life earlier, was Jenny's.

"We're… we're fine," Scorpious stuttered after a moment, stunned as Jenny's aura flickered and then dispersed. "Jenny..." he breathed in disbelief. "When did you…?"

"What's going on?" Xialah barked as she shoved her way roughly through to the two of them. "I can't see anything! What the hell just happened?"

"That street-shrimp is also a paladin," Piricus growled above the surprised silence that had gathered over us. The tone in his voice was nasty and when I looked at him, his nose was crunched so tightly against his skin that he could have been smelling swine droppings.

"Well, that's a shocker," Vendra snorted. "Didn't see that one coming."

"That would definitely explain why the demons couldn't light the fire under their cauldrons," Cloudyous added from where he watched at the back of the group. "She's been awake and employing that aura this whole time."

Xialah exhaled a deep, displeased breath as she locked her eyes on Jenny's. "Well," she huffed in an unpleasant voice, "that does explain A LOT."

"Xialah, I'm sorry," Jenny exclaimed miserably. Apparently she knew that this revelation was somehow very upsetting for the mercenary. "I should have told you before. But I didn't want you to—"

Xialah sharply turned away from the paladin duo and stormed off in the direction we'd come without another word.

"Okay, m' confused," Alminus exclaimed bluntly as both he and the girl on his shoulders watched Xialah go.

"You, and everyone else," Ryelass insisted.

Jenny groaned in Scorpious' arms and closed her eyes once more. "Khalim taught me a few months before he died," she answered painfully. "But, I'm not a paladin. I only know this one aura."

"One is all it takes," Piricus spat venomously.

Scorpious let out a deep sigh, expelling the tension he'd repressed until this moment. "Hardly," he replied curtly to Piricus. "Being called of the Order and of God is much, much more than that. We will talk about all this in great detail later. Jenny when you're well enough, I want you to tell me everything. Right now though, we have the children to think about," he finished with the last part directed at us.

"This strange blade," Sovellis remarked from where he stood aloof, examining the thick, triangular dagger that had landed at his feet. "Knife possess strong energy. Very powerful," he repeated as the blade glimmered and cast a blinding wave of purple light over his skin when he touched its edge.

"What do you think it is?" Laurella asked as she watched him, still positioned like a gargoyle over the silent boy at her side. "Do you have any ideas?"

Sovellis squinted in the darkness that followed, scrutinizing the faintly golden dagger. "This…it be old Skatsmi magic. At least I almost completely sure. Fiesty one, what say you?" he asked.

Being that they were connected, I knew Vendra had just experienced the same thing Sovellis did without holding the dagger. "I think you're right Sovellis. I'm pretty sure it's Skatsmi. And what's better, the magic's not tainted. The demons must not have had it for very long, or if they have, the energy is highly resistant to corruption," she affirmed.

"Given those properties, do you think that Hratli or Ormus can use it to renew the enchantment on the dockside?" Cloudyous asked, peering at the blade through the dark.

"There only one way to find out," Sovellis answered, sheathing the dagger carefully in his belt.

"Sorcerer, I'd skip to the finding out part sooner," Piricus growled irritably as he began walking away. "If I don't get some solid sleep soon, I'm just going to blast the whole damn dockside to the tail of Trag 'Oul and be done with it."