Author's Note: I apologise this has been so long. I've tried very hard to write, but I've really just been unable too. It's utterly my fault, no distractions, I haven't been too busy, but a combination of writer's block and crippling fear of going to Uni (it only recently hit me that I'm actually leaving my friends, my family and my city behind to live alone in a place I've never properly visited) has made it very difficult to write.

I know there are readers out there, so I feel really bad letting you down with the long wait. I was especially touched when I got a whisper on Guild Wars from somebody who really enjoyed it (I severely apologise, but in stupidity I lost your name when I accidentally closed Guild Wars, so couldn't reply or talk with you again, but a big thank you for all your kind words!). So I will finish this story. It's supposed to be short anyway, Vahlahn's back story was meant to be just that, back details to flesh out the story a bit, the main story still runs.

This chapter reveals a lot. I didn't want to reveal it this early, but with writer's block, I figured I best go with the plot details I did have worked out. I'm very sorry for the long wait. I can't guarantee it won't happen again, sadly, but I'll do my best. But I will finish the story, it might not be very long, few chapters, this was always designed to be short, but it will be finished! I swear! I will not abandon it!

For the record, that's still only three days without an update, so I guess I might be being a bit melodramatic, but it feels like a lifetime considering my 'update once a day' policy.

THE BASE OF THE MOUNTAIN

Maialin let out an impressed whistle.

"Now ain't that a sight." She commented in awe. Leine stopped, panting and wiping sweat from her brow.
"It's about time. We've been travelling for days." Leine sighed. Vahlahn just looked at the massive mountains with a casual smirk.

"We still need to climb them, you realise?" He laughed slightly as Leine's face fell. The massive Shiverpeak Mountains stretched out before them, reaching up into snowy peaks. "And it'll be no picnic once we're up there."

"What? Why?" Leine quickly asked, obviously nervous. "We're leaving the Charr behind, right?"

"Right." Vahlahn stated. "But the dwarves live up in the mountains."

"I thought the dwarves liked us." Leine pointed out.

"Yeah, the King has been friends with our King for years." Maialin, in a rare moment, agreed with Leine.

"You've not heard of the Stone Summit?" Vahlahn inquired.
"What's that? The peak of the mountain?" Leine guessed, quickly figuring out she was wrong when Vahlahn chuckled to himself.

"Not quite, no." He laughed. "The dwarves are split into two factions. One, are the ones you listed, the ones who are friendly, accepting to humans. Hell, we'll probably be pretty popular, they don't see humans up there very often."

"And the other's the Stone Summit?" Maialin guessed.

"Yes." Vahlahn stated. "They're slightly less welcoming."

"Less welcoming?" Leine asked.

"They kill anything non-dwarf. And dwarves." Vahlahn stated.

"So, everything, then?" Maialin observed.

"Well, yes, but that didn't quite come out right." Vahlahn chuckled slightly. "What I meant was that they kill any humans and any dwarves that sympathise with humans. They feel only hatred for us, no sympathy, no second thoughts. They think of killing us like stepping on a fly."

"So we're leaving an area overrun by murderous monsters to head to a new area overrun my murderous monsters?" Maialin pondered. "Even if they are a little on the short side."

"That's the basics of it, yes." Vahlahn told them. "But hopefully they shouldn't give us any trouble."

"That sounds uncharacteristically optimistic of you, Vahlahn." Maialin smirked.

"Well, Arziel's been up there for a year at least." He pointed out. "I'd be surprised if there are any Stone Summit left for us to kill by the time we're there." He grinned, before walking on. Maialin smiled warmly, following quickly, before Leine raced after them, wishing they had taken a longer rest at the site of the mountain.

Their small tent, pitched halfway up the mountain, was hammered by the strong winds. Even Vahlahn had agreed a tent was a good idea at the face of the piercing cold, even though he wasn't stood within. He was overlooking the view from the mountain, looking at the ruined Ascalon. He heard footsteps behind him, and turned, slightly surprised to see that it was Leine, not Maialin.

"Are you alright?" She asked gently.

"Of course." Vahlahn smiled, turning back to face her. "This is just the best place to see what the Charr did. See what they did to us, to Ascalon, the damage they caused."

"You think you could have stopped it, don't you?" Leine guessed. Vahlahn glanced away.

"I don't think. I know." Vahlahn told her. "I know that I could have. But I grew too casual, I let our peace slip away."

"It should never have been one man's responsibility, to keep the peace." Leine said softly. "Nobody could keep peace with beings that hate us that much."

"You don't understand." Vahlahn sighed. "I never saw it coming."

"Nobody expected that the Charr would-"
"I'm not talking about the Charr!" Vahlahn snapped. "Arziel was young, and had just started exploring. She needed somebody to watch over her." He sighed. "I took the job. I was her guardian."

"What's this got to do-"

"That left Xantos with the Charr." He interrupted Leine, bringing his hand to his forehead in weariness.

"Xantos? Your partner?" Leine guessed. "Nice name for a necromancer."

"Did you really buy that 'betrayed and murdered' story?" He asked suddenly. Leine rose an eyebrow.

"What really happened?" She asked with a gulp.

"Xantos betrayed us to the Charr. He told them everything, where to strike, how to get past the guards. The Searing was just one stage of the Charr invasion, it wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective without intelligence information. Xantos provided it all right under my nose." He growled lowly. "And if I had seen it coming, if I had noticed, I could have stopped it. I could have ended it."

"Don't blame yourself. You couldn't have seen it coming." Leine had a terrible feeling she was just being a distant, ineffectual voice on Vahlahn. "Nobody could see their friend betraying them."

"Do you know the ultimate twist?" Vahlahn laughed. "He asked me to look after Arziel. I spent time with Arziel as per his request. He must have been planning it all along. He got me out of the way so that he could continue his plot with the Charr."

"Really? Why? Did he know Arziel?" Leine asked.

"Know her?" Vahlahn laughed slightly. "She was his daughter."

"What?" Leine exclaimed in shock. "But that means Maia is-"

"That's why I didn't tell the truth." Vahlahn explained. "Maialin is the daughter of the man who doomed Ascalon. She may figure out that he was her father, after all, she knows he was a necromancer, and an ambassador, and how many of those can there be?" He paused, sighing. "But I want her to think her father died in good spirit, as a good soul."

"Doesn't it concern you that Maialin chose to become a necromancer? That she might follow in her father's footsteps?" Leine asked, perhaps bringing up her own concerns.

"Every dammed day since she began studying necromancy." Vahlahn answered. "Her recklessness made me even more fearful. The irony is that the I think the Searing brought out the best in her."

"I don't. She's all bitter and mean now." Leine paused. "Well, meaner than she was."

"But she has a urge to fight evil now, to protect the innocent and destroy the villainous." He smiled. "A trait her father clearly didn't share." Leine fell silent, chewing her lip, before speaking up again.

"Why?" She asked. "Why was he like that?"

"Why was he evil?" Vahlahn laughed. "How can anybody answer that? I only know that he was. Whether he became it, the time with the Charr twisted him, or whether he always was, I may never know. But I don't need too."

"You don't?" Leine questioned.

"No." Vahlahn smiled. "Knowing wouldn't change anything. And at least this way, I can believe that there was some good in my friend."

"How did he die?" Leine knew it was a sensitive question, but asked anyway.

"We fought. I won." Vahlahn stated. "Kind of ironic."

"What was?"

"He was killed by the fires of the Searing. A flaming strike came down and hit him, killing him instantly." He laughed. "We fought, but we couldn't kill each other. Not us two. He was killed by his own devices." Leine fell silent. There wasn't much else she could say.

She had stayed silent when they woke up in the morning, looking at Maialin now gave her an uneasy chill. How was she supposed to keep everything Vahlahn told her secret? More to the point, how could she tell anybody because they were walking so dammed fast! Maialin and Vahlahn had picked up their pace, and were heading up the mountain slope briskly. Leine found herself lagging behind as usual, quickly running out of breath when she tried to keep up, and the upward walk making her even more exhausted. She couldn't even see them any more, they had ascended so far and turned ahead of her they were out of sight, and she was panting uselessly, barely able to keep walking.

She decided that they were gone, and that she might as well rest, sitting down on a nearby rock. She was never going to catch them up, and couldn't go much further anyway. She cursed herself for not being fitter, and then took some deep gulps from her water flask. A scurrying on the rocks behind her made sure she leapt to her feet (dropping and spilling the contents of the flask in the process). A strange armoured figure stood before her, short, shorter than her by about a head height, with two peering red eyes gleaming out of its helmet. It must be a dwarf, that much was obvious by its height, and it seemed to be evil.

"Urm, hello?" Leine stammered nervously. It took a step towards her, and she stumbled back. It drew a huge, heavy axe. "Um, are you okay?" She managed to say, despite her fear almost keeping her jaw shut. Its eyes focused on her, and it closed in with a swing of its deadly weapon. Leine screeched, jumping back, trying to block it with her staff. The force of the blow simply knocked her staff from her hands, and it flew off the edge of the mountain. "MAIA! VAHLAHN! HELP! HELP ME!" She shrieked, and turned to run. The dwarf was much faster than her, and leapt to tackle her. She crashed down and quickly became helplessly pinned by the dwarf, completely unable to move. She squirmed futilely as it held her down with its legs and one arm, and rose its axe with the other.

"Chaos Storm!" She screamed in desperation. The dwarf was caught up in the tiny purple vortex as it lashed at him, and Leine managed to crawl out, unaffected by her own spell. She got up, and began to run again. The dwarf shook off the minor injuries it had sustained from the spell and jumped at her again.

It collided with her, this time knocking her off the edge of the mountain. She shrieked as she fell, rolling down the slope, her frail body taking hit after hit on the jagged rocks. The dwarf too was lost, not thinking twice about sacrificing its life to take a pathetic human with it. The two tumbled down the mountain, and Leine was convinced she was going to die.

To her surprise, she didn't. She woke up, not knowing how long it had been. Everything hurt, her body was badly battered and bruised, and she was sprawled amongst a pile of rocks, as if she had been trapped in an avalanche. Her head hurt badly, and her ankle was throbbing with pain. She tried to pull it to her, but she couldn't move it, and the pressure of trying sent pain rocketing up with so much force she almost threw up. She looked down, and cursed. Her ankle was trapped under a pile of rocks, and clearly broken under the weight. She couldn't even try to pull it out under this much pain.

She quickly got to work casting what healing spells she knew, and sighed with relief as her injuries healed themselves. Her magic wasn't the most powerful, but she had nothing else to do, so kept casting, and then resting for her magical energies to recharge. Eventually, the wounds were gone, bar the immense pain of the rocks bearing down on her ankle. She pulled and tugged, but couldn't work it free, and caused herself a great deal of pain trying. She wriggled to the rock, and tried to life it off, but it was fairly large, and far too heavy for her. She sighed, and collapsed, growling at how pathetically weak she was. She tried again, grunting and tugging on the rock with all of her might, but she simply wasn't strong enough. She collapsed and started to cry. She was going to die, trapped on a mountain slide, and it was all because she was so pathetic. Too pathetic to keep up with her friends. Too pathetic to defeat the dwarf. Too pathetic to lift the rock. She truly deserved to die.

It didn't stop her tugging at her ankle, however, trying her very best to get it free. She sighed, her exceedingly tight boots keeping her ankle trapped in them so that she couldn't just slip them off. She started calling for help. That seemed like a good idea. Either something would come and kill her, or she'd be freed.

Unfortunately, it seemed to be the former.

She spotted a beaten and battered dwarf, in the same armour as the one she had seen before, except now badly dented, walking up the mountain side. It must have been the same one that fell off of the cliff.

She shut her eyes and flopped down, deciding to play dead. Perhaps it would pass her if it thought she was dead.

Her heart was thumping so hard that she could feel it banging against her ribcage. She prayed the dwarf wouldn't get close enough to notice the salty tears streaming down her face. She was too scared to stop them. She had the shakes, badly, and that wasn't going to make a convincing corpse. She squeezed her eyes shut, too frightened to open them. She tried. She tried desperately to will them open. She had to see the dwarf. See her final moments.

Except she couldn't. She was too scared. She was shaking, crying and too scared to think. She was about to vomit with fright.

She felt pressure on her ankle lift. She yelped, it must be freeing her before it finishes her off. She was being lifted up! It was lifting her up and holding her in its arms. What? Why was it doing that? And it wasn't in armour. That was soft clothes. She tried to listen, she had ignored all sound in the same way she had forced her eyes shut. They were saying something, but she couldn't focus on it. She couldn't hear it. Just like she couldn't open her eyes. She was too scared. It was faint.

Come on, listen.

She tried to open her eyes, but they remained shut with force from her fear. She tried desperately, squirming with effort, but she couldn't. She scrunched up her hands as she struggled, as if pushing against some immense force.

Gah! Come on! I just need to open them! Just a peek! No! It's so scary!

"She's moving!" Exclaimed Vahlahn in a moment of uncharacteristic joy. He held Leine in his arms as Maialin dumped the heavy rock that had pinned her.

"Leine? Leine?" Maialin called to her, placing her hand on Leine's. "Can you hear me? You're going to be alright Leine. We took care of the dwarf. It's safe. Come on, Leine, listen to me."

"Leine! Listen to us!" Vahlahn cried. "She's in shock." He sighed.

"Leine! Focus on my voice! Come on! Calm down! You're safe." Maialin had a tear come to her own eye, seeing her friend so beaten and scared. "Leine! Please! I can't lose you! You're my best friend! Come on Leine, you're safe. You're with me. And Vahlahn. You're safe."

Leine opened her eyes.

Author's Note: One final point. That 'Leine not opening her eyes' thing may seem a bit weird. So, to tell the truth, it's based on multiple nightmares I've had. I can't remember what scares me in them, but I remember having lots of nightmares where I'm too scared to open my eyes, no matter how much I want to. I don't like to think I'm too much of a wimp when it comes to scary things, but in nightmares, it seems the fear is overwhelming. Perhaps that's the scary part, I can't open my eyes to see it!

Ahem. But yes, this isn't a dream analysis, this is saying that if that behaviour in Leine seems strange, it's actually based on how I've found myself (been forced to?) behave in a couple of nightmares.

Great. Now I must sound like a total wuss.