Voyage to destruction

Chapter 5: It is time to move on.

"I mean, come on Az. We could sell that and possibly make enough for us to live for years without even lifting another finger!" complained Thoraro. It had been at least an hour since he had started to try convincing Azuron to sell his Lightsaber.

"No! This sword is worth more to me than any money. I used it while fighting the demons in my . . . never mind"

"You mean the demons in your dream? Tell me . . . what did happen? You never explained the dream to me." Thoraro asked in hoping to get some information of what actually happened out of him.

"I found myself back in Harrogath and, well, I was happy. I don't know why but I found myself on a path after that, walking. There's this weird old guy who came to talk to me, I turned around to beat him . . . and the demons appeared." Azuron replied.

Thoraro just looked towards Azuron and asked him: "And where did you get the sword Az?"

"I'm not sure really, I looked around and there it was, in my dream. I killed a lot of demons with it. Then, after I woke up, it was under my covers. . . It scares me, thinking of how it got there, really."

Thoraro stood up, told Azuron that he would talk to him more about the dream later and walked away.



By now, Gwelin had woken up. After being overworked by Iludian, she decided to take the day off from training. While she was walking around camp, talking to various rogues about their adventures, she ran into Cain again. "Gwelin, I'm sorry to tell you this once again, but this time it's more important than ever. Andariel has been hiding in the Catacombs for quite some time now. A rogue scout has reported that the armies are massing, and there might possibly be an assault upon the camp, lead by Andariel if nothing is done." Gwelin gasped. Andariel, the queen of anguish certainly wasn't a demon you wanted to mess with. But she had to do something about this. After leaving Cain to do the things he usually does, she found Thoraro and told him to get Azuron and Iludian for an assault on the catacombs.



One day later. . .



"Iludian, must you have so many skeletons? It's hard to get around with them blocking the entire hallway." Thoraro complained.

"I am sorry, but I am not physically capable of doing the fighting myself. I specialized myself in reviving monsters. Not help others." Iludian said calmly while casting a curse on the oncoming monsters. They had reached the 3rd level of the catacombs in only one day. After leaving, they made it to the monastery gates by sundown where they set up camp. Afterwards they stormed towards the cathedral, and the catacombs.

"Gwelin! Watch out behind you!" Azuron yelled, while shouting out a war cry that would make anyone, who is unused to his loud voice, run away in fear. Gwelin swung her staff backwards, hitting the Dark One who was about to slice her in the back. The little monster went flying into the wall, and fell onto the floor in a puddle of blood. "Phew. . ." She said, being slightly relieved. While she was concentrating on other things, the Dark One stood up again, and walked back towards Gwelin. It yelled "Rakanishu!" and swung at her. With the corner of his eye, Thoraro caught the Dark One who was about to hit her. He jumped up in the air and landed straight on the monster before it had the chance to hit Gwelin.

Thoraro had startled Gwelin and she turned around, about to cast a spell until she realized that it was only Thoraro. "Don't scare me like that . . . please." She told him. After killing the small pack of Dark Ones, they continued forward and found the stairs leading down towards the fourth level of the catacombs. They went down the stairs. Thoraro had a bit of anxiety in his system, yet managed to enter Andariel's lair without showing it to the others. They made quick work of the monsters in the first chamber they entered. The centre of the room was a huge pool of blood. Bodies of warriors, rogues and others were piled in stacks around the room. It was as if there was a large assault at one time, which failed miserably. There were two large doors connecting to another room, and they all knew who would be found there.

"I don't know about this. . ." Thoraro whispered to Azuron.

"Stay by me. Trust me on this." Azuron whispered back, even though his whisper was loud enough for the entire group to hear.

Azuron took the lead, and kicked the doors open. They were immediately swarmed by Dark Ones and Ghouls. Gwelin conjured up a firewall damaging the front line of monsters. Azuron and Thoraro were desperately trying to hold them off so they don't reach Gwelin or Iludian. Iludian's skeleton army were in the middle of it all, hitting anything they saw, or ran in to. "Watch out for any body pieces!" Iludian yelled at his friends.

Splat. A ghoul's body on the floor exploded into many pieces, hurting anyone in the vicinity. (Unlike the game - I'm making Corpse explosion a little more realistic. It hits everyone. Even friendly team members.) Body parts flew everywhere, killing many ghouls, and skeletons. Splat. Another body exploded, killing the rest of the monsters but the left arm of the ghoul which exploded flew and hit Gwelin in the stomach, knocking her down.

"Aghh!" Gwelin attempted to stand, only to bend over in pain. "I'll be ok. Don't worry." Once she did stand up, she had a large cut across her unprotected stomach. Thoraro had only a few minor cuts on his arms and Azuron was almost untouched. Iludian was without a scratch, yet defenceless. When he had used corpse explosion, he hadn't thought of it killing his skeletons. Unfortunately for him, it did. He decided to summon a golem from the cracks in the floor, and raise the remaining bodies as skeletons.

As they walked deeper into the room, they heard a glass shattering scream. "And. . .ariel" Thoraro muttered. "Everyone! Stick together!" he yelled.

"Forget that! I'm going after her!" Azuron replied as he charged forward, yelling out war cries as he went. As soon as she was in sight, Azuron leapt forward with his lightsaber in his hand and tried to slice her stomach. When he hit the ground, he had landed on the backside of a large chair, and Andariel was behind him. He swore.

"AZURON!" Gwelin screamed as she saw the barbarian fly across the room and hit a wall. At this point, Azuron was drifting in and out of consciousness. He was seeing pictures of the dream he had. Gwelin's voice, the demons, almost dieing. . . Azuron snapped out of it, and stood up with Gwelin's help. "We've got to fight together. . . In my dream, you had helped me by killing many demons yourself. . ." They then returned to the battle.

Thoraro was looking tired, and Iludian's skeletons had all bit the dust. Iludian was building bone walls to shield him from the poison that Andariel was shooting at him, and Thoraro was suffering from it. Gwelin cast a firewall underneath Andariel, while Azuron jumped at the demon lady as she was busy taking care of the bone walls. Andariel saw the barbarian jumping towards her and decided to move. As she was moving, Azuron landed upon her back, and plunged his sword deep into her back, then slicing through her neck. As a last dieing effort, she shot poison in every direction, and swatted Thoraro to the other side of the room into a skull pile.

Andariel then fell to the 4 heroes.

Using the Town Portal scroll, they were able to return to town. Thoraro was hurt badly. When he was hit, and sent into the skull pile, a bone had pierced his armour and went right through him, under his right shoulder. Gwelin's cut across the stomach was bandaged up yet still hurt to move, Azuron had a broken wrist, and Iludian was sick in bed, from the poison. (His bone wall collapsed before she shot poison, the rest avoided it. . . or have major resistances, up to you to decide on that one.)

Yet they had no worries. Their adventure had finally begun. They begin the search for the prime evils.

Author's Notes: Well Act 1 is finished. I'm going to try to finish my Christmas story which ties on to this one around this chapter. After the Christmas one is finished, I'll continue on this story. They're heading to Lut G, now. Harem girl town :X. Well, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter as you've enjoyed the others. . . (you better have. . .) I mean honestly - if you have ANY suggestions at all, tell me in the review. I'm open to criticism.