Beware, this chapter is very graphic. The Mana Warriors descend into the hell-pit of the Cave of Waterfalls. Insert the usual disclaimer here, and then get to reading!
~Truewind

Chase the Light

"I still can't believe the Priest is just some old geezer." Angela remarked as the trio trudged down the trade road that led to the Cave of Waterfalls. Riesz blinked once, and caught the older girl's arm in the same grip she used when piercing monsters with her spear.
"Do you relly have so much contempt for a priest of the highest order? Didn't you feel his power?"
"What power? I didn't sense anything. You can feel magical auras?" The expression on Angela's face was genuinely puzzled.
Riesz dropped her friend's arm in surprise. She glanced quickly at Hawkeye, who shrugged nonchalantly.
"You really didn't feel anything?"
"Nope. Never have, never will. I don't have the talent for it."
Angela turned away to hide the pain. It was an old wound, one she had thought buried and gone. But it resurfaced then with a vengeance. Of the entire royal family of Altena, she had been the only one unable to use magic, a disgrace to her heritage. She looked back at Riesz, whose surprise was evident in her face, and the fact that she had not moved since dropping Angela's arm. Hawkeye, as usual, was unreadable.
"Leave her alone, Riesz. We'll probably never see the man again, anyway, so it doesn't matter if she offended him or not. Besides, I think we have another problem right now." He pointed at the cave entrance with one of his daggers. A tiny figure was bobbing back and forth and waving at them, obviously trying to get their attention. She ran down the natural staircase to them, nimble as a goat.
"Good! Carlie catch you before you go in! Take Carlie with you!"
Geez, what's wrong with this kid? Angela thought. One minute she doesn't want to go with us, the next she's begging to tag along?
"I'll handle this." She said to Hawkeye and Riesz. Without waiting for a reply, she pulled the girl a bit away from the other two. "Now Carlie...This isn't a treasure hunt. This is no place for little girls. We'll find Heath."
"But Carlie want to save Heath"
The tears that gathered in those big, blue eyes were almost enough to change Angela's mind. Almost
"No, Carlie. You can't come." She shook her head to emphasize the statement.
"Oh!" Carlie fumed and stamped her little foot. "Why did Carlie ask you anyway?" She just stood there, fuming. Angela shrugged, and motioned for the others to follow her back into the caves.

:Wait.: The faerie stopped them at the bridge where they had first found Carlie. She popped into being instantly, and floated easily up to the great waterfall that roared beside them. :I feel a presence here. It could be Wisp!: She floated upward, and cam back down again. :There!: She pointed at a ledge, high above them, and disappeared again. By now, the three travelers were used to her quirks, and they simply made their way through the winding passages tat led to the ledge.
When they arrived, they found that there was just enough room for all three of them to fit on the tiny cliff. But between them and the other side lay a massive ravine.
"We'll never get across!" said Riesz. Hawkeye rolled his eyes with disgust.
:Oops! I forgot you can't fly!: The little woman measured the distance with her eyes, and floated out to the waterfall. :I think I can channel some of the energy from this waterfall.:
Without warning, they felt themselves pulled forward like dogs on a leash. Before they knew it, they were at the other side.
:There!: sent the faerie, very pleased with herself.
"Are you crazy?" Hawkeye demanded. He seemed flustered, not a normal state for him. "What if you'd left a piece of me behind?"
Riesz and Angela were bewildered. Not once during the entire trip had they seen Hawkeye lose his composure or his temper. Now, both of them seemed to have been left at the other cliff. He continued along on that vein for some time, but when his comments degenerated into insults, Angela decided to intervene.
"Look, Hawk. We're all fine, we're across, and we need to get moving. So could you please stow it? She's not listening to you anyway."
The thief's mouth snapped abruptly shut, and he reined in his temper visibly. Then, the mask of serenity descended on his angular features once again. But before he could say anything, six feet of wood was interposed between them.
"What the..."
"We've got company!" Impaled on the end of the long shaft of Riesz's spear wast he most disgusting creature any of them had ever seen.
:A zombie! Darkness is corrupting the bodies of the slain!:
The creature mad a sickening, squishing noised, and shifted on the spear's point.
"Oh gross!" Angela whacked the thing's rotting head squarely with her staff. The dilapidated skull popped off, and fell down into the crevasse. But the thing was still moving. Riesz swung her spear over her shoulder, and the ghastly creature went flying into the abyss. Each of them heaved a sigh of relief, but knew there would be more to come.

As the long battle deep in the caves wore on, the two girls gained an appreciation for Hawkeye's almost surgical accuracy and his cast-iron stomach. Whenever on of them faltered in that hellish prison of rock, he was there, hacking off rotten limbs with shining blades, and murmuring kind nothings to the one who hesitated. They learned soon enough that escape was not an option, there were simply too many of the undead creations.
:Wounding them is not enough,: the faerie had told them, :you must dismember them so utterly that they simply cannot attack any more.:
There was no point in trying to outwit the undead, either, they had no minds to speak of, and they killed by sheer numbers. So the three fighters were forced to destroy every one that crossed their path. They reduced the fighting to a routine that seemed to work effectively enough. Angela would sweep the thing's legs out from beneath it, and Riesz would then pin it to the ground with her spear. That gave Hawkeye the moment he needed to slice off an arm or a leg, or otherwise incapacitate it. Luckily for them, the caves were small, which meant that the zombies could not mass to attack them. But the constant fighting was wearing them down, body and soul.
"There's just too many of them!" Angela gasped. A new wave of the things was descending on them.
"In there!" Riesz shouldered the girl into the other branch of the passage, and Hawkeye followed them quickly. Then, miraculously, the horde began to disperse and file away, leaving only a few in the cavern Angela and her companions had just vacated.
"What just happened?" Angela asked.
"Look! Look behind you!" Riesz's pleasant alto was high with excitement. Angela turned, and nearly fainted with relief.
"What is it?" Hawkeye sat down beside the two girls, now that the threat had abated momentarily.
A life-sized, golden statue of a beautiful woman had been placed on a pedestal in the cave. Moss clung to the base, but had not coated the likeness. The pool of water next to the golden figure was clear and untainted, and the three warriors felt their spirits rise just sitting there.
"A statue of the Goddess." Riesz said, awed.
"And a gold one, no less. We'll be safe here." Angela's prior hysteria seemed to have melted away completely, and she was as calm as she had ever been. Even Riesz, who rarely let her guard down, set aside her spear and closed her eyes, peace oozing from her pores.
:In the presence of a golden Goddess statue, your wounds will heal at a much faster rate. There is time for rest, now.: The faerie floated over to the stature, and alighted on a rock beside the statue.
"But why did the zombies stop swarming?" Hawkeye asked, perplexed.
:This is a sacred place, they cannot enter here.:
"Come on, Hawk. It's all right." Angela beckoned to him, and he shifted a bit so that he was closer to her. "Your hair... it's gotten itself tangled. Let me help." She brandished a stiff brush that materialized, seemingly from nowhere, in her hand, ready to be used. She proceeded to gently tug out the snares in his indigo hair. Her gentle fingers reminded him of his mother, now long dead, and he realized that she was emulating the mother figure for his benefit.
Though where she learned how, I can't guess. It certainly wasn't from that frozen bitch Valda!
Angela began to hum softly, her sweet voice resonating through the cavern. If she closed her eyes, Riesz could almost imagine that it was the Goddess singing, that She was there, guarding them in their time of need. With her eyes open, she could see Hawkeye lying there, cushioned by a patch of soft moss, all of his barriers down. To her surprise, she liked what she saw there. She'd had very little contact with men other than her father and, of course, her younger brother Eliot, and none of them had ever made her feel this way. She put it down to stress, and closed her eyes once again to commune with the Goddess.

"I hate to say this guys, but..." Angela stood up, and the faerie disappeared again, presumably to take up residence inside Angela's mind once more.
"Yeah, we know. It's time to go." Hawkeye gathered his long hair into its usual severe tail, and stood as well. Riesz was already standing, keeping watch at the threshold.
"Let's get moving." She said, and hefted her spear into a guard position. All three of them felt better for the rest, and they were ready to face whatever the caves could throw at them.
When they reached the massive entrance of a cave that looked fit to house an arena, they dispatched the last of the zombies with grim efficiency, and proceeded into the depths. The natural crystals inside were intensely beautiful, almost shining with inner lights. However, beautiful as it was, the place held a vague feeling of unease that was only compounded when the path crumbled behind them.
'What is this place?"
No one got the chance to answer Angela's question, because, at that moment, a massive shape descended on them without warning. They dove out of the way reflexively, and used the next few instants to evaluate their opponent. It was a gargantuan, hideous, horrible...
"Crab? Is that a CRAB?" Angela had been separated from the other two during the impact, and the gigantic crustacean turned toward the sound of her voice. Its huge claws tore great rents in the hard stone floor as it maneuvered its bulk in the princess' direction.
"Angie! Get your royal behind out of there!" Hawkeye picked up a sharp crystal and hurled it at the thing as hard as he could. When the stone connected with its hard shell, it uttered an odd, chittering noise, and whirled to face its assailant. Angela scrambled over to join the others, and they faced the thing together.
"See its shell?" Riesz pointed at the armored covering of the beast with a free hand. "It's got to be at least as strong as steel. We'll never break that open."
They rolled again as the monster lashed out again. When it swerved its huge, glowing orbs toward them again, an idea flashed in Hawkeye's mind.
"Distract it." There was no time to explain. Riesz and Angela started beating it relentlessly with their pole-arms.
Maybe we don't have to break it open.
The thing chittered again, flailing at the tiny insects that were bothering it. It was confused by the girls' attacks, but it would only take one blow to maim, or even kill one of them. He had to act quickly. He set his sights on one of those glowing eyes, and flicked a dagger at it.
It hit dead center. The thing reared like a fat horse, its eye dripping ichor, and the two girls backed away carefully.
"Good shot, Hawk." Riesz whispered to him. For some reason, that compliment made him beam like nothing he'd ever gotten from his weapons instructor. But their reprieve was short, because the monster righted itself quickly, and a shower of colored sparks sealed the wound shut. It opened its gaping maw, and a spray of saliva shot out in the form of gigantic, digestive bubbles. The three warriors tried desperately to get out of the way, but Riesz was hit in the leg with one of the corrosive bubbles. The wound hissed and spat, and Riesz let out an involuntary shriek of pain.
"Did you get hit?" Hawkeye tossed a small, odd-smelling herb to her. "Eat that, it'll keep the poison from spreading." The pain was enough that she did not argue. The effect was almost instant, though a bit gruesome. The wound stopped hissing, but the poison oozed out of it. It was a particularly odd feeling, she decided, feeling the fluid flow out of her body. She sighed with relief when the pain stopped, and graced Hawkeye with a wordless expression of gratitude.
"Watch out! I think it's going to jump again!" Angela shouted, as the huge creature braced itself to leap into the air again. They dove for cover, but the shockwave that came after it dropped down again sent them flying into the cavern's stone walls. They recovered, albeit slowly, and pulled themselves to their feet.
"We've got to get the other eye!" Hawkeye said. Riesz bounded down from her precarious perch and brandished her spear in front of the monster. With an angry battle cry, she rammed the shaft through the thing's good eye as hard as she could. The spear went up into the eye, all the way down to where Riesz's hands were placed. The thing shuddered, and died without another sound. Riesz fell to the ground, exhausted.

"You must have hit its brain." Angela commented, when they had had a chance to rest. Now that the threat had passed, she was examining the carcass with a scientist's eye. "That's the only way you could have killed it. If you had pulled back even a little, you'd have been eaten."
Riesz shuddered. "Could we...talk about something else?"
:Do I count as something else?:
They all jumped at the sound of yet another voice in their heads. A ball of silver light was bobbing up and down next to Riesz, but it was a ball of light with eyes.
"What the..." Hawkeye drew his daggers, and the orb shrank back.
:Wait! I'm Wisp! I'm the one you've been looking for!:
"Hawk, put those toothpicks away." Angela said. "Does he look evil?"
:It's all right. You can never be too cautious these days. I got stuck in that thing's body, and it was feeding off my energy!:
So that's why it could heal itself... thought the thief.
"So what do we do now?" Riesz asked.
:We go find the rest of my buds! I'm a part of Mana, like the faerie, so I can't survive without it. So let's go them and save Mana!:
The little orb's bubbly personality was infectious, and the three of them found themselves agreeing with him before they knew it. As they searched for a way out, Wisp bobbed over to Angela.
:You know, now that you've found me, you'll be able to use magic.: He sent, in a mind-voice meant only for her.
"What? But I can't use magic, Jose told me..."
:He lied to you. It was his job to contain your power, so that your mother could use it.:
"But that can't be true! Mother would never..." She broke off. That sounded exactly like something her mother would do.
:At least, that was the original idea. You might find it hard to believe, but Jose loved you like his own daughter, and he would never have hurt you. Once he realized the extent of your latent abilities, he hid the truth from your mother, and siphoned it off until you would need it. Unfortunately, that meant that he had to hide it from you, too. But now...: The little pools of blackness that served the elemental as eyes closed, and Angela felt something stirring in her mind. Something broke, and she felt a relief so profound that it almost put her to tears.
:There, I've released the seal. You'll only be able to use my magic right now, but as we find my buds, they'll give you their power, too.:
"I..." Words could not express her feelings at that moment.
:Thank me by saving Mana, and Fa'Diel. You could start by taking the exit that thing opened up when it crashed in here.:
She looked up, and saw what Wisp had been talking about. A passage had opened during the fighting without them even noticing.
"Hey! There's an exit here! It wasn't here before..."
The exit turned opened out into the very first cavern they had entered since the faerie had teleported them across the ravine.
:Here, I think I can do it again.: She repeated the spell she had performed earlier, and they flew across the distance instantly. But they were unprepared for what they would meet at the other side. Angela never saw the beast-man's fist until it hit her in the jaw.

Okay! Whew that was long! Sorry about the regurgitation of game text, but I couldn't get the story to flow right without doing it. Now, you all know what comes next, so I wouldn't call this a cliffhanger... Duran in all his swearing glory is in the next chapter, so read it (when I manage to get it typed).
Ja ne!
~Truewind