3?
AN: Okay, before I get too far into this, let it be known NOW that I've been a DM 3 times – my skills in such an endeavor are nearly non-existent, so things will be wrong in this chapter, things like critters, tactics, even how to go about things. Again, I am sorry.
AN2: Also, the characters here are actually characters from a gaming group of my acquaintance – they needed a backstory to explain how they got some of their experience together, so I pitched this idea to them and they accepted. Thanks, guys (and girls).
(Dungeon – Level 1)
Paige was a fairly simple woman, as far as things went in her life – she had been a full Paladin of Pelor for nearly a year now and, while this was not her first sojourn into a Dungeon, it was the first time she had done so with a group as large and diverse as she was currently in. While she was taller and somewhat plain to look at, she did like the fact that her black hair was thick and made for easy keeping as she had it cropped very short around her head, something that the new Cleric, Alexander (or 'Xander', as he asked to be called), said worked well for her, given what he called a 'solid' stature. Even as she looked over her group, though, she was unsure just what they were to do as far as working together.
Alex … Xander was younger than she by two years, maybe three, and while he had a slim build, she could see the way he moved and could tell he had muscle to back it up – his eyes, darker than melted chocolate, were also always on the move though they had just entered the Dungeon and his mace was at the ready. She could tell that he would be rather jumpy for a while, as he admitted to her that this was his first 'dungeon crawl', as he called it, but he also had an air about him that bespoke of someone who was used to combat.
Oskar, however, was Xander's polar opposite – short, very muscular, seemingly at ease with his surroundings, he was the quintessential Dwarf in that he was raring to fight and had already been rather abrasive in that he would not stop leering at the Rogue or at herself. He was their melee fighter, their 'muscle' as it were, and while he filled the role very well, she could sense something else about him, a kind of sadness and anger that seemed to drape around him like a cloak – it would be only a matter of time before whatever it was came out.
Himo was a half-Elf Sorcerer who stood off to one side, his face cool and studious as he took in his surroundings with a manner that was that of someone in a library, scanning the shelves for a scroll – he was about a head taller than a normal elf, though thin, and with his dark hair and green eyes Paige had to admit that he was quite a looker, and the tattoos on his body did not deter her from thinking such impure thoughts. Paige's cheeks began to burn slightly as he looked over at her and nodded, shifting his short spear from one hand to the other before looking away to say something to the other member of their party.
Drusilia was also a half-Elf, but more of a sneaky rogue in general bearing and she was bouncing from one foot to the other with a nervous energy that made Paige also feel a touch uneasy – she was a few inches shorter than Himo, but she shared the same facial features, which brought to Paige's mind that if they were not brother and sister, then they were very close family indeed. At Himo's quiet words in the Elven tongue she stopped hopping from foot to foot and settled for removing one of her daggers and began to pick at her nails slightly.
"Paige," Xander's voice jolted her out of her reverie and she turned to look at him, "are you ready?"
She nodded and Xander felt his guts unclench slightly – he hated waiting, always had, and Soldier Boy had not made that any easier; memories of VC tunnels and dense jungles were assaulting his mind right then and it was taking just about everything he had to not break down. They'd been in the first twenty feet of the ten feet wide, seven feet tall tunnel for almost ten minutes now and in the back of his mind he could hear the Soldier screaming at him to stay frosty – easier said than done.
"Let us go on – this Dungeon will not clear itself," Paige finally said, pulling on her helmet and unsheathing her sword. "Xander, Himo, guard our rear, Drusilia, stay in front of them but behind myself and Oskar." They all nodded at this and they began to make their way down the well-lit hallway that had been hewn out of solid rock – it was not odd finding a Dungeon entrance within a natural formation such as rocks or caves, but what WAS odd was to find one that as so close to a homestead and, apparently, had been carved out to provide building materials for that same homestead. Xander had called it 'Hellmouthy', whatever that meant, but she understood the sentiment hat it was not of the norm in the area.
Dru, from her position between the two halves of the party, felt her guts unclench as she watched both the Paladin and Dwarf keep an eye on their front while her Sorcerer cousin and the Cleric both alternately switched from walking backwards and forwards, one doing on and the other doing the other. She found it odd that the Cleric was so young, let alone a cutie like he was, but then she remembered the remark he had made to her and this made her growl a little, a sound that made all parties stop and tense up for a moment.
"Dru, stop growling," Himo muttered to her even as he lowered the point of his spear.
Xander shook his head at the girl elf, who looked contrite, and went back to walking backwards as Himo walked forwards – it was a patrolling method called The Belfast Stroll, something he'd heard of somewhere or another, and it was quite effective when you wanted to watch your own back with a friend. From the map he'd been given, the Dungeon itself was a four-lobed reverse ziggurat in that each level had four main areas that all connected to a central hub and that each level was smaller than the first until you got to the bottom of the Dungeon, where the Witches and Drow supposedly were. Straight forwards and to the point, it was a fairly simplistic Dungeon, but in Xander's mind that made it all that much more dangerous in the end.
The group walked for what seemed like nearly twenty minutes in the lobe they were in, kicking open doors to small rooms once they were checked for traps, often finding nothing or small crocks that held the odd lump of preserved meat, which told Xander that these rooms were probably to be nothing more than mere storage, but they finally made it to the central hub, which held three more hallways and a stairway down. It was here that Paige stopped and looked at the others, "Which way do we go?"
Oskar shrugged, Himo 'hmm'ed, Drusilla yawned and Paige felt like crying until Xander spoke up – he pointed at each of the walls in turn, speaking as he did, "Enerie, menery, minery, moe." His finger was pointing at their right-most hallway, "I choose this one, so let us go."
Oskar glared at the Cleric, "Grow up, boy – fighting is serious business."
Xander just glared at the Dwarf, resisting the urge to make a comment about his height, as the book he had been reading about the different races said that such comments were taken very seriously and as insults to families as a whole, ones often followed up by a war of honor. That point remembered, he gave the Dwarf a crooked grin, "Come on, we haven't done more than walk around here – no fighting yet."
The Dwarf gave a disgusted growl, "I know! I want to fight."
"Do not ask for what we shall eventually find, Oskar," Paige said to the steaming Dwarf even as she watched Xander and Himo adjust their packs on their backs.
The Dwarf just grunted at her, but said nothing.
Himo looked at the Cleric and frowned slightly, "What spell was that, the one you just cast? I've never heard of it."
The Cleric smiled at him slightly, "It's a modified nursery rhyme from where I come from, part of a cartoon." Himo gave him a perplexed look and the Cleric amended, "Um, animated pictures? Tend to be funny?" Himo shook his head and the Cleric shook his head, "Never mind – it was a joke."
(20 minutes later)
The newness of the entire situation was officially gone and dead in Xander's mind even as they finished clearing the second lobe, another area filled with more apparent storage rooms, and he, like the Dwarf, was starting to get more than a little surly about the entire lack of action when a sound made him stop cold in his tracks.
Himo, apparently, heard it too as he stopped next to him and whistled to the rest of the party, calling them to a halt.
All was silent for several moments, the occasional crackle of a heatless torch heard, and then they all heard the sound that had stopped him in the first place – a skittering noise, one that sounded like things he'd heard in movies, creepy crawly things that would make Willow screech when they appeared and often ended up killing one of the movie heroes. In response to this, Xander swung his mace in a short arc to loose his arm while Himo held his spear at the read, and Xander could hear Oskar's grip tighten on the haft of his axe while both Dru and Paige moved their blades through the air.
It was about the size of an old rotary telephone, the kind every grandchild had to beg their grandparents to update and 'step out of the seventies', with eight legs, black, mirror-like, kaleidoscope-like eyes, black, green and brown coloring – basically, it was uglier than home-made sin and it was looking at them with ichor dripping from it's inch-long fangs. In the back of his mind, Xander knew that Willow, had she been there, would have been setting land-speed records to get away from the thing.
Himo swore something in what Xander believed was Elven as the thing advanced, the ichor that dripped from it's fangs eating holes in the floor of the corridor they were in, stopping long enough to look at him, "Do you think it's alone?"
Xander wanted to hit Himo, hard and repeatedly, for asking the question, as several other of the spiders appeared from around the corner, "If we live through this, remind me to tell you about a guy named 'Murphy' and how it's a bad idea to taunt him, Himo."
En masse, the spiders rushed them in a skittering wave of six as the group prepared to meet them, one of the spiders pausing only slightly before it launched itself at Xander – Xander, who wasn't exactly a fan of spiders thanks to Willow's rants about them, spun out of the way and swung for the fences with his mace, connecting with the arachnid and splattering it as another skittered past him and towards Dru.
Dru looked on in dread at the thing skittering towards her as the cleric batted one out of the air with his mace – she didn't like spiders, no, she LOATHED spiders, and these were dripping icky stuff that was eating the rock of the floor. That said, she did the one thing that came naturally when one was confronted with something they did not like – she screeched and stomped her foot down on top of it, smashing it into a messy paste and not stopping until she was quite sure it was dead.
Oskar snorted at the half-elf female even as he brought his axe down and split one down the middle while he bashed another one out of the air with his shield, which sailed towards the Paladin. He had to admire a woman who could not only wield a sword as well as she did, but also bat a flying arachnid away to only have it speared by a half-Elf Sorcerer, who had another spider on his short spear. Now, if she only were a Dwarf instead of a human …
Paige looked around and counted, quickly, that the seven spiders they had started with were now seven very DEAD spiders, though Dru did appear to be continually stomping on the one that had charged her – first encounter with the enemy and they were all still alive, in her mind that was a victory, so she touched her emblem of Pelor and thanked him for his protection from the evil things.
Sadly, it was Oskar who broke the moment of joy by snarling at Dru, "Girl, you do NOT screech at the enemy like a banshee and then stomp on it. You face them with honor, with PRIDE, and then make sure their last sight is you holding the weapon they were killed with."
Dru drew herself up to her modest height, though her pale complexion was flushed with both embarrassment and anger, and stormed over to where she almost towered over the Dwarf, her green eyes blazing, "Don't think to tell me what to do in combat, short-stuff! I like being able to walk away from a fight without a scratch on me, not like a brainless twit like you or even a front-liner like Paige – I use my brains in combat."
Oskar's eyes went dangerously flat even as he drew himself up to his not-so-impressive height, growling slightly, but he never got a word off as Paige stepped between them even as Xander snaked his hand around Dru's waist and pulled her away, allowing Paige to speak, "Oskar, now is not the time or the place to discuss the particulars of combat, especially with Dru – in case you haven't noticed, she's not exactly built for combat."
Oskar snarled at the Paladin, "Then she has no reason to BE here! If she wants to be some kind of sneak thief, then let her but I won't have someone I can't trust in a sortie like this."
"Who are you calling a sneak thief you sorry excuse for Orc droppings?" Dru wiggled and tried to get free from Xander's grip, but he wasn't having any of it, "I'm good at what I do!"
Xander felt his temper flaring even as Dru's wiggling against him and taunting of Oskar did little but exacerbate the situation, but Himo apparently hit his limit first as he snarled out, "Enough!" He watched as the Sorcerer's eyes began to glow slightly even while said Sorcerer walked up to his now-still race-mate, whom he snarled at in a language that Xander couldn't understand – whatever Himo said, though, it was enough to make the half-elf in his grip calm down and even wilt a little while he went off to confront the now-nervous Dwarf.
Paige gulped as the simmering Sorcerer approached her and Oskar's position, but she held her ground like a Paladin should while he hissed out, "Know this, Dwarf – while my cousin may indeed be questionable in her chosen profession, I will NOT allow her to be degraded like some common street rat by someone who has known her for less than a day. Any more insults to her, you deal with ME." Paige was sure that, with those last words, she wet herself even as the Sorcerer stalked away and Oskar let out a quiet sigh of relief.
The fun, however, was not over as Xander put Dru down and stalked over to where Oskar was, grabbing him by the collar of his armor and hoisting him several inches off of the ground, snarling something at the Dwarf too quiet for her to hear, but it was apparently enough that Oskar quickly nodded his ascension to Xander's words and was put back on the ground, letting Xander speak, "Everyone form the fuck up – we need to get moving."
(2 hours later)
Again, Xander was bored as he and Himo finished tailing the others, having cleared out a third lobe, not finding a damned thing in the rooms – whoever these people were, they hadn't been stocking up for a rainy day, that much was for damned sure. They'd come across about a dozen jars so far with enough preserved food in them to keep a rat or two alive for a month, but had yet to come across a source of water, let alone something that looked like either a cistern or a toilet.
It was at this point that Paige called a stop their little quest and they took five minutes to sit down or readjust their packs – in Xander's eyes, she was shaping up to be a half-decent leader, but while she was good at giving orders, keeping her people in line was a bit of a problem. Oskar and Dru had been sniping at one another the entire time, making the odd comment or giving the other a dark look, never once crossing the line, though, where Himo would come down on them, and she had done nothing about it yet.
He knew that the Sorcerer himself was doing his best to keep his now-revealed cousin in line, but Xander could see that Himo was also having another problem of some kind, and for the life of him Xander couldn't figure out what it was. Said sorcerer was sitting against the wall, looking as if were meditating, and Xander didn't feel like disturbing him.
Oskar was off to one side, glaring at Dru, who glared right back at him, even as he ran a whetstone over his axe's edge in a slow, easy motion – Xander wasn't sure what to make of the guy, but whatever his problem was, it was enough to keep him on the edge of brooding like Deadboy all the time.
Dru was the exact opposite – she was sitting down, busily twiddling her thumbs, occasionally looking over at him or at her cousin, but doing little other except to nibble on something she took out of her hip satchel. He could see she was a ball of nervous energy, looking for a place to explode – he hoped it wasn't in battle, because that would get people killed.
"You worry to much, Cleric," Paige said with a good-natured tone of voice as she walked over and sat next to him, her slightly-tanned skin dabbed with sweat here and there as the sun outside heated the rock up even more.
He gave her a look even as he took a pull off of his canteen, "And you don't worry enough, Lady Paladin."
She snorted, "Call me Paige, Xander – some of our kind take the title of 'Cleric' or 'Paladin' far too seriously, but I don't." She leaned back and took a sip from her own jug of water before nibbling on something that looked like a hardtack biscuit, "So, how did you get roped into this?"
"Pelor asked me to come here." She gave him a look that clearly said 'you're nuts' and he went on, "I'm not from where you are, Paige, and Pelor doesn't naturally exist in my world – I'm his Cleric because of a botched spell meant to enhance my fighting powers; instead of becoming a Templar Knight, though, I was drafted by Pelor."
Oskar looked over at him, "So you are not a warrior by training?"
"No, I'm a student – my world is different from yours, apparently, and for the most part we don't fight wars like you do anymore." The Dwarf looked at him as if he'd grown a third head and he went on, "We fight at distances now that are not possible with magics from where you are, we kill in ways that could sicken even the strongest warrior and give the most evil person around pause, things like wiping out an entire castle and it's surrounding villages just by spraying some liquid into the air or dropping it into the water supply." Xander shivered as some of the more ingenious ways to kill people came to his mind unbidden, "Devices that can eradicate all living life, but it leaves structures alone, others that destroy any and everything short of a large mountain, and even then it will kill hundreds, thousands, even millions over decades and more."
Both Himo and Dru were gaping at him in mute horror at his descriptions, Paige not far behind, but Oskar was the first one to regain his speaking abilities, "Why … why would humans come up with such horrible things?"
"To save lives some would say, while others day to keep others from challenging us." Xander shook his head and leaned it back against the stone wall, "We have rules that we follow, and such things aren't used unless there is no other choice … well, by our side. Other humans in other countries use weapons like this as bargaining chips, as weapons of fear … and it works."
Paige looked at the cleric for several seconds before shaking her head, "Humans on your world are insane, Xander."
Himo spoke up next, "Such things are not natural."
Dru spoke up as well, "You don't have any of those things, do you?"
Xander shook his head, "No, those are controlled mostly by the military, Dru – don't worry your pale little head off."
She growled at him, "Hey, there's nothing wrong with not liking the sun! I don't color well, to begin with – it's this or burnt, not middle ground."
He shook his head and stood back up, putting his stuff away and pulling his pack back on, "Then when this is over I'm throwing you outside without your clothes – burn enough and you'll build up a tan." She squealed at him even as Oskar choked at something, but they all got to their feet, "Alright, peoples – forward march!"
(Four hours later)
Dru hissed as Xander pulled the splint around her ankle tight, gripping a hand-sized rock even as both Paige and Himo were securing the room they were going to settle down in for the night – the final lobe of the level, naturally, was the biggest and most exhaustive in that it had dozens of inter-connecting rooms but only two ways in and out of it, and it had taken them a while to clear them all. It did hold, though, a source of water, several dozen beds, and places to set fires to cook on, if necessary, or for heat.
"Better?" Xander was a nice guy, for a cleric and a human, and while he was still very cute in her eyes, in the past few hours he had shown her a bit more of a darker side of him than she wanted to see – she and Oskar had been arguing about checking a door for a trap, something that was a good thing to do, when Xander had told them to stop fighting like an old married couple before kicking the door in with a spin kick. He'd told them both that time was money and they had wasted enough of both of his before stalking off into the next room, leaving them and their other companions alone in the modest common room.
She nodded slightly, doing her best to not shift her ankle too much; she'd turned it slightly after stepping on a loose stone that made up a small fire pit and only Paige's quick reflexes kept her from possibly breaking her leg, "I should be okay." He nodded and began to put away his things, some of which intrigued her, "What's that?"
He looked at her and she indicated a small purple pouch that had drawstrings of some gold rope and golden lettering on the side, 'Crown Royal', "Just some loose stuff I couldn't find a place for in my pack." He opened the modest pouch and poured out a handful of things, ranging from lumps of waxy stuff around fibers to a piece of steel strapped to another piece of metal with some odd chain, "Fire-making stuff."
Paige looked over at where Dru was being tended to by Xander and shook her head slightly while Oskar finished splitting some wood into smaller chunks – both members of her party were young, Xander at only 16 and Dru at 18, Himo was 20, she was 20 and Oskar was the 'old man', as Xander put it, at nearly 135 years old. They were a diverse group, one with more than a few sticking points like Dru's attitude towards Oskar, Oskar's towards women in combat, Himo's apparent lack of a sense of humor (honestly, Xander's joke with the fake snake HAD been funny, though), Xander's many hidden facets and her own seeming lack of leadership traits. She wasn't a leader, never asked to be, but apparently the group had somehow elected her to be so … and it scared her to death.
"Do not worry so much, oh fearless leader," Himo spoke up quietly as he secured the final of four doors into the 25 foot by 25 foot room, one complete with beds, a small reservoir of water and the afore-mentioned firepit that Oskar was now preparing. The half-elf male walked over and sat next to her, starting to pull some things out of his own pack to eat, "It will give you wrinkles."
She arched a dark eyebrow at him and saw his green eyes twinkle a bit and she shook her head at the sorcerer, "It's the leader's job to worry, Himo – do you want it? It's yours if you do."
Himo shook his head, "No, I'm not the leading type, and don't make that offer to Oskar – he's insufferable enough as it is."
She snorted and pulled out some dried meat from her pack, along with a few other things, "I will do my best to keep that in mind." She heard Dru hiss slightly as Xander worked her boot back onto her foot, "What do you think of our cleric, though? He's … odd."
Himo arched his own dark eyebrow, "Aside from his sense of humor, he seems … harder, if that's the term I want, than most clerics I've met." Himo pulled out some sealed packets of things from his own pack, grabbing a bowl that was nearby and dumping the contents into it, "He reminds me more of a warrior than he does a cleric, but at the same time … there's this feel about him that makes my skin crawl slightly."
She nodded even as the scents of spices and fruits hit her nose from the mix that Himo had put into the bowl, "I know what you mean, but his instincts are right-on, though." Xander's 'gut feeling' had stopped her from opening a cabinet that was trapped to fire off spikes into the opener's chest and, later, had kept Dru from sitting down on a bed that had a rather large snake inside of it, a snake that Himo had killed with the same kind of ferocity that Dru had shown with her spider, and that was on top of his hearing the spiders earlier. "If nothing else, that's earned him a reprieve from you hitting him with any spells for the snake joke earlier."
Himo shivered, "I hate snakes! They aren't natural creatures as far as I am concerned, regardless of what any Druid tells you."
Dru, with Xander's assistance, hobbled over towards them and sat down heavily even as Oskar started the fire, grunting as she landed on the bed closest to them, "Snakes are very natural creatures, cousin, and trust me, I remember the arguments you and grandfather used to get into over the matter." She reached into her own pack and removed several items and put them into a bowl too, Paige immediately smelling the pungent spices used to season and cure them as well, "Spiders, on the other hand, aren't natural."
"They are very natural, sadly," Xander chipped in from where he was digging through his pack, "though my friend Willow does agree with the both of you on all things creepy and crawling, or slithering, for that matter." He removed several things from his pack and began to tear into the oddly-reflective covering, though it looked to be a very drab green color and remove things from it with a grimace, muttering, "Note to self – being real food next time."
He looked at the old MRE in front of him and tore into the package that supposedly contained dehydrated beef stroganoff and pouring water into it – some of his more vivid Soldier memories were the food and some of the more inventive ways that they had been described, and even though the memories didn't actually happen, he wasn't looking forwards to eating the 'food'.
"Great Pelor, Xander, what IS that?" He looked over at Paige, who was wrinkling her nose up even while both Dru and Himo looked ready to lose their appetites for the next few decades, not that he could blame them.
"It's called an MRE, or a meal ready to eat … or a meal recently excreted, depending on whom you ask – not exactly the best stuff on the planet, but you can live off of it." He squeezed the top of the entrée shut and left it off to the side before scrounging the rest of the food up, "Soldiers in my world eat these in the field when they can't get to a mess tent – has all sorts of goodies in here, ranging from shelf-stable bread and cookies to preserved veggies and such." He held up the vegetable package and read the package, "Supposedly this is creamed corn – I'll reserve judgment until later."
Oskar looked around, "No beer?"
Xander gave him an odd look, "Beer? In a combat zone?" He shook his head, "Nope, not in my world … at least, it's not supposed to be – sure at base is another thing, but not in the field." He opened the vegetable and poured it into the top portion of the old surplus mess kit he'd brought with him, seeing that, indeed, it looked like creamed corn, "Like I said, it's not supposed to taste good, just keep you going."
Himo put on a small pot of water to boil and shivered, "Is there anything that can be called 'food' in that monstrosity, Xander?"
She watched him smile and he pulled out something else, a small package of brightly-colored pills, "Yup – guys and girls, these are M&M's™. Candy-coated chocolate that melt once they are in your mouth due to your body heat, and do so in your hand, too, if you hold them long enough." This confirmed it for Dru as she shook her head – humans were crazy.
Later, their meals (or what passed for them in the cleric's case) eaten and digesting, Paige having watched Xander cast a small healing spell on Dru's ankle, the group was settling down for the night, Himo being the first to take a shift as guard – he'd be followed by Dru, then Xander, Paige and then Oskar. The night passed quietly for them all, not a sound being heard to where at first light they were all up, packed and ready to go about clearing yet another part of the dungeon.
(2 days later – 1100 hours)
The last of Xander's curative magic worked itself upon Himo's stomach wound even as Xander worked hurriedly to stop Dru's heavily-bleeding leg – they had been besieged for the past few hours by rank upon rank of spiders of various sizes, bugs of all kinds and, much to their dismay, a few skeletons that appeared to have been … recently used.
"More pressure, Oskar," Xander snapped at the Dwarf, who was holding the tourniquet on Dru's leg. One of the skeletons had gotten in a lucky hit with his axe and had cut Dru high on the thigh, nicking the femoral artery, and Xander wasn't sure if he could stop the bleeding enough to try and heal it – Paige had drained herself of healing spells already and he had one left … and the day was still fairly young, so he was dredging through his memories to see if there was anything else they could do.
The dwarf snarled at him, "If I use any more pressure I'll snap her leg in twain, Cleric!"
He reached over and grabbed a needle Paige had been using to sew up Himo and some stitching material she'd also broken out, "Avoid that, but slow the bleeding more – I'm going to try something."
"Try your magic!"
He looked over at the Dwarf now and snarled, "I'm trying to avoid that, you short, stubborn, goat-faced son of a bitch! If I do this right, the spell won't be needed."
"And you're suddenly a surgeon, CLERIC?" How DARE the human boy call him stubborn!
"No, I'm a field medic, ass-wipe!" He started stitching the artery very carefully, closing the one-inch gap in the wall of the once blood-filled tube, "I just patch people up long enough to get them to a surgeon." He worked slowly, carefully, using what very little Soldier Boy had learned about field medicine and what he'd picked up from reading those big medical books of Willow's mom, Sheila, when they were younger – if he didn't do this right, he'd have to use that last spell of his to heal the wound to the point Dru wouldn't die.
Several long, tense minutes later, he pulled away from the open wound and looked up at the slightly-green Dwarf, "Alright, Oskar, let up on the pressure a little … and pray."
He nodded at the Cleric and slowly let up the pressure he'd been holding on the strap that went around the half-elf's leg – at first, nothing appeared to happen, but soon he could see the artery slowly inflate with blood and pulse slightly as the Cleric let out a slow, almost strangled sigh of relief before he clipped the stitching he'd been using on the girl, "What is it?"
Xander looked up at Oskar, "It's holding, for now – she's part Elf, so she'll heal quicker than a human will and, by this evening, I'll be able to cast the spell and be sure that nothing else is wrong."
Himo looked over at the Cleric as he went about closing his cousin's wound, feeling at odds with the methods used – the Dwarf had a point, the boy could have used the spell to heal Dru, but on the reverse Xander had a point to save the spell for later on, once Dru started healing naturally, "Tell me, Cleric, where you learned that technique."
"Memories of a past possession, Himo," Xander said with his back turned to him, busily, though carefully, covering Dru's mostly-exposed thigh. "Chaos mage took a long-standing tradition of dressing up as characters from other times and place, worked his magic and we became our costumes that night – I was a generic soldier from my world, one who had some very basic medical training."
Himo arched his eyebrow at this, "That was very basic?"
"Yeah – vascular repairs like that are generally done with staples, not needles and thread … something I'm going to have to look into when I get done with this place."
Paige spoke up, "And you still have these memories?" She watched Xander stop and shudder slightly, which caused her to look over at Himo, who nodded, causing her to ask, "What is it?"
"Yeah, I have his memories – trust me, most of the times I really wished I didn't." She watched Xander finish covering Dru's very pale leg and put away his things before he turned back to them, his eyes haunted, "I could have done without some of those memories."
"You save my cousin's life with those memories, Xander – I'd thank whoever did the spell for them." Himo spoke with a sage tone in his voice, but that tone didn't save him from the glare that Xander sent his way, a glare that could have incinerated that Dwarf that had taken to harassing his cousin.
"I was sixteen, Himo – SIXTEEN! Trust me, it took over a month before I got a good night's sleep and, even today, I still have flashbacks – places I've never been, things I've never done … people I've never met yet I've killed … tell me that's not fucked up and I'll give you all the answers you'll ever want or need." Himo could see the darkness in Xander's eyes, the memories and the terror, and he knew that the Cleric's mind, while it would not snap, would bend under the pressure.
Oskar stumped his way over, the greenish cast gone from his face as he looked over to where Dru was laying, "What do we do now, Paladin?"
Paige froze at the question, not sure she wanted to answer the question – Himo was hurt, so was Dru, and both she and Xander were reduced to little or no magic on their part, "I … I'm not sure."
Xander looked around into the small room that Oskar had backed them into while defending them so they could stabilize both injured half-elves, "Advise we should set up for the night – we have shelter, water and only one way in or out – it'll be tough getting out tomorrow, but this way we can conserve our energy and let our wounded heal."
She nodded at Xander, "Good idea – Oskar, bar the door, Xander, help me move Himo."
As they moved the injured magic-user, Paige's mind was still whirling even as the pair of them moved the injured man – why was it she was being asked to lead them? Himo's voice, however, broke her out of her thoughts, "Paige, calm down – we'll be fine."
She looked up at him and Xander spoke this time, "He's right, Paige – Crawls are dangerous, fact of life, so don't let it get to you too much."
She shot him a dirty look, "This is your first 'Crawl', Xander, so don't give me anything like that!"
He gave her a flat, yet oddly amused, look, "Paige … I wasn't always a Cleric." She glared at him some more and he relented, "Look, you're young, and trust me you won't be the first person to crack under the pressure of leadership – it happens."
Himo picked up there, "He's right, Paladin Paige – you are young, and you will one day make a fine leader, but do not believe you will not make mistakes. Mistakes are natural – learn from them." Himo then frowned and asked, "Did that sound as … passé, I believe the term is, to you as it did to me?"
Paige felt her ire leaving her even as Xander chuckled slightly, "That's one of the terms, actually, but you're right, Himo." He looked at her and she felt a touch of a grin cross her lips, "Well? You learn anything?"
"That you two need to not try and be comedians – you're terrible at it." Both males gave her wounded looks, though in Himo's case it was more realistic given that he WAS wounded, and she went on, "Now bad acting, that could be a good way to go."
Xander sniffed and looked at Himo, "I tell you we get no appreciation for what we do, Himo."
The half-elf male nodded seriously, "True, but remember, she is only a woman, so she cannot appreciate what it is to be male." He noticed that Xander stepped back and let him take the full brunt of Paige's glare, which made him look at Xander again, "You are abandoning me?"
Xander nodded at him, "You remember what I told you about taunting that guy, Murphy?" The conversation about tempting fate with words and phrases came to mind and Himo nodded, letting Xander go on, "Double that for taunting women – unless you KNOW you can't be hurt by them, don't say things like that."
Paige steeped at the half-elf slightly even as she felt her sense of humor began to catch on to the joke that had been made, a good one when she thought about it, but she wasn't going to let the pointy-eared man off without sweating a little – she remedied this by turning away and stalking off.
Himo gave Xander a very worried look, "Do you believe we offended her?"
Xander shook his head, "Nah, she got the joke – you're just going to pay later on."
He gave Xander a look, "You were making the joke too."
"I wasn't the one who made the crack about her being only a woman." He gave Xander a wounded look even as he heard Oskar snort, but Xander just shrugged, "Rule One, never say something to a woman's back that you wouldn't say to her face – it generally hurts less if you say it to their face."
Oskar looked at the cleric, "You've been married?"
The cleric shook his head, though he wore an amused look, "No, just a very unhealthy number of female friends."
Oskar raised an eyebrow at the boy even as both Paige and Himo looked at him as well, "You had your own harem, then?"
The glare that Oskar got shot made Paige infinitely happy that she was on such good terms with Xander as he spoke clearly, though his tone was a touch chilly, "No, Dwarf – they were my friends, of the non-sexual variety."
Dru's groggy voice came from the far side of the room, the sedative that Paige had given her obviously wearing off quickly, "And that … makes you an expert … how?" He got up and walk over to her quickly, pulling back the covering he'd thrown over her exposed thigh and checking the recently-closed wound – yes, there was blood, but that was to be expected, but what he didn't expect was that it looked like her natural healing was already grabbing hold as it appeared some of the weaker parts of the sewing were already scabbed over. When he looked up, she could see a hint of mirth sparkling in her green eyes as she grinned wryly at him, "So, am I going to live, oh mighty Cleric of Pelor?"
She was glad to see that he still had his humor, the one thing she really did like about this cleric, as he gravely told her, "I'm sorry, Drusilia, but we're going to have to take the leg off at the knee – if you want, we can go ahead and call you 'hop-along ' now."
She smiled at him and chuckled until a stab of pain from her leg took her breath away as she gasped and fell back slightly – the pain dulled, slightly, over the next few minutes as her breathing returned, but it was then that she felt something cool and creamy being applied to her thigh, which caused her to look down to see Xander doing just that, "What is that?"
"A numbing agent Paige gave me earlier – it'll keep the pain down in the area I worked on," Xander told her even as he used the wooden applicator the pot had in the lid, one that reminded him of the paste bottles they had used as kids. It would be a few more hours before the stuff wore off and, by then, he'd be ready to do the spell that would finish the healing. It was then that he saw a few pale fingers sliding down to the area and then up her thigh, "What are you doing?"
Dru glared at him, "What did you do to my leathers?"
"He had to cut them away, Dru," Paige said from over his shoulder, drawing the half-elf's glare.
"He WHAT?" She turned her glare back on the cleric, who didn't move at all as he met her eyes without fear, "Do you KNOW how much these cost? I'm NOT going to walk around the rest of this dungeon half-dressed, Cleric, just for your visual entertainment."
He glared right back at her and, for a second, Dru marveled at the depths of his eyes as he spat, "Little lady, let me clue you into something VERY quickly – while I do admit you're not exactly hard on the eyes, I have other things to do than to ogle you, and add to that you're a touch pale for me and your leathers can be sewn back together."
She glared at him again as she sat up, bringing her face closer to his, "Well excuse me for not being sun bronzed like Paige over there – I told you I don't sun well, I burn!"
He moved his face closer to hers, her green eyes spitting fire, "Short stints in the sun, no more than half of a candle mark a day, for a week should clear that up – yes, you will burn, but it'll be easier to sun each time!"
His face was just a few inches from hers, so she shifted her body slightly and drew it closer, "Don't tell me what to do, Cleric."
"I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just advising you, Dru." He tried to pull back but, to his shock, she didn't let him as she grabbed the edge of his armor and pulled him closer to where her nose and his were touching, "If you're going to kill me, can it wait?"
She grinned at the young cleric and rubbed her nose across his a few times, "No, that'd make it hard for me to do this." Before he could so anything else, she pulled him forwards and kissed him quickly before she pulled back and shifted away to lay down, "Now run along, Cleric – I have healing to do." She smiled tiredly even as he nodded and walked away somewhat unsteadily – this was going to be fun.
Paige smiled at the young man as he half-stumbled over her way, something that made Oskar snicker and Himo chuckle, "Tell me that you DID see she was manipulating you the entire time, Cleric – if you did not see that, I shall weep for your species." The blank look he gave her was all she needed to know, "Ah, I take it that was your first kiss, then?"
"Yes and no." He sat down next to her, "First one I don't like to remember, namely because I was in a very bad place at the time, but this one …" She smiled at him a little even as he shook his head and began to take off his armor, "She's sneaky."
Oskar snorted at this even as he began to light the fire, "Trust me, boy, they only get more devious as you get old and twice so if you marry them."
Himo grunted as he sat up a little more, his curiosity piqued, "You were married?"
Oskar's face became blank as he started the fire, "Yes, I was."
Xander heard the tone used, knowing it was a delicate subject, but Paige went on before he could stop her, "Where is your wife? Surely she would have you with her than here with us?"
Xander winced as Oskar snorted and added a little fuel to the fire, "She is with our child in the realm of the dead, Paladin, and I shall speak no further of it."
Paige winced at the emotion she could hear in Oskar's voice and she nodded, looking both at Dru and Himo to see them nod as the subject was promptly dropped.
(Later)
Dru hissed as the last of the healing magics from Xander worked on her leg, making her feel sore, but whole even as he wrapped the leather of her pants leg back around her thigh, "I'm going to make you buy me a new pair, Cleric."
Xander groaned, "Jesus, you're worse than Cordy about clothes, Dru."
She gave him an odd look, seeing potential in the name and the tone used, "Who?"
Xander snorted even as she, as she told him she would do, began to take off her leathers so he could sew them back together (she was just thankful that she had remembered to put on a loin cloth that morning) as he looked away from her, "She's … well, I guess you could almost call her a friend from back home, but she's TOTALLY fixated on her clothes – harm them at your own risk."
Dru smiled at him as she flipped her breeches over his shoulder and pulled on a pair of loose 'shorts', as Xander had called them, to cover herself while the other were off to the side, "So … were you two involved?"
Xander took her pants and began to calmly stitch them back together, something he had, oddly enough, picked up from Soldier Boy – why the soldier knew how to sew, he didn't want to know, let alone ask, as he might get the answer, "In a way – we'd been sniping at each other for as long as we could remember, verbal sparring and put downs, you know, the usual … but something happened not long ago."
Dru flopped next to him as he began to stitch the top of her breeches, "Oh? Let me guess, you kept things secret, you two were in out of the way places … inspecting each other."
He looked over at her and she was somewhat sad to see his odd look, "What? No … we never got that far." The memories came out in his eyes, Dru could see that much, as he shook his head, "We were, once, doing that … but she stopped me and said that she had a secret to tell me." Dru motioned to him to hurry along and he sighed, "She's gay, Dru – she just needed to kiss a guy she knew she had once been attracted to in order to prove it … and I happened to be that guy." She felt her jaw drop even as he went on as if he'd not stopped, "All of those years of sniping at me was her way of declaring friendship, apparently …"
Dru blushed heavily at the thought of it – she didn't understand the way he meant 'gay' because to her it meant happy and joyous, but she knew another term for what he had described in part, a term that she whispered, an Elvish term that made her cousin, who was mostly asleep, perk up slightly, "You mean that she … does not couple with men? That … that isn't normal."
Xander just shrugged at her as he continued his tight stitching, "Normal, not normal, not my call, Dru – it's her choice and I don't judge." His lips then quirked up, though, as another errant thought came to mind, "Though I can't say who was more surprised at her turn of sexuality – me, or my best friend, Willow." Dru arched her eyebrow at him and he went on, "Cordy came out of the closet … revealed her sexual nature, that is, by kissing Willow in front of God and everybody."
He looked over at Dru and saw her doing her best impersonation of a light bulb with as brightly as she was blushing even as Paige got up from where she had fallen asleep, given there was little to do and Oskar was tending to Himo, "Is she okay, Xander?"
He nodded at Paige, who sat next to Dru and began to inspect her thigh, which held only a light scar, "She'll be fine, Paige, just a little embarrassed, that's all."
Dru shot him a glare, "You're telling me that your best FEMALE friend and this girl, 'Cordy', regularly sleep together … and you're okay with that?"
He shot a look back at Dru, "To the best of my knowledge they've never slept together, save when they fall asleep at the Library table after a hard night of research … and if they had done that, I'd be mad because I didn't get to watch." This time he was shot a look by both women, the fable feminine death glare that had robbed so many men of not only their manhood, but their sanity, but it rolled off his back as he'd been shot the same glare by not only a natural redhead, but by Slayers, too, "What? I'm a guy and the thoughts of two or more women doing the hot, sweaty naked dance of love … intrigues me, the same with any man and even some women, too."
Off to one side, he heard two grunts of approval from both Oskar and Himo, both of whom covered them with coughs rather skillfully. This went unnoticed by the two women who were both looking at him as if they were deciding to squash him like a bug – finally, it was Paige who spoke up, "Well, I guess we can't fault you too much – you're only a male, after all."
Dru nodded, "Yes, the inferior of any species."
Xander, knowing this was partial payback for what Himo had said earlier, kept his mouth shut, but sadly neither Himo nor Oskar had that much survival instinct as they both raised their voices at the slur that had been made against them and all males – Xander shrunk down and hid his eyes away as the two women turned their baleful gaze upon the half-elf and the Dwarf, turning The Look upon them. For several moments there was nothing to be heard, but then Xander heard what sounded distinctly like a whimper and peeked out to see Himo now curled into a ball and Oskar not far behind as the two woman turned away, presumably smiling.
Even as he continued his stitching, he was fully aware of Oskar stumping over and growling at him, "Boy, what do you think that you are doing? Not even my WIFE had the nerve to give me that look, and you abandon the both of us to it?"
From his spot, Himo could see the amused look on Xander's face as he replied to Oskar's rather angry and slightly-off-putting question, "Because, Oskar, I was balancing the scales from earlier and you just happened to get caught in the crossfire."
Oskar arched up slightly at the seated Cleric, who was calmly sewing Dru's leathers back together, "If you think that you shall get out of this that lightly, Cleric, you are SORELY mistaken." Himo winced at the tone in the Dwarf's voice even as Xander looked up from his sewing and was almost eye-level with the Dwarf – this did not bode well.
From their position, Dru watched as Xander put side his stitching and stood up against the armor-wearing Dwarf, wincing in time with Paige as he growled out, "Oskar, don't make threats you aren't able to back up."
Oskar reached behind his armored back and pulled out a dagger he kept there just in case, "Boy, I do not make idle threats, and you will PAY for bringing me into a place no widowed Dwarf need be!"
The boy had the nerve to roll his eyes at him, "Oh, get over it – yeah, your wife and kid are dead, harsh but it happens. Don't start thinking you're the only person on the block who has ever lost someone, Oskar, because trust me, everyone here has lost someone close to them, but not all of us use it as a means to our own end."
"You know not of what you speak, Cleric," Paige heard Oskar growl, though she could pick up the distinct surprise in his voice – what was going on? "I will see my wife and child again one day in the next world, but if you think I will let you have entertainment at my expense, you are wrong."
Before she could say anything to stop the fight, though, Oskar lashed out with his knife and came within inches of Xander's stomach, but the cleric bent back out of the way and jumped off to the side even as Oskar recovered, "Don't do this! We have other problems and fighting each other isn't going to help!"
Xander never took his eyes off of the angry Dwarf, "No, Paige, this is the perfect time to do this – stop us if we go for the kill." Even as he finished speaking Oskar dashed forwards, snarling again, and Xander was shocked by the speed in the man even as he ducked off to the side and avoided another knife thrust, but this time only barely – this wasn't going to be fun or easy.
Oskar looked at the boy even as his mind screamed at him to calm down – this was not the way a warrior fought, not with his allies, but he ignored his mind even as the boy took up an unarmed stance against him, "Boy, draw your weapon!"
The cleric just smiled at him slightly, "I don't need to, Dwarf – I am the weapon." Oskar snorted at this and dashed forwards again, but this time the boy vaulted over him and, in doing so, caused him to trip and skid against the ground, right into one of the beds that were there, making him see stars.
Himo watched as Xander vaulted over Oskar and, as he did so, shoved the muscular Dwarf off-balance and send him sliding into the bed and wall – it wasn't as if a Cleric of Pelor was trained in this manner of fighting, so Himo was more than a little shocked as the boy turned and looked down at the fallen Dwarf before asking, "Do you want to give up now and save some of your pride, or are we going to have to do this for a while longer?"
Himo was a little shocked already but even more so as Oskar got up again, this time without his knife, and hurriedly pulled off his armor, "Boy, I will not stop until you either knock me out or I kill you!"
Xander, for his part, at least to the half-elf, didn't look at all pulsed at the statement as he rolled his shoulders and cricked his neck one way and then the other, "Fine with me, short-stack – let's work."
"Stop it!" Dru stalked between the pair of males and glared at them alternately, "We can't afford to do-" she was cut off, though, when Oskar rushed past her towards Xander. "Hey! I'm not … done …" Dru tapered off, though, as she saw Xander turn with Oskar's charge, wrap one arm around the Dwarf's neck, latch another behind his head and jerk himself up enough to make the Dwarf's legs dangle off the ground a few inches. She then blinked as the Dwarf struggles intensified as Xander's neck, shoulders and arms bulged slightly, but all of this happening in a few heartbeats.
"Listen to me, Oskar, I do NOT want to kill you … but I will if you don't give me a choice." Xander's words were foreign to Paige's ears even as she watched Oskar's face turn from red to a purple color over several dozen heartbeats, his struggles weakening, "Submit!"
"N… no," came Oskar's weak reply even as she watched his face become more and more purple. He let out a very weak gasp as Xander jerked his body a little, making his dangling legs jerk around a little, and Paige was starting to get VERY worried to the point that she stood up to order Alexander stop when Oskar grunted out, "Y … y… yield."
Xander dropped the nearly-unconscious Dwarf to the ground with a thud and knelt down – his pulse was thundering and his lungs were heaving air into his body, but aside from a little weakness, Oskar would not have any long-lasting effects. By right, the move should have killed him – Oskar wasn't a small guy as far as weights went, he probably weighed more than Xander did in full armor, so he was lucky he wasn't going to have to pick up a dead Dwarf's slack; the weight of Oskar's body should have snapped his neck in that position, but it had not. Why? Xander wasn't sure, but he wasn't going to question good luck.
A pair of pale, shorts-clad legs stormed over towards him and he looked up in time to see Dru, her pale face burning red with anger and her green eyes blazing, as she hauled back and slapped him hard enough to not only see stars, but to also knock him off his feet, "What in the Infernal Planes do you think you were doing? You could have killed him!"
Paige walked over and restrained the fuming Dru even as Himo slowly got out of bed to check on the dazed Cleric, "Drusilia, calm down."
She suddenly felt Dru turn on her and found herself pinned in place by the young woman's piercing glare, "Calm down? He almost killed Oskar! Not that I care, really, but we're not done with this Dungeon."
"If I wanted to kill him I would have snapped his neck, Dru," Xander said from the ground, sounding more than a little dazed as Himo helped him to his feet. "Trust me, I'm good at killing things, and I know a lot of ways to do that." Paige watched him steady himself over the course of a minute before he shook his head slightly, "Add to that I had no intention of killing him and I ask you what the hell you were thinking, Dru?"
From his position on the ground, Oskar listened as the half-elf raged at the Cleric, "I was thinking that you're going to get us killed!"
The Cleric snorted, "Oh, that's good – me, get us killed? Who was it that nearly and actually has sprung the most traps? Who was it who almost got killed because she forgot that an axe blade is sharp and the flesh is easily cut?"
The half-elf sounded a little hurt at his scathing tone, "That's not the point, Xander, and you know it!"
"You're right, Dru, the point is that I gave him several chances to stop the fight, he ignored them all, and thus the fight ended the way it did. Let me give you a quick insight into where I come from – we fight demons and vampires on a NIGHTLY basis, so that makes you go for the kill instinctively." Oskar's brow shot up from his point on the floor even as he heard the Sorcerer hiss in amazement and the Paladin, who stood just in front of him, gasp, "Trust me, compared to some of the things I've had to kill and the ways I've killed them, that fight should have lasted all of ten seconds. Oh, and get this, little elf," he watched the Cleric get really close to the shorter female and heard him whisper to her, "in the little group I'm in, I'm what used to pass for the joker of the group, the comic relief." He pulled back and Oskar could see the flat look in his face, "Granted, I wasn't much then, still not much now, but overall that made people underestimate me – that's the last mistake many of them ever made."
Dru backed away from Xander, her eyes never leaving his face, "But … you're a Cleric …"
He nodded slightly, "Yes, I am – now. Back then, I wasn't and I fought to survive – trust me, it got pretty ugly sometimes, and more than a few times I lived when I shouldn't have." She could see his eyes cloud over slightly even as he looked off into some dark place over her shoulder, "If I had a piece of platinum for every time I cheated death, I'd make us all rich."
Himo spoke up then, "But the fact remains you could have killed Oskar – he has yet to move, as you can see."
Xander just snorted at him, "He's playing possum, and not doing a very good job of it, too." Himo watched as Xander went over and nudged Oskar's bulky side with his boot, "Get up, I saw you moving."
Oskar glared at the boy and sat up, albeit slowly, "You fought dishonorably."
The boy rolled his eyes at him, "You're only saying that because you lost, Oskar, and add to that I follow a very simple code of conduct in combat, a code that 'honor' never factors into except once."
"Oh, and when is that?" Paige's question brought him up short and he turned to look at her, her darks eyes somewhat darker and her tanned skin having lost some of the paleness that had been there, "Pelor's Clerics have always been honorable people, and here you are saying you are not, so I would like to know when honor DOES involve itself in your combat."
Xander nodded and walked over to sit where he had been to begin with, picking up the leathers that he was almost half-done repairing, "I always honor a threat that I make, Paige, though I'll generally wait until after the battle is over and we're safe to follow through with it." She steamed at him for several seconds before she turned away and stalked off, letting him continue his repairing Dru's leathers – it wasn't his fault they couldn't understand what he had been fighting over the past year, and by what rules he had been fighting them by.
(Next Afternoon)
Off to one side, Dru heard Xander hiss in pain as she ducked under yet another flying spider body – it had started out to be a decent enough day in that they had made it down to the third level of the place without too much interference, but none of them thought that it would be that easy. They'd gone about twenty feet down the corridor before they were attacked by the spiders, a small group of only four, but after that it had been wave after wave of them, and it had begun to wear them down – Paige was behind her, using her sword and shield to keep the spiders at a manageable level, but Dru was finding herself more and more reliant upon whatever she could get her hands on while him concentrated on his spells and Oskar was recovering from a poisonous bite he'd taken early on.
Xander tied the bandage he'd fashioned out of a few strips of linen around his knee, grunting I pain as he finished and picked up his mace again – one of the spiders had gotten lucky with a claw of some kind on the end of it's leg, getting him enough to draw blood, and it had only gotten worse, so he'd taken himself out of the fight so he could doctor it up. Of course when that happened, Oskar went down and that left him to tend to the poisoned Dwarf, who was almost ready to go again – the combat had been persistent, if not overwhelming at times, but it was slowly starting to peter out as the minutes went on.
"Good for you to join us," Paige said to him as she batted another flying spider towards him with her shield, one that he crushed with a baseball-like swing of his mace. "For a moment I thought you had decided to let Dru and myself have all of the fun."
He didn't spare her a glace as he clubbed another flying spider out of the air, "Paige, when this over, we're going to have to have a serious chat about your sense of humor." He looked around and saw no other spiders present, save the one that had decided to die a horribly acidic death on top of his shield, eating it all to hell and back, "So, Boss, where to now?"
"Once Oskar is up and about, we head to where the Witches and presumed Drow is," Paige said after a moment's thought, looking back at the Cleric. While she nor Xander had not use any spells that morning, Himo had used two already and this worried her, "Dru, are you okay?"
The half-elf nodded quickly, shivering slightly as she kicked away a twitching corpse of a spider, "Fine, but the sooner we get out of here, the better."
Ten minutes later, they were on the move down the staircase that led to the final level of the dungeon – Oskar, still a little out of it, was in the center, with Himo and Paige at the back while she and Xander were at the front; stairs weren't her favorite thing to go down, given how easy it was to trap them or to put alarms on them, but with each step she or Xander took, the other was scouring every square inch of space in front of the other. He had out his crossbow and was slowly sweeping back and forth while she had her own crossbow sweeping up and down, taking each step with care until all of them were at the bottom of the stairs, where a single locked door stood.
Himo took up Dru's spot as she began to examine the door, looking for any obvious traps, but after finding none she went about opening the lock with a silent skill that amazed Xander – after a few more minutes of looking, though, she nodded at him and opened the door.
THWANG! SCHLUMP! THUD!
The Witch whom was standing on the other side of the door never stood a chance, really, given the distance between her head and the bolt, which covered that distance in a fraction of a second. Xander dropped back and began to reload even as Himo and Dru both took point, entering the partially-lit area that smelled heavily of rotting meat, sex and smoke; patches of shadow and light were everywhere, as was the feel of the magic in the room, so heavy it felt as if it were skittering across their skins.
Reloaded, Xander joined Dru on one side of the hall-like area as Himo, Oskar and Paige all ducked into a shadowed alcove as a voice was heard, "Welcome, young ones … to your doom."
From her position on the other side of the hall, Paige heard Xander snort and mutter, "Oh, please, like that's SO original."
Two other figures stepped into the lighted portions of the hall, dressed in what appeared to be simple robes, and the group almost retched as one – both had been human, female and quite possibly very comely, but both also had horrific scarring and brands of arcane symbols upon their faces and exposed flesh; their eyes shone with an other-worldly light and, even as both Himo and Xander stood to fire at them, Paige could tell things were not going to go so easily.
THWANG! THWANG! SNAP! SPEWWW-CRASH! Both bolts, fired almost simultaneously, had different ends as Himo's slammed and shattered into one witch and Xander's was deflected off to one side, into the darkness by the other.
Both witches sneered at the males and, as one, made for Himo even as both shooters dropped their crossbows, allowing Paige to shout, "Dru, Xander, the Drow! We shall deal with these two."
Xander felt like it was a bad idea to leave the three others against two majorly pissed-off witches, but he wasn't given a choice in the matter as Dru grabbed him by the arm and drug him down the hall, into the darkness, after the Drow.
Dru's eyesight took in every available bit of light it could get ahold of even as she and Xander went through the darkened areas of the hall, the stone beneath their feet and around them echoing the sounds of their footsteps and Xander's armor enough that she came to a stop and whispered into his ear to take his armor off. He did so, surprisingly quietly, actually, and within minutes they were both on back on their way after the fleeing Drow, though this time much quieter.
Himo, Paige and Oskar, on the other hand, were having a bit of a difficult time as the two other witches began to summon more of the spiders that had plagued them since the beginning – Himo had fired off a Magic Missile spell, wiping out a whole clutch of spider eggs that were rapidly growing and hatching, while Oskar was busying himself by methodically smashing his axe into spider after spider. Paige, though, was making headway towards one witch by batting away spiders with her shield until she got close enough to score a hit on the witch's thigh, causing the witch to shriek and lose concentration over her spiders enough for them to turn on her. She watched in fascinated horror as the body of the witch slowly began to dissolve into a puddle of blood, bone and … goo before the attack was on again.
Oskar paid none of this a bit of mind as he happily killed spider after spider – he felt his heart pumping, his blood singing in his ears, and the sound of the bodies of the spiders being crushed by his axe was a GLORIOUS thing to him. Had he been paying more attention, though, he would have noticed a spider that had gotten past him and had flung itself towards the back of his partially-uncovered neck. Himo, however, did not miss this.
With a mighty swing, Himo copied Xander's own move of 'swinging for the fences', as the young Cleric called it, and splattered the spider out of mid-air, but not without cost – Oskar turned at precisely the wrong moment and a large portion of the spider's bleeding body lodged itself into his beard, sizzling both skin and hair as the Dwarf let out a mighty roar of pain, clawing at the chunk of spider. When he pulled away a chunk of both skin and hair, though, he let out a savage snarl and turned back to the approaching spiders, a battle-mad gleam in his eye as he launched himself at the remainder of the spiders, which had clumped themselves around the final remaining witch.
Her eyes widened as the Dwarf snarled at her babies and hurled himself at them – the Spider Queen had been generous to her and her sisters, giving them both her powerful children and the insatiable Drow, and she had sword to die before allowing harm to come to the children. She channeled her spell energy into one blast that hit the Dwarf full-on in the chest, flinging him back past the half-elf, but she also had a major problem – she couldn't defend against both the half-elf and the other woman whom had watched her sister die at the hands of her own children.
Himo's eyes blazed as she watched him move his hands, speak and then point to a spot behind the final witch, making Paige wince, "Arise, creature!" From behind the witch arose a burning creature of some kind, a bug, if her eyes were right, and it launched itself at the back of the witch with a vengeance.
From his position next to Dru, Xander could hear a heated scream echo down the hallway as Dru scanned the darkened area ahead of them while slowly fidgeting with her knives – whatever was going on back there, the witches sounded like they were having all they could handle from the rest of the party.
"There, behind that pillar," Dru whispered to him, pointing out the pillar on the far side of the dead-end hall.
Xander sighed, "Of course he is – so, how do we do this?"
She turned and looked at him with a bright smile as his eyes strained to lock in on the Drow in the darkness, "You draw him out, and I cut his throat?"
He gave her a look and sighed, knowing it was the best plan they were going to come up with, "Dru, when this is over, we're going to talk about your planning abilities." With that said, and her sticking her tongue out at him, he scampered off to the next pillar, knowing that there was less than fifty feet to the back wall, which Dru had told him was solid and flat rock, and made his way to the last pillar.
Dru watched the Drow, though he was on the edge of her vision range, and snarled as he waved at her and dropped back into the shadows. She started to move after Xander, but stopped when she heard a startled shout from the darkness ahead of her and then a solid-sounding thud of something hitting a person's head, hard. After several minutes, though, she whispered out, "Xand?"
"Not quite, dear." She repressed a snarl as the Drow walked out of the shadows, a smirk on his face, holding Xander's mace in his hands, "Though I must ask you if you were … attached … to this 'Xand', little half-breed – I fear he may not survive the blow I gave him."
Dru snarled at the Drow and ripped free her short sword, "You'd better hope not, Drow – he owes me, big, and I plan to collect." She began to circle the Drow, who only smirked at her as he copied her move while wielding Xander's mace, "So, how'd you get here? From what I understand, this isn't our plane."
He nodded at the little girl – he'd been around for a long time, and he had been to a great many places, but none of them were as strange or held as strange of humans as he'd come to know here, "A botched spell, of all things – my sister was attempting to teleport one of her creations into the waiting arms of a new mother, but instead I was brought here. Shame, really," he went on, ignoring the look of disgust on the half-elf's face, "because I so wanted to see the woman's face, but instead here I am, in a land of comely women who have the strangest desires and something called the 'Internet'."
Dru narrowed her eyes as the Drow prattled on, continuing to circle him even as her eyes focused on movement in the shadows – Xander was alive, on his feet and looking highly irritated as she saw a dark smear traveling down the left side of his cheek, "Well, Xander's told me a little about this world, but never about this 'Internet' – when this is over, I'll have to ask him about it."
"Drevel, by the way." She shot him a look and he went on, "My name, fair half-blood, is Drevel."
She gave him a frosty smile as she lashed in first with her dagger and then with her short sword, making the Drow skip backwards, "Drusillia, but why be so formal? Call me Death." She dove in this time, her dagger low and her short sword moving to parry the mace strike he was throwing at her. Their weapons clashed and it became a battle of strength … a battle she was losing.
Xander approached the gaunt Drow, who appeared to be dressed in little more than a pair of leggings, a loin cloth and a scrap of a shirt, his footfalls masked by the grunting of the two combatants as his hand tightened around the dagger – he knew what he was about to do was against Pelor's rules of combat, but quite frankly, he didn't care at that point. The Drow, Drevel, as he called himself, had gotten the drop on him moments before, and had cut him open if the blood oozing down the side of his head was any indication, but to take his mace and to try and use it against Dru? That was crossing the line.
He felt a tingle in his back even as the little half-blood before him caught him on the end of the nose with her dagger, making him flinch back – he screamed, though, at the feeling of a dagger entering into his back, reflexively dropping the mace he wielded. Drevel found a way to stagger off, turning to see the cleric there, blood covering half of his grim-looking face, but it was then that he felt the bite of a sword in his chest.
Dru smiled slightly as she pulled back from the fatal lunge she had made to the Drow, her short sword still sticking out of his chest as he fell to the stone floor, gasping for breath, "Sneaky, Xander, worthy of any assassin."
Xander snorted even as he felt … odd, "No, if it were worthy of an assassin, I would not be bleeding and he never would have gotten this far, Dru." He shook off the funny feeling even as they heard several pairs of feet walking up the corridor, "So, now what?"
(Later)
In retrospect, he shouldn't have been surprised when his healing spells were not working – Xander had broken the rules, and now he was paying the price as he limped up the final flight of stairs from the dungeon and into the blackness of a moonless Texas night.
Paige looked at him with a hint of sorrow in her eyes, "Are you sure you're okay, Xander?"
"I'm fine, Paige," he said again for the tenth time, his pack starting to weigh on him. They had hunted around the final hall and found a small hoard of what Dru and Himo both identified as spell components, but also two little things that Paige had told him were magical items – one was a ring, made of simple silver and Dru had immediately claimed it, calling it a ring of invisibility, but the other one, the one he currently had on, was what caught his attention. It was made of what appeared to be simple iron, but it had a ram's head on the front – something had drawn him to it even as Himo and Paige had busily shoveled a small stash of gold and spell components into every spare inch of backpack space; Paige had called it a ring of the Ram and had explained about it, three times a day, being able to hit a door or an object with a lot of force, but you could use the ring more than one charge at a time.
"I hope you will be," she said back to him, holding out her hand. He clasped it as a portal opened, blazing blue and showing a fair-sized city on the other side of it, "Be well, Xander."
"Be well, Paige, and work on that sense of humor," he said to her, smirking slightly as she smiled back at him before she walked through the portal.
Dru and Himo were next, with Himo simply grasping his hand and nodding before walking through the portal; Dru, on the other hand, stopped, with a smile, "So, are you going to stay out of trouble, Ex-Cleric?"
"I could ask you the same, Dru, but we both know the answer to that question." She gave him a fond smile and pulled him into a hug, "Be well, Drucillia." She nodded back at him and walked away into the portal, leaving him and Oskar.
"I still say you need to take things more seriously, especially battle, boy," the Dwarf started out gruffly, but a grin split his face, "but you're coming along nicely otherwise – you knew what would happen if you if you attacked the Drow like you did, and you did it anyway. Shows a good character, someone who is willing to what they have to in order to get the job done."
Xander nodded, "I'll pay the price, Oskar, though I still say you could stand to grow a few feet … or at least grow your beard back entirely." Oskar was now missing a chunk of his beard, from the top of his chin to the bottom of the chin, and there was scar tissue there, leaving him a rather sizable piece missing.
Oskar merely shrugged, idly stroking the twin braids that he had been forced to put his beard into, "Feh, it won't grow back, boy, but then again, this is easier to take care of – few places for crumbs to get into." They clasped hands and Oskar too went through the portal, which closed behind him.
Silence reigned in the desert for several minutes before he felt the presence there, so he turned and looked at Pelor, "So, how long am I sitting out?" The god of sun and healing merely looked at him quizzically, so Xander went on, "I can't use my spells, and I know I broke the rules – what do I have to do to make it up?"
Pelor gave him a long, steady look before speaking, his voice echoing slightly, "There are several tasks that you must perform, Alexander, to regain your abilities as a Cleric, many of which will be known to you at a later date, but I shall dictate to you now one of them." Xander gave him an expectant look even as the area faded away and then reformed into what appeared to be the Library, where there was a single body on the ground, a puddle of blood around her neck, "You must learn to control yourself, young mortal, and your more base tendencies." With that, Pelor went away and Xander could see the face of the person on the ground.
His heart stopped as the face registered, " … K … Kendra?"
AN: Okay, folks, that's the end of this over-due chapter – I finally got the group to agree on how and what happened with their characters, which is what most of the delay was, and here it is. What do you think, aside from Kendra being dead now? Reviews, please.