Disclaimer : Obviously not mine, but the ten year love/hate affair with the game is.

Rating : The game is rated MA, so the fic will have to follow with a M for violence and graphic gore.

Author's Note : There will be a bit of an intermission between acts. So this isn't the last chapter of the Rogues, but it is of the Monastery.

Act I – The Sightless Eye

Quest IV – Sisters to the Slaughter

THE six that had ventured through the three bloody levels of the Jail slept through the next day and awoke at various times before dawn break of the next. True to his word, the Paladin took Akara and Kashya aside and told them of what they found of their fellow sisters' fates before he broke his fast in the watery false dawn light.

Since Kyoko was due to rejoin them for the rest of their venture through the Monastery, she assisted in rearming and repairing the equipment of the others even as she picked up more quivers for herself and the Sorceress. While he was waiting for the others to awake, the Barbarian browsed through the equipment both Charsi and Gheed had, and gambled a bit with the greedy merchant. When the Necromancer awoke, and as his magic fed through the bones and mounds of earth lying around him to reform his skeletons and the golem, he joined the wild warrior in looking at the weapons for an alternative to his throwing daggers as they were running low.

The Amazon fixed up their morning meal from the dishes she knew from her home, the scent of which roused the Druid and Sorceress for the day.

With the last of their numbers awake and aware, the holy knight rejoined them from the distasteful task he assigned himself. "They are aware of what they now face, though none of us any found joy in the telling. It will be a number of years yet before they will be able to live in the Monastery without daily reminders of what happened to their sister Rouges."

The Rouge Archer hesitated, since none of them had said why it was they left her behind for their travels through the Jail. "Worse than the Barracks?"

"Unfortunately, much worse." The Sorceress gave her a bitter smile, taking one of the extra quivers from the other woman. "We should have also left the Druid behind, the scent of the Jail nearly caused him to swoon."

The snort from behind the two made the Rogue nearly jump out of her red knee high boots. The wild mage cast an annoyed glare at the spell caster as he took up his large ax. "It was the close quarters, and the mold, that made me sneeze and smash my head against that iron gate. I almost knocked myself out, it wasn't the stench causing me to stager."

Giving them both a wane smile, the Rouge shook her head and took the new longbow the Barbarian handed to her.

(ooo000ooo)

The seven arrived at the Inner Cloister at mid morn, facing the Monastery's Cathedral for the next building they needed to clear out before continuing.

"Well, isn't this charming." The mocking voice made all of them spin around, to face a woman in black leather grinning at them from the back of the open grass courtyard. "Three mages, three warriors, and one of the little misplaced Rogues all here together to take on one of the Lesser Evils in combat." She had short hair cropped close to her head, two blades strapped to her forearms, and a number of odd things affixed to her belt that clanged together as she walked towards them. "Can I come and play too?" She asked coyly.

The Paladin frowned at her, but had no reason to deny another to their ranks, especially with what it was they were to face. But before he could say yea or nay, the Sorceress took a step forward, noticeably far paler than before under her skin's tan complexion. "An Viz-Jaq'taar Assassin. Never thought I would ever see your kind. Never wanted to either."

"Oh, don't worry little mageling, I'm not interested in you. If I was, we wouldn't be standing here talking so nicely like this." The Assassin gave the spell caster a sickeningly sweet grin, drawing the edges of her blades together to create an ear splitting sound. "I'm here for the demon lurking in yon Cathedral. Not you, or your little magical friends, even if the pale one does look suspicious."

The Necromancer snorted at her, scowling harder than he had upon waking that morning. "I have been investigated by three of your fellows since I have been in Khanduras, woman. They have found nothing demonic about me, and neither will you, no matter how hard you look."

The Amazon looked from one mage to the other, confused beyond measure. "Why call her an Assassin?"

"Because that is what I am." The woman clad in black leather swept them all a bow, made more extravagant by the blades she wore sweeping around her form. "The Viz-Jaq'taar, or the Order of the Mage Slayers, if you wish. We are those who hunt down and destroy mages that dabble in Demonic Magics."

"A long time ago, there was a clan of mages who studied Demon Magics, the Vizjerei. Within their ranks, two brothers rose to prominence with two different theories on how the magic was to be used and harnessed. Horazon, who thought you needed to bind a demon to your will to safely practice such magics, and Bartuc, who thought you needed to ally with the demons so secrets could be shared freely." Even as she spoke, the Sorceress gripped her Long Staff with whitening knuckles and kept the Assassin in her sights. "Like most mage clans with two leaders, the clan was ripped down the middle as the two brothers argued who was right. When it resulted in the inevitable violence, it was proven that the two brothers were played by a demonic host and Bautuc lay dead by his brother's hands, Horazon left in a self-imposed exile, and the Vizjerei learned an important lesson."

"Yes, yes. Then the mages decided to return to Elemental Magics, much like your own clan, the Zann Esu." The leather clad woman waved one bladed hand in the air. "Then they decided there needed to be an order that would prevent another such incident similar to the ordeal wrought on them, and the Viz-Jaq'taar were born. Those who train themselves, their bodies, and their minds, to resist those that fall to demonic influences. But none of you have to worry about that, because you're all as pure as driven snow, right?" Nodding to the wooden doors of the Cathedral, the Assassin held up her hands, and her weapons, to show them she had no ill intentions to their group. "I'm hunting a skeleton mage at the moment, not you. One called Bone Ash. The unusually strong Burning Dead Mage has been killing up and down the Tamoe Mountain Range and the Sharval Wilds, and I've tracked the damned thing here. Of course, I've found a few other alarming things while hunting this dead mage. So I propose a bargain. If you help me, I'll help you with clearing out this Monastery for the Rouges."

The Paladin inspected both the Sorceress and the Necromancer for any sign that he should turn the Assassin away, but neither spoke after the black leather clad woman made her intentions clear. Apparently, the Druid had no idea that there was an order of killers that concentrated only on mages, for he was scrutinizing the new woman as much as he could in his half-wolf form, radiating enough confusion that even the holy knight could sense a few feet away.

Since none of the magically inclined protested, the Paladin had to assume they did not care to invite her but would not object either, possibly because they were aware they needed the help. "Do as you will, Assassin. We are bound for the Catacombs beneath the Cathedral, if you do not mind the dark, we would appreciate the assistance."

She smiled at them all, surprisingly not mocking or sly for once. "I think both of us would."

(ooo000ooo)

It became apparent why the Assassin had concentrated her efforts in hunting and tracking the Burning Dead Mage as soon as the eight of them got far enough within the spoiled Cathedral to clearly see the pulpit. The dead mage had his bony hands on the tome of writings the Rouges had for their All Seeing Eye, their prophesies and history, and it looked up with a clack of bone hitting bone when the death screeches of the Dark Ones and pained grunts of the Tainted reached it.

Abandoning the tome of religious writing, Bone Ash took the steps down onto the Cathedral floor and summoned his magics, which collected around his hands in an icy, poisonous shroud. Stalking past the smashed pews, it started throwing bolts of venomous ice at the closest to it.

Throwing some of the odd objects she stored in her belt, the Assassin dodged away from the magical bolts as her contraptions started spewing fire at the skeleton mage. Leaping between waves of fire being pushed from the strange nozzles, the Druid closed in quickly to the off colored skeleton and ripped one magically attached arm off the mage. His pack of spirit wolves followed his foot paws, the five of them leaping and grabbing hold of a different bone each in their jaws. With the skeleton distracted, the Paladin took his saber and stabbed it through the undead creature's skull.

It shattered in an explosion of ice, hitting five of the eight adventurers and numbing them with frost. The Archer, who had stood back and peppered the other foes in the Cathedral with her arrows, the Necromancer, who had been tangled up in a fight between his pack of undead and a Dark One Shaman and it's own pack of demons, and the Assassin, who had known what would happen with the death of the mage, all escaped the blast of cold.

With the three that had escaped without the threat of frostbite dealing with the remains of the monsters that infested in the Cathedral, the five others limped over to the east side of the vaulted room, where the curving stairwell led down to the Catacombs. As soon as the Assassin rejoined them, the Paladin awarded her a dark look as he continued knocking the frost out of his armor's metal links. "Some warning would have been appreciated."

"All demons and dead things enchanted with ice do that. I thought you knew." She checked over her wrist blades, inspecting the metal edges for any notches. "Something about how the Burning Hells disagrees with ice of any kind, even if it is used for evil. When cold enchanted monsters die, the magics they hold either by might or trickery rebel and explodes out of the Hell Spawn, hitting everything in it's path."

The Sorceress, leaning against the wall and slowly drinking a potion of mana, spoke up then. "Makes some sense, if you think about it. That wasn't the only cold enchanted monster we have ever faced together, Sir Knight."

He nodded, conceding the point to her. "The walking corpse of the Den of Evil in the Bloody Moors."

"That ranger Rogue bitch from the Caves." The Barbarian added, prying his fingers from the hafts of his axes. "Kashya said her name was Cold Crow in another life."

The Amazon chimed in next, grinning at the Necromancer. "We've found that foes that hold otherworldly fire in them explode as well."

The pale mage grimaced at the reminder, and of the memory scent of boiling flesh that came with it. "The Countess."

"That Shaman from the Fallen Camp in the Cold Plains," the Druid clicked his claws together, "I know not of what he's called, but he exploded as well."

The Assassin shrugged with a wave of one bladed hand. "Point being, some monsters do that, some spew poison into the air, and most just die. I'll inform you if I see any that react in that fashion to being killed, but it's most likely not the last one you will see."

After the elemental mage had treated their frozen skin with a thawing potion, some of the miscellaneous potions she had picked up from Akara before they had left the Encampment that morning, they made their way into the Catacombs without further delay.

A damp chill greeted the eight of them, with a hallway branching out in all directions from where they stood. It smelled of musty things and cold rot, with the ever lingering stench of demons packed into tight corners emanating from everywhere.

"This place chills me to the bone." The Sorceress rubbed her metal clad arms, wincing as the cold links pressed into her skin.

The Amazon checked down each of the halls in front of them, frowning at the closed doors and the pools of blood on the ground. "This place is eerie. It would give me chills if I hadn't seen the like before."

"I sense a demonic presence here." The Necromancer sneered into the dark, where he could hear things scuttling outside of the view of the few torches.

"I don't like it down here." Setting up a few traps in case they were followed, the Assassin circled around the wall that encased the stairs up to the Cathedral. "Let's use the fastest method you have to clear this den of horrors out. The less time we spend down here, the more I like it."

Nodding sharply, the Paladin turned to the other six. "Teams of two, then. Go out to the farthest point you can and kill anything that moves, even if it is already dead. Druid and Barbarian, take the north corridors. Lady Assassin, Archer, the west. Take the east, Priest of Rathma, and keep the Amazon with you. My lady? We'll take the south."

It took generally about two hours for each group to get back to the stairs they came down in, and the first level of the Catacombs had little that inconvenienced the eight of them in any way. There were a few Rat Men, small humanoid creatures that rushed them with over sized hatchets in hand, packs of Dark Ones, a few shamans, and the occasional Afflicted that were close to the surface. The next level down saw giant spiders the Sorceress and Assassin identified as Arachs, something they both knew from their homelands but were unused to seeing in such great sizes, but nothing else new aside from a way point tucked away in a long abandoned corridor.

The third level held the start of the dead ranks of soldiers Andariel had corrupted. Ghouls, zombie like dead men that roamed the halls aimlessly, and the Banished, dead sorcerers that siphoned away their life to heal itself and threw fire around at will, proved to be difficult in their own ways. It was slower going than the first or second levels, but although it took them three hours each they came back, some with new scars and others still bleeding but there.

They felt the heat from the various fires of the fourth level before they saw it. Along with the torches next to the stairwell, there were two bonfires burning in the middle of the room the stairs ended at, as well as a number of Ghouls lurking against the far wall. As the Assassin ripped through them with the Necromancer's skeleton minions, the Druid and the Barbarian pushed open the door positioned in the middle of the east wall.

The two wild men stopped short at the sight of a pit in the middle of the room, with dismembered bodies floating in blood visible in the lights cast by the number of fires burning in the room. They also spotted that there were at least two additional dead Rogues, one tied to a stake and the other laying on the ground. Movement in the far corner of the great room drew their attention from the gruesome sight before them, and they bolted for the packs of Dark Ones crawling out of the shadows to meet them.

The Archer stopped dead in the door way, taking in the bloody pit before her even as the Paladin and Sorceress passed her by and circled around the room to get to the father packs of dark skinned demons within. Following his golem, the Necromancer paused next to her as he saw what had gripped her attention so hard. "The dead are beyond pain, but not beyond vengeance."

She pressed her lips together and ripped her eyes from the bodies of her fellow Rogues, drawing her arrows and firing them into the writhing shadows in the northwest side of the room.

Once they had finished with the monsters that had camped out in the room, they gathered before the massive wooden doors that Kyoko claimed was the end of the Catacombs. "There is nothing that lies beyond that corridor. We used it to inter the previous Abbesses, once they died. If we haven't seen this Demon Queen yet, she has to be there."

"What is the lay of the room?" Asked the Assassin as she looked over the door's catches and latches to ensure there was no trap waiting to be sprung on whoever opened the doors.

"There are two small corridors right behind the doors, and a hallway that leads to the stone slab we lay out the bodies on. A few pillars line the way, but there was noting else when we held the Monastery."

The black leather clad woman cast a glance back to the pit of bodies behind them, but said nothing about what the demon might have done to the room.

"Do we lead the demon out here, or go in to meet her?" The Paladin asked as he paced the stone floor before the door, ignoring the dead bodies of the demons they had slain not moments before.

"There are benefits to both ideas." Looking around at the damage already wrought in the room, the Necromancer tuned back to the holy knight. "Leading her out here would let us control how we meet her in battle, but would let her close to more of us. The hallway would let us keep some distance from her, but would provide her with a funnel we would have to press through to get to her."

Watching the mage slayer inspect the door, the Amazon snorted harshly. "Damned if we do, damned if we don't?"

"Something like that." Circling around the bloody pit dug into the floor, the pale mage resummoned the missing numbers of his skeletons. "I say we stay out here, lure her out with some arrows."

Gripping the shaft of her bow, the Archer nodded to him. "I second that. As long as I can shoot the bitch somewhere that it will hurt."

The Sorceress shot an alarmed look over to the Paladin, but he simply shrugged at her. "The first shot does belong to her."

"Fine, as long as you retreat when I say, Kyoko." Shifting the long staff to lay across her back, the elemental mage took up her hunting bow and notched an arrow. "There might be more monsters lurking beyond the doors, we will slay them first before entering so they cannot come up behind us when we are retreating."

The two women waited while the other six set up to ambush the Demon Queen, the holy knight trading places with the human formed Druid at the doors with the Barbarian. When they were all as ready as they could be, the two men pushed the heavy wooden doors open for them.

As the Sorceress had theorized, there were a number of foes just behind the door. A pack of Dark Ones, a shaman, and a few roaming Ghouls that took a few arrows each to kill, went down before the two archers cautiously entered further.

Andariel had her back turned to them when they spotted her, and they both could see the scorpion tails that fanned out from the demon's back and whipped around her head. As they both became distracted by the sight of the Lesser Evil, a Dark One Shaman spotted them and the felled Dark Ones behind them and raised one with a cry.

The Demon Queen heard him and twisted around, catching sight of both women just before they loosened the arrows from their bows. The Rogue's arrow found the flesh of her shoulder, but the Sorceress' found the throat of the Shaman.

"DIE MAGGOTS!"

Andariel threw herself at them, and the elemental mage grabbed the shoulder of the Archer next to her and yanked her backwards. "Run!"

The raised Dark One in their path sneered at the two of them, lunging forward with the scimitar it held. Kyoko pushed the Sorceress out of the way, taking the thrust through her belly even as she loosened another arrow straight into the demon's eye. Kyoko staggered off in the direction of the short halls, diving behind a stack of crates to avoid catching the Lesser Evil's attention when she was injured that badly.

Although she staggered, the spell caster made it to where the holy knight stood. He grabbed onto her and pulled her behind him, and the Assassin did so as well, putting even more room between the bow armed Sorceress and the doorway that Andariel was fitting herself through.

Though the body of the demon was female in form, she had cloven hoofs and double jointed legs, with dark spurs jutting from them. Her hands were furred red and tipped with razor claws, proven by the furrows she carved into the stone ground as she pulled herself out of the doorway. Her four scorpion tails caught on the wood momentarily, as the room behind her was larger than the one before her, and the seven of them used that moment to strike out at her.

Drawing upon the very earth itself, the Druid summoned a massive rip in the earth that spewed fire under the demon as his wolves attacked. Summoning the curses he had only used a few times before, the Necromancer cast an Iron Maiden curse as his own minions closed in on the Lesser Evil. Having already set up her traps that were just starting to spew fire, the Assassin and the Paladin charged together with the Barbarian closing in from the other side. Steadying herself with the length of wood given to her by the warrior she had traded her bow off to, the Sorceress stood next to the Necromancer's bone mages and summoned her fire magics, casting a series of Fire Balls at the over sized demon trying to reach her even as the Amazon started firing exploding arrows into the demon's flesh.

Andariel screeched, flinging out a fan of poison at them and ripping her claws through the spirit wolves that sank their fangs into her legs. Backhanding the golem into the wall and forcing it to crumble under the impact, the demon bent herself in half, stabbing a number of the animal spirits with her tails and flinging them to the corner of the room.

The Necromancer's skeletons took up the place of the wolves, even as the pale mage paused in throwing his daggers to raise another golem. As the Lesser Evil smashed her way through the ranks of bone warriors he controlled, both the priest of the dead and the wild mage resummoned their minions even as they fell.

Hacking clean through the demon's leg, the Barbarian swung both his axes again and again, burying them in the demon woman's thigh. Andariel screamed as she staggered on her severed leg, slashing her claws down the wild warrior's face and knocking him to the ground. Distracted as she was, the demon never saw the Assassin dig her blades in her lower back and rip them down, discharging the fire that had built up with each hit of her martial arts in an explosion that removed two of her four scorpion tails. As the Lesser Evil tried to turn again, the Paladin ripped his own blade through her guts, spilling them out on the floor.

Andariel slumped to the ground, keening as her body betrayed her by dieing. In a last fit of rage, she summoned the very fires she hated to consume her flesh and return her spirit back to the Burning Hells even as the Necromancer laughed at her. "Back to the Hells that spawned you!"

The Sorceress darted back through the doorway to find the Rogue the moment the demon's charred corpse stopped twitching.

Walking around the warped body of Andariel, the Assassin knelt down and inspected the skull of the demon. "Death becomes you, Andariel."

Ignoring the blood pouring from his face, the Barbarian joined in the priest of the dead's laughter. "Let the gate be opened."

"Hmpf. This maiden will inflict no more anguish." Kicking the demon's hacked off leg on her way past, the Amazon followed where the elemental mage had run to see to the last of their number.

Kyoko had taken some shots at the demons that still lingered in the final hall, unable to move without disturbing the blade in her belly. By the time the blond warrior had arrived to the other women's sides, the Sorceress had carefully pulled the sword from the Rogue and was tending to the wounds with healing potions. "It will be a few moments till she can safely move. Tell the Priest of Rathma to summon the portal to the Rogues' Encampment, we will return as well as soon as Kyoko can move without splitting open what has healed."

Doing what the spell caster said, she and the Druid cleared out the remaining foes before leaving as well.

When the Archer could stand without blood pouring from her, the Sorceress pulled her though the portal and into Akara's capable, waiting hands.