Diablo II: The Epic Behind the Game
Disclaimer: I do not own Diablo II, I, or anything else that blizzard created. In fact, some of my dialogue comes directly from the game, for accuracy purposes only. The Characters however are of my own design, directly from my chars on Battle. Net
Whoa... That was quick. In less than a day after posting chapter 3, I went over 12 reviews, which I required before my next post. Hurrah for people who know what they like, LOL. Anyways, sorry for the wait. And I apologize for it, but the people at my current place of education decided to start making it difficult for me and drained all of the time from my schedule. (Curse the administration of N. Georgia public high schools... ARRGGHHH)
Oh Well, as promised, here is chapter 4. All typed up and posted for your reading pleasure. Be advised that this chapter contains vast amounts of blood and violence (damn those guys seem to be favorites in any and all places) so don't bash me too much if you are offended by violence and read anyways. However, if you are in the other 99.9% of the population that enjoys this stuff, then pull up a chair and prepared to be dazed... (errr, i mean 'amazed')
So without further adieu.
Enjoy
The Den of Evil
*******************************************************************************
"Tozam. Wake up." Elric shook the large barbarian in a vain attempt to rouse the sleeping warrior while being quiet enough to not wake Cathim and Natalie.
Tozam snorted and began to talk in his sleep.
"Not now, Mama. I got to get some sleep before I to school."
"I'm not your mother, Tozam, and... wait, you went to school?"
"Come on, mama. Just five more hours."
"Oh, gods. We don't have time for this. "Elric shook his head. "Tozam, the world is about to end, we are in danger. Grade school is not what you need to be worried about right now." Elric struggled to keep his voice at a whisper but still couldn't control some of the growl in his voice.
"Danger..." Tozam smiled in his sleep, as he turned over on his side. "I laugh in the face of danger." Tozam let out a small chuckle that made Elric jump and turn his head from side to side to check and make sure that Cathim and Natalie were still sound asleep.
Thankfully, they were.
"Good thing I found them." Elric said to himself as he rolled his eyes, "As heavy as everybody sleeps, they could have been torn to shreds fifty times over by now and never wake up."
A bit frustrated, Elric decided to toss caution to the wind in order to wake the snoring barbarian. Slowly, he lowered his teeth down to Tozam's ear and let a low key growl rumble though his throat and over his tongue.
"Gggggrrrrrrrrr"
As Elric had expected, Tozam's eyes snapped open.
Unfortunately, he had not expected Tozam to act so fast when he woke up to a large demon leaning over him.
Quicker than Elric could have predicted the human to move, Tozam's drew his long sword and used it to force Elric away, holding it only a hair away from Elric's throat.
"Whoa! Hold on!" Elric let out quickly, doing his best to keep the blade away with his claw (which was a rather difficult task in itself). He knew that his scales were tough, but he didn't want to test and see if the ones around his neck were thicker than Tozam's sword was sharp.
"Tozam! It's ME, Elric! Put that bloody thing down!"
"Wha...Huh...?" Tozam shook his head, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes. "Elric? What the hell do you think you're doing, waking me up like that? Do you have some sort of death wish?"
Tozam lowered the sword and Elric let out a tense breath and tried to force his muscles to relax.
"And weren't you human when we were all talking. Why are you green?"
"Huh?" Elric looked down at himself and realized that his upper body was still a forest green and his legs and tail were a dark brown from when he had changed his colors earlier.
Without a second thought, Elric tugged at a bit of the magic within himself and changed his scales back to their regular black.
"That's better." He said before answering Tozam's other question "Yeah, I was human before, but I had a little accident while I was sleeping. Don't ask!" Elric said quickly, hoping that he wouldn't have to explain too much to the barbarian. He had hated the fact that he had to woken Tozam up in the first place, but he couldn't very well do as he was planning and leave Natalie and others hanging without any protection.
"Hey, I got a question for you. What was the place that you guys were looking for? You know, before I had to rescue you from sure destruction and completely saved your lives?"
"Alright, no need to rub it in." Tozam said sounding hurt. He didn't like having to say 'Thank you' more than once and he wasn't about to stay indebt to this demon, regardless of what he had done for them before. "Why do you want to know?"
"Oh, I was just wondering if it was something that I should be aware of."
"Well, we were looking for someplace called the Den of Evil."
"Was it supposed to have any sort of markings or anything like, let's just say for the sake of argument, an enormous painting of a fallen demon's skull above the opening?"
"Uhhh, I think that was exactly what we were supposed to be looking for as a matter of fact. Why?"
"Oh blood and ashes..." Elric chuckled nervously, "Well, you're gonna laugh about this in the morning, I tell ya..."
"What is it, Half-demon?" Tozam asked, his sleepiness gone and his usual impatient presence in his tone. "We haven't got all night and I would like to get some more sleep before we go hunting for that blasted cave."
"Oh, that's not going to be necessary..."
"Why not?"
Elric snorted a short reply and uttered a short demon's curse under his breath. He should have woken up one of the others; at least they could have caught on quicker. "Two words for you, barbarian, Thick-headed." He turned around and leaped over the burnt out fire, putting him just outside the mouth of the cave. "Just come over here and look up."
Tozam did as he was told and a shocked expression came over his face when he made out the white skull over the arch of the cave.
"Oh..."
Tozam's eyes fell down to Elric and his hand went uneasily to his sword. "Is this some kind of betrayal? Cause if it is, then I gotta wake up Cathim and Natalie so that we can skin your scaly hide."
"Don't flatter yourselves!" Elric said in retaliation to the warrior's accusation. "This was just a really bad coincidence. I wouldn't have led you guys here if I knew it would be dangerous, but I couldn't smell the stuff in the cave because I was upwind of the fire and I was worried about Natalie before that."
"Well, at least now we can do what we came here to do and then get back to the encampment. I'll wake the others if you want to put away camp."
"No."
Tozam looked back at the half demon with a questioning glance. "No what? What is it now?"
"Listen, you guys can't handle yourselves. You couldn't even deal with those fallen back on the plains, so what makes you think that you can beat these things in a place which has little lighting, less air, and the demons happen to call it home? No, I will deal with the Den of Evil; I should do at least that much for you after leading you here." Elric said in a frantic whisper as he wanted to say it before Tozam could question his motives.
"What do you mean we can't handle ourselves?" Tozam asked as he finished working out what Elric had said in the first sentence.
Elric groaned
"Look, just want you to watch the others and make sure that nothing sneaks up on you guys and eats you, EXPECIALLY NOT NATALIE! That is why I woke you."
"Why me and not the others?"
"Because Natalie would want to come with me and Cathim wouldn't leave me alone if he found out I led you guys' right to the mouth of a place so dangerous it was called 'The Den of Evil'. I mean, he would keep on me with that evil demon stuff until I would have to eat him just to shut him up, and i don't want to do that!" He thought for a moment, then added as an afterthought, "Not until breakfast time anyways."
"Fine, then. Go!" Tozam said after a minute of hard pressed thought, "I mean, we do need BIG STRONG ELRIC to protect us because, hey, we're not warriors or crusaders or anything. WE don't know how to fight. And WE aren't the ones who have a duty to clear out this cave. No, you go ahead, BRAVE ELRIC, and save us poor, pitiful peasants the trauma of glorious battle with the most dastardly of monsters."
"Thanks, it is nice that you see where I'm coming from." Elric said, as he crouched onto his back legs and, after wiggling around a bit like a cat, pounced over the dead fire ring and his sleeping companions. He landed on his claws, light as a feather, and started right away to move deeper into the cavern.
"THAT WAS SARCASM HALF-DEMON!!!" A flustered Tozam called after him.
******************************************************************************
The darkness was all around.
The darkness beaconed the hunter to come out. It was cold and certain. It was the shadow, the home of the killer. The place where evil made its base, and the fort from which it often attacked.
It was the thrill of the hunt and the pulse of life which drove him. The fact that, in just a few minutes, he could be holding the delicate life of another creature in his claws and choose to spare it or snuff it out at his will. An ecstasy that few others could ever know. It was a power that was now his own.
The power of death was intoxicating, and the demon was more than ready to get drunk on it. To bathe and drink the blood of its victims. To take down both the weak and the strong in battle and prey upon those foolish enough to resist.
That was what the demon mind wanted more than anything. For the bloodbath to begin in a blind and filling rage.
And then there was the human mind which kept interfering with it.
*Alright, lets see it we can sneak up on these things and get the drop on them, that way, the battle will be over quickly and we can move on to the next bunch of monsters.* The human side thought.
*No!* His inner demon challenged, *Let us charge in, teeth bared and claws ripping...Tearing. No let's stick to ripping.*
"Shut up, both of you!" Elric said quickly under his breath. He had a job to do and he didn't need both sides of his instinctive heritage to fight over how best to do the job. HE would decide, not his instinct.
That had always been his biggest problem, keeping the demon under control. But now, he knew that it would be vital to let the demon go and put the guard up on his human mind. To keep it from becoming too bloodstained. That was how he had always worked it. In three parts.
The Hunter
The Thinker
And the Real Elric.
Elric took a sniff of the air and determined that a small group of fallen must have been just a little way's away.
Now was his time to let the demon loose. He felt the rage well up inside him, as he drew closer to where the fallen were. Closer until he could hear them.
"Ann Wee will crush men world!" a deeper voice announced. It must have been a shaman, Elric thought.
"Wee will crush them and take their power! Take their words and feed to hell fire the offspring! From this cave we shall come, and wipe the women with flying sticks from this world and make it ours!"
A small feverous cheer came from what must have been about twenty or thirty of the smaller red warriors.
"Soon as other clans come from Andariel's palace, then we have hundreds of warriors to make assault and take the women's camp!" Another cheer sounded, "Wee will have the women as our toys and the men as our meat!" Yet another, louder cheer.
The other clans, Elric deduced, must have been all of the campsites he had been finding and cleaning out lately. And all of those Fallen that had attacked Natalie's party must have been heading for the cave when they were called off by that stupid barbarian's taunt. He finally came close enough to see the demons and (after confirming his first count of about 30) saw that they were in a smaller chamber that had only one entrance and exit. And he was hiding in it.
'I couldn't ask for a better situation.' he thought, 'thirty is child's play though, maybe i should leave the shaman alive long enough to raise 'em up until they've each died twice or something... No, i can't forget that I have people depending on me here. I have to clear this cave ASAP.'
The Fallen continued cheer and laugh as Elric finally decided on his course of action.
'Here we go..." Elric thought as he pushed a sensitive spot on the top of his mouth with his tongue before laying it down flat in his mouth. Within a few moments, he felt the familiar, oozing liquid seep into his mouth until he felt that he had enough. Then, leaning out slightly from behind his hiding place, cocked his head back and shot the green acid gunk in a stream at the fallen shaman.
"PAWTHA!"
It was just by pure luck, of course, that he managed to hit the shaman right in the mouth.
"GGGGGGAAAHHAaahhh..." The shaman screamed through the gunk until it finally managed to eat though his throat and the melting head fell to the ground.
"Uhhh..." A fallen tilted its head in confusion, "Didd hee mean do that?"
That was Elric's cue.
Without waiting another moment or throwing out his usual battle roar, Elric leaped into the center of the mass of fallen warriors. Two or three had their heads crushed before he even hit the ground and after that, the demon was set loose. A fury of twisting red and flying limbs filled his mind and the human mind was put on hold (except to remind the demon not to move it's tongue and risk burning it off again).
Death was his duty now. To tear through the flesh and bone. To relish the screams and pleas for mercy. To watch the crippled slowly bleed to death.
Blood was his water now.
The freshly ripped flesh of the kill was his meat to eat.
They were his, completely from their brain to the last drop of blood.
And then they were gone.
The demon stood alone in the center of the small cavern chamber with the bodies of what were once it's prey lying about like discarded scraps. Lifeless and without the once powerful spark that the mortals would call life.
'Damn them!' The demon thought, spitting what was left of the acid in his mouth into the blank frozen eyes of a dead fallen. 'Dieing so quickly! Damn them, they should have lasted longer!'
There had to be more to this battle. More to satisfy this run of the bloodlust.
"But there is more." Elric reasserted his control over the demon, soothing it with his promising voice. "There are many more beasts in this cave to gut and reign over."
'Then enough with the waiting!' The demon retorted, 'Continue the hunt."
********************************************************************************
The hunt continued for how long? Elric didn't want to think. For all he knew, it could have been a day or an hour. Bu the demon was finally beginning to get bored with the constant devouring of flesh and the spilling of blood. Now it wanted to satisfy other hungers that he, Elric, was not about to let the beast indulge.
"Another group of zombies around this corner." Elric said, hoping that he could keep the demon entertained long enough to get the job done.
'Zombies... pah!'It responded, 'Black blood and rotten meat is all they are, no challenge at all.'
'I beg to differ;' Elric's human mind started up, 'in large enough numbers, a horde of zombies could defeat us easily. So, if we find a way to kill them quickly enough that...'
'SHUT UP!' The Demon roared though Elric's mind, trying to silence the babbling human presence which stood in the way of its meal. 'We no need fool to waste time...Point out our prey.'
Elric took a moment to sigh.
"I wonder if NORMAL people have to deal with this kind of thing or if it's just me."
'No matter... KILL NOW!' The demon took back over and threw it's head back in a roar before barreling around the corner and into a group of no more than six badly decayed zombies. The heads rolled (literally) and the bags of useless flesh were expertly carved into smaller bits by Elric's tail.
'That one in half, this one in fourths, and that one gets cut into 20cm by 15cm cubes.'
'Stay out of this, human!'
"Both of you calm down!" Elric asserted his dominance in a loud voice that echoes through the cavern.
'Well, there goes our element of surprise.'
'We no need surprise, we tear, we kill, we destroy without surprise...'
"Why me..." Elric said.
'Well,' He thought, 'there can't be that many monsters left in this cave.'
Soon it would be time to put the demon and the thinker away until they were needed again. Then he could go back out and sleep until morning.
"Sniff, sniff"
The stench of the rotted corpse at his clawed feet and the wondrous smell of fresher blood from his earlier kills were too thick in the air to make heads or tails of what was before him.
"Okay, one last rush should do. Go right in and tear everything to pieces."
'My kinda plan'
Slowly, Elric edged his way around the corner. Silent as death he was when he had to be. And now, it would be the end. One last shot and he would have the cave clear. His heart beat frantically in his chest as all four of his legs quivered in anticipation.
He was close enough now where he could hear the steps of some of the larger beast in down the corridor. It was too bad that he couldn't smell what they were.
Now, he was close enough to see the opening at the end of the tunnel to make his leap.
He would have to be swift as before. Tear it all down before the beast could figure out what he was.
Now was as good a time as any, so he lunged forward, teeth bared back in a snarled as he got ready to release the demon.
Then, in a moment of sheer disbelief, he fell out of the air, landing ungracefully on his belly. He pulled up his head and gazed wide eyed as all three of the working minds within him tried to figure out the impossible scene before them.
"Dear gods..."
*****************************************************************************
I am so sososososososo sorry that I took sooooo long in the posting, but I was unfortunately delayed by people who don't understand why writing is SO much more important than (ugh) Algebra III. *evil music plays* AHHHHHHHH!!!!
Actually, i should be doing my homework right now, but I just got a snazzy new laptop for a graduation present and I couldn't wait to test it out by posting this chapter online with it. Yeahhhhhh!
Well, I guess I'm in luck, My birthday is this week(4/30th if ya wanna know) and I'm gonna be graduating next month (NO MORE SCHOOL!YIPPIE!) So soon, I'll have plenty of spare time to be writing.
Okay, now, this chapter was mostly to see how Elric and his two sides of his personality would communicate with each other. I was sort of going for showing each of them as a different char, but I'm not sure whether i like it or not. Anyways, send any ideas or comments on this system when ya finish reading it.
Also, thanks for all the reviews, if it weren't for them, I wouldn't have come back to continue my story. It was at 19 when i checked it about an hour ago, so I'm hoping for a few more before next chapter comes up. Not that I'm running a tally or anything :P. There isn't any sort of deadline or anything, so I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I get it finished.
This is Robin saying...PEACE OUT!!!
(Sorry, a little too much Rocket Power ^_^)
Disclaimer: I do not own Diablo II, I, or anything else that blizzard created. In fact, some of my dialogue comes directly from the game, for accuracy purposes only. The Characters however are of my own design, directly from my chars on Battle. Net
Whoa... That was quick. In less than a day after posting chapter 3, I went over 12 reviews, which I required before my next post. Hurrah for people who know what they like, LOL. Anyways, sorry for the wait. And I apologize for it, but the people at my current place of education decided to start making it difficult for me and drained all of the time from my schedule. (Curse the administration of N. Georgia public high schools... ARRGGHHH)
Oh Well, as promised, here is chapter 4. All typed up and posted for your reading pleasure. Be advised that this chapter contains vast amounts of blood and violence (damn those guys seem to be favorites in any and all places) so don't bash me too much if you are offended by violence and read anyways. However, if you are in the other 99.9% of the population that enjoys this stuff, then pull up a chair and prepared to be dazed... (errr, i mean 'amazed')
So without further adieu.
Enjoy
The Den of Evil
*******************************************************************************
"Tozam. Wake up." Elric shook the large barbarian in a vain attempt to rouse the sleeping warrior while being quiet enough to not wake Cathim and Natalie.
Tozam snorted and began to talk in his sleep.
"Not now, Mama. I got to get some sleep before I to school."
"I'm not your mother, Tozam, and... wait, you went to school?"
"Come on, mama. Just five more hours."
"Oh, gods. We don't have time for this. "Elric shook his head. "Tozam, the world is about to end, we are in danger. Grade school is not what you need to be worried about right now." Elric struggled to keep his voice at a whisper but still couldn't control some of the growl in his voice.
"Danger..." Tozam smiled in his sleep, as he turned over on his side. "I laugh in the face of danger." Tozam let out a small chuckle that made Elric jump and turn his head from side to side to check and make sure that Cathim and Natalie were still sound asleep.
Thankfully, they were.
"Good thing I found them." Elric said to himself as he rolled his eyes, "As heavy as everybody sleeps, they could have been torn to shreds fifty times over by now and never wake up."
A bit frustrated, Elric decided to toss caution to the wind in order to wake the snoring barbarian. Slowly, he lowered his teeth down to Tozam's ear and let a low key growl rumble though his throat and over his tongue.
"Gggggrrrrrrrrr"
As Elric had expected, Tozam's eyes snapped open.
Unfortunately, he had not expected Tozam to act so fast when he woke up to a large demon leaning over him.
Quicker than Elric could have predicted the human to move, Tozam's drew his long sword and used it to force Elric away, holding it only a hair away from Elric's throat.
"Whoa! Hold on!" Elric let out quickly, doing his best to keep the blade away with his claw (which was a rather difficult task in itself). He knew that his scales were tough, but he didn't want to test and see if the ones around his neck were thicker than Tozam's sword was sharp.
"Tozam! It's ME, Elric! Put that bloody thing down!"
"Wha...Huh...?" Tozam shook his head, trying to get the sleep out of his eyes. "Elric? What the hell do you think you're doing, waking me up like that? Do you have some sort of death wish?"
Tozam lowered the sword and Elric let out a tense breath and tried to force his muscles to relax.
"And weren't you human when we were all talking. Why are you green?"
"Huh?" Elric looked down at himself and realized that his upper body was still a forest green and his legs and tail were a dark brown from when he had changed his colors earlier.
Without a second thought, Elric tugged at a bit of the magic within himself and changed his scales back to their regular black.
"That's better." He said before answering Tozam's other question "Yeah, I was human before, but I had a little accident while I was sleeping. Don't ask!" Elric said quickly, hoping that he wouldn't have to explain too much to the barbarian. He had hated the fact that he had to woken Tozam up in the first place, but he couldn't very well do as he was planning and leave Natalie and others hanging without any protection.
"Hey, I got a question for you. What was the place that you guys were looking for? You know, before I had to rescue you from sure destruction and completely saved your lives?"
"Alright, no need to rub it in." Tozam said sounding hurt. He didn't like having to say 'Thank you' more than once and he wasn't about to stay indebt to this demon, regardless of what he had done for them before. "Why do you want to know?"
"Oh, I was just wondering if it was something that I should be aware of."
"Well, we were looking for someplace called the Den of Evil."
"Was it supposed to have any sort of markings or anything like, let's just say for the sake of argument, an enormous painting of a fallen demon's skull above the opening?"
"Uhhh, I think that was exactly what we were supposed to be looking for as a matter of fact. Why?"
"Oh blood and ashes..." Elric chuckled nervously, "Well, you're gonna laugh about this in the morning, I tell ya..."
"What is it, Half-demon?" Tozam asked, his sleepiness gone and his usual impatient presence in his tone. "We haven't got all night and I would like to get some more sleep before we go hunting for that blasted cave."
"Oh, that's not going to be necessary..."
"Why not?"
Elric snorted a short reply and uttered a short demon's curse under his breath. He should have woken up one of the others; at least they could have caught on quicker. "Two words for you, barbarian, Thick-headed." He turned around and leaped over the burnt out fire, putting him just outside the mouth of the cave. "Just come over here and look up."
Tozam did as he was told and a shocked expression came over his face when he made out the white skull over the arch of the cave.
"Oh..."
Tozam's eyes fell down to Elric and his hand went uneasily to his sword. "Is this some kind of betrayal? Cause if it is, then I gotta wake up Cathim and Natalie so that we can skin your scaly hide."
"Don't flatter yourselves!" Elric said in retaliation to the warrior's accusation. "This was just a really bad coincidence. I wouldn't have led you guys here if I knew it would be dangerous, but I couldn't smell the stuff in the cave because I was upwind of the fire and I was worried about Natalie before that."
"Well, at least now we can do what we came here to do and then get back to the encampment. I'll wake the others if you want to put away camp."
"No."
Tozam looked back at the half demon with a questioning glance. "No what? What is it now?"
"Listen, you guys can't handle yourselves. You couldn't even deal with those fallen back on the plains, so what makes you think that you can beat these things in a place which has little lighting, less air, and the demons happen to call it home? No, I will deal with the Den of Evil; I should do at least that much for you after leading you here." Elric said in a frantic whisper as he wanted to say it before Tozam could question his motives.
"What do you mean we can't handle ourselves?" Tozam asked as he finished working out what Elric had said in the first sentence.
Elric groaned
"Look, just want you to watch the others and make sure that nothing sneaks up on you guys and eats you, EXPECIALLY NOT NATALIE! That is why I woke you."
"Why me and not the others?"
"Because Natalie would want to come with me and Cathim wouldn't leave me alone if he found out I led you guys' right to the mouth of a place so dangerous it was called 'The Den of Evil'. I mean, he would keep on me with that evil demon stuff until I would have to eat him just to shut him up, and i don't want to do that!" He thought for a moment, then added as an afterthought, "Not until breakfast time anyways."
"Fine, then. Go!" Tozam said after a minute of hard pressed thought, "I mean, we do need BIG STRONG ELRIC to protect us because, hey, we're not warriors or crusaders or anything. WE don't know how to fight. And WE aren't the ones who have a duty to clear out this cave. No, you go ahead, BRAVE ELRIC, and save us poor, pitiful peasants the trauma of glorious battle with the most dastardly of monsters."
"Thanks, it is nice that you see where I'm coming from." Elric said, as he crouched onto his back legs and, after wiggling around a bit like a cat, pounced over the dead fire ring and his sleeping companions. He landed on his claws, light as a feather, and started right away to move deeper into the cavern.
"THAT WAS SARCASM HALF-DEMON!!!" A flustered Tozam called after him.
******************************************************************************
The darkness was all around.
The darkness beaconed the hunter to come out. It was cold and certain. It was the shadow, the home of the killer. The place where evil made its base, and the fort from which it often attacked.
It was the thrill of the hunt and the pulse of life which drove him. The fact that, in just a few minutes, he could be holding the delicate life of another creature in his claws and choose to spare it or snuff it out at his will. An ecstasy that few others could ever know. It was a power that was now his own.
The power of death was intoxicating, and the demon was more than ready to get drunk on it. To bathe and drink the blood of its victims. To take down both the weak and the strong in battle and prey upon those foolish enough to resist.
That was what the demon mind wanted more than anything. For the bloodbath to begin in a blind and filling rage.
And then there was the human mind which kept interfering with it.
*Alright, lets see it we can sneak up on these things and get the drop on them, that way, the battle will be over quickly and we can move on to the next bunch of monsters.* The human side thought.
*No!* His inner demon challenged, *Let us charge in, teeth bared and claws ripping...Tearing. No let's stick to ripping.*
"Shut up, both of you!" Elric said quickly under his breath. He had a job to do and he didn't need both sides of his instinctive heritage to fight over how best to do the job. HE would decide, not his instinct.
That had always been his biggest problem, keeping the demon under control. But now, he knew that it would be vital to let the demon go and put the guard up on his human mind. To keep it from becoming too bloodstained. That was how he had always worked it. In three parts.
The Hunter
The Thinker
And the Real Elric.
Elric took a sniff of the air and determined that a small group of fallen must have been just a little way's away.
Now was his time to let the demon loose. He felt the rage well up inside him, as he drew closer to where the fallen were. Closer until he could hear them.
"Ann Wee will crush men world!" a deeper voice announced. It must have been a shaman, Elric thought.
"Wee will crush them and take their power! Take their words and feed to hell fire the offspring! From this cave we shall come, and wipe the women with flying sticks from this world and make it ours!"
A small feverous cheer came from what must have been about twenty or thirty of the smaller red warriors.
"Soon as other clans come from Andariel's palace, then we have hundreds of warriors to make assault and take the women's camp!" Another cheer sounded, "Wee will have the women as our toys and the men as our meat!" Yet another, louder cheer.
The other clans, Elric deduced, must have been all of the campsites he had been finding and cleaning out lately. And all of those Fallen that had attacked Natalie's party must have been heading for the cave when they were called off by that stupid barbarian's taunt. He finally came close enough to see the demons and (after confirming his first count of about 30) saw that they were in a smaller chamber that had only one entrance and exit. And he was hiding in it.
'I couldn't ask for a better situation.' he thought, 'thirty is child's play though, maybe i should leave the shaman alive long enough to raise 'em up until they've each died twice or something... No, i can't forget that I have people depending on me here. I have to clear this cave ASAP.'
The Fallen continued cheer and laugh as Elric finally decided on his course of action.
'Here we go..." Elric thought as he pushed a sensitive spot on the top of his mouth with his tongue before laying it down flat in his mouth. Within a few moments, he felt the familiar, oozing liquid seep into his mouth until he felt that he had enough. Then, leaning out slightly from behind his hiding place, cocked his head back and shot the green acid gunk in a stream at the fallen shaman.
"PAWTHA!"
It was just by pure luck, of course, that he managed to hit the shaman right in the mouth.
"GGGGGGAAAHHAaahhh..." The shaman screamed through the gunk until it finally managed to eat though his throat and the melting head fell to the ground.
"Uhhh..." A fallen tilted its head in confusion, "Didd hee mean do that?"
That was Elric's cue.
Without waiting another moment or throwing out his usual battle roar, Elric leaped into the center of the mass of fallen warriors. Two or three had their heads crushed before he even hit the ground and after that, the demon was set loose. A fury of twisting red and flying limbs filled his mind and the human mind was put on hold (except to remind the demon not to move it's tongue and risk burning it off again).
Death was his duty now. To tear through the flesh and bone. To relish the screams and pleas for mercy. To watch the crippled slowly bleed to death.
Blood was his water now.
The freshly ripped flesh of the kill was his meat to eat.
They were his, completely from their brain to the last drop of blood.
And then they were gone.
The demon stood alone in the center of the small cavern chamber with the bodies of what were once it's prey lying about like discarded scraps. Lifeless and without the once powerful spark that the mortals would call life.
'Damn them!' The demon thought, spitting what was left of the acid in his mouth into the blank frozen eyes of a dead fallen. 'Dieing so quickly! Damn them, they should have lasted longer!'
There had to be more to this battle. More to satisfy this run of the bloodlust.
"But there is more." Elric reasserted his control over the demon, soothing it with his promising voice. "There are many more beasts in this cave to gut and reign over."
'Then enough with the waiting!' The demon retorted, 'Continue the hunt."
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The hunt continued for how long? Elric didn't want to think. For all he knew, it could have been a day or an hour. Bu the demon was finally beginning to get bored with the constant devouring of flesh and the spilling of blood. Now it wanted to satisfy other hungers that he, Elric, was not about to let the beast indulge.
"Another group of zombies around this corner." Elric said, hoping that he could keep the demon entertained long enough to get the job done.
'Zombies... pah!'It responded, 'Black blood and rotten meat is all they are, no challenge at all.'
'I beg to differ;' Elric's human mind started up, 'in large enough numbers, a horde of zombies could defeat us easily. So, if we find a way to kill them quickly enough that...'
'SHUT UP!' The Demon roared though Elric's mind, trying to silence the babbling human presence which stood in the way of its meal. 'We no need fool to waste time...Point out our prey.'
Elric took a moment to sigh.
"I wonder if NORMAL people have to deal with this kind of thing or if it's just me."
'No matter... KILL NOW!' The demon took back over and threw it's head back in a roar before barreling around the corner and into a group of no more than six badly decayed zombies. The heads rolled (literally) and the bags of useless flesh were expertly carved into smaller bits by Elric's tail.
'That one in half, this one in fourths, and that one gets cut into 20cm by 15cm cubes.'
'Stay out of this, human!'
"Both of you calm down!" Elric asserted his dominance in a loud voice that echoes through the cavern.
'Well, there goes our element of surprise.'
'We no need surprise, we tear, we kill, we destroy without surprise...'
"Why me..." Elric said.
'Well,' He thought, 'there can't be that many monsters left in this cave.'
Soon it would be time to put the demon and the thinker away until they were needed again. Then he could go back out and sleep until morning.
"Sniff, sniff"
The stench of the rotted corpse at his clawed feet and the wondrous smell of fresher blood from his earlier kills were too thick in the air to make heads or tails of what was before him.
"Okay, one last rush should do. Go right in and tear everything to pieces."
'My kinda plan'
Slowly, Elric edged his way around the corner. Silent as death he was when he had to be. And now, it would be the end. One last shot and he would have the cave clear. His heart beat frantically in his chest as all four of his legs quivered in anticipation.
He was close enough now where he could hear the steps of some of the larger beast in down the corridor. It was too bad that he couldn't smell what they were.
Now, he was close enough to see the opening at the end of the tunnel to make his leap.
He would have to be swift as before. Tear it all down before the beast could figure out what he was.
Now was as good a time as any, so he lunged forward, teeth bared back in a snarled as he got ready to release the demon.
Then, in a moment of sheer disbelief, he fell out of the air, landing ungracefully on his belly. He pulled up his head and gazed wide eyed as all three of the working minds within him tried to figure out the impossible scene before them.
"Dear gods..."
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I am so sososososososo sorry that I took sooooo long in the posting, but I was unfortunately delayed by people who don't understand why writing is SO much more important than (ugh) Algebra III. *evil music plays* AHHHHHHHH!!!!
Actually, i should be doing my homework right now, but I just got a snazzy new laptop for a graduation present and I couldn't wait to test it out by posting this chapter online with it. Yeahhhhhh!
Well, I guess I'm in luck, My birthday is this week(4/30th if ya wanna know) and I'm gonna be graduating next month (NO MORE SCHOOL!YIPPIE!) So soon, I'll have plenty of spare time to be writing.
Okay, now, this chapter was mostly to see how Elric and his two sides of his personality would communicate with each other. I was sort of going for showing each of them as a different char, but I'm not sure whether i like it or not. Anyways, send any ideas or comments on this system when ya finish reading it.
Also, thanks for all the reviews, if it weren't for them, I wouldn't have come back to continue my story. It was at 19 when i checked it about an hour ago, so I'm hoping for a few more before next chapter comes up. Not that I'm running a tally or anything :P. There isn't any sort of deadline or anything, so I'll get the next chapter up as soon as I get it finished.
This is Robin saying...PEACE OUT!!!
(Sorry, a little too much Rocket Power ^_^)
