Niklaus groaned to the pain of consciousness.
"Well, it's nice to see you've joined us," Sasha commented dryly.
"How long was I out?"
"I have no idea. Time doesn't seem to pass the same when you're dead."
"Where are we?"
"I dunno, your eyes were closed."
"Okay, why does my stomach hurt?"
"Something put a knife in it."
"Oh."
Niklaus paused. "Who stabbed me?"
"I dunno."
"Y'know, you're just not worth shooting."
"I wish you'd thought of that a few months ago."
"Hey, I think we're even on that score."
"How so?"
"Well, I stabbed you, and I got stabbed, I'd think we'd be even."
"No, I got stabbed and decapitated, you just got stabbed. Get your head chopped off and we'll call it even."
"...I like my memory of it better."
"Payback's a bitch, ain't it?"
"We'll talk about that later. Let's get out of this now."
Niklaus opened his eyes and looked around. Carefully, since there were quite a few dead things around him. As any Paladin knows, being around dead things still isn't safe.
Fortunately, these were normal dead things, not the get-up-out-of-the-grave-and-wreak-havoc-upon-a-poor-and-defenseless-human-population kind of dead things.
Secondly, they were all armed in the style of the desert mercenaries he had seen riding into Lut Gholein. Which was to say they were armed to the teeth.
However, most of those teeth, as well as a goodly portion of viscera, were spread across the floor in a bloody mess.
He looked down at the floor and realized that the blood was squelching between his toes. Then he realized that he was in the nude, bereft of even his leggings.
"Big boy, aren't we?" Sasha choked out, stifling a laugh.
"Aw, shuddup and help me find some clothes."
"Stop staring at yourself then."
"Hey!"
After a while, they managed to piece together enough intact clothing and armor to make Niklaus feel a little safer, as well as commandeer a pike with a forked end. Niklaus was relatively comfortable weilding it in the narrow yet long hallways. Niklaus was ready to head off but something glinted in the corner of his eye. He walked over and picked up the strangest looking sword (at least it looked like a sword) he had ever seen.
It had a long handle, obviously for two hands, but the blade was short and the entire thing was incredibly lightweight.
The end of the sword was also weird. Normally, swords taper towards the end, to improve the weapon's balance. On this thing, the end flared to a protrustions of sharp points and concave edges.
He would have at first thought it to be a club, but there was definitely an edge on one side.
However, it was still balanced well, although when Niklaus swung it, it almost swung like a mace.
Then there was the feel to it...there was something fell inside the blade, a sense of cruel forboding and utter, pure malice. Niklaus swung the weapon again.
"Did that thing just shriek?" Sasha asked, similarly curious about the weapon.
"I don't think so, lemme try again." Niklaus swung it, but didn't hear anything.
"No, it's there, I heard it."
Niklaus swung the blade a few more times. Sasha heard the thing shriek a few more times. However, Niklaus curtailed experimentation until he could find a more suitable location.
Niklaus scavenged around until he found a suitable sheath. It may have been a quiver for arrows, but it would do for now. He attached the quiver to his right hip and made for the door.
Heaving it open, he peered into the blackness. It was, unsurprisingly, dark.
"Wow, there's a surprise."
"Hush, I'm trying to let my eyes adapt."
"Do I need to be quiet for your eyes to work?"
"No, but until my eyes adapt I have to work off my ears, which I can't do if you're talking."
Sasha blew a raspberry.
"Can't hear if you do that too."
Niklaus' eyes adjusted quickly, and Sasha ignited the Aura of Blessed Aim, allowing details to leap into focus and vastly improving his night-vision.
Niklaus snuck into the gloom, keeping the pike well in front of him and taking advantage of the narrow halls. He looked down and saw curious tracks.
"They look like snake-tracks," Niklaus observed.
"Well, they might be those things that attacked you outside the city."
"Those snake-like things?"
"Were there anything else?"
"I got hit in the head, remember?"
"So? It's not like there's anything there to worry about?"
"Nice way to talk to your host."
"I don't remember getting an invitation."
"It was right after the stabbing."
"You mean the decapitation. Is *that* how Paladin ask a girl out? Well Nik, flowers would have been better, doncha think?"
"Ug smash girl on head, take to cave, boff like mad," Niklaus joked back in the darkness.
"Oh, I feel faint!" Sasha fluttered.
Suddenly, the absurdity of the moment caught up with the both of them: the image of a single man creeping down a corridor with a spear and sword in borrowed armor against unknowable odds and hitting on himself was rather silly.
Niklaus and Sasha collapsed in a terminal case of giggles.
"So would this mean I'm trying to screw myself?"
"You try that and you'll go blind!"
That sent them both into fresh peals of laughter. It didn't help when Sasha suggested that Niklaus check his palms.
This went on for several minutes, but also brought them to the attention of several of the snake-beings that traversed the halls. Curiously, three creatures made their way to see a hysterical human nearly rolling in the hallway. Astonished at this unprecedented behavior (it must be some mammal thing) they edged closer to the strange human.
Quite contrary to any sensical action, the human saw them come closer and actually laughed harder. The snake-creatures knew that sometimes mammals' weak minds would crack under excessive strain, but this was quite unlike the exhibited behavior they had seen in other humans.
The human, weak from his exhertions, staggered over to the snake men and collapsed on one's shoulder, still laughing. The snake-men looked at one another.
#Are you hungry?# asked one in its sibilant language.
#No, I just ate a week ago, I'm still full,# replied another, seconded by the third.
#What are we going to do?# asked the first.
#Maybe we should kill it,# opted the third.
#It wouldn't be fresh when we did get hungry,# the second said, and the others hissed in agreement.
#Well, we can't have it wander around like this,# the first said, then turned to the third for its agreement.
The third was laying on the floor, rapidly cooling. The first snake-man also noticed that the strange mammal was no longer laughing.
The first and second snake-men turned towards the Paladin, now aglow with the Aura of Concentration, as the pike snaked out (pardon the pun) and speared both of them through the skull, silencing them instantly.
Niklaus missed Silence.
"Well, that takes care of those three," Sasha volunteered, "how many more do you think there are?"
"Who knows? At least we've got these dead."
"Yeah, but how were their sense of smell? If they were good, then it's a sure bet the rest will smell something and come investigate."
"Then we'd better leave while we can. The air smells pretty fresh, so I'm willing to wager we aren't very far from the surface."
They made their way through the oppresive darkness, Sasha once again igniting the Aura of Blessed Aim (the name amused her greatly).
They made fairly good progress through the dank hallways, coming across small parties and spearing them quickly with the pike.
Niklaus snuck along, keeping to the shadows, pike out and at the ready. He explored every wisp of fresh air he scented; unfortunately, he must have scented wrong, because he usually found himself at a dead end.
However, he came at last to a set of stairs. Sadly, they led downwards.
"Well, at least it's some stairs. Maybe there are some down there that lead to the surface," Sasha reasoned.
"It's worth a try," Niklaus agreed, and they started downstairs.
To say the least, confronting a horde of more snake-men and a smattering of undead is somewhat disheartening. Especially when one is a possessed Paladin armed with second-hand (and likely lower quality) armor, a stick with a pointy end, and some weird sword/club hybrid that makes a shrieking noise that only one half of said Paladin can hear.
Especially when there are a pile of human sacrifices one can see in the corner, all of which are disturbingly fresh.
Conversely, the multitudes of snake-men and smattering of undead were somewhat perturbed by one of their sacrifices standing at the head of the stairs, fully clothed and armed, and likely rather put off at being sacrificed.
Hastily, Niklaus backed up the narrow stairwell as the snake-men rushed him, determined to sacrifice him proper this time.
The pike head lanced in and out of the crowding mass. Fortunately, girth of the snake-men prevented them from gaining entry into the stairs, and Niklaus was able to fend them off fairly well.
Then his skin prickled as he felt another enemy behind him. He didn't have time to switch the pike, and was busy fending off the enemies down the stairs anyway.
The strange sword flashed out of its impromptu sheath, and whirled behind him. He felt very slight resistance as the weapon cut--it must have been an undead, it cut through so easily--and he whirled the strange sword to ward off any incoming hits, then spun the sword to decapitate the undead foe.
He panicked when the sword hit only air; this foe was a skilled undead, and he had his hands full already with the mass before him.
Sasha thought quickly and flashed the demons' brainpan with a bolt of electricity and Niklaus spun upwards, switching sword and pike expertly to position himself nearer the foe behind him.
He slipped on a piece of viscera and promptly landed on his once-holy ass.
Desperately, he tried to regain his footing, but the snake-men were upon him, and desperately he swung the strange sword.
Inexplicably, the snake-men he cut virtually exploded in a horrible mass of internal organs.
Everything stopped as all eyes fell onto the weapon that had ripped apart several snake-men with a single cut, from an astonished Paladin (and resident succubus) to a multitude of shocked snake demons. Although the shocked part could be attributed to the burst of electricity that Sasha had stunned their opponents with.
A small, somewhat demented smile quickly blossomed into a truly manic grin upon the Paladin's face and the wisps of another Aura drifted around him, quickly growing in fiery oranges and reds.
Whee.
The stairwell exploded, throwing snake-men everywhere as an inferno strode into the room.
The first time Sasha had fully BloodLusted outside the village in Westmarch, Niklaus had been helpless amidst the tides of her urges. Now in a true fight to the death, he fully embraced the BloodLust as they rocketed into the disorganized mass.
Body parts flew everywhere as the curious sword sang in destructive revelry. Snake-men, reknowned for their brutal charges and vicious talons, slowed to a mere crawl as Niklaus and Sasha wove through them, expertly dodging attacks and hewing limbs.
Niklaus charged into a mass, knocking one into others and rendereing them senseless before he hacked at them with preternatural speed. He then rocketed into another amassing force and delivered similar punishment.
Niklaus whirled the weapon in tight arcs, parrying (and not coincidentally, separating) attacking claws and responding with repeatedly flawless coup de grace, dismantling his opponents as effectively here as on any battlefield.
Niklaus then turned on the sluggish undead, where the strange weapon tore through them like rotten cheesecloth. He then bore full-tilt into another massing group of snake-men, and dismissed them cruelly.
Before long, Niklaus found himself surrounded only by dead bodies.
And clapping.
He looked up, still in Sasha's BloodLust, and saw a Horadric Ancient standing in front of a podium, wielding a sacrifical knife. The Aura flashed even brighter as Sasha recognized the weapon as the one that had pierced Niklaus.
"Impressive, mortal," the Ancient rasped, "but not nearly enough, for you are too late."
Suddenly, the ceiling rippled, exposing the hot desert sun. Niklaus didn't care about the heat; he had one more enemy to dispose of.
However, They sky suddenly darkened as if an eclipse suddenly blocked out the sun.
Niklaus and Sasha only noted it with passing interest. Their main focus was on the Ancient at the altar.
That figure darkened along with the fading sun, but not in the conventional "in the shadows" sort of darkening. It was as if the darkness cloaked the Ancient in an evil cocoon.
"Well of course it'd be wrapped up in something evil," Sasha snapped, impatient to kill something, "it's a corrupted Ancient!"
Niklaus nodded and charged into the darkness. He was promptly blown backwards by a telekinetic blast. Hastily, he picked himself back up and charged in again.
He met the next blast head on, and the two strove against each other for dominance. The air rippled and sand was tossed into the air as the struggle continued.
Eventually, Niklaus lost his footing and was knocked back again. He picked himself up one more time to see the darkness pull away from the Ancient.
Whereas the Ancient was largely rotting anyway, now the rot had gone to an extreme, barely leaving any flesh on the skeleton.
The Ancient laughed, but this time it laughed with a resonating timbre. "See what I have become!" it announced proudly, reveling in its newfound glory.
"I see a pile of bones that needs stomping," Niklaus grinned at the leering undead.
The undead roared and leapt off the altar, charging towards Niklaus. Niklaus grinned and charged at the undead.
They raced past each other, flashing their weapons and missing simultaneously. Niklaus braced his foot off an onrushing wall and propelled himself at the undead again. The undead had no wall to brace against, and as it skidded to a halt, it caught a Niklaus-shaped cannonball as the Paladin dropped his shoulder and sent the corpse flying. Niklaus charged again and caught the Ancient just as hit neared the ground, propelling it upwards yet again.
This time the revenant had the unfortunate fate to land near the opposite wall as the raging Paladin charged in and shattered the Ancient against the wall. He instantly took to vigorously jumping up and down on the shattered corpse.
Now exhausted, Niklaus surveyed the scene as Sasha wore herself out on her Bloodlust. To say the least, it was complete and utter carnage. There were more body parts than bodies laying around, and most of them were in unrecognizable chunks.
"Wow that was good," Sasha panted, "I need a smoke."
"Take a look at this," Niklaus said of the carnage.
Sasha paused. "Damn, it must have been good for you too."
"Yeah, it was, but a sword shouldn't have made them...explode like that."
Sasha sobered slightly, although she still felt wobbly. "Yeah, I guess it shouldn't have."
Niklaus looked cautiously at the blade. "There's no blood on it, either."
"There's a lot on us, though."
"Yeah, I wanna shower. That was disgusting."
"Oh, you had fun, admit it."
"Well, we were vanquishing the forces of Hell and all..."
"Nik," Sasha interrupted, "are you saying it wasn't good?"
"No no! It was great, but very messy."
"Well," Sasha said, "Y'know, that does happen when two people...."
"What does two people have to do with slaying demons?"
"Oh!" Sasha exclaimed, "I thought you meant...never mind."
"Well, it's nice to see you've joined us," Sasha commented dryly.
"How long was I out?"
"I have no idea. Time doesn't seem to pass the same when you're dead."
"Where are we?"
"I dunno, your eyes were closed."
"Okay, why does my stomach hurt?"
"Something put a knife in it."
"Oh."
Niklaus paused. "Who stabbed me?"
"I dunno."
"Y'know, you're just not worth shooting."
"I wish you'd thought of that a few months ago."
"Hey, I think we're even on that score."
"How so?"
"Well, I stabbed you, and I got stabbed, I'd think we'd be even."
"No, I got stabbed and decapitated, you just got stabbed. Get your head chopped off and we'll call it even."
"...I like my memory of it better."
"Payback's a bitch, ain't it?"
"We'll talk about that later. Let's get out of this now."
Niklaus opened his eyes and looked around. Carefully, since there were quite a few dead things around him. As any Paladin knows, being around dead things still isn't safe.
Fortunately, these were normal dead things, not the get-up-out-of-the-grave-and-wreak-havoc-upon-a-poor-and-defenseless-human-population kind of dead things.
Secondly, they were all armed in the style of the desert mercenaries he had seen riding into Lut Gholein. Which was to say they were armed to the teeth.
However, most of those teeth, as well as a goodly portion of viscera, were spread across the floor in a bloody mess.
He looked down at the floor and realized that the blood was squelching between his toes. Then he realized that he was in the nude, bereft of even his leggings.
"Big boy, aren't we?" Sasha choked out, stifling a laugh.
"Aw, shuddup and help me find some clothes."
"Stop staring at yourself then."
"Hey!"
After a while, they managed to piece together enough intact clothing and armor to make Niklaus feel a little safer, as well as commandeer a pike with a forked end. Niklaus was relatively comfortable weilding it in the narrow yet long hallways. Niklaus was ready to head off but something glinted in the corner of his eye. He walked over and picked up the strangest looking sword (at least it looked like a sword) he had ever seen.
It had a long handle, obviously for two hands, but the blade was short and the entire thing was incredibly lightweight.
The end of the sword was also weird. Normally, swords taper towards the end, to improve the weapon's balance. On this thing, the end flared to a protrustions of sharp points and concave edges.
He would have at first thought it to be a club, but there was definitely an edge on one side.
However, it was still balanced well, although when Niklaus swung it, it almost swung like a mace.
Then there was the feel to it...there was something fell inside the blade, a sense of cruel forboding and utter, pure malice. Niklaus swung the weapon again.
"Did that thing just shriek?" Sasha asked, similarly curious about the weapon.
"I don't think so, lemme try again." Niklaus swung it, but didn't hear anything.
"No, it's there, I heard it."
Niklaus swung the blade a few more times. Sasha heard the thing shriek a few more times. However, Niklaus curtailed experimentation until he could find a more suitable location.
Niklaus scavenged around until he found a suitable sheath. It may have been a quiver for arrows, but it would do for now. He attached the quiver to his right hip and made for the door.
Heaving it open, he peered into the blackness. It was, unsurprisingly, dark.
"Wow, there's a surprise."
"Hush, I'm trying to let my eyes adapt."
"Do I need to be quiet for your eyes to work?"
"No, but until my eyes adapt I have to work off my ears, which I can't do if you're talking."
Sasha blew a raspberry.
"Can't hear if you do that too."
Niklaus' eyes adjusted quickly, and Sasha ignited the Aura of Blessed Aim, allowing details to leap into focus and vastly improving his night-vision.
Niklaus snuck into the gloom, keeping the pike well in front of him and taking advantage of the narrow halls. He looked down and saw curious tracks.
"They look like snake-tracks," Niklaus observed.
"Well, they might be those things that attacked you outside the city."
"Those snake-like things?"
"Were there anything else?"
"I got hit in the head, remember?"
"So? It's not like there's anything there to worry about?"
"Nice way to talk to your host."
"I don't remember getting an invitation."
"It was right after the stabbing."
"You mean the decapitation. Is *that* how Paladin ask a girl out? Well Nik, flowers would have been better, doncha think?"
"Ug smash girl on head, take to cave, boff like mad," Niklaus joked back in the darkness.
"Oh, I feel faint!" Sasha fluttered.
Suddenly, the absurdity of the moment caught up with the both of them: the image of a single man creeping down a corridor with a spear and sword in borrowed armor against unknowable odds and hitting on himself was rather silly.
Niklaus and Sasha collapsed in a terminal case of giggles.
"So would this mean I'm trying to screw myself?"
"You try that and you'll go blind!"
That sent them both into fresh peals of laughter. It didn't help when Sasha suggested that Niklaus check his palms.
This went on for several minutes, but also brought them to the attention of several of the snake-beings that traversed the halls. Curiously, three creatures made their way to see a hysterical human nearly rolling in the hallway. Astonished at this unprecedented behavior (it must be some mammal thing) they edged closer to the strange human.
Quite contrary to any sensical action, the human saw them come closer and actually laughed harder. The snake-creatures knew that sometimes mammals' weak minds would crack under excessive strain, but this was quite unlike the exhibited behavior they had seen in other humans.
The human, weak from his exhertions, staggered over to the snake men and collapsed on one's shoulder, still laughing. The snake-men looked at one another.
#Are you hungry?# asked one in its sibilant language.
#No, I just ate a week ago, I'm still full,# replied another, seconded by the third.
#What are we going to do?# asked the first.
#Maybe we should kill it,# opted the third.
#It wouldn't be fresh when we did get hungry,# the second said, and the others hissed in agreement.
#Well, we can't have it wander around like this,# the first said, then turned to the third for its agreement.
The third was laying on the floor, rapidly cooling. The first snake-man also noticed that the strange mammal was no longer laughing.
The first and second snake-men turned towards the Paladin, now aglow with the Aura of Concentration, as the pike snaked out (pardon the pun) and speared both of them through the skull, silencing them instantly.
Niklaus missed Silence.
"Well, that takes care of those three," Sasha volunteered, "how many more do you think there are?"
"Who knows? At least we've got these dead."
"Yeah, but how were their sense of smell? If they were good, then it's a sure bet the rest will smell something and come investigate."
"Then we'd better leave while we can. The air smells pretty fresh, so I'm willing to wager we aren't very far from the surface."
They made their way through the oppresive darkness, Sasha once again igniting the Aura of Blessed Aim (the name amused her greatly).
They made fairly good progress through the dank hallways, coming across small parties and spearing them quickly with the pike.
Niklaus snuck along, keeping to the shadows, pike out and at the ready. He explored every wisp of fresh air he scented; unfortunately, he must have scented wrong, because he usually found himself at a dead end.
However, he came at last to a set of stairs. Sadly, they led downwards.
"Well, at least it's some stairs. Maybe there are some down there that lead to the surface," Sasha reasoned.
"It's worth a try," Niklaus agreed, and they started downstairs.
To say the least, confronting a horde of more snake-men and a smattering of undead is somewhat disheartening. Especially when one is a possessed Paladin armed with second-hand (and likely lower quality) armor, a stick with a pointy end, and some weird sword/club hybrid that makes a shrieking noise that only one half of said Paladin can hear.
Especially when there are a pile of human sacrifices one can see in the corner, all of which are disturbingly fresh.
Conversely, the multitudes of snake-men and smattering of undead were somewhat perturbed by one of their sacrifices standing at the head of the stairs, fully clothed and armed, and likely rather put off at being sacrificed.
Hastily, Niklaus backed up the narrow stairwell as the snake-men rushed him, determined to sacrifice him proper this time.
The pike head lanced in and out of the crowding mass. Fortunately, girth of the snake-men prevented them from gaining entry into the stairs, and Niklaus was able to fend them off fairly well.
Then his skin prickled as he felt another enemy behind him. He didn't have time to switch the pike, and was busy fending off the enemies down the stairs anyway.
The strange sword flashed out of its impromptu sheath, and whirled behind him. He felt very slight resistance as the weapon cut--it must have been an undead, it cut through so easily--and he whirled the strange sword to ward off any incoming hits, then spun the sword to decapitate the undead foe.
He panicked when the sword hit only air; this foe was a skilled undead, and he had his hands full already with the mass before him.
Sasha thought quickly and flashed the demons' brainpan with a bolt of electricity and Niklaus spun upwards, switching sword and pike expertly to position himself nearer the foe behind him.
He slipped on a piece of viscera and promptly landed on his once-holy ass.
Desperately, he tried to regain his footing, but the snake-men were upon him, and desperately he swung the strange sword.
Inexplicably, the snake-men he cut virtually exploded in a horrible mass of internal organs.
Everything stopped as all eyes fell onto the weapon that had ripped apart several snake-men with a single cut, from an astonished Paladin (and resident succubus) to a multitude of shocked snake demons. Although the shocked part could be attributed to the burst of electricity that Sasha had stunned their opponents with.
A small, somewhat demented smile quickly blossomed into a truly manic grin upon the Paladin's face and the wisps of another Aura drifted around him, quickly growing in fiery oranges and reds.
Whee.
The stairwell exploded, throwing snake-men everywhere as an inferno strode into the room.
The first time Sasha had fully BloodLusted outside the village in Westmarch, Niklaus had been helpless amidst the tides of her urges. Now in a true fight to the death, he fully embraced the BloodLust as they rocketed into the disorganized mass.
Body parts flew everywhere as the curious sword sang in destructive revelry. Snake-men, reknowned for their brutal charges and vicious talons, slowed to a mere crawl as Niklaus and Sasha wove through them, expertly dodging attacks and hewing limbs.
Niklaus charged into a mass, knocking one into others and rendereing them senseless before he hacked at them with preternatural speed. He then rocketed into another amassing force and delivered similar punishment.
Niklaus whirled the weapon in tight arcs, parrying (and not coincidentally, separating) attacking claws and responding with repeatedly flawless coup de grace, dismantling his opponents as effectively here as on any battlefield.
Niklaus then turned on the sluggish undead, where the strange weapon tore through them like rotten cheesecloth. He then bore full-tilt into another massing group of snake-men, and dismissed them cruelly.
Before long, Niklaus found himself surrounded only by dead bodies.
And clapping.
He looked up, still in Sasha's BloodLust, and saw a Horadric Ancient standing in front of a podium, wielding a sacrifical knife. The Aura flashed even brighter as Sasha recognized the weapon as the one that had pierced Niklaus.
"Impressive, mortal," the Ancient rasped, "but not nearly enough, for you are too late."
Suddenly, the ceiling rippled, exposing the hot desert sun. Niklaus didn't care about the heat; he had one more enemy to dispose of.
However, They sky suddenly darkened as if an eclipse suddenly blocked out the sun.
Niklaus and Sasha only noted it with passing interest. Their main focus was on the Ancient at the altar.
That figure darkened along with the fading sun, but not in the conventional "in the shadows" sort of darkening. It was as if the darkness cloaked the Ancient in an evil cocoon.
"Well of course it'd be wrapped up in something evil," Sasha snapped, impatient to kill something, "it's a corrupted Ancient!"
Niklaus nodded and charged into the darkness. He was promptly blown backwards by a telekinetic blast. Hastily, he picked himself back up and charged in again.
He met the next blast head on, and the two strove against each other for dominance. The air rippled and sand was tossed into the air as the struggle continued.
Eventually, Niklaus lost his footing and was knocked back again. He picked himself up one more time to see the darkness pull away from the Ancient.
Whereas the Ancient was largely rotting anyway, now the rot had gone to an extreme, barely leaving any flesh on the skeleton.
The Ancient laughed, but this time it laughed with a resonating timbre. "See what I have become!" it announced proudly, reveling in its newfound glory.
"I see a pile of bones that needs stomping," Niklaus grinned at the leering undead.
The undead roared and leapt off the altar, charging towards Niklaus. Niklaus grinned and charged at the undead.
They raced past each other, flashing their weapons and missing simultaneously. Niklaus braced his foot off an onrushing wall and propelled himself at the undead again. The undead had no wall to brace against, and as it skidded to a halt, it caught a Niklaus-shaped cannonball as the Paladin dropped his shoulder and sent the corpse flying. Niklaus charged again and caught the Ancient just as hit neared the ground, propelling it upwards yet again.
This time the revenant had the unfortunate fate to land near the opposite wall as the raging Paladin charged in and shattered the Ancient against the wall. He instantly took to vigorously jumping up and down on the shattered corpse.
Now exhausted, Niklaus surveyed the scene as Sasha wore herself out on her Bloodlust. To say the least, it was complete and utter carnage. There were more body parts than bodies laying around, and most of them were in unrecognizable chunks.
"Wow that was good," Sasha panted, "I need a smoke."
"Take a look at this," Niklaus said of the carnage.
Sasha paused. "Damn, it must have been good for you too."
"Yeah, it was, but a sword shouldn't have made them...explode like that."
Sasha sobered slightly, although she still felt wobbly. "Yeah, I guess it shouldn't have."
Niklaus looked cautiously at the blade. "There's no blood on it, either."
"There's a lot on us, though."
"Yeah, I wanna shower. That was disgusting."
"Oh, you had fun, admit it."
"Well, we were vanquishing the forces of Hell and all..."
"Nik," Sasha interrupted, "are you saying it wasn't good?"
"No no! It was great, but very messy."
"Well," Sasha said, "Y'know, that does happen when two people...."
"What does two people have to do with slaying demons?"
"Oh!" Sasha exclaimed, "I thought you meant...never mind."