Chapter Twenty-one

Kalphites

Everything was dim, going black. Then everything jerked sharply into focus. I was standing on top of a large heap of rubble. Looking around me, I could see achingly familiar signs in among the ruins. A flag, a staff with a question mark topping it, a spinning wheel... Lumbridge. I had arrived back in Lumbridge. How...

I remembered, and silently thanked Guthix for the green jewel that hung around my neck, the pendant of trust from Lord Iowerth that enabled me to survive the cloud. Because of it, when I had died, I had simply respawned it Lumbridge castle. Or more accurately, where Lumbridge castle would normally have stood. As far as I could see, the place was deserted. The noobs that had attacked from the HAM headquarters were certainly not there now.

I took stock of my supplies. I still held my whip, my amulet of glory and my pendant from Lord Iowerth. Everything else - my cape, potions, food... gone. I cursed the noobs and their magic. I concluded that rejoining my friends would obviously be my course of action, but how to get from Lumbridge to Camelot quickly and safely without teleportion was beyond me.

The nearest bank I knew of were the banks of Draynor and Al Kharid. I remembered that the noobs had attacked from the south west, so I turned my steps towards Al Kharid.

The guards were not there. The fence that separated Al Kharid from Misthalin was almost decimated, lying haphazardly on the ground. I stepped over it, and entered the dry land.

"Captain Killerbum!" a noob called, racing towards the captain from the south.

After the noob's council at Burthorpe, Killerbum had been relieved of his position in Morytania. He had left five troops there, and brought the rest to Camelot like he had been ordered. Rorthan had inspected his troops, then sent him onto Al Kharid with special orders to guard the southern pass very closely.

For the love of anything Killerbum couldn't see why Rorthan had bothered to station an entire command here. There was heat, lots of that, sand, even more of that. A few camels and scorpions that had been slaughtered during the first hour of Killerbum's reign. Except for a few that were on guard duty at the southern pass, his command sat around drinking, eating kebabs, trying to ride the camels they had left alive, hitting each other with rubber chickens, or playing with spinning plates, toy horses, yo-yo's... Doing nothing.

Killerbum was lying in the shade, half-asleep, when the sentry from the south approached him. Killerbum stood up to hear what made one of his noobs run.

"Killerbum, sir, there's something from the south, like a huge cloud or sheet or something that covers the ground, its coming fast come quick and see!" The noob panted urgently.

Killerbum gave a swift nod, and raced towards the Shantay Pass with the noob chasing after him. He gave no thought to the possible consequences of leaving most of his battalion alone and leaderless...

"H3Y, L00C! H1GH 13V31!1" one of the noobs moronically screamed. The fact that he had yelled had gotten the noobs' attention. Giving a few minutes to work out what he just said, they all jumped up and ran to look to where their comrade was pointing.

Approaching them from the north was indeed, a high level. A high level carrying a strange whip and wearing a pendant that shone bright green.

"Wad u th1nc h3z h0l)1ng/"

"L3v3l 90!11"

"L3TZ G3T 1M!111!11"

"Y3Rh L3TS K1LL 1M!1"

Two noobs dashed off towards the high level. Most of the noobs gave up on trying to interpret each other's speech, and followed the first noobs, running towards the high level.

I saw the noobs before they saw me, and wished I had Parrea with me now. I could see a few, all hand-to-hand warriors. No mages or rangers. With prayer, I had no doubts of my ability to destroy them all. I watched two of them breakaway from the bunch, and run towards me. The rest followed suite. I stopped walking, and waited on a grassy hillside for them to come. While I was waiting, I messaged Hawkfeather telling him that I was ok and in Lumbridge.

"My friend." The soft, low voice sounded as if it came from inches behind me. Despite myself, my skin crawled under it's tone. Turning, I looked into the pale, shadowed face of Darknessdie.

Darknessdie gave no indication he had noticed me shudder. He looked over my shoulder at the noobs approaching and said, "Let me stop them."

Without waiting for an answer, Darknessdie moved in front of me, a little way down the slope. With hands and words, gestures and sounds that I had never before heard, he wove a faint wall of gray in front of him, and about four paces to either side. It sounded like some elven spell; the words ran together like a song in Adrilor's language. Though it was not Adrilor's voice. Darknessdie's was slower, hyptonizingly low and powerful. The gray wall seemed to became more real, and less illusion as the spell progressed.

When the noobs where mere paces away from him, Darknessdie raised his hands, threw them out in front of him, and stopped talking. The wall he had conjured was moving. Forward, away from the mage and towards the noobs. Like a sheet of water, gray water, it moved, gathering speed as it traveled.

It collided with the first two noobs at once. It passed over the two noobs, and reformed itself on the other side of them. The first two noobs fell on the ground. Then I saw it, what this spell was doing. I was horrified. I looked at Darknessdie incredulously. Seeing my expression, and mistaking it for one of awe he explained, "It's a Necromancer's spell, taught to me by Morak who learnt it off Iban son of Zamorak himself."

I was sickened. The wall had been pale gray when it reached the first two noobs. But when it had passed over the two, its color took on an obvious pink tinge. The two noobs on the ground, their skin was the pure, deadly white I had seen on only one other creature before. The soulless adventurers lost in the Underground Pass. Pure, unscathed white. Bloodless. As it had passed them, the wall had absorbed every molecule of their blood into itself.

The wall had reached the rest of the noobs now. I turned away, as their yells were silenced.

"Come my friend, we need their bank." Said Darknessdie. I followed him to the Al Kharid bank. I didn't mean to, didn't even want to, but I did. I glanced back at the noobs, or what had once been a healthy bunch of stupid noobs. Now a group of thin, white, human-like figures lay on the ground. Their clothing had been torn; their armor had been scratched badly as if by a giant claw. Behind the group of still, unmoving zombies was a gray, ruined wall of Al Kharid. It was once gray. Now, it dripped with red. The magical sheet had splashed against the wall, depositing it's cargo of blood upon it.

"They will wake, as soulless as those forever lost in the pass." Darknessdie said, softly as he followed my gaze.

I turned and continued to the bank.

Killerbum reached the only pass into the desert in minutes. Panting slightly, he ran to the only gate into the desert and looked out. It didn't even take him a second to see what his sentry had reported. Even through the desert haze, the sand was white, or yellow; interspersed with mirages of water and shade. But from the south-west, the sand was dark. And it seemed to be moving. The heat of the desert made everything move. But this seemed to be moving more than usual.

Killerbum ran to the side of the pass, and climbed the rocks to the top of the hill so he could see better. He had a good view of the desert from up here. He could see the dark ground. He could see that it was no illusion or mirage, as well. As he strained his eyes to make out what the dark ground was, trying to perceive some detail that would explain the ground's odd behavior, he found it. His vision swum before his eyes, but he was sure he could make out what it was. Or more accurately, what they were. Instead of the ground being dark, as he had assumed, it was covered.

Killerbum rubbed his eyes, only to stare out into the desert for longer. He was accustomed to spiders, beetles, rats, mice, flies... especially flies since he had moved to the desert. But what he was seeing now... Creatures. Creatures that vaguely resembled beetles... only they were so big. Giant. And there were thousands of them. Thousands of them, pouring out of this one small hole in the distance, to the south-west, moving towards the pass...

Killerbum blinked his eyes, once, twice. He looked again. The giant beetles were still there. He called one of the noob sentries to him. "What do you see there?" Killerbum asked, pointing to the giant insects.

"There's like bugs, like big beetle thingys. Omg, there's like hundreds of them! And look at that one there! It's absolutely giant, and it's leading them! Are they reinforcements, sir? Sir?" Killerbum was halfway down the slope before the noob had completed his observation. He messaged Rorthan, quickly. The reply from the leader came almost instantly.

"Get your troops out of there..."