Disclaimer Note: I do not own any of these Diablo II characters. They are all rightfully copyrighted to the gods at Blizzard. All I own are the plot, the names (Maybe "Thorn" is too common a name for me to own heh heh heh…), and their state of manipulated looks.
Another chapter generated from a dose of a very bad headache. Enjoy…I gotta go find me rejuvenating potion.
Some people would like to sit,
Within the sound of a church bell.
But I'd rather run a rescue shop,
Within a yard of Hell…
-Words from "Mortification"
Chapter Thirteen: Always Facing Death, Nevertheless
Moran felt the healing potion burning through her throat, creating that sticky-sweet, burning bitterness that she had come to known. The realization of dying brought her panic and she clutched at the arm that was holding her weak neck up.
"Wraiths??" Someone shouted. "Damn it, Ollan! Quick!"
She felt her head thud the ground as her rescuer left her. Shrill, demon-like cries filled the space along with shouts and yells belonging to humans. Something splattered on her face and she cried out.
Her vision finally started to clear and she felt new strength of revival flowing through her body. What she saw nearly sent her to shock.
She was in some sort of cave – no, a hole inside a cave. A hole with very steep sides that towered about twenty meters above her, and were running filthy water through the moist mud, and making pools of murkiness at the bottom. An old man wearing once used to be grand robes sat huddle up in the corner.
Kail and Ollan, both covered in blood and bruises, was crying out in fury as they battled the Wraiths. The blackened, skeleton remains that probably suffered from Ollan's fire aura laid crippled at her feet.
"Stop! No, Kail! Ollan!" She screamed as Kail kicked up with his right foot at the last Wraith. The spikes on his leather boots cut through the soft flesh, dragging out its internal organs. Its heart splattered out on the mud, and it still kept its beating of life for a few minutes before it turned into a mass of unwanted flesh.
"Moran? Are you all right?" Kail ran up to her and grabbed her arms. "Those Wraiths – "
"You bastard!" She shoved him back as hard as she could and her wrists burned. "Why did you kill them?"
Kail stumbled, more from surprise rather than her strength. "What are you talking about?"
"Look!" She shoved her newly cut wrists at Kail's face. "I nearly killed myself trying to rescue you by asking those dead Wraiths to bring me to this – this – forbidden hole of the damned or whatever you like to call it to bring your sorry assess out of this place and maybe even save our lives from this entire Diablo rubbish, and now look what you did!" Her voice started rising shrilly. She wiped the Wraith's blood on her face and gritted her teeth. "You and Ollan just got rid of our only transportation back to Lut Gholein. Thanks to both of you, I might as well sink my teeth through my wrists and kill myself. We're all going to die any way now!"
She stopped and brought her hands up to her face, sobbing into her palms. She was so tired…so tired of this entire mess. She was tired of armor, tired of the constant fighting, and tired of risking her life only to be killed afterwards. Her shoulders shook violently and her entire body trembled.
"Moran," Ollan said. "I'm…I'm sorry. I didn't know."
She dropped down on her knees.
"Here," Kial said, his voice strangely light and soft. He took her arm and started wrapping the loose folds of cloth on her wrist.
She managed to control her sobs as Kail bandaged her other arm. She wiped her tears and took a deep breath. "Now what? And who's the man?"
"Long story, and I might tell it to you someday," Kail said, sitting down next to her. "Are the others coming?"
"Thorn and Nikan are coming," she placed her chin on her knees.
"Why did you risk your life to summon those Wraiths?" Ollan came and sat on her other side.
"Because I'm your friend, damn it," Moran said into her knees. "And because I'm your friend. Is that so hard to understand? You'd probably do the same thing to Kail if he were falling off a cliff. Risk your life to save him even though he's a Necromancer."
"How are your wrists?"
"Fine, thank you. They send a greeting back," Moran kicked at the muddy water with her bare feet and swallowed the aftertaste of sarcasm. "You know what? Both of you can be jerks sometimes. Oh I forgotten…the male species are always jerks. Infact – "
She was rambling on, and she knew it. Kail probably didn't understand what she was talking about but she didn't care. She avoided Kail's eyes and toyed unenthusiastically at the water with her freeze spells, creating tiny ice cubes.
"Is there a way out of here?" She asked quietly.
"No. The only way to get out of here is to break through the walls from the outside with the Horadric Staff, Duriel awakes, and then…"
Moran's eyelids drooped and she held out a hand to steady her sleepy body.
"Are you all right?" Kail asked.
"Just sleepy."
"Do you want to…" he gently took her shoulders and pulled her down, laying her head on his crossed legs. An arm slipped across her waist, providing the extra warmth she appreciated from his arms. For a moment, everything that she felt during that moment in time was frozen into the caverns of her brain. The cold, dirty water underneath her legs, the veins on Kail's arms that lay on her linen-clad waist, and the violence of losing hope.
"Thanks Kail…" she mumbled before sleep overcame her.
"Moran! Wake up!"
Her eyes snapped open and her body reacted almost as fast as her lids. She shoved herself off Kail's lap, a large boulder missing her head by inches. The ground trembled violently underneath her as a shower of gravel and rocks came from above the hole.
"Ollan, take her!" Kail shouted. "I'll stand clear for Duriel!"
She felt Ollan's large hand wrap around her arm and pulled her back, pushing her down against a wall and using his armor-clad body to make a defensive roof over her unprotected self. She cried out as hard gravel rained down and bounced off the metal.
"Ollan!" She cried out. "Don't, you'll get yourself killed!"
"I've managed this before," he grunted; sweat dripping off his eyes and lips. "I'll do it again."
Almost as fast as it came, the gravel and stones stop raining down from above them and Moran quickly scrambled out from under Ollan. "Are you all right?" She cried, grabbing his arm, shocked to discover that the metal on his gauntlets were dented and covered with tiny semi-circles holes that the pounding rocks left.
"Duriel is awakening," he gasped, clutching at her arm. "Moran, listen. You have to – "
Cold wind suddenly blew into the room, silencing everything. Moran wrapped her arms around her body and saw Nikan and Thorn, ready in war pose with Kail. Ollan grabbed her and stumbled towards the others.
"Duriel's coming," Thorn said grimly.
"Give me a weapon," Moran said. "If you're going to fight, so am I!"
"Do your best," Nikan mumbled and handed her a dirk, glowing cold with blue. "It's all I've got with me."
As they waited there in the darkness, Moran felt pangs of icy wintriness shoot through her spines. It was almost too much for her to bear, and she started rasping.
"Oh my god…" she gasped. "Why am I so cold?"
No sooner than the words had escaped from her lips, Duriel came.
He was a more than a behemoth – more than a monster, a cross between a demon from a nightmare and a fiendish insect from the icy, decaying tombs. Six sharp legs and claws shot out from its large body and a head that resembled what a Loch Ness monster might look like opened its mouth and hissed a row of sharp, razor blade teeth. Underneath its legs, she noticed an aura that was very much like Ollan's aura – blue, with a resemblance of a snow flake inside it – but very, very large.
"Here!" Thorn shouted towards her and tossed her a vial of golden liquid. "When you can't move, drink it!"
With a final battle howl, the dance of war began.
Nikan was shrieking at the top of her lungs, throwing short spear after short spear of lightning at Duriel. Kail had managed to regain his sanity, as he stood with his legs apart, holding his war sword towards Duriel. Golden light flowed from the blade and oozed towards the demon, surrounding it in a curse that she could not decipher.
Moran jumped away as a long claw grazed for her and she held out the dirk to block it. It snapped off her hand and landed underneath the brute's stomach. She screamed and dodged another claw, only pausing for one precious second to release a jet of Inferno at the beast's flesh. She scampered away before the aura could reach her.
Ollan was a mixture of fierce grace and rage as he expertly weaved in and out of the dancing claws. With his sword, he had managed to slit away a long tendril of Duriel's vein. Red blood tinged with green glistened and sparkled as it shot from the tube and splashed over him.
Charged bolt! Moran released lightning at the spraying vein. The lightning contracted with the liquid, sending shoots of electricity over Duriel. It screamed and writhed as the coils of electric holiness mustered with its life water.
But all they were doing was slowing down its attacking process. Duriel wasn't dying – he was just slowing down.
"Nikan!" Moran shouted, as sent bolts of icy shards towards Duriel. "Where is Duriel's most unprotected part?"
"His stomach, underneath!" Nikan shouted.
"Moran no!" Thorn yelled.
She jumped from the boulder she was standing on and landed on a strip of muddy water tinged with green blood. She landed on her bottom with one leg tucked underneath her and the other sticking out forward, mimicking the moves of a soccer player sliding. She slid underneath Duriel's body and reached for the dirk she had left.
Cold overpowered her body.
She gasped, looking straight at the blue aura. It had woven its smoky blue tendrils around her legs, and they had turned white and blue from the frost.
Still gasping for as much air as she could before the aura could reach her lungs, she looked up and saw a scaly black stomach. Right in the center, a flap of loose flesh pulled away, revealing a beating monstrous green heart, covered by a thin film of slime, covered with trillions of miniature veins.
With a cry, she stood up, breaking the forming ice on her legs and ramming the dirk into the heart.
Slime shot over her and the aura beneath her feet went out like a candle's flame. Slime poured down on her as if she was standing underneath a waterfall. She quickly shut her mouth and nose before any of it can make its way down her throat and searched for a way to escape through the bladed claws. She walked towards the right and slipped hard.
There was too much slime and blood! Air was running out of her – she needed to breathe or she'll pass out and drown right there in Duriel's holy blood.
"Moran, quick!" Thorn's hand poked through the falling slime. She took it and he slid her out. She took a breath of clean, clean air as he pulled her away from Duriel's dying body.
"Stay close now," he said as held her. "Stone's falling."
For a second time, gravel and rocks poured down, but now from a different side of cave. Duriel gave one last raging cry and his body split apart, releasing a thousand maggots onto the cave floor.
And everything turned silent.
"Is everyone all right?" Nikan broke the chilly air with her voice. "Moran?"
"I think I need a shower," she said quietly.
For another moment, they were all silent again.
Then Kail gave a very, very short and quiet laugh. Ollan gave off a brief giggle and Thorn started guffawing. For nearly a whole minute, they just stood there laughing and rejoicing with each other, triumphant over Death.
"Look," Nikan said. "Duriel had left us something."
"A staff!" Moran said.
"A staff all right," Kail picked it up and it flashed in the dim light. It was the most beautiful staff she had ever seen; yet it carried an air of dangerousness about it. It was a long, straight staff. Just at her height. At one end, a glowing globe of some green stone glittered and stormed as it nestled against the curved claw of some animal. At the other end, a sharp blade adorned with jewels flashed maliciously.
"You killed Duriel, Moran, you get it," Kail said. "You came in here to try and save Ollan and my life. You deserve it."
Moran nodded, speechless as he handed the weapon to her. It tingled in her hands.
"Cain can found out more about it for sure," he smiled.
"Let's go," Thorn pointed towards the entrance at the other side of the cave. "Tyrael awaits us."
Like a funeral march, with the sounds of their boots splashing the water as their Requiem, they made their way up towards the glowing red doorway.
"This was where Tal Rasha was kept imprisoned," Nikan said. "But Diablo…"
Moran bit her lip as she looked, stiffening a gasp. A rising platform surrounded on three sides by bolts of molten lava and a bridge at one end…had something chained to it.
"Tyrael, the Archangel," Kail said.
It couldn't have been a man – he was too tall. It was a man's body though, clad in full golden armor that glowed with a heavenly light. His…wings stretched full three meters to each side and were composed of thousands after thousands of wispy smokes. The longest smoky tentacles stretched forward and curled towards them.
"Tyrael!" Thorn and Kail dashed forwards with Ollan close at their heels. Once they made it through the bridge, Kail fell on his knees and held out the chains that bounded the Archangel. Thorn raised his axe above it and brought it down, breaking the chains on Tyrael's legs while Ollan did the ones on his arms.
"Kail, Ollan…Thorn," The Archangel said. "And yet again…I did expect you sooner."
"We had a little trouble with…Wraiths," Kail said. "Are you all right?"
"Is that Moran with you?" Tyrael said in his deep, inhuman voice. Moran stiffened.
"Come here," the Archangel commanded.
"Go," Nikan whispered. "And be polite."
Moran walked across the bridge and the rest of her friends parted their way to make room for her. Tyrael reached out with a hand and touched her head.
"We meet again Sorceress," he said, his smoky wings surrounding her.
She could only nod.
"You all know what to do," Tyrael said. "I could not stop Diablo, even the second time."
A portal appeared in front of them.
"Go home, and travel to Kurast," he said. "I'll see you all very soon. Perhaps, this time, you may stop the Dark Wanderer before he reaches his brother. The Heavens smile upon all of you…"
Kail took her arm. "Come on…"
The stepped into the portal and slipped back into sunny Lut Gholein. It was dawn, and many of the townsfolk had left.
"How come, it still hurts me that Diablo had escaped…even when I knew it was coming?" Ollan whispered.
"That's because you're one big, emotional bastard," Thorn rubbed his knuckles on Ollan's head who received a snarl back.
"Let's all go get some rest before bidding farewell to the people here," Nikan said. "Tomorrow, we journey to Kurast."
"And tomorrow we face Death again," Moran whispered to herself.