Prologue:

As we continued down towards the Throne of Destruction, I had noticed that Norah, the sorceress, had actually fallen behind. This was odd I thought to myself, she was usually very headstrong and lead us into battle. Beside me was Morone, the barbarian, he suddenly stopped and casted battle orders, shout, and battle command. I immediately felt myself stronger with more mana within myself. Bringing up the rear was Kana, the necromancer; he had been my best friend for countless years. He had been there with me when we took down Diablo; he had been there to help me up after a particularly nasty wound from Diablo's electric fire. To Norah's side was Meghan, she was the assassin of our group; she had joined us after we had entered the Pandemonium Fortress. To my right was Kyana, the amazon, she had been with Kana and me for about five years now. All of them thought that Meghan and I had very weird names; our names were very uncommonly used in our world.

"Hey Scott is that the entrance I see or is that just some other stupid black soul," Norah asked me.

"Good question."

I teleported there (I was wearing an enigma at the time) and checked, it was the entrance all right. After a day of wandering around in this labyrinth we had finally found the entrance to Baal.

"Yeah, it's the entrance all right, come on over," I shouted to them.

As we entered the Throne, five death lords had some as our welcoming parties. Morone had slashed one down with one mighty slash of his axe while Kyana's valkyrie slaughtered one more. Norah had taken down two more, while Kana was back behind us casting amplify damage. That left me, I unsheathed my sword and casted holy shield, then I put on fanaticism as my aura. I charged the lord and hit him square in the chest with my sword. We had taken care of the first few monsters of the many we would meet on our way to Baal's minions.

"Good job guys," Morone told us after he had put his axe away.

"We each had very powerful weapons that we had bought with the items we had collected over our journeys to defeat the prime evils. I was currently using the Azurewrath, a very powerful sword with low strength requirements. Morone had purchased an Ebotd berserker axe, just about the best weapon a barbarian could have. Norah had a Death's Fathom, the best weapon for a cold sorceress. Kana was using a Heart of the Oak flail, the best weapon for any caster except sorceresses. That left Kyana with an ethereal Titans Revenge Matriarchal Javelin. Meghan was using a Chaos Suwayyah, the best weapon for a melee assassin. Her weapon let her cast whirlwind, a skill supposedly only barbarians had. We each pretty much had the best weapon for each type of person we were.

As we walked cautiously towards the throne, a couple of doom knights came rushing at us, swords held high above their heads. Morone immediately leapt into the air and slashed one down with his axe while landing. Norah cast a blizzard and down went three more, Kana summoned four skeletons from the corpses to fight for him. Jean cast whirlwind and immediately spun into a raging tornado of fury, she had slashed five more before she came out of it. The doom knights were gone without me doing anything, as we walked into the center of the room, we heard Baal laughing like a maniac. He first summoned Colenzo. Colenzo and his minions were slaughtered almost instantly by Kana skeleton warriors combined with amplify damage. He summoned more skeletons from the corpses of Colenzo and his minions. Now he had a small army of about fifteen skeletons.

"Nice job Kana, the little beasts were massacred."

"Thanks Morone, that's why being a fully fledged necromancer for five years, is good for me and you guys."

"Ok guys don't get cocky we still have much more to do and much more to kill," I said to Kana.

Morone casted battle orders, shout, and battle command again; we all immediately felt our strength and mana multiplied. Soon after, Achmel had been summoned. I started casting blessed hammer and Norah casted blizzard; together we pawned them before they could get more than five shots out. I turned around and saw Meghan cheering us on and I flashed her a grin, suddenly I noticed that Kyana was coughing. She had turned a dangerous shade of green. I knew what had happened....

"MORONE CAST A TOWN PORTAL NOW," I screamed as he fumbled in his pack looking for his tome of town portals.

I grabbed Kyana by the waist and hoisted her onto my shoulders; I looked around and saw that Meghan had jealousy in her eyes. I pretended that I hadn't seen the look on her face, but something disturbed me about it.

"Don't worry guys, we'll be right back, I'll just take her to Malah and we'll be back in a flash, and don't die please. Thanks guys you're the best."

I walked through the portal with Kyana on my shoulders; I took her to Malah and asked her to heal her.

"Can you help her?"

"Of course I can just hold on I'll be right back."

She came back later with a little black bottle with a picture of a skull on it and she fed the contents to Kyana, she immediately returned to her normal color and she got onto her feet.

"Thank you Malah."

"No problem my dear Kyana, now if you're done I have some other patients I need to tend to."

"Thank you Scott for taking me back here."

"Don't thank me; you've saved my ass countless times."

We took the portal back and we saw that they were currently fighting Ventar, unsheathing my sword; I quickly leapt into the fight with the monstrous beasts. One came charging at me and swung his mighty sword at my face, I ducked down and slashed at his feet. He took a step back and roared in agony, he took a deep breath and fired an inferno at me. I raised my shield and the flame glanced off it. I stood back up and swung my sword with all my might right at his neck, his head came cleanly off and rolled to Meghan's feet.

"Nice job Scott, just a couple more eh?"

"Thanks, no time to talk."

She gave me a hurt look and turned back to the beast who was advancing at her. She cast whirlwind a couple of times and he feel down to his knees, dead. I returned to the remaining monster, he looked worried for there were five of us circling him and then there were Kana's skeletons. Morone, the skeletons, and I jumped at him and we slashed his feet and arms. He was immediately crippled, without his arms and legs, Norah and Meghan finished her off, Norah cast a blizzard and Meghan laid a few lightning sentry traps.

"Whew, that was a tough one wasn't it?"

"We'll be okay Norah," I replied with a grave look on my face.

"Hey Scott are you okay? Is that cut on your arm hurting you," Meghan asked me with deep concern.

"That's ok honeybuns; I'll live through this crusade."

"Well I guess we should get going," said Kana breaking the silence.

"Wait just one second," Morone answered.

He casted his warcries one more time then we left for Baal whom was waiting for us inside the Worldstone Chamber. Kyana and Morone took the lead, Norah and Kana were in the middle, and Meghan and I brought up the rear.

"Don't worry Meghan, we'll be okay, Baal's going to be real sorry that he had caused so much damage in our world," I whispered in her ear trying to calm her.

"Just try to stay alive tough guy," she whispered back.

As we walked inside, we knew there was no turning back, the only way out was to defeat Baal or we wouldn't have come this far to fail. I vowed I would take him down no matter what the price. Norah teleported next to Baal and casted static field a few times and brought his life down to a quarter. This would make out job a whole lot easier. Baal casted his mana burn inferno and immediately our mana was drained, we each took a few mana potions and we were all better and ready to roll. Morone leapt and slashed back and forth. Morone had slashed a couple of Baal's tentacles and Baal reared up in pain. I charged Baal and hit him right in his leg, I knew I had crippled that leg but he had many more. Meghan whirlwinded and hit him a few times. I knew we had all gotten lucky these few times, for if Baal was this easy he would have been dead much sooner. Baal had struck Kana square in his chest and he was on the ground lying in a pool of blood.

"Kana, hold on friend, here drink this."

I handed him a few of my health potions and he immediately recovered from his wounded state and back into fighting position. Although he had no more skeletons, he stood there and cast all his curses he could. I slashed at his torso; my blade glanced off without doing any damage. I wasn't surprised I knew Baal was tough; we had just gotten lucky before. We slashed, cut, chopped, and hit him with spells, but nothing did the trick. I noticed Meghan was just standing there; she seemed to be contemplating something. Right when I had slashed at Baal's face, he reared up for a second and revealed his neck, suddenly Meghan jumped up and stabbed her blade right into his neck, it seemed to nothing but a surface wound, but she didn't let go, she hung there pushing the blade deeper. We all watched in awe as she sacrificed herself to kill Baal, suddenly one of Baal's tentacles whipped around and headed for her face, she quickly summoned her shadow master to block the blow. She pushed in deeper and deeper; suddenly Baal gave one last roar of desperation and fell in defeat. We all congratulated Meghan for her awesome effort.

"Incredible job Meghan, no wonder you're an assassin," I congratulated her.

"Thanks guys, it was nothing I didn't want all of our efforts to be in vain after all that we've been through to be a failure. But I really must thank Scott for the encouragement and help throughout the way."

Upon hearing this I immediately blushed, I congratulated her one more time and then turned back to Baal's corpse. Suddenly the truth hit me; I noticed that Baal's corpse wasn't there, just a pile of blue ash. Realization hit me like a blow from an Urdar. We didn't kill the real Baal. Baal had cast Vile Effigy, he created an exact duplicate of himself to reside here and the real Baal had fled off to another place.

After I broke the news to the group, they couldn't believe it.

"How can you be sure Scott," Morone asked me.

"There's no corpse of him, nothing but a vile pile of ashes."

"Well there goes all my effort," Meghan said, shaking her head.

Kyana flashed her a look of loathing and hung her head. They had never gotten along very well, Kyana was jealous of Meghan since that she and I were lovers while secretly she liked me too. Everyone knew that and she didn't try to hide it. Meghan was unbelievably gorgeous and she was just beautiful. She didn't have such perfect features; she had certain imperfections here and there.

I had noticed that Norah hadn't said much after we had defeated "Baal". She worried me, she had changed ever since we had reached Harrogath, she wasn't her usually cheerful self. Now she was always alone and brooding in her room.

The next day we packed up our belongings and got ready to leave on our hunt for Baal. Meghan joined me in my room after she was done packing and we started chatting about different things.

"I think Kyana is jealous of us," she said with concern.

"Who wouldn't be jealous of you?"

"I'm serious Scott, I don't want to cause distrust and dismay among the group, it could lead us to our ends."

"Don't worry, she'll be ok."

With that I grabbed her by the waist and planted a French kiss on her lips. A few hours later, we were ready to leave. We all said our farewells to our friends in Harrogath. We all gathered at the gates and off we went.

Chapter 1:

We arrived in Kurast a few days later. Ormus greeted us with a warm banquet and a very festive party. He admitted that he was surprised to see us so soon. We had explained what had happened. Ormus was shocked to know they were fooled by Baal. Later we each chose a room and stayed there. We decided to leave in the morning and start searching in the Durance of Hate to see if he had taken up his brother's old place.

During the night I was thinking to myself about all of our problems, we had the huge task of locating Baal in a huge world, there was the problem with Kyana being jealous, and then there was Norah. Norah was what concerned me the most, she had changed dramatically, she used to always have an upbeat personality, now it was like she was locked into her head.

"Hey guys, it's time to get up now, we should be up and searching for him now."

"Christ Morone do you always have to wake me up at the crack of dawn?"

"Well loverboy, your girlfriend's up already, I thought you might want to see her before we leave on our noble expedition."

"Ok get out of my room and let me put on some clothes besides my boxers. Christ man."

I got up and looked in the mirror. I noticed my hair was all rumpled up just the way that Meghan liked it so I decided not to touch it. I put on my tunic and then strapped on my armor and grabbed my sword. When I walked out I saw it was only beginning to get light but our side of the town was already buzzing with activity. I saw Meghan was stuffing supplies into her pack. I walked up to her and I saw she had her hair in a bun, just the way I liked it. I didn't say anything to her just started to pack my pack. I noticed that her eyes were a little off, like she didn't sleep at all. After a nice hearty breakfast we set off into the Durance of Hate. We took the waypoint and we started in level too.

The second we stepped out of our room, a few Urdars came at us, Kyana's valkyrie immediately stopped two dead in their tracks while Meghan slaughtered the rest. Morone stopped and casted his warcries and our strength multiplied with the same feeling. As we walked, we turned into a room that was, to our horror, was filled with stygian dolls, Kana immediately fired a couple of bone spears into the group of dolls, they immediately exploded a few yards away from us. A couple of the thorns glanced off my armor and bounced off the walls.

"Whoa that was a close one," I said to the group.

"True, thanks Kana, those thorns would have hurt," said Norah.

"Wow Norah, you're back on speaking terms eh?"

"Shut up."

We took a few more turns and found the entrance to the Durance of Hate Level three. We stepped in and a few blood lords came at us and fired off a few fireballs. Meghan teleported there with her enigma and immediately slashed them to death. Kyana rushed up to the few council members and slaughtered them in attempt to redeem herself in my eyes. Kana, Morone, and Norah stood back and watched with amusement, these two girls were trying to win, they knew who I loved, since they had been with me long enough. Kyana just wouldn't give up though; she would keep on trying until she won me. When we reached the portal to the Pandemonium Fortress, we had our worst nightmare in front of us, behind us, we had about fifty blood lords and thirty stygian dolls had formed a semi-circle behind us. We were cornered with our worst nightmare in front of us, we had no idea what to do.......