Daughter of Night - Nope. No Barbarians, at least not the one you can play in the game. I didn't plan on putting one in and I really don't think I should at this stage of the game.
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"How are you feeling today, Faith?" Akara asked. It had been two days since Blood Raven was killed. Faith had refused Akara's help, insisting that she'll be fine after some rest. The healer had gotten her first look at Slayer healing when Faith woke up. Still, she kept asking Faith that question, unable to comprehend how the badly beaten up Slayer could be so healthy the next day.
"I told you," Faith replied, feeling a little put out by the constant question. "Five by five."
"What does 'five by five' mean?" Leoric asked. He had spent the last two days recovering from his wounds, which included a few cracked ribs, under Akara's care. He had been lucky that Blood Raven had not had the time to arm her minions with something more substantial than a few pieces of wood and rocks from the cemetery. Faith just gave him a mysterious smile.
"My scouts have reported a general decrease in demonic activity since you defeated Blood Raven," Kashya said. "But we are still not strong enough to challenge Andariel directly in her stronghold."
Akara raised her hand to stop Faith's outburst before it could begin. "Destroying Andariel is only a step towards your ultimate goal in stopping Diablo. There is one person in this world that knows Diablo far better than any other. He is a man of learning and holds great knowledge on what you seek. His name is Deckard Cain and he is the last of the Horadrim, the ancient order of mages that bound Diablo and his brothers into the soulstones. You must enlist his aid if you are to be successful in your quest to destroy Diablo."
"Where can I find him?" Faith asked. When the three started avoiding her gaze, a sinking feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. "Let me guess. Tristram." Akara gave a quick nod. "You are really not going to make this easy, are you?" Faith asked the sky.
"There is a chance that Deckard Cain may still be alive," Akara offered. "Diablo would not be pleased at his long imprisonment and a swift death is mercy for the likes of him."
Faith sighed. "Where is Tristram from here?"
"I'm afraid it is not that easy," Akara replied. "Tristram is too far from here to journey by foot. By the time you reach it, it would be too late to rescue Deckard Cain. There is another way. Out in the area of the valley called the Stony Field, there is a cairn of stones. If touched in the correct order, it will open a portal directly to Tristram. The order is written in the bark of the sacred Tree of Inifuss. The tree is near our Citadel, in the Dark Woods. Find it and return to me with the bark and I will be able to translate the runes for you."
"You will need a guide," Kashya said. "Wait here." She returned a few minutes later with a Rogue in tow. "Liene here has volunteered to be your guide. Godspeed, Faith."
"We meet again, traveller," Liene said, her eyes sparkling in the setting sun. It took Faith a few seconds to recognise her as the Rogue that she had saved on her first night in Sanctuary. "We should see Charsi before we leave."
Charsi was the camp's blacksmith and in charge of what was left of the Rogue's armoury. With Kashya's permission, she allowed them full reign in the little room crammed full of weapons and armour. The Slayer rummaged in there for a while, but found nothing to her liking. "I don't suppose you have a couple of small crossbows that I can use with one hand, do you?" she asked.
"No," Charsi replied, puzzled. "Why would you want to have that?"
"Oh, they come in handy." At that moment, Leoric turned up in his platemail. "I hope you are not coming with us, Tin Can."
The paladin looked puzzled. "Of course I am. I am here to end this threat to the Western Kingdoms, not to sit around the fire-"
"Off," the Slayer interrupted him, pointing at his mail. The paladin stared at her for a moment before wandering back to his tent, muttering under his breath about little girls and battle and a paladin's honour.
Charsi watched the by-play with amusement in her eyes. "You really shouldn't do that to him, you know? He is a nice man and a paladin takes his weapons and armour very seriously," she said.
"I'd rather be alive at the end of this," Faith replied. *A part of me, anyway.* "But," she continued, trying to change the subject, "how do you know if he is nice or not?"
"We've talked." Faith was surprised at the faint blush on the smith's face. Charsi caught her stare and turned even redder when Faith gave her a sly grin.
"I'm ready," Liene announced, emerging from the little armoury, testing the pull on her new bow. She seemed surprised when Charsi ushered them quickly out of her smithy.
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It was raining when the glowing blue portal opened before the camp's central firepit. Faith stumbled out of the glowing oval of light and fell to her hands and knees. The other two emerged behind her. "Remind me to kick your ass when my stomach stops trying to convince me to die," she told Leoric.
"What happened?" Kashya asked.
"Our friend is a resister," Leoric replied, grinning. "She does not portal well."
"It will be better this time, he said," Faith muttered. "Everyone throws up on their first portal, he said."
"There was the problem of a few hundred demons chasing us," Liene reminded her.
Faith carefully lowered herself to a seating position. "There was only thirty and they were little guys. Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick." She put her head between her knees. Her wet hair trailed down to form a curtain around her face.
"Do you have the bark?" Akara asked. Leoric handed her the artefact as Liene sat down beside Faith. Kashya started questioning her soldier about the demonic activity and all the types of undead and demons they had seen on their mission. Liene answered each question quickly and concisely, never taking her eyes off the silent Slayer.
"Ah, yes." Akara's voice caused everyone to focus their attention on her, even Faith. "Here. Touch the stones in the order I have written and the portal would appear, taking you to Tristram." Faith visibly turned green at the mention of a portal. "Time is of the essence," she continued, giving the bark back to Leoric. "If the demons holding Deckard Cain did not know of our intentions to rescue him, they would shortly. There is only one purpose that we would seek the bark of the Tree. As the last of the Horadrim, his wisdom on the side of Light could very well tip the war in our favour."
"Come on, Faith." Leoric clapped the Slayer on the shoulder. "We will take the waypoint. It would be faster than sneaking." He said the last with distaste. The paladin preferred a straight battle instead of all this skulking around. While he acknowledged the necessity of it, that did not mean he had to like it.
"What the hell is a waypoint?" Faith asked as she followed him.
"That," Liene replied, pointing to a small raised platform, made out of some sort of sandstone. Carved into its face is an intricate glyph.
"Remember that similar stone we saw in the Stony Field on our way to the Woods?" Leoric asked, stepping aside to let Faith get a closer look at the stone. At her nod, he said, "Picture it in your mind."
"Okay," Faith said uncertainly. "Now, what-" The paladin gave her a little push that caused her to stumble on to the stone. In a blink, she was somewhere else. This time, there was no nausea to accompany the teleport. "Whoa!" She stepped off the platform.
"Are you alright?" Liene asked when she appeared a second later.
"Five by five. Not even the queasies this time. But I am still gonna kill Tin Can for that."
"Are we ready?" Leoric asked when he arrived. He had the time to see Liene staring at something behind his back before a tanned arm slipped around his throat and tightened.
"Next time," Faith whispered in his ear. "You should warn a girl before pushing her into something. She might get the wrong idea." She released him and walked off towards the six pillars of rock in the distance.
Leoric massaged his throat. "Ooh! She bites," he commented to Liene, who watched the entire thing with a barely suppressed smile on her face.
"Yes, she does." Faith gave him a saucy grin over her shoulder and continued walking, this time with her trademark swagger in place. The pair by the waypoint stared at one another, wide-eyed, before dashing off to catch up with the Slayer.
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"Well, that was fun," Faith remarked, as the glowing, floating sparks faded.
"You could have gotten killed!" Faith was surprised at Liene's tone and the uncharacteristic fury on her face. The Rogue was a cheerful girl, quick to laugh. "By the Eye, you could have just waited for me to put an arrow through him!" The girl stalked over to the pile of slain demons at the centre of the circle of stones.
They had discovered a small band of the demons at the cairn, seeking shelter from the rain. Faith had charged them immediately, despite both Liene's and Leoric's cries of warning. Her first slash at the lead demon unleashed a glowing circle of the floating sparks. Shrieking in fear, the demons had scattered. Faith stopped to look at the sparks. When the sparks neared her, they had each emitted a small bolt of lightning that, together, had knocked her on her butt. Seeing this, the demons stopped their retreat and started to close in on her. Shaking her head, she had gotten up to continue the fight, only to have Liene's deadly arrows cut down more than half of the demons before she got within range to employ her blades. None of the other demons had emitted the cloud of sparks, only the one she had hit. She had dived at them, cutting down the remainder before they could run. The result was a spray of the sparks that caused Leoric and Liene to back away to avoid getting hit. Faith, of course, had taken it full on.
"She is right," Leoric told her more gently. "We asked you to wait. We saw it for what it was. That demon was an emitter. They are best slain from a distance. Those bolts you took would have killed an ordinary mortal. You have your resister ability to thank for your survival."
By this time, Liene had activated the portal. "Well?" she demanded, gesturing at the red portal. "Are going to save Cain or are we going to give her another opportunity to show off?"
Annoyed by the lectures, but acknowledging to herself that they were right, Faith followed Leoric through the portal. It deposited them at the edge of the village, on top of a little rise. This teleport, interestingly enough, did not nauseate Faith either. Filing that little bit of information at the back of her mind, the Slayer took her first look at the village whose secrets now threaten two planes of existence.
Tristram was a small village, comprising of less than ten buildings, a graveyard and an old cathedral. It seemed to be primarily geared for visiting pilgrims to the cathedral, with hardly a single farm but all the necessary buildings for travellers: an inn, a blacksmith, a healer and others. Of course, it did not matter now. All the buildings were destroyed, three completely levelled and the rest in various stages of destruction. Most of them were still burning. From their vantage point, they could see a cage barely big enough for an adult to sit in, even when hunched over. They could only assume that Cain was in it. Fortunately, the cage was by the second building nearest to the red portal. Unfortunately, it was hanging about one and a half meters off the ground. Several groups of undead and demons wandered the village. Why they are even there is unknown, for none approached the gibbet.
A group of the small demons, the same type as the ones they had fought by the cairn, were the first to spot them as they crept past the first building. Gibbering in some strange tongue, they charged the little group until Liene put an arrow in the lead demon. As one, they seem to remember that they had a prior appointment elsewhere. But the damage was done. Several groups of undead and a group of large goat-headed demons converged on them.
"Hold them back. I'll get the old man." Faith was off before they could protest.
"Damn it!" Liene swore as she sent arrow after arrow into the goat demons. The paladin did not reply as he started chanting in an arcane language. A glowing ball of light appeared in his hands and he tossed the conjured ball at a skeleton. When the ball touched the undead creature, it fell apart.
At this distance, Faith could see that there was a living man within the cage. There was no time for finesse. She just cut the rope holding the cage up and let it shatter on the ground. Ignoring the groaning man within, she turned to the nearest group of undead. "Better get your ass moving, old man. We don't have a lot of time. Tin Can! Time to go!"
But the paladin was otherwise engaged. Interposing himself between the Rogue and the nearest band of undead, he had his hands full. Then, a huge figure appeared from around the building. It was a well built man with fire in his eyes.
"Griswold," Cain muttered as he got to his feet. Liene buried four arrows in Griswold's chest but the creature just kept on coming. Deckard Cain muttered a few words and another of the blue portals opened. "Go!" he shouted at Liene. The Rogue understood at once and dashed for the portal. Leoric was next, grabbing Faith as he went. Cain stepped through just as the two launched themselves at the portal.
The four found themselves staring at a pair of booted feet and another one shod in sandals. Three of them looked up into the faces of Kashya and Akara. Faith was too busy bringing up her dinner.
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"How are you feeling today, Faith?" Akara asked. It had been two days since Blood Raven was killed. Faith had refused Akara's help, insisting that she'll be fine after some rest. The healer had gotten her first look at Slayer healing when Faith woke up. Still, she kept asking Faith that question, unable to comprehend how the badly beaten up Slayer could be so healthy the next day.
"I told you," Faith replied, feeling a little put out by the constant question. "Five by five."
"What does 'five by five' mean?" Leoric asked. He had spent the last two days recovering from his wounds, which included a few cracked ribs, under Akara's care. He had been lucky that Blood Raven had not had the time to arm her minions with something more substantial than a few pieces of wood and rocks from the cemetery. Faith just gave him a mysterious smile.
"My scouts have reported a general decrease in demonic activity since you defeated Blood Raven," Kashya said. "But we are still not strong enough to challenge Andariel directly in her stronghold."
Akara raised her hand to stop Faith's outburst before it could begin. "Destroying Andariel is only a step towards your ultimate goal in stopping Diablo. There is one person in this world that knows Diablo far better than any other. He is a man of learning and holds great knowledge on what you seek. His name is Deckard Cain and he is the last of the Horadrim, the ancient order of mages that bound Diablo and his brothers into the soulstones. You must enlist his aid if you are to be successful in your quest to destroy Diablo."
"Where can I find him?" Faith asked. When the three started avoiding her gaze, a sinking feeling formed in the pit of her stomach. "Let me guess. Tristram." Akara gave a quick nod. "You are really not going to make this easy, are you?" Faith asked the sky.
"There is a chance that Deckard Cain may still be alive," Akara offered. "Diablo would not be pleased at his long imprisonment and a swift death is mercy for the likes of him."
Faith sighed. "Where is Tristram from here?"
"I'm afraid it is not that easy," Akara replied. "Tristram is too far from here to journey by foot. By the time you reach it, it would be too late to rescue Deckard Cain. There is another way. Out in the area of the valley called the Stony Field, there is a cairn of stones. If touched in the correct order, it will open a portal directly to Tristram. The order is written in the bark of the sacred Tree of Inifuss. The tree is near our Citadel, in the Dark Woods. Find it and return to me with the bark and I will be able to translate the runes for you."
"You will need a guide," Kashya said. "Wait here." She returned a few minutes later with a Rogue in tow. "Liene here has volunteered to be your guide. Godspeed, Faith."
"We meet again, traveller," Liene said, her eyes sparkling in the setting sun. It took Faith a few seconds to recognise her as the Rogue that she had saved on her first night in Sanctuary. "We should see Charsi before we leave."
Charsi was the camp's blacksmith and in charge of what was left of the Rogue's armoury. With Kashya's permission, she allowed them full reign in the little room crammed full of weapons and armour. The Slayer rummaged in there for a while, but found nothing to her liking. "I don't suppose you have a couple of small crossbows that I can use with one hand, do you?" she asked.
"No," Charsi replied, puzzled. "Why would you want to have that?"
"Oh, they come in handy." At that moment, Leoric turned up in his platemail. "I hope you are not coming with us, Tin Can."
The paladin looked puzzled. "Of course I am. I am here to end this threat to the Western Kingdoms, not to sit around the fire-"
"Off," the Slayer interrupted him, pointing at his mail. The paladin stared at her for a moment before wandering back to his tent, muttering under his breath about little girls and battle and a paladin's honour.
Charsi watched the by-play with amusement in her eyes. "You really shouldn't do that to him, you know? He is a nice man and a paladin takes his weapons and armour very seriously," she said.
"I'd rather be alive at the end of this," Faith replied. *A part of me, anyway.* "But," she continued, trying to change the subject, "how do you know if he is nice or not?"
"We've talked." Faith was surprised at the faint blush on the smith's face. Charsi caught her stare and turned even redder when Faith gave her a sly grin.
"I'm ready," Liene announced, emerging from the little armoury, testing the pull on her new bow. She seemed surprised when Charsi ushered them quickly out of her smithy.
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It was raining when the glowing blue portal opened before the camp's central firepit. Faith stumbled out of the glowing oval of light and fell to her hands and knees. The other two emerged behind her. "Remind me to kick your ass when my stomach stops trying to convince me to die," she told Leoric.
"What happened?" Kashya asked.
"Our friend is a resister," Leoric replied, grinning. "She does not portal well."
"It will be better this time, he said," Faith muttered. "Everyone throws up on their first portal, he said."
"There was the problem of a few hundred demons chasing us," Liene reminded her.
Faith carefully lowered herself to a seating position. "There was only thirty and they were little guys. Oh God, I think I'm going to be sick." She put her head between her knees. Her wet hair trailed down to form a curtain around her face.
"Do you have the bark?" Akara asked. Leoric handed her the artefact as Liene sat down beside Faith. Kashya started questioning her soldier about the demonic activity and all the types of undead and demons they had seen on their mission. Liene answered each question quickly and concisely, never taking her eyes off the silent Slayer.
"Ah, yes." Akara's voice caused everyone to focus their attention on her, even Faith. "Here. Touch the stones in the order I have written and the portal would appear, taking you to Tristram." Faith visibly turned green at the mention of a portal. "Time is of the essence," she continued, giving the bark back to Leoric. "If the demons holding Deckard Cain did not know of our intentions to rescue him, they would shortly. There is only one purpose that we would seek the bark of the Tree. As the last of the Horadrim, his wisdom on the side of Light could very well tip the war in our favour."
"Come on, Faith." Leoric clapped the Slayer on the shoulder. "We will take the waypoint. It would be faster than sneaking." He said the last with distaste. The paladin preferred a straight battle instead of all this skulking around. While he acknowledged the necessity of it, that did not mean he had to like it.
"What the hell is a waypoint?" Faith asked as she followed him.
"That," Liene replied, pointing to a small raised platform, made out of some sort of sandstone. Carved into its face is an intricate glyph.
"Remember that similar stone we saw in the Stony Field on our way to the Woods?" Leoric asked, stepping aside to let Faith get a closer look at the stone. At her nod, he said, "Picture it in your mind."
"Okay," Faith said uncertainly. "Now, what-" The paladin gave her a little push that caused her to stumble on to the stone. In a blink, she was somewhere else. This time, there was no nausea to accompany the teleport. "Whoa!" She stepped off the platform.
"Are you alright?" Liene asked when she appeared a second later.
"Five by five. Not even the queasies this time. But I am still gonna kill Tin Can for that."
"Are we ready?" Leoric asked when he arrived. He had the time to see Liene staring at something behind his back before a tanned arm slipped around his throat and tightened.
"Next time," Faith whispered in his ear. "You should warn a girl before pushing her into something. She might get the wrong idea." She released him and walked off towards the six pillars of rock in the distance.
Leoric massaged his throat. "Ooh! She bites," he commented to Liene, who watched the entire thing with a barely suppressed smile on her face.
"Yes, she does." Faith gave him a saucy grin over her shoulder and continued walking, this time with her trademark swagger in place. The pair by the waypoint stared at one another, wide-eyed, before dashing off to catch up with the Slayer.
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"Well, that was fun," Faith remarked, as the glowing, floating sparks faded.
"You could have gotten killed!" Faith was surprised at Liene's tone and the uncharacteristic fury on her face. The Rogue was a cheerful girl, quick to laugh. "By the Eye, you could have just waited for me to put an arrow through him!" The girl stalked over to the pile of slain demons at the centre of the circle of stones.
They had discovered a small band of the demons at the cairn, seeking shelter from the rain. Faith had charged them immediately, despite both Liene's and Leoric's cries of warning. Her first slash at the lead demon unleashed a glowing circle of the floating sparks. Shrieking in fear, the demons had scattered. Faith stopped to look at the sparks. When the sparks neared her, they had each emitted a small bolt of lightning that, together, had knocked her on her butt. Seeing this, the demons stopped their retreat and started to close in on her. Shaking her head, she had gotten up to continue the fight, only to have Liene's deadly arrows cut down more than half of the demons before she got within range to employ her blades. None of the other demons had emitted the cloud of sparks, only the one she had hit. She had dived at them, cutting down the remainder before they could run. The result was a spray of the sparks that caused Leoric and Liene to back away to avoid getting hit. Faith, of course, had taken it full on.
"She is right," Leoric told her more gently. "We asked you to wait. We saw it for what it was. That demon was an emitter. They are best slain from a distance. Those bolts you took would have killed an ordinary mortal. You have your resister ability to thank for your survival."
By this time, Liene had activated the portal. "Well?" she demanded, gesturing at the red portal. "Are going to save Cain or are we going to give her another opportunity to show off?"
Annoyed by the lectures, but acknowledging to herself that they were right, Faith followed Leoric through the portal. It deposited them at the edge of the village, on top of a little rise. This teleport, interestingly enough, did not nauseate Faith either. Filing that little bit of information at the back of her mind, the Slayer took her first look at the village whose secrets now threaten two planes of existence.
Tristram was a small village, comprising of less than ten buildings, a graveyard and an old cathedral. It seemed to be primarily geared for visiting pilgrims to the cathedral, with hardly a single farm but all the necessary buildings for travellers: an inn, a blacksmith, a healer and others. Of course, it did not matter now. All the buildings were destroyed, three completely levelled and the rest in various stages of destruction. Most of them were still burning. From their vantage point, they could see a cage barely big enough for an adult to sit in, even when hunched over. They could only assume that Cain was in it. Fortunately, the cage was by the second building nearest to the red portal. Unfortunately, it was hanging about one and a half meters off the ground. Several groups of undead and demons wandered the village. Why they are even there is unknown, for none approached the gibbet.
A group of the small demons, the same type as the ones they had fought by the cairn, were the first to spot them as they crept past the first building. Gibbering in some strange tongue, they charged the little group until Liene put an arrow in the lead demon. As one, they seem to remember that they had a prior appointment elsewhere. But the damage was done. Several groups of undead and a group of large goat-headed demons converged on them.
"Hold them back. I'll get the old man." Faith was off before they could protest.
"Damn it!" Liene swore as she sent arrow after arrow into the goat demons. The paladin did not reply as he started chanting in an arcane language. A glowing ball of light appeared in his hands and he tossed the conjured ball at a skeleton. When the ball touched the undead creature, it fell apart.
At this distance, Faith could see that there was a living man within the cage. There was no time for finesse. She just cut the rope holding the cage up and let it shatter on the ground. Ignoring the groaning man within, she turned to the nearest group of undead. "Better get your ass moving, old man. We don't have a lot of time. Tin Can! Time to go!"
But the paladin was otherwise engaged. Interposing himself between the Rogue and the nearest band of undead, he had his hands full. Then, a huge figure appeared from around the building. It was a well built man with fire in his eyes.
"Griswold," Cain muttered as he got to his feet. Liene buried four arrows in Griswold's chest but the creature just kept on coming. Deckard Cain muttered a few words and another of the blue portals opened. "Go!" he shouted at Liene. The Rogue understood at once and dashed for the portal. Leoric was next, grabbing Faith as he went. Cain stepped through just as the two launched themselves at the portal.
The four found themselves staring at a pair of booted feet and another one shod in sandals. Three of them looked up into the faces of Kashya and Akara. Faith was too busy bringing up her dinner.