Ew was stretched out over a line of bar chairs, snoring happily. In a nearby corner, the Boneys were having a quiet game of patty-cake vs. cops and robbers.
Meleezon and Divo were also amusing themselves in a rigorous game of checkers upon one of the pub tables.
"King me!"
-WHAM-
"Ow! Goddam it, I said 'king me'! Not 'beat me across the f&#en head'."
"Oh, sorry, Divo. On the Amazonian Isles, it's part of the rules to hit the person winning at checkers."
"Really?"
"No. God, you're so gullible."
"Thanks! I think…"
They had almost finished their game when Cain burst in through the doorway.
"YOU FOOLS! What are you doing in here? You're meant to be out there hunting down Baal!"
Meleezon rolled her eyes.
"Relax, we've already been down into the tombs. Two days ago actually. Baal wasn't home, so we killed his secretary. We figure he'll get pissed enough to come after us once he finds out who did it."
Cain began pacing back and forth along the hardwood floor, pulling at what little hair he had left.
"Stupid, stupid heroes! The Lord of Destruction is not simply allowed to go out for a walk when he feels like it. We Horadrim trapped him in place for all eternity. If he wasn't home, Diablo has already come and freed him! He's on his way to Kurast as we speak!"
Meleezon and Divo froze mid checker-hop.
"You mean… we missed him?"
"Yes! We have to go to Kurast and catch them before they get to their third brother, Mephisto!"
"Three brothers? You know, I'd really like to see the mother of these guys," Divo mused. "She must be rreeaallly ugly."
Cain began to bang his head against a wall.
"Ok, Cain, Divo was just kidding. We'll go tell Meshif we want to go to Kurast."
"We can't! Jerhyn still doesn't believe Baal is dead, because he's not! You have to go back down in the tomb and find some evidence to prove he's really gone."
Meleezon thought for a moment.
"How about Duriel's skin? There's plenty of that to-"
"Not good enough! Kill his secretary means squat to Lut Gholein. Get back down there and find cold hard facts."
"Why are facts cold? There's so much in the world I don't understand…"
"Divo, I really don't think we should be arguing right now. Cain looks like he's about to blow a valve. How about you wake Ew up?"
"Sure." Divo went over to the sleeping Necromancer and shook him softly. "Ew… Ew wake up we have to go back into the tomb. Ew? EW!"
He sat up with a start, still half asleep and pointed his wand at Divo.
"George Bush's 'Speech to the People'"
A strange blue mist in the shape of a question mark shot from the wands tip and disappeared into Divo's ear. Her eyes rolled back into her head and she crashed to the floor.
"Ew, what the hell have you done?" cried Meleezon, rushing to Divo's side. The Necromancer sat up, fully awake now, and tried to figure out what just happened.
"Err… sorry I'm a little jumpy when I'm asleep. Have to be, you know, in case a monster finds me one night. I think I just cast the confusion curse on her."
Atma suddenly came out from the back room.
"I heard someone crying out in disgust. Did Divo step in the toilet again?"
"No, Atma, not this time. Our wand-happy friend here put a curse on her instead."
"Oh… well I'll be in the back room again if anyone needs me."
Meleezon crouched down next to Divo's head and called into her ear.
"Divo… Divo come back... don't go into the light… it costs too much to resurrect you nowadays."
The Rogues eyes suddenly flickered open.
"Hi. I'm Inglebert Humpledink. Who're you?"
"Good job Ew, she thinks she's a folk singer. How long does this curse last?"
"Oh… not long… half an hour or so..."
"Goddam it, Ew, I swear I'm going to-"
"Hey! Don't yell at the bone clad man; he's funny, intelligent and very handsome."
Ew beamed in Meleezons direction.
"See? It's like she was never cursed at all!"
"Are you joking? She's practically insane! Divo" -slap- "wake" -slap- "up!" -slap-
"Ow, Meleezon, stop it already!" Divo shook her head and glared at the Amazon above her.
"Ah good. She's coming around. Do you remember your name? You're Divo, not Inglebert Humpledink."
"Yes, I know that. What I don't know is why I'm in the middle of the ocean eating a strawberry sundae with you. And where are my clothes?" She looked around, then looked down at her skirt. "BLOODY HELL! I'M A WOMAN!"
Meleezon sighed.
"Alright, I guess we'll just have to let the curse wear off. We better go down to the tomb quick before Cain strangles us all."
---Fast Forward – Tal Rasha's Chamber, One Quick Town Portal Later---
"That rollercoaster was great, I wanna go again. Can we buy the photo?"
"Divo, just shut up for awhile."
They were back in the pit again, far under the sand. Duriel's body after two days of decomposition was not a pleasant sight. The bugs that evacuated upon his death had all returned to take home the luggage, or in other words; gorge themselves on their former host.
"Ewwww," Meleezon said as she kicked a piece of flesh over.
"What?" the Necromancer replied indignantly.
"No, not you, this mess… hey… I can see something in the skin bag." She bent over and used Bladebone to slice the skin away.
"Oh my god… it's… it's…"
"Rotten internal organs? Wow, fantastic."
"No, this!" she held aloft a shiny green chain mail shirt. "The legendary Hawkmail! This is awesome." She shook the slime and maggots off it. "…I'll wash it before I put it on though."
"You know Meleezon, I think you'd look really hot in green."
Meleezon squinted at Divo suspiciously, then over at Ew
"Tell me, does this confusion curse-"
"Yes, I'm afraid so. But it's a brilliant battle tactic, honest. Nothing frightens your enemy more then when his closest companion turns to him and starts enquiring as to what aftershave he wears. Or suggests that all their armour should be purple."
"Hm, sexual confusion on the battlefield. 'Is that you're poleaxe or are you just happy to see me?' Heh."
Meleezon spotted the door halfway up the wall. Thanks to Duriel's smashing about against walls, fallen rumble had conveniently created a makeshift stair.
"I assume that's where we're meant to be going."
They scrambled up the rocks, stopping to pull Divo up cause 'she couldn't climb on snails'. Cautiously they crept down the hallway ahead, rounded a corner…
And there it was. The massive runic pylon that was supposed to hold the Demon Baal captive. It stood in the center of a large dome-shaped chamber, encircled by lava. A long wooden-rope bridge was the only means to get across.
In front of the pylon, instead of Baal, was an Angel. Meleezon knew this because he glowed like he'd washed his clothing in "Miracle Wonder White", a washing powder so powerful only the Gods could afford it. He was tied to the stone by living vines that looked a lot like intestines. Seeing the heroes approach, he began to yell out.
"Heroes! Come and save me, for I am the Arch-Angel Tyrael, and I'm really important and powerful."
Meleezon strode across the bridge and looked him up and down.
"So… what do I get if I free you?"
"Treasure! Weapons! Really hunky guys?"
"Meh, I've heard better…"
"A diamond encrusted scrunchie?"
"Sold!" Meleezon quickly sliced the vines off the Angels body and pulled him down. Behind his glowing golden hood, she could see no face; just an outline. Tyrael brushed himself off and stretched his wings.
"Ahhh…. Freedom feels good. I would have gotten loose by myself in time anyway."
"I'm sure you would have. Now where's my diamond scrunchie?"
Tyrael, now floating a good 3 feet off the ground, looked down upon her.
"Scrunchie? Oh that. Sorry I don't have one." His voice was deep and collected now, showing no signs of desperation like when he chained.
"What? You told me you'd give me a diamond scrunchie!"
"I lied."
"… Can Angels do that?"
"If it's for a good cause. Look inside yourself, Merryzon-"
"MELEEzon"
"Right, that. Look inside your heart; you didn't really want a reward for freeing me. Doing the will of heaven is fulfillment enough. You're a good person inside, material possessions hold nothing dear to you."
"Hmmm… I'm searching… I can feel it… deep down… I can feel… … some poofy Angel wearing a dress just cheated me out of a diamond scrunchie."
"I don't think you're looking in the right place. Go deeper."
"Mmmmm…… nope, sorry. I still love shiny things and big weapons, no matter where I search. Pay up or I'll chain you to that rock myself."
"Now, let's not be hasty. I have many things to tell you and you must listen closely."
"Will you give me something at the end?"
"Maybe."
"Ok then!"
"Right. Well since we got off on the wrong foot, I'll have to start my speech from the beginning (I've been practicing it for days, so just bare with me)."
He floated higher and spread his wings out fully.
"Greetings Mortal," he said in a big booming voice. "I am glad to see you, but I expected you to be here a little sooner-"
"Wait, what? What do you mean 'be here sooner'? Why should I have been faster getting here?"
"In the time it took you to get here, Diablo arrived and freed Baal. Now they're off to Kurast-"
"What were you doing all this time?"
"I arrived at the exact moment Diablo was going to free Baal, conveniently."
"Oooookkk… so how did he get free if you stopped him?"
"Well… I ripped him off the bridge, pulled out my big sword and began to fight him-"
"Oh so he was in his true Diablo form? I can understand that then, he must have been tough."
"Actually, no, he was still in puny human form."
"What? And you couldn't kill him?"
"… Not exactly, no. I mean, I had him by the throat, sword raised high, but just as I was about to lop his head off the camera moved away and I didn't get to see what I did."
"What?"
"I mean; for some reason I kept missing. Like, he wouldn't be moving, but I'd still hit the rock to his left and right, or just swing my sword at thin air for no apparent reason. Come to think of it I really don't know what I was doing. It's not like he fought back."
"Sounds like you were trippin'."
"Possibly, I don't think the Cherub Turps had fully – wait! I mean no! Drugs are bad, the followers of Heaven never do drugs. Mmmkay?"
"Mmmkay. So you were fighting Diablo and failing horribly; what was happening with Baal?"
"Oh, this stupid human called Marius thought he saw the image of a hooker on Tal Rasha's body and ran to free her. Unfortunately, due to a long slow motion scene, I wasn't fast enough to stop him."
"Ahh. So he pulled the soul stone out? Bummer."
"Actually that made no difference what's so ever. Baal was still trapped till I tripped over my wings and ripped him off the pylon by mistake. I just had time to whisk Marius away to another dimension, shake him around abit and tell him he had to go to Hell to smash the stone."
"Why does he have to do that?"
"Cause it's dramatic. If we told him he could just drop it really hard on the floor it wouldn't be half as interesting."
"Hmm… so Baal caught you, tied you up to the pylon and left with Diablo. Then you waited for us to come free you cause you were to wussy to do it yourself. Hah. Well, what happens now?"
"Er, let's see. I basically rested the entire fate of the world upon the shoulders of a short, half-insane pot smoker. I sent him into Kurast to find the Portal to Hell – which is guarded by the third brother Mephisto, naturally. He has to enter the portal, completely unarmed as he is, stride up to the Hellforge after working his way through 3 valleys of Hell filled with creatures, kindly ask Hephasto for his hammer and then smash it on the anvil."
"You know what?"
"Hmmm?"
"You're a complete idiot. Seriously, for an Angel you've got to be the stupidest holy figure I've ever met."
"Sigh. Yes I know. Damn those Cherub Turps. Don't do drugs kids; you never know when the fate of the world may depend on your clear thinking."
"So I gather you want us to go to Kurast and hunt down all 3 brothers, get their soulstones and smash them in Hell ourselves?"
"Would you? That'd be so helpful, thanks."
"And that brings us back to my reward. You got 2 choices; give me a diamond scrunchie AND a matching bracelet, or come with us and use that big sword of yours to chop up the bad guys."
"Hah! I can't do either. For starters I don't have that damn scrunchie, let alone a matching bracelet. And secondly; Heaven says I'm not allowed to go with you. I have a curfew you know. 8:30 lights out. I've already missed dinner. Oh man, Gods gonna be so mad."
"Daddy's boy."
"Shut up! How would you like to feel the entire wrath of the universe unleashed upon your ass whenever you're late? It's not good."
"Fine. Then you have one more choice: write a letter in fancy Angel writing explaining that you stuffed up protecting Tal Rasha and now he and Diablo are on their way to Kurast. No where near Lut Gholein, so we can finally use ships again."
"Fine." Tyrael sighed and pulled a pen from his robe using one of his wing-strands. "Do I have to tell them about the stupid sword bit?"
"No, you can leave that out. Say Diablo simply overpowered you."
"Sounds good."
Tyrael finished writing, signed it in letters three quarters the size of the page and handed it to Meleezon.
"There. Hold onto that, my sig will be worth a fortune one day."
"Gee, really? I guess I should just throw my Elvis one away."
Tyrael floated towards the ceiling, his voice slowly fading as he dematerialized.
"Farewell, hero, our paths will cross again… oh, and by the way; let's just keep that whole Cherub Turps thing between us? Man, I'm really going to have a lot of explaining to do…"
The trio watched him disappear from sight. Divo, who'd been completely silent during the whole conversation, suddenly chirped up.
"So now the big floating bunny has gone, can we go back on the rollercoaster? Oh! And ice cream, I really want some ice cream. Sardine flavour."
---Fast Forward – Back in Town---
"Oooohh…. Oh my freakin' head." Divo wandered into the bar looking very forlorn.
"Hey there mental pants, feeling normal now?"
"If you call having 60 excited chipmunks fighting over your brain normal, then yes. Where's Ew? I'm going to break every bone on his body, and the ones inside as well."
"Aw to bad, he just left. Someone came in wearing a brand new leather jacket; apparently there was a professional skin-weaver in town. The Boney's saw it and went berserk, all rushed out to buy one. Ew had to get all 12 of them a jacket, or they threatened to quit. Now he's broke. He went home to ask his mum for some money."
"Damn. I guess I won't have my revenge."
"Well, we might meet him again, who knows. He arranged his cousin, Ick the Clobberer, to meet us in Kurast."
"Ick the Clobberer?"
"Yeah. It's pretty obvious they're from the same family tree, isn't it?"
Divo sat down, still nursing her head.
"So what'd I miss? I can't really remember anything after Cain came in and ranted at us."
"Oh not much. I got this shiny new chain mail, see?" She stood up to show Divo Hawkmail in all it's green ringed glory. "It fits perfectly."
"Yeah it does. You look really hot in it actually."
"… I thought that was the curse talking when you said that before."
"Eerrr… yeah. I guess there's side affects. Forget I said anything."
A dark shadow suddenly filled the doorway.
"Well?" asked Cain. He sounded calmer now and looked less like he was about to snap and strangle everyone. "How'd it go?"
"Pretty well, actually," Meleezon smiled. "We met Tyrael, an Arch Angel. He gave us this document that'll convince Jerhyn to let the boats leave dock."
"Angel, ay? That's nice…" Cain sat down casually at the bar and ordered a mug of water. "Must have been fascinating."
"Oh yeah!" cried Divo suddenly. "I just remembered: we found this little monkey…" she reached into her backpack and pulled out the small toy, which immediately started banging it's cymbals away like crazy.
"BY THE GODS!" Cain cried. "That's a Crazy Banging Horadrim Monkey! Where'd you find it?"
"In a tomb. It was in a coffin that produced endless undead."
"Ahh, of course! I'd forgotten we'd experimented with that. That's probably the reason why the world's covered in those walking-dead blighters. Oops, our bad."
"You Horadrim guys are crazy! Are there more of these things?"
"Of course! Not just in coffins either."
"Where else?"
Cain took hold of Divo's quiver and gave it a hard smack. All the arrows came tumbling out in a pile, and then something small and furry plonked out on top.
"Oh my god!" Divo cried in delight. "There's a monkey in my quiver! Now we have two monkeys!"
Meleezon stared with raised eyebrows as Divo picked up both monkeys and hugged them. The toys banged away happily, grinning their goofy grins.
"You're kidding me, aren't you Cain? Are these things really the source of all infinite reproducing objects in our world?"
"Yup! What's more, they breed with water! And if you feed them after midnight they'll turn into gorillas, so you have to be careful. We were afraid things might get out of hand when we made them, and they'd take over the world one day… but then someone invented 'Pop Rocks' and we forgot all our problems."
"Mmmmm… pop rocks," Meleezon dreamed. "Oh, and we better not tell Divo about the water thing. Lord knows we've got enough to carry as it is."
She stood up and gave Divo a nudge on the shoulder.
"Put those back in your quiver and let's go. We've got a Sultan to talk to."
"Awww, do I have to?" Divo moaned.
"Yes."
"Fine." The dejected Rogue stuffed one of the monkeys in her quiver and started to pick up the arrows. " mumble mumble… never get to play with toys… mumble."
Meleezon turned and called back to Cain as they left the bar.
"By the way; how do those monkeys work?"
"Magic!" He called back, followed by twinkling fingers and a spooky 'oooohh' noise.
"And here I was expecting something different…"
Next Blog – Yo Ho, Ho… how you doin'? ;)
