Chapter 3: Into The Depths
"And that's it?" Xander looked over at her, confusion written all over his face as he asked again, "That's all I have to do?"
"Yes – let your mind wander for a moment and your options will become clear, as will your available skill points."She watched him close his eyes and relax, then turned her back and began to watch for more of the demons that they had been wading through since they had come down from the first level of the Convent; nasty little things that looked to be a cross between a rat (for size), a lizard (for skin), and a spitting cobra (for, well, spitting, but also for it's teeth / fangs) had attacked them from the second they had come down the stairs and while she had taken to using her Charged Bolt and Fire Wall spells, Xander had been relegated to using his weapons with sweeping attacks that would catch two or three of the beasts at a time, which he called Crawling Bastards (crude, but definitely descriptive).
After nearly an hour they had actually fought their way into a secure room, both of them wounded, but while the room was dank and cramped, it only had one way in or out, so it was easily defended; with her weaponry Sasha found that her mana stores and vital energies were very rarely below half of their normal levels, but Xander had no such items and appeared to be staying on his feet half of the time by pure stubborn pigheadedness. She had been able to get most of the major wounds closed within the first minute of their entering the room, but he needed to rest and she was willing to give him a few hours to do that while also allocating any skill enhancements he had been granted.
"Done." Xander opened his eyes and aside from looking tired, he was as patched up as they were going to get for a while.
"What did you do with your 'points'?" She did not know what to call them, and that was how the enhancement factors had been explained to her, so she used it that way.
"Couple of attack enhancers, a weapon blocker, a temporary speed enhancer, and a temporary cloak." He stood and stretched out his legs and arms, rolling his shoulders and neck as he did, "You ready to go?" (AN: Claw Mastery, Weapon Block, Burst of Speed, Cloak of Shadows and the Barbarian's Whirlwind – other things, not from the game, will be added later, but these are a must as far as I am concerned)
"As I have said before, as I shall ever be." He went to the door and took hold of the knob as she stood in front of it, staff ready and a lightning spell on her lips as he jerked it open and spun out of the way as the spell launched a bolt of lightning into ... nothing. There were none of the Crawling Bastards near the door, which was a good thing, "Clear."
At her word he went out of the door and behind a near-by stone pillar, scanning the area before motioning her forwards; this was how they had decided to best move, in a leapfrog movement, as Xander had put it, and it had worked so far.
They moved like this in silence for nearly ten minutes before coming across more demons, but these were bat-like creatures that moved far too quickly for her to fire off a single spell with any true accuracy, so she dug deeply into her spell repertoire and summoned a Hydra nearly ten yards ahead of them. It rose from the ground and began to spit fire from each head in different directions for a little over ten seconds before receding back into the ground – it was a higher level and draining spell, but it worked to clear the air, as it were, and allow her to fire off a Chain Lightning spell that bounced off of several walls and pillars before petering out. The pair of spells had taken a good chunk of her still- recovering mana reserves, but they had also taken out more then a few of the creatures and had allowed them to step out and slash at the beasts whom dared come near enough.
The last of the Flying Bastards, as his mind had already dubbed them, hit the ground with a wet splat, but his gut was telling him not to let his guard down; earlier on they had run across several rooms where, when they were this heavily populated, there was what Sasha had called a Unique monster – much like the chief zombie back on the ground floor had been. They were tougher, meaner and generally had more powers than they minions did, so it paid to be paranoid.
On some deep instinct Xander spun around and lashed out with his claws, scoring a hit on the larger and differently colored FB behind him, making it screech for a second before it flitted back out of his reach and ... disappeared, "Teleporter, Sash."
"Don't call me that," came from where she was standing, facing away from him while her eyes were undoubtedly scouting the surrounding darkness, occasionally firing off a smaller Fire Bolt spell to conserve her probably- dwindling mana stores, a concept he now understood as he could access his.
"How about we give it a rabbit to chase, Sash? I'll use my speed enhancer and bait it out into the open so you can barbeque him with a spell."
She nodded once, but then uttered, "Don't call me Sash, Alexander," even as he triggered the spell.
It wasn't a great deal of difference, actually, but rather that his muscles seemed to be tighter, he had a little more spring in his step and his senses were just a hair or two sharper as he took off into the room and ran around it, occasionally zigging and zagging to throw off his follower, which worked out well because when he did move, a Fire Bolt spell was generally half a second behind his movement and scoring a hit on the winged beast. Finally, though, the beast made a mistake and got too close, letting him lash out with a back kick that flung it back and right into an oncoming Fire Bolt, making it explode and drop an amulet.
He felt the enhancement begin to wear off even as he picked up the amulet and walked over to Sasha, who had sat down once again, and it was only a slight relaxing of the muscles and the world becoming slightly less ... real ... in the process, "Are you okay, Sasha?"
"I shall be when my mana reserves recharge, Alex ... Xander." She accepted a blue vial that he handed to her without hesitation and drank it down, the light gray pallor to her face, neck and arms lightening slightly as he tucked the amulet away for a later time, "How are you faring, Xander?"
"No better or worse than usual, Sasha, though I am somewhat worried about you and your flagging reserves."
She smiled wanly at him, "Being in shape and being in battle-ready shape are two separate things, Xander; I've gotten soft over the past year, so I'm going to get winded easily for a while."
He looked her up and down, not being able to resist, "You look like you're plenty fit to me, especially your legs, Sasha." He gave her a fast grin and a wink, "Most women on this planet would kill for a body like yours."
She smiled back at him, her cheeks glowing slightly, "Thank you for the compliment, Xander, but I was in better shape before I found out about Twinkies – I swear they go straight to my thighs and hips."
It was by pure force of will that he kept his eyes on her eyes, "I'll be a few minutes, Sasha; I need to go check on something I saw back a ways." When she nodded, he slipped off into the shadows again, trying to find his way back to where he had seen a bookshelf and a credenza in one of the side rooms.
She could still feel the heat in her cheeks when he returned nearly five minutes later – he had said it with all sincerity, but it had also been a while since she had been hit on by a human male, let alone one his relative age – and he was carrying three books with him as he came along. Two were nearly identical blue books but a third was bound in what appeared to be black demon hide, and she could feel the power pouring out of them. (AN: I know the books are also part of Diablo 1, but they fit here too, so they will be used) "Where did you find those, Xander?"
"In a cubbyhole a few rooms back – I figured they had to be useful if those demons were protecting them like that." He handed them over and she felt immediately that she could not use them at all, but they also held powerful magics, "Can you tell me what they are?"
She smiled, "They are books, Alexander, and you store knowledge in them with written words a pictures." He gave her a deadpan look ad she chuckled, "Magical tomes, actually, each containing a very powerful spell, and no, I cannot use them." She passed one back and as he grabbed it, it flashed in a white light and disappeared.
"What the ..." Xander said, blinking as he did, but then his face cleared of it's shock and was replaced with a grin. "Coolness."
"Coolness? You learned an ice spell?"
"Huh? Oh, no, I learned a healing spell." He raised a hand and a swirling blue light enveloped his body, sealing off and healing the wounds that had stopped bleeding some time back, "It's kinda draining, but it works." He accepted the other blue book that she held out for him and it too disappeared with a flash of light, just as the black, demon hide bound book did, but instead of a white light, it disappeared in a gout of black flame and he shivered at it.
"Xander? Are you well?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, but that one was a weird spell book; I can't make heads or tails of it, but I can now climb walls, if I am interpreting the spell right." He shivered and rubbed his arms vigorously, "Is it me, or is it cold in here?"
She shrugged, "I am wearing considerably less than you are, Xander, and I am slightly warm, if you want my opinion." She peered into his eyes and saw that, yes, he was fine, but there was more of a haunted look to his eyes, as if he had not told her everything, but then shrugged it off – if he wanted to have his secrets, he could, just as she had hers. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yeah, good to go." He walked over to the staircase that was going down into the floor and, after a quick look back at her, slipped down into the inky blackness.
"I hope you are as 'good to go' as you think you are, my friend." Murmuring to herself, she followed him down the stairs and found that he was already having to defend himself against an enemy that seemed to be able disappear from plain sight, then reappear at will wherever it wanted, which made her lash out with her staff, the Iron Jang Bong, and strike the nearest creature, the lightning enchanted staff shocking the creature and draining more than a little mana from it's body before it fell back with a sigh and died.
"Thanks, Sash," he ground out, lashing left and right with his weapons and drawing blood left and right.
"No problem, Xander," she managed to get out between strikes, "but don't call me Sash."
"Thanks, Beautiful." He lashed back with a kick that caught an attacker with a grunt and then spun around to his left, decapitating the creature as he did.
Even though she tried to fight it down, Sasha felt a light tinge of a blush color her cheeks. She knew it was innocent flirting on his part, but it had been so long ... She savagely shook her head, as if to clear the thoughts; she had siblings that were almost his age, and add to the fact that she was going back to her home, a place that he would not most likely ever be able to follow. She couldn't allow herself to feel for him anymore than she already had done so – he was her companion in battle, not in life and certainly not in bed.
"WATCH OUT SASHA!" The screamed warning came just a fraction of a second before she could react, a fraction of a second before the biting pain hit her like a Brute, and then all was darkness as the pain overwhelmed her.
(AN: Here's the end of the ... {sees glares from muses} let's finish this one, shall we? Sheesh, no sense of humor.)
The red haze lifted from his vision and all he could see around him was ichor and blood – it appeared that whatever he had done, he'd done a damned good impersonation of a Veg-o-matic; bits of the demons they had been fighting were hanging off of the blades of his weaponry, blood spattered across his clothes and even a little across Sasha, who appeared to be waking up and guzzling a health potion, her back a bloody mess and closing, "Sasha?"
"Xander," she weakly replied, causing him to move and dive next to her, his hands grabbing the last of the red potions in his belt and popping the tops on them, handing them over to her. "What happened?"
"I ... don't remember. I just remember seeing you go down and then ... nothing." He absently picked a piece of demon entrails out of her hair and flipped it aside, then snapped his weapons back into their 'stand-by' position, "You stay here, I'm going to scout the area."
"No, please." She grasped his hand with her own and held it tightly, "Don't go." He could feel her hand close tighter around his own and resigned himself to sticking there until she deemed it okay for him to go and scout for more demons. Her eyes, when he looked into them, however, were terrified and it brought up an unexpected surge of protectiveness within him, so he knelt down a little more and stroked her hair.
"Sasha, no bullshit, how are you?"
"Been better," she admitted in a weak voice even as she moved to turn over and sit up.
"What happened to your armor? I thought it was supposed to protect you from stuff like this." He propped her up with his knee and held her in place as the potions went to work on her back and other wounds.
"I guess I should have amended what I told you earlier – I do get some coverage from my armor and some enhancements, but as it gets damaged in this world, well, I lose some of that coverage and some of the enhancements." She looked somewhat bashful about having to admit it, "Pretty soon my armor will be fairly worthless."
"You should have told me this, Sasha." Without a second thought he unzipped his vest / Kevlar armor and made some quick adjustments, "This should take the brunt of the attacks, not to mention give you access to a really neat invisibility spell."
"But I can't ... what about you?" She didn't protest physically as he slid the armor over her other armor and adjusted it to fit as well as he could without putting his hands in places they shouldn't be.
"I'll make due, Sasha." Reaching into one of his back pouches, which he had sewn into the back of the vest, he removed his oil duster. It had seemed odd at first, but he had picked a space-compressing bag that, for a mere $500, would store anything up to a total of 200 lbs without any trouble or notice, and before they had entered the Convent, he had stored away his oil duster in favor of his body armor, but now that he'd given said armor to Sasha... "Believe me, I'll make due."
She adjusted the straps on her armor gingerly for a few seconds before looking at him, "Just what else do you have back there, Xander?"
He grinned, "If you're a good girl, you'll find out later. You feeling any better?"
"Somewhat," she said after a moment's pause. "What happened here?"
He was the one that was silent for a moment before answering, "Unforeseen side effects of being possessed by a hyena a year ago; extreme emotion triggers a berserker rage that was triggered this time."
She raised an eyebrow, "I caused an extreme emotion?"
"Your being attacked like that did – I look after my friends even when I am not exactly in control of my mental faculties." He gingerly helped her to her feet and then started looking around, "Ooh, goodies abound."
They picked through the odds and ends that were laying upon the ground, snagging every health and mana potion to replace those that had been used up to that point, but also several gemstones and small charms that she identified and handed over to him without question – he felt his resistances to harm and magic go up and immediately, when her back was turned, tucked a few into the back portion of her vest.
Entering one very long hall, they tucked into every little alcove they could while one or the other scouted no more than ten feet ahead, leap- frogging down the corridor until they reached another large room, this one guarded by a group of ten skeletons that were armed with bows and arrows. With a raised eyebrow to Sasha, he internally tripped his speed enhancer and his invisibility spell, which would, theoretically make him too fast and see-through to hit, but that theory was trounced as the skeletons shot arrow after arrow in his direction even as he sped through them and slashed away.
Sasha opened up with a pair of fireball-looking spells that went into the group of skeletons and exploded, taking out two of them in the process, weakening several others enough for his to destroy as he passed by, but then opened up with a Hydra spell that summoned the beast, which spat fire at the rest of the skeletons, but he had other issues to deal with – on of the skeletons was getting away at a fast clip even as he began to run flat- out.
The skeleton was a good ten meters in front of him when it stopped, turned and fired an arrow that he only barely dodged, but then tried to knock another arrow into place, but by then it was far too late – his claws were already on their way forwards, he had way too much momentum to stop even if he wanted to and then there was the sound of a skeleton full of bones hitting the ground in a crumbled heap as he skidded to a stop, nearly eating the wall that he only now began to notice. It was at times like this that he sometimes thrice damned the Hyena and its residual predatory instincts that it had left behind (his hunting of Twinkies merely proved that it existed). Seeing that the skeleton had not left anything behind, he humped it back to where Sasha had been left double time only to find that she wasn't there.
"Sash?" He looked around and couldn't see any signs of her, "Sasha?"
It was at that point that a chill entered the air and he shivered as a voice came from everywhere and nowhere, "She is with me, human. Proceed down to the next floor ... if you dare. I will be waiting with your friend, but my patience has a limit." The voice then laughed maniacally and faded.
Even as he stood there, worry growing in his stomach, he could only think and say one thing, "What was I thinking?" That worry grew for another second and then turned into resolve and caused him to snarl, "You want to play games? Let's see how you like me cheating."
AN: R&R, please – I'm flying blind here.
"And that's it?" Xander looked over at her, confusion written all over his face as he asked again, "That's all I have to do?"
"Yes – let your mind wander for a moment and your options will become clear, as will your available skill points."She watched him close his eyes and relax, then turned her back and began to watch for more of the demons that they had been wading through since they had come down from the first level of the Convent; nasty little things that looked to be a cross between a rat (for size), a lizard (for skin), and a spitting cobra (for, well, spitting, but also for it's teeth / fangs) had attacked them from the second they had come down the stairs and while she had taken to using her Charged Bolt and Fire Wall spells, Xander had been relegated to using his weapons with sweeping attacks that would catch two or three of the beasts at a time, which he called Crawling Bastards (crude, but definitely descriptive).
After nearly an hour they had actually fought their way into a secure room, both of them wounded, but while the room was dank and cramped, it only had one way in or out, so it was easily defended; with her weaponry Sasha found that her mana stores and vital energies were very rarely below half of their normal levels, but Xander had no such items and appeared to be staying on his feet half of the time by pure stubborn pigheadedness. She had been able to get most of the major wounds closed within the first minute of their entering the room, but he needed to rest and she was willing to give him a few hours to do that while also allocating any skill enhancements he had been granted.
"Done." Xander opened his eyes and aside from looking tired, he was as patched up as they were going to get for a while.
"What did you do with your 'points'?" She did not know what to call them, and that was how the enhancement factors had been explained to her, so she used it that way.
"Couple of attack enhancers, a weapon blocker, a temporary speed enhancer, and a temporary cloak." He stood and stretched out his legs and arms, rolling his shoulders and neck as he did, "You ready to go?" (AN: Claw Mastery, Weapon Block, Burst of Speed, Cloak of Shadows and the Barbarian's Whirlwind – other things, not from the game, will be added later, but these are a must as far as I am concerned)
"As I have said before, as I shall ever be." He went to the door and took hold of the knob as she stood in front of it, staff ready and a lightning spell on her lips as he jerked it open and spun out of the way as the spell launched a bolt of lightning into ... nothing. There were none of the Crawling Bastards near the door, which was a good thing, "Clear."
At her word he went out of the door and behind a near-by stone pillar, scanning the area before motioning her forwards; this was how they had decided to best move, in a leapfrog movement, as Xander had put it, and it had worked so far.
They moved like this in silence for nearly ten minutes before coming across more demons, but these were bat-like creatures that moved far too quickly for her to fire off a single spell with any true accuracy, so she dug deeply into her spell repertoire and summoned a Hydra nearly ten yards ahead of them. It rose from the ground and began to spit fire from each head in different directions for a little over ten seconds before receding back into the ground – it was a higher level and draining spell, but it worked to clear the air, as it were, and allow her to fire off a Chain Lightning spell that bounced off of several walls and pillars before petering out. The pair of spells had taken a good chunk of her still- recovering mana reserves, but they had also taken out more then a few of the creatures and had allowed them to step out and slash at the beasts whom dared come near enough.
The last of the Flying Bastards, as his mind had already dubbed them, hit the ground with a wet splat, but his gut was telling him not to let his guard down; earlier on they had run across several rooms where, when they were this heavily populated, there was what Sasha had called a Unique monster – much like the chief zombie back on the ground floor had been. They were tougher, meaner and generally had more powers than they minions did, so it paid to be paranoid.
On some deep instinct Xander spun around and lashed out with his claws, scoring a hit on the larger and differently colored FB behind him, making it screech for a second before it flitted back out of his reach and ... disappeared, "Teleporter, Sash."
"Don't call me that," came from where she was standing, facing away from him while her eyes were undoubtedly scouting the surrounding darkness, occasionally firing off a smaller Fire Bolt spell to conserve her probably- dwindling mana stores, a concept he now understood as he could access his.
"How about we give it a rabbit to chase, Sash? I'll use my speed enhancer and bait it out into the open so you can barbeque him with a spell."
She nodded once, but then uttered, "Don't call me Sash, Alexander," even as he triggered the spell.
It wasn't a great deal of difference, actually, but rather that his muscles seemed to be tighter, he had a little more spring in his step and his senses were just a hair or two sharper as he took off into the room and ran around it, occasionally zigging and zagging to throw off his follower, which worked out well because when he did move, a Fire Bolt spell was generally half a second behind his movement and scoring a hit on the winged beast. Finally, though, the beast made a mistake and got too close, letting him lash out with a back kick that flung it back and right into an oncoming Fire Bolt, making it explode and drop an amulet.
He felt the enhancement begin to wear off even as he picked up the amulet and walked over to Sasha, who had sat down once again, and it was only a slight relaxing of the muscles and the world becoming slightly less ... real ... in the process, "Are you okay, Sasha?"
"I shall be when my mana reserves recharge, Alex ... Xander." She accepted a blue vial that he handed to her without hesitation and drank it down, the light gray pallor to her face, neck and arms lightening slightly as he tucked the amulet away for a later time, "How are you faring, Xander?"
"No better or worse than usual, Sasha, though I am somewhat worried about you and your flagging reserves."
She smiled wanly at him, "Being in shape and being in battle-ready shape are two separate things, Xander; I've gotten soft over the past year, so I'm going to get winded easily for a while."
He looked her up and down, not being able to resist, "You look like you're plenty fit to me, especially your legs, Sasha." He gave her a fast grin and a wink, "Most women on this planet would kill for a body like yours."
She smiled back at him, her cheeks glowing slightly, "Thank you for the compliment, Xander, but I was in better shape before I found out about Twinkies – I swear they go straight to my thighs and hips."
It was by pure force of will that he kept his eyes on her eyes, "I'll be a few minutes, Sasha; I need to go check on something I saw back a ways." When she nodded, he slipped off into the shadows again, trying to find his way back to where he had seen a bookshelf and a credenza in one of the side rooms.
She could still feel the heat in her cheeks when he returned nearly five minutes later – he had said it with all sincerity, but it had also been a while since she had been hit on by a human male, let alone one his relative age – and he was carrying three books with him as he came along. Two were nearly identical blue books but a third was bound in what appeared to be black demon hide, and she could feel the power pouring out of them. (AN: I know the books are also part of Diablo 1, but they fit here too, so they will be used) "Where did you find those, Xander?"
"In a cubbyhole a few rooms back – I figured they had to be useful if those demons were protecting them like that." He handed them over and she felt immediately that she could not use them at all, but they also held powerful magics, "Can you tell me what they are?"
She smiled, "They are books, Alexander, and you store knowledge in them with written words a pictures." He gave her a deadpan look ad she chuckled, "Magical tomes, actually, each containing a very powerful spell, and no, I cannot use them." She passed one back and as he grabbed it, it flashed in a white light and disappeared.
"What the ..." Xander said, blinking as he did, but then his face cleared of it's shock and was replaced with a grin. "Coolness."
"Coolness? You learned an ice spell?"
"Huh? Oh, no, I learned a healing spell." He raised a hand and a swirling blue light enveloped his body, sealing off and healing the wounds that had stopped bleeding some time back, "It's kinda draining, but it works." He accepted the other blue book that she held out for him and it too disappeared with a flash of light, just as the black, demon hide bound book did, but instead of a white light, it disappeared in a gout of black flame and he shivered at it.
"Xander? Are you well?"
"Yeah, I'm fine, but that one was a weird spell book; I can't make heads or tails of it, but I can now climb walls, if I am interpreting the spell right." He shivered and rubbed his arms vigorously, "Is it me, or is it cold in here?"
She shrugged, "I am wearing considerably less than you are, Xander, and I am slightly warm, if you want my opinion." She peered into his eyes and saw that, yes, he was fine, but there was more of a haunted look to his eyes, as if he had not told her everything, but then shrugged it off – if he wanted to have his secrets, he could, just as she had hers. "Are you ready to go?"
"Yeah, good to go." He walked over to the staircase that was going down into the floor and, after a quick look back at her, slipped down into the inky blackness.
"I hope you are as 'good to go' as you think you are, my friend." Murmuring to herself, she followed him down the stairs and found that he was already having to defend himself against an enemy that seemed to be able disappear from plain sight, then reappear at will wherever it wanted, which made her lash out with her staff, the Iron Jang Bong, and strike the nearest creature, the lightning enchanted staff shocking the creature and draining more than a little mana from it's body before it fell back with a sigh and died.
"Thanks, Sash," he ground out, lashing left and right with his weapons and drawing blood left and right.
"No problem, Xander," she managed to get out between strikes, "but don't call me Sash."
"Thanks, Beautiful." He lashed back with a kick that caught an attacker with a grunt and then spun around to his left, decapitating the creature as he did.
Even though she tried to fight it down, Sasha felt a light tinge of a blush color her cheeks. She knew it was innocent flirting on his part, but it had been so long ... She savagely shook her head, as if to clear the thoughts; she had siblings that were almost his age, and add to the fact that she was going back to her home, a place that he would not most likely ever be able to follow. She couldn't allow herself to feel for him anymore than she already had done so – he was her companion in battle, not in life and certainly not in bed.
"WATCH OUT SASHA!" The screamed warning came just a fraction of a second before she could react, a fraction of a second before the biting pain hit her like a Brute, and then all was darkness as the pain overwhelmed her.
(AN: Here's the end of the ... {sees glares from muses} let's finish this one, shall we? Sheesh, no sense of humor.)
The red haze lifted from his vision and all he could see around him was ichor and blood – it appeared that whatever he had done, he'd done a damned good impersonation of a Veg-o-matic; bits of the demons they had been fighting were hanging off of the blades of his weaponry, blood spattered across his clothes and even a little across Sasha, who appeared to be waking up and guzzling a health potion, her back a bloody mess and closing, "Sasha?"
"Xander," she weakly replied, causing him to move and dive next to her, his hands grabbing the last of the red potions in his belt and popping the tops on them, handing them over to her. "What happened?"
"I ... don't remember. I just remember seeing you go down and then ... nothing." He absently picked a piece of demon entrails out of her hair and flipped it aside, then snapped his weapons back into their 'stand-by' position, "You stay here, I'm going to scout the area."
"No, please." She grasped his hand with her own and held it tightly, "Don't go." He could feel her hand close tighter around his own and resigned himself to sticking there until she deemed it okay for him to go and scout for more demons. Her eyes, when he looked into them, however, were terrified and it brought up an unexpected surge of protectiveness within him, so he knelt down a little more and stroked her hair.
"Sasha, no bullshit, how are you?"
"Been better," she admitted in a weak voice even as she moved to turn over and sit up.
"What happened to your armor? I thought it was supposed to protect you from stuff like this." He propped her up with his knee and held her in place as the potions went to work on her back and other wounds.
"I guess I should have amended what I told you earlier – I do get some coverage from my armor and some enhancements, but as it gets damaged in this world, well, I lose some of that coverage and some of the enhancements." She looked somewhat bashful about having to admit it, "Pretty soon my armor will be fairly worthless."
"You should have told me this, Sasha." Without a second thought he unzipped his vest / Kevlar armor and made some quick adjustments, "This should take the brunt of the attacks, not to mention give you access to a really neat invisibility spell."
"But I can't ... what about you?" She didn't protest physically as he slid the armor over her other armor and adjusted it to fit as well as he could without putting his hands in places they shouldn't be.
"I'll make due, Sasha." Reaching into one of his back pouches, which he had sewn into the back of the vest, he removed his oil duster. It had seemed odd at first, but he had picked a space-compressing bag that, for a mere $500, would store anything up to a total of 200 lbs without any trouble or notice, and before they had entered the Convent, he had stored away his oil duster in favor of his body armor, but now that he'd given said armor to Sasha... "Believe me, I'll make due."
She adjusted the straps on her armor gingerly for a few seconds before looking at him, "Just what else do you have back there, Xander?"
He grinned, "If you're a good girl, you'll find out later. You feeling any better?"
"Somewhat," she said after a moment's pause. "What happened here?"
He was the one that was silent for a moment before answering, "Unforeseen side effects of being possessed by a hyena a year ago; extreme emotion triggers a berserker rage that was triggered this time."
She raised an eyebrow, "I caused an extreme emotion?"
"Your being attacked like that did – I look after my friends even when I am not exactly in control of my mental faculties." He gingerly helped her to her feet and then started looking around, "Ooh, goodies abound."
They picked through the odds and ends that were laying upon the ground, snagging every health and mana potion to replace those that had been used up to that point, but also several gemstones and small charms that she identified and handed over to him without question – he felt his resistances to harm and magic go up and immediately, when her back was turned, tucked a few into the back portion of her vest.
Entering one very long hall, they tucked into every little alcove they could while one or the other scouted no more than ten feet ahead, leap- frogging down the corridor until they reached another large room, this one guarded by a group of ten skeletons that were armed with bows and arrows. With a raised eyebrow to Sasha, he internally tripped his speed enhancer and his invisibility spell, which would, theoretically make him too fast and see-through to hit, but that theory was trounced as the skeletons shot arrow after arrow in his direction even as he sped through them and slashed away.
Sasha opened up with a pair of fireball-looking spells that went into the group of skeletons and exploded, taking out two of them in the process, weakening several others enough for his to destroy as he passed by, but then opened up with a Hydra spell that summoned the beast, which spat fire at the rest of the skeletons, but he had other issues to deal with – on of the skeletons was getting away at a fast clip even as he began to run flat- out.
The skeleton was a good ten meters in front of him when it stopped, turned and fired an arrow that he only barely dodged, but then tried to knock another arrow into place, but by then it was far too late – his claws were already on their way forwards, he had way too much momentum to stop even if he wanted to and then there was the sound of a skeleton full of bones hitting the ground in a crumbled heap as he skidded to a stop, nearly eating the wall that he only now began to notice. It was at times like this that he sometimes thrice damned the Hyena and its residual predatory instincts that it had left behind (his hunting of Twinkies merely proved that it existed). Seeing that the skeleton had not left anything behind, he humped it back to where Sasha had been left double time only to find that she wasn't there.
"Sash?" He looked around and couldn't see any signs of her, "Sasha?"
It was at that point that a chill entered the air and he shivered as a voice came from everywhere and nowhere, "She is with me, human. Proceed down to the next floor ... if you dare. I will be waiting with your friend, but my patience has a limit." The voice then laughed maniacally and faded.
Even as he stood there, worry growing in his stomach, he could only think and say one thing, "What was I thinking?" That worry grew for another second and then turned into resolve and caused him to snarl, "You want to play games? Let's see how you like me cheating."
AN: R&R, please – I'm flying blind here.