The Inner Cloister was suspiciously empty of monsters but for a few spike fiends. They followed Annor through the cloister and into the cathedral. The girl nearly shattered when the doors opened to reveal the destruction and defilement of the holy place within. But there was little time for mourning as the place was crawling with demons.
Martenus, extra sensitive to the sacrilege, set to slaying with a feverish ferocity. With Annor at his side, they slowly made their way from one end of the room to the other, wiping out anything and everything that moved. Meize and Thane, meanwhile, made a sweep of the side rooms and the small chapel at the back.
When they were done, Annor walked over to the altar and pulled off the body of a long-deceased sacrifice. She ripped off the fabric from its rotten corpse and wet it with her water flask. She scrubbed the top of the altar as best she could, then tossed the stained cloth into a fire burning nearby. When she was done, they wordlessly descended into the catacombs below.
The catacombs were laid out much the same as the jail levels. There was no sense or order to their halls and rooms, and anyone traveling through had to simply know where they were going to make it from one stairwell to the other with any ease. Throw in a demon infestation, and the catacombs were purely chaotic.
With Annor in the lead, they were making progress. It was slow fighting their way through, but they were actually getting somewhere.
They were about halfway to the stairs, Annor and Meize a little ahead of the men and out of sight around a corner, when vampire-like creatures suddenly appeared between the two groups. Attracted to the life forces of the stronger men, the group of champion Banished swarmed them.
In the meantime, unaware of the fierce battle behind them, the girls had walked into a problem of their own. They had walked right into a room full of Misshapen. There was a moment of pause when all in the room stopped to realize the situation, then lightning balls started flying.
"Goddess!" Meize cried as she ducked from a hail of balls. Annor let her arrows fly as best she could while avoiding the lightning attack, but they seemed to do little good. Meize's fireballs seemed to do too little, too, when she was able to get in a shot. They just couldn't put up an efficient defense while avoiding the barrage of electrical missiles.
The air in the room was now so electrically charged, Meize's hair was lifting in a halo around her. She had a sudden inspiration and absorbed the lightning energy from the air around her. When she could feel it surging through her veins, she concentrated it all within the center of her being, then flung it out in a sizzling nova.
It was enough damage to kill the creatures closest to them and scare off the rest so that they could run for the door on the other side of the room. They had no choice but to go forward; the way back was completely blocked by the regrouping beasts.
"Go, go, go!" Meize cried, leaping out the door. They slammed it closed behind them.
"We've got to find the guys." Annor swung her quiver off her shoulder, counting her arrows. "Damn, I'm almost out."
"Is there another way around back to where they were?"
"It's a bit of a trek. They will probably have already moved on by the time we get there." She arranged the quiver back into place.
"Will they know we went into that room?"
"I'm pretty sure they were right behind us when we went in."
"So if we just wait here we'll hear them in there any second." Meize strained at the door to hear any noise of battle. She could hear the creatures moaning and crying, but nothing else.
They waited several long minutes, but their companions never came.
"I think, maybe we'd better go around." Meize suggested.
"This way." Annor took off at a trot, anxious to find them.
They worked their way around, but as they feared, the men had already moved on.
"What now?" The girls looked at one another.
"Let's see if we can follow them." Meize advised. "I've had to track them by following their trail of corpses before."
It was easy enough at first, the trail being quite distinguishable. But before long the halls were empty of bodies.
Annor took another look at her near-empty quiver. "Let's just go to the stairs and wait for them there. I think that's what they'd expect us to do."
She ran out of arrows before they made it. Shortly afterwards Meize ran out of mana potions.
"I think maybe we should just take a town portal back. They'll go there eventually looking for us." Meize checked her belt fruitlessly. "Oh, don't tell me… I used my only one yesterday. Do you have one?"
Annor checked her belt and shook her head no.
They decided to continue and make a run for the stairs. By the time they got there, they had a large group of assorted monsters coming after them in chase. They couldn't stop and wait for the others there as they had hoped, and so they descended.
Mercifully, the room at the bottom was empty and there was no sound of pursuit from above. They stopped to catch their breaths.
"Should we just plow on ahead to the waypoint and wait for them at camp?" Annor asked.
"I don't know." Meize replied. "Look at the number of beasts we scared up knowing where we had to go. How many more are we going to find down here when we don't know where we're going." She readjusted the fit on her armor. "I don't think we have much choice, though. At least if we activate the waypoint, we've done what we needed to do today. If we all portal back, we have to start over from the cloister. And unless we find a town portal scroll, our only way back is the waypoint." She sighed and quit fiddling with her straps. "Do you have any idea how to get to the waypoint?"
"No, I don't. I really don't."
"Then we run."
It didn't take long for them to collect a large group in pursuit again. They couldn't stop to rest for even a moment or they'd find themselves engulfed by demons. And it only got worse with every turn they made. Finally the inevitable happened and they found themselves in a dead end, trapped by an army of monsters.
They turned and Meize fired volley after volley, quickly draining her mana, but hoping to force an opening through which they could escape. It just barely worked. Annor cracked her bow over the head of a Banished while Meize bashed a few last Dark Ones out of the way with her staff.
That's when one of them dropped a town portal scroll.
Meize made a grab for the fallen scroll.
"No!!" Annor cried, diving on top of her, driving them both into the stone floor, a fireball exploding where the scroll had lain as an axe and several arrows embedded themselves in the wall beside them.
Slightly stunned, Meize didn't resist as Annor pulled her up and running down the hall. They jumped into an empty room and closed the door.
"Shit, shit, shit!" Meize fumed. "I was so close."
"I'm sorry, but you would have..."
"No, I'm not angry at you. I'm just angry." She paced around the little room. "What are we going to do?"
"Perhaps we should just stay here. Martenus and Thane will find us eventually. You know they won't stop looking until they find us."
Meize stopped pacing and turned to her friend. "I can't do that. It's too…" She searched for the right word.
"Helpless." Annor finished for her, dropping the pieces of her broken bow and sinking to the floor.
"Helpless." Meize echoed, leaning her forehead against the cold wall.
Something heavy smashed against the door, causing them both to jump. The only thing in the room they could use to barricade the door was an old crate. It wasn't very heavy, and it wouldn't hold anything back long, but they moved it over anyway. Something bashed against the door again, sending down a rain of dust and dry mortar. It hit again, the door nearly coming out of the wall. The girls scrambled to the back of the room, preparing themselves as best they could for the coming onslaught. One more hit, the door rocked against the crate, and the tip of an axe shot through. It wiggled as the wielder tried to free it from the ancient wood. Meize ran up and placed her hand on the bit of exposed blade, sending the heat of her fire through the axe until something yelped in pain on the other side.
Nothing attacked the door again, the axe remained embedded, but the demons didn't leave. Meize and Annor could hear their unharmonious medley of moans, cacklings, and grunts in the hall.
An hour passed, then two. They were still trapped in the little room, the monsters waiting for them would not give up. Eventually they ended up huddled together in the corner, Meize gently warming the stones around them as her mana reserves allowed.
They tried to take their minds off their situation.
"Tell me about you and Martenus." Meize began.
She caught the other girl off guard. "There's not much to tell."
"What do you mean, there's not much to tell? One day you were simply one of Kashya's rogues, the next you're the center of his life!"
"And what does that matter to you? Are you jealous or something!"
"Me? Jealous?" Meize fumed. "Don't be ridiculous. And it matters to me because he's my friend and my teammate."
"But my feelings are none of your business."
"They are too now that you're with us!" Meize took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "Maybe discussing personal things isn't a good idea when we're so stressed out."
"No, it's fine. You're right. You have a right to know." She sighed. "I've loved him pretty much from the moment he strolled into our camp. There was something about him that I found so very compelling that I couldn't stop thinking about him. But he didn't know me from any of the other girls. He was too obsessed with his quests to even notice me. And then you came along. I was so envious. I would have given anything to be with him in battle as you were."
"Trust me, those first couple of weeks were torture. They abandoned me every chance they got. I can't count the number of times I nearly died thanks to them."
Annor smiled sadly.
"Go on." Meize encouraged.
"I have to be honest, my jealousy of you grew when I saw the way he started looking at you…" she paused. "I know the only reason he gave up his attentions on you was because you were more attracted to Thane…"
"But I'm not…"
"…but it doesn't matter in the end. When he finally noticed me, he knew it was love at first sight too. It was like lightning struck between us, and then you and Thane were the last thing on his mind."
"But Thane and I aren't…"
"Do I pass your approval now?"
Meize paused, caught off guard. "You've always had my approval. You won it the day you stood up to Martenus at the waypoint and joined us."
"I'm glad. I'm happy to have your friendship."
"And I yours."
"Well," Annor adjusted her sore bottom on the hard floor, "now it's your turn to spill. What's the story with you and Thane?"
The sorceress blushed madly. "There is no story. We're just friends."
"Oh, please. We all see the way you look at each other."
"I'm serious! There's nothing between us."
Annor regarded her for a moment. "Don't you see that man is head over heels for you? And you can't deny you want him too."
"I will admit, at times there seems to be a mutual attraction…"
"But?"
"But just when I think something is about to happen between us, he backs off."
"Ah."
"He backs off or we're interrupted, and the moment passes."
"Then next time don't let the moment pass. Don't be afraid to make the first move yourself."
"But will there be a next time? I'm beginning to despair that we will never leave this place."
"They'll come. They know we're here somewhere. They'll come."
With that, they lapsed into silence. Neither felt like continuing with idle chitchat anymore. Meize warmed the stones again, and they fell asleep against one another.
They slept for a while, then they took turns pacing about the little room, trying to get their blood circulating again. They were hungry and irritated, and they agreed to keep conversation to a minimum to avoid sparking any kind of argument. Hours passed by, and the monsters outside the door wouldn't leave.
They debated the merits of just staying in the room versus making another run for the waypoint, but without knowing just how many creatures were waiting for them outside that door, they were stuck. Even just opening the door could break the fragile truce that had stopped the demons from smashing it down earlier.
So they waited.
"Do you hear that?" Annor whispered, rushing to place her ear against the door. "I swear I heard something."
"You've said that how many times now?"
"No, really. This time I hear something."
And then Meize heard it too. Their guards were scrambling about outside. Then there was the distinctive ring of steel against steel.
"Martenus?" Annor yelled through the closed door.
"Annor?" His voice faintly echoed back. "Hang on, we're coming."
And the sound of battle grew closer and closer until finally it was right outside their door. It raged on for several long minutes until finally the door smashed into the crate. Another hit sent both the door and the crate flying.
And there they were, standing in the doorway.
Annor rushed into Martenus' arms and they kissed each other over and over.
Meize was nearly paralyzed with nauseous fear, wanting desperately to run to Thane the same way, but painfully afraid to do so. She found herself backed up against the far wall, tears streaming down her cheeks.
He stepped past the other couple and strode right up to her, bracing his hands against the wall on either side of her. "Don't ever do that to me again." He softly said. Then he pulled her into his arms and he kissed her.
And she kissed him back with everything she had.