Disclaimer: I do not own anything hailing from the game Diablo II. Except for the names of the characters.
To Snuggleheim: Thanks! I tried to put all of you readers into the mindset of Terra by using the fact that he knows none of the townfolk from Tristram. I hope that I keep you enthralled in the story.
Chapter 2: The Necromancer's Awakening
The second man is a bit more reserved, but he has tendancies for being brash sometimes. He is a preist of Rathma. A necromancer. Necromancy is considered a taboo religion by anybody living outside of the actual tribes. The tribes try and play with the line between life and death in order to bring what they want back from the dead. This young man will be joining Terra, but his name is much different. An offspin of demon, his name is Damien. This is his homeland.
The young man with pure white hair was walking around his hut that he'd known all his life. He couldn't believe he was leaving, but it was necessary for a Necromancer to leave his group to gain knowledge of the workings of the world. As he walked out of his door, he saw one of the people who had been nice to him the entire time he had been there. She smiled and said, "So, you're finally off on your quest?" Damien smiled and nodded, also saying, "Yeah, and it looks like it'll be raining when I get out there."
They shared one last smile, and then the necromancer walked over to the entrance of the caverns where they lived, and walked out of it. He was right, which was proven as soon as he walked out. He could feel the rain pour over him and he could also feel his boots slush into the mud. He looked at the wand given to him by the elders, and found a monster, already weakened by the rain. The zombie fell quickly. He already could feel the incantations rising up in him, and he waved his wand out in front of him, feeling a bit of his strength flow from him to the body. Suddenly the corpse burst open, revealing a human-shaped skeleton. It was formed in his exact image, which shows why he could raise the skeletons from quill rats and it would be human shape.
He could feel every movement of the skeleton in his mind, and he could also feel the questioning voice (almost) in his mind. At any moment, he could tell that voice to do something and the skeleton would be off to complete that task. For the moment, he told it to take the ax it had been summoned with and go cut some trees down and build a shelter. The skeleton immediately moved to the trees and started working at them, cutting them down.
Suddenly, he felt another necromancer's presence, but it didn't feel like a normal necromancer. He looked back, and was immediately shocked at what he saw. He saw a skeleton wielding a book and a wand, killing monsters and raising other skeletons. Damien immediately called for his skeleton, and wondered who would dare to send out necromancing skeletons. One of the leaders with about five skeletons and five skeleton mages walked toward the necromancer and he saw the demonic text scrawled all over the necro-skeleton. The book also contained demonic scripts.
The skeleton looked over to him, and Damien could see the glow of arcane demon energies glowing inside of the skull of the skeleton. He knew right then from the power of the skeleton that he couldn't possibly win against it. As he turned to run, he was hit from behind by an unholy bolt (corrupted form of Paladin's Holy Bolt) and he flew forward. He lost his concentration and the skeleton he had formed lost cohesion and fell apart into a jumble of skeleton parts. He suddenly found himself unwantingly remembering his life period when he was still considered a child.
They all made fun of him, because his teachers talked about how the compassion of a certain individual. His parents believed it their fault he turned out to be a kind, caring person instead of the insidious necromancers of lore, and normalcy. He saw how his people had, for the most part, left when Diablo called for them. He stayed behind partially because he was commanded to and partially because he wasn't planning on going anyways.
The thoughts stopped coming and he got up, facing the necromantic skeleton. He quickly moved as far away as possible, realizing that he couldn't hope to beat that thing. All he could do was pray it couldn't slow him down with curses. Luckily, it didn't hurl any at him. He got back to the cave and immediately began packing. Diablo told the adults where he came from. If memory served him, then Diablo came from the town called Tristram.
He pulled up his pack, and then set it back down, just to double-check. He fingered through the things he had. There was a minor potion of health, a minor potion of mana, a scroll of town portal, and a scroll of Identify. He pulled the pack back on his back and walked out of the door. Suddenly, a boom came from the heavens and an angel appeared. Damien smirked at him before walking on. The angel said, "Damien, necromancer, I am here to give you a vision." He smiled and said, "How stupid. Can't the big guy do it himself?"
As he began to laugh again, he felt a searing pain in his stomach. He looked down to see one of the angel's ribbon-wings touching there. Suddenly he felt very light-headed. He could feel himself start to slip away from the conscious world. As he fell, the angel said, "Hero, you must see this in order to understand the depth of what will happen to the world if you don't step up and kill Diablo."
He saw the hero fight Diablo, the lord of Terror. Then the hero walked out of the tomb, and the necromancer noticed the wound on his head was starting to coagulate. But at the same time, he could sense an unholy energy emanating from it and realized the truth: Diablo had left some of his own essence in the hero. It would fester and grow in the hero's body, until Diablo could take on a body of his own.
He saw the destruction of the town, but that didn't interest him much, seeing as how death was a part of his life. What did interest him, though, came after the demons razed the entire village. A necromancer started casting Corpse Explosion on the dead cows. Damien knew the necromancer. Hell, he'd be a fool if he didn't. After all, it was his dad.
He woke up and saw the angel staring at him from beneath the hood and realized that this trip would help him realize who did the necromantic skeleton. He stood up, still wavering a bit as a side effect of the induced vision. Even though he knew the angel put him under, it felt like the truth and he realized that this monster could pose problems to him and his study of the boundaries between life and death.
"Fine! I'll help, but I better get something for this." Damien said, trying to sound angry. He heard the angel smile, a funny sound that mixes between children singing and a whip cracking, and say, "Well spoken, Damien of the Necromancers. I shall open a portal to the place you must begin your quest at." He pulled out a scroll bound with a red-gold ribbon and read it aloud. A red portal opened and he gave one more look at the angel before walking into the portal and beginning his quest against Diablo.
AN: This actually is going pretty smoothly along the lines of writing. Pretty soon after this is put on I'll have Chapter 3 up, which centralizes around the Barbarian. That's all. PhilipFreeman Out! (Please don't sue me!)