Author's Note: Had this chapter half written when I had to reformat, because of this and recent updates (NEX FTW!) the plot has been slightly altered Also expect some of the earlier chapters to be rewritten into a better quality as they are rather lacking compared to my more recent material (eg anything in the last year)

It felt as if I were staring into the eyes of Death itself. Ok, if I were honest with myself that was a lie, I'd stared into Death's eyes more than once and had done Ol' Grim a few favours in the past, enough so that I think we could just about be considered friends, Grim after all rarely got to talk to someone more than once, unless of course it was an adventurer under a god's protection in which case it was pretty much the exit's that way, be more careful next time.

Still I found Nex's gold piercing eyes amongst the most intimidating sights I'd seen. I'd held the gaze of demons, vampires, trolls and a few of the Mahjarrat in my time, recently even a lich but I found I could only hold her gaze for a few seconds. I turned my head away instead choosing to look at my fellow prisoner.

Enakra was in a pretty bad way. I wished to Zamorak we'd never gone on this suicide mission. For the first time since Zanik's death things had actually been going to until I'd been leaving Relleka when Enakra had teleported next to me and grabbed my arm before teleporting me away.

Next thing I knew I'd been strongarmed into a mission by the Zamorakian Mahjarrat. Apparently the vote to get me involved was unanimous although I had a sneaking suspicion that the majority of votes were in the hope I'd be killed in the process.

Which was how I'd found myself coordinating the effort to keep Nex and the formerly last army of Zaros stuck in the place adventurers had rather unimaginatively named 'The God Wars Dungeon' or GWD for short.

As the strongest Zamorakian adventurer in the GWD I had found myself acting as liaison between my opposite numbers for Saradomin, Armadyl and Bandos.

If we'd had the generals actively helping we probably would have killed off most of Nex's forces, the problem was that the generals had up until the war been enjoying the same protection the adventurers had had, now with their immortality in question none were willing to risk a direct confrontation with Nex. Which meant as always the adventurers were taking to the front lines to get slaughtered.

Oh we gave as good as we got but about fifty adventurers against an entire army of Zarosian monsters each capable of killing even an experienced adventurer, and most of them weren't even experienced adventurers. The result was a foregone conclusion.

Still the footsoldiers of the other gods had managed to hold the line but for every one of Zaros's creatures we killed at least five of our own fell too. Nex's lieutenants didn't help matters, us adventurers had protection prayers of course but since the war had started they had become increasingly unreliable. Our antipoison reserves were almost gone, courtesy of Fumus and the cold that was being exuded by Glacies was sapping the strength from our limbs, although the creatures of Zamorak and Bandos didn't seem to bothered by that. Fortunately Umbra had proven pretty easy to fight back, his shadow magic may prevent us from seeing our target clearly but fifty people firing crossbows in his general direction had made him take his health into more considerable consideration. Cruor had so far remained with Nex. Of the generals of Armadyl, Bandos, Saradomin and Zamorak, no help in actual combat had been forthcoming, fear of death without their god's protection having kept them from the frontlines.

Enakra had of coursed proven the match of all foes foolish enough to face her and watching the ease she switched from spell to blade had proven educational for even the best among us, although it had been difficult restraining a few of the more devout Saradominists from trying to kill her, with so few adventurers to coordinate the armies we really couldn't afford to lose any more. Only once had she had to retreat since we'd begun our fight against the formerly last army of Zaros.

Enakra had been pressing hard against the enemy, laying waist to all creatures in her path when Glacies and Fumus had struck.

The two had frozen her in place and were barraging her with spells, the reavers had done their all to prevent us reaching her but we had been able to get to the Mahjarrat and – barely – fight off the two mages. It had taken her a week to recover.

Both sides had found themselves at a standstill. Nex, presumably unaware that her's was no longer the last army loyal to Zaros while we were unwilling to lose too many to this single campaign, the four armies likely to prove invaluable now that plans were being drawn up to free them from the dungeon. So naturally all eyes had turned upon my colleagues and I to figure out a way to break the deadlock. The plan had been to take out one of Nex's lieutenants, any one of them would have done, the resulting power vaccumn would have allowed us to finally gain ground until we could simply seal Nex's chamber of from the world once more. Needless to say it hadn't gone well, of a strike force of the ten most experienced adventurers, including the Saradomin leader, Tato and the the Armdayl leader, Ronialive, as well as Enakra and five orks. Now however there were only Enakra and I left. It occurs to me that I didn't even know the names of most of the adventurers, with death borderline non-existant before the war it had never seemed important, you just so happened to be fighting in the same place, I didn't know the orks either.

Which brought us to our current situation, a brutal death at the hands of Nex, now armed only with a dagger hidden in my left boot. Yeah, a dagger VS Gielnor's deadliest creature, not a fight I'd like to have.

Nex raised a clawed hand, a single swipe bound to simply pluck my head off my shoulders. The hand came down, my fate moving with it. And then one of her talons poked underneath my chin, forcing my head up to meet her eyes.

"You are Scrooge?" Her voice was melodic but had a sort of other-worldly, ethereal quality to it. "The Scrooge who has caused General Sigmund so much trouble? The Scrooge who has so single-mindedly foiled every plan he has come up with? The same Scrooge who slayed the Mahjarrat Khazard?" Their was a gasp from Enakra – it seems that was one of my exploits she'd been unaware of. "The Scrooge who is responsible for the resurrection of the foolish Hazeel?" It was clear the questions were rhetorical, it appeared she was building to a concluding point.

One of her talons slowly traced across my throat so close to breaking the skin. "So frail and delicate. A mere human despite everything. I expected more."

I marshalled my courage. "So you're going to kill me now?"

"Oh no. My lord Zaros wants you very much alive..."

Author's Note: Yay, semi-cliffhanger. Wanted to see the effect of a chapter almost entirely in past tense as well as writing something of a homage to the newly released Nex (at least she was newly released when I started this chapter, gives you some idea of the writing time doesn't it.)