BIRTHDAY SPECIAL! Today's this story's first birthday! AND EXAMS ARE OVER!! Thanks to all you reviewers! Wow, new record of review per chapter! A big welcome to Liah, and welcome back, Elise!
Nyhl is so spoilt… but he's really not as cool as you think. I assure you, InnerFire.
Oh, and I was looking back on my past reviews, and here's one from Arcanus Deus Necros in the FOURTEENTH chapter (That's the transitional chapter between Acts I and II): "0.0 will there be a Necromancer? (who's nice?)"
All I knew then was that there WILL be a Necro. Nyhl himself didn't come into existence until after Falcon's death. ADN must be a clairvoyant!
Sorry I couldn't slip much of Leaf and Natalya into the last chapter, as well; but I just gotta experiment with this new character in combat, y'know… I'm retarded like that. I get to know my characters as I write them.
Disclaimer: Diablo belongs to Blizzard. Ophelion doesn't even own a copy of the darn GAME anymore. Ugh.
Chapter 27
Fragments of Reminiscence
As predicted, it soon began pouring after we once again cleared the Bazaar. It poured the way it did when we first arrived. A little past noon, the visibility got so bad that we simply called it a day. Nyhl went off to his own business while Oread and I spent the rest of the afternoon and early evening trying to restore our living quarters to its former dryness, after a part of the less-than-well-maintained roof collapsed during the storm.
Leaf found it oddly amusing as she fetched buckets to keep the worse of the rain from reaching the floor, grinning throughout the process. Oread was in a foul mood, and as she wrung the water out of her hair, she decided that Diablo must have something to do with the horrendous climate, and swore to "make him pay for making us do this shit-load of a job".
We finally fixed the leakage a little past midnight. While Leaf slept snugly in her bedding, I sat with my master as she tried to dry her long hair with a towel. We were both exhausted.
"Let's just take tomorrow off." Oread grumbled, looking up at the ceiling, beyond which the droning sound of pouring rain persisted. "I'm complaining this to Ormus, seeing he's an elder of Kurast and all; and we'll see if someone can come and help us fix the roof. Properly." Another drop of water leaked through and dripped into the bucket before us. "Ugh. The Necromancer jinxed us again." Oread snarled.
"If you'll pardon the total lack of relevance, Oread, you're a really good climber." She had climbed to the roof without the aid of a ladder, only using a nearby tree. In an attempt to cheer her up a little, I produced a kind of smile that I knew would work on her. Every time I smiled like that when she was in a mildly-bad mood, her face would grow softer and the tension would ease.
It worked. "My homeland's not unlike Kurast." She explained, staring out the window now, into the dark of the night. "I used to climb the trees when I wanted to be alone, or when I'm left alone. The wind and rain have a different sound when you're in the canopy, and you don't have to listen to the meaningless squabbles of people down below."
"Did your sister… Naiad, did she come with you?" I sensed that it was another opportunity to coax some history out of Oread. She was in her Realm of Reminiscence, and was a lot easier to probe.
"I can't remember much when she was a bit younger, as you know." She answered; her gaze unfocused. Her hands stopped in drying her hair. "But she came up with me a few times, before she grew into her teens and realised that her sister wasn't as awesome as she'd thought."
She grinned a little, but the sadness in her eyes made it more of a bittersweet grimace. "When she got into a fight with someone, or gotten teased, or whatever that made her upset, I'd sneak off with her and we'd climb into the trees. We'd just sit there in the canopy for hours, until after we've watched the sunset and the whole spectrum of changing colours of the sky. We'd get scold later, of course; I'd be reminded that I'm the elder one and I'm supposed to take care of her –"
There she dropped off. For a brief moment her eyes just looked into mine, completely at loss and blank; then she drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them close. Her forehead was on her knees; her long, untied hair fell over either side of her face.
"I'm sorry." She muttered. I was not sure if she was saying it to me, or to the late Naiad.
I was feeling as awkward as ever. I shuffled closer and put my hand on her shoulder. When I sensed no resistance I put both my arms around her.
To my surprise, she turned and hugged me back.
I had expected the tears to start flowing, but Oread's solid body did not quake even a little. She just hugged really tight; her hands gripped me desperately hard.
Desperation. That was it. The emotion that was overtaking my master was not sadness; it was fear.
That was when I finally established that she was afraid of losing me. I had taken her sister's place for her reason of existence. I was one that she wanted to protect.
Made me feel somewhat incompetent as a mercenary, really.
The next morning, Oread had woken up strangely energetic; she did not mention anything about the night before, particularly our little conversation.
At three hours past dawn, she was going around trying to find Nyhl. What for, I had no idea; but I was feeling embarrassed for the way she went about it when I noticed Leaf standing there, holding the tomes that she used for her recent morning lesson with Cain, her head cocked at my master. I went up to her and explained Oread's absurd shouts of "NECROMANCER!!".
Leaf told us with sign language that he had left the dockside city in the direction of the jungles.
"Why, he's leaving?" I asked. Leaf shook her head.
"Where's he gone then?" Oread sounded as if she was actually expecting a straight-up answer from the girl.
Leaf shrugged, but suggested perhaps he went for his companions.
Oread's face fell. "I totally forgot about that 'til just now."
"So did I; it just never came to mind." I shrugged. That was the truth: when Oread and I went through the shipwreck and the corpses, it did not occur to us that these were people who deserved a proper burial. They were just another load of corpses to be searched through and left behind to fester.
Corpses were just too plentiful these days.
When he returned that late afternoon, he was covered with dirt and old blood and soaking wet from the downpour less than an hour ago, which erased all remnants of tears, if there were any. He was nursing his right arm with his left, the bandages that strapped up his forearm were stained with fresh blood – the flesh wounds from the compound fractures had probably opened up, and he had most likely refractured the bones again, judging from the feverish aura that I could sense arising from his arm.
"Where'd you go?" Asked Oread.
"Flayer Jungle." Nyhl answered simply.
"So where are they? You went for the bodies, didn't you?" My master was so blunt… I still cannot understand how someone can just ask something such questions like that. I thought the idea of rolling my eyes only crossed my mind, but apparently I actually rolled them – Nyhl must have seen, as he stole a quick glance at me.
"I buried them on site." He replied flatly; his voice, apart from being a little breathless, was perfectly controlled. His eyes were somewhat narrowed, but that could have been from the persistent drizzle or exhaustion. "It'd be too difficult to bring the decaying bodies back here and try to start a fire with this weather."
We watched him go to clean himself off. I saw him reach into his pocket with his good hand.
We talked a little more over dinner. "So there were two with you, right?" Oread was playing with the condensation on her glass of chilled water as she chewed her food. "I think you said… your mentor and your sister?"
"Tiden was formally my teacher; that was who he was before everything else, but he's also my stepfather." Nyhl was hacking at a chunk of tough meat with his fork. Leaf was amused by his futile effort. "Kaira was his daughter and my stepsister."
"I'm sorry about what happened." I said, despite noticing no devastation in him; perhaps he just hid it very well.
"Your concern's much appreciated, Celadon; but it's over now." Nyhl gave up on the stubborn meat and stabbed at a piece of carrot instead. "Speaking of which, I never asked which way you're heading." He chewed the undercooked carrot, and it crunched loudly in his mouth. He excused himself.
"I don't know which direction it is, but we're heading towards the Pandemonium Fortress." Oread answered. "You're heading north, I believe?"
"Yes. As far as I know, the Pandemonium Fortress can't be reached easily… not by just physically travelling there, anyway. It belongs in another realm of its own, accessed only by magic." He tried another section of the meat again. "In any case, none of us can move ahead until the troubles in Kurast are sorted out. Mephisto, Diablo's brother, is said to be residing close to here – I believe Master Cain has informed you of it?" He looked up; Oread and I nodded in response. "Mephisto must have some connection with the Pandemonium Fortress; after all, that's where his brother resides. As for me, I can't continue landward with Kurast corrupted." He succeeded with the meat this time, and picked it up the small piece with his fork. "I might as well ask you now; would you allow me to join you for the time being, just as soon as Kurast is restored?" He put the meat in his mouth and proceeded to chew it, while keeping his eyes on Oread for the decision.
"You can join ME!" A shrill voice arrived before Natalya herself did at the table. She came up from behind Nyhl and had seemingly popped out of nowhere, what with the Necromancer's tall, gaunt shape blocking her small body from view.
Nyhl choked. He was trying to suppress his violent coughs while Natalya thumped him twice on the back mercilessly, which probably did more harm than good. Oread rolled her eyes and refilled Nyhl's glass of water from the jug on the table.
"Good evening, Natalya." I greeted. Leaf quivered with soundless giggles and waved at the newcomer.
Natalya beamed, flashing her straight, white set of teeth. "Hi, Celadon." She scuffed Leaf on the head, jumbling her silken hair into a twisted mess. The small child tried to pull away from her strong hand. "Hey, little Leaf... You okay, Nyhl?"
"It'd be a pity to kill him now after he's managed to stay alive at the Bazaar." Oread slurred as she glanced at Natalya with unhindered annoyance written across her face.
"Oh yes, I've heard about that. Apparently you did a great job with the corrupted priests." Natalya beamed.
"I'm flattered." Nyhl gasped and downed the entire glass of water.
"Which is why he's coming with us, Natalya. He asked us first." Oread straightened her posture in a stance of assertion. "Welcome to the company, Necromancer. Now stay alive and… give my portal scroll back." She held out a hand.
I gawked at my master incredulously. She would never have made a decision just like that in any other case… she only did this to be against Natalya. I threw my head back in exasperation as Nyhl stared wide-eyed at Oread. "I don't have it with me now! Come back with me after this and I'll get it for you."
"Fine." Oread sighed with feigned impatience. "So, what have you been up to anyway?" She asked Natalya.
"Cain wants me to go after a tome once possessed by a certain Lam Esen." Natalya smoothed her chestnut curls back with one hand, and then leaned onto her elbows upon the table, her shoulder brushing Nyhl's. The Necromancer visibly cringed and tensed up. "Apparently it's lost amongst the ruins of the temples all over the place. I've gone through the ones leading from the Bazaar already with no success, but oh… the temples have so many hidden treasures."
"Wait… Natalya, you jerk!" Oread leapt to her feet. Leaf bounced a little in her chair – probably startled by the sudden shaking of the table, by the way she pouted at Oread's back afterwards. "You're following us so that we'll clean up the place for you before you search the temples, and keeping all the loot for yourself?"
"Hey, look, I never said that I didn't appreciate the help." Natalya smirked cheekily. "Besides, the temples are a whole other story. Different monsters and all, y'know." She shifted and touched Nyhl again. He crossed his arms and looked somewhat distressed. "I must say I think I'm doing quite well. If you don't want me following your tracks, I can always just slip past the monsters all the way up to the Causeway and just go through the temples. I'll leave the bigger monsters up to you, yes?"
"All right." Oread slumped back into her chair. "It's not like I like to fight in tight, dark and cramped ruins anyway. You have a deal then, Natalya. Thanks for the cooperation and nice working with you."
"Oh my, you want to get rid of me that badly?" The Assassin-turned-mercenary whistled. "Did I butt into a private conversation or something? But you," She turned to Nyhl; his eyes met hers and he drew back. "You don't seem to talk much, do you?"
"Only what's necessary, I suppose." Nyhl managed a polite smile. "As your upbringing would have taught you, Natalya, you shouldn't carelessly reveal all that you know, in case someone double-crossed you, right?"
"I can be careful and talkative, Nyhl." Natalya smirked again, but this time her eyes were narrowed in a seductive gaze. Oread and Nyhl twitched simultaneously. Leaf glanced between the three of them with unabashed curiosity. "That way people won't suspect. If you're too quiet, they'd know that you're up to something."
"Thanks for the advice." Nyhl looked back down onto his plate, then reached out for his glass again and sipped it slowly. He was looking at Natalya out of the corner of his eye.
"I'll take that as a cue for me to disappear." Natalya swivelled around, her breasts rubbing past Nyhl one last time; he shuddered and choked again, this time on water. "If you want me, I'll be with Asheara. Enjoy the romantic dinner with your girl, Nyhl."
Nyhl burst into a coughing fit as Oread yelled after Natalya. "PERVERTED WHORE!"
"VICIOUS BITCH!" Came the reply over the chattering of the Iron Wolves dining room.
Nyhl recovered, raised a hand and opened his mouth to speak, but he was cut off by Oread's hand slamming hard on the table. "You say one word about that, Necromancer, and I'll kick you out. Physically."
He remained silent for a few seconds, then muttered, "… I'll bring the scroll back to you tomorrow."
"You do that." Oread sat back down and wolfed down the remainder of her bowl of food with unusual speed; I thought she must have imagined the food as Natalya's guts or something. "Eat up, Necromancer." She said with her mouth full; I could tell that Nyhl was refraining from frowning at her. "We're leaving in the morning at five hours past dawn. We were going earlier, but I didn't know you'd be running off today."
"How far are you planning to go?" I asked, and moved the water jug to within Leaf's reach. The child took the handle gratefully and filled her glass to the brim, took it up with a steady hand and drank without spilling a drop… weird habit that she picked up somewhere.
"There are some sewers under the Bazaar apparently; that's what Ormus said… I think. If we got past that then we'll head further up towards the Causeway. We'll have to eventually end up in this huge place called the Travincal, apparently. That's where the Com… something… Orb of Mephisto is; before that, we need to get this Khalim's Will thing together, which means more innards to trudge through." She glared at Nyhl. "So, Necromancer, don't you go exploding all the bodies. It's hard enough trying to find an organ, let alone having to sort through a whole bloody heap to pick it out."
"I'll keep that in mind." Nyhl replied, then gathered the rest of his food into one small pile on the edge of his plate. "Thanks again for letting me come with you." He finished the small mound of food off.
"If you went with Natalya, you'd be dead or catatonic within a week." Oread rolled her eyes, grabbed the apple that she had taken earlier and took a huge bite out of it, before locking her gaze onto Nyhl. "We went through all the trouble getting you back from the bloody mess that you were. You're not gonna go and die that easily after that. I'll personally bring you back somehow kill you again if you do, understand?"
"Yes."
"And that arm would never heal properly at this rate you're re-injuring it. You better be careful with it until it's fully fixed. Get it?"
"Yes, Captain." Nyhl smiled his infuriating smile. Oread took a few more hasty bites out of the apple and threw the remainder at the still-grinning Necromancer. He dodged it, stood to pick it up off the floor, and then left it on the table.
"My name's 'Oread', Necromancer." She snarled at her newest colleague as Leaf chuckled silently. I patted the child on the shoulder and we exchanged secretive grins.
Nyhl's own smirk grew wider as he pushed his chair in. "And mine is 'Nyhl', Captain Oread." He bid us a quick goodbye with a wave and hurried off. A smart move, seeing that Oread almost jumped over the table to launch the apple core at him again.
"SHUT YOUR DAMN MOUTH, BLOODY NECROMANCER!!!"
We returned to the Bazaar, and it seemed that Natalya had gone on ahead of us. There were the idle claw marks from her felling a few remaining monsters. Her trails led into one of the ruined temples, so we went on ahead to scan the Bazaar of any staircases leading to the supposed sewers below.
On the far eastern side of the Bazaar, the walls were still bloody from the scene that Nyhl caused the previous day. The winds of the storms were not strong enough to wash the walls of the darkening red, but the wet floor was marbled with it.
"See how much of a mess you've made, Necromancer?" Oread grunted. "If you do it in the sewers… I don't want to emerge from that place covered in sewage and blood, okay?"
"Understood." Nyhl replied absentmindedly. He was glancing around again.
"Where are the stairs?" I asked. There were no entrances that I could see. I tried Inner Sight, but this place must have been shielded magically, however long ago. There was a certain resistance about the area, blurring my spiritual perception of anything beyond the solid stone structures of the Bazaar.
That, or Mephisto shielded it himself.
"There's an altar-sort of thing over there," Oread nodded to the centre of the northern side. "We were busy in battle and walked right past it last time, I think."
So we went over to investigate. As Oread said, it looked like a small altar, except it was connected to the wall behind it. A few steps of stone stairs, semi-circular and concentric about the altar led up to it. Nyhl knelt down before the steps.
"These steps don't seem to be made of horizontal slabs." He concluded. "It's more like… they're vertical tubes that rise higher as we move up to the altar."
"So you're saying that there's something funny with these stairs." Oread was playing around with the stone relief on the top face of the altar. "These are… runes? I don't recognise this one…"
She ran her hand over the surface, trying to rub off the blood that had pooled and congealed in the depressions, in an attempt to read the particular rune better. Suddenly, there was a loud, low pop. Oread drew her hand back. "What was that?" I asked urgently. It sounded as if something had violently snapped.
"… I didn't do it."
Just then, the stairs… inverted. The altar dropped the furthest down, and the rest of the steps followed. It was not a gradual, mechanical lowering; they just caved in.
"Oread!" Nyhl and I shouted simultaneously. She tried to back away once the altar had moved, but the stairs fell fast and she lost her footing.
I called after my master again as she fell. My heart skipped a beat as Nyhl, who was still crouched beside the stairs, lunged forward and curled his arm around Oread's waist. She kept going down, and if I had not made it in time then to help him, the both of them would have tumbled in.
From there I saw how deep the stairs went. Each step was about four feet high. Oread would have gone a long way down.
Nyhl sighed in relief and let go of her. She landed a little shakily on the first step. "Are you all right?" Nyhl inquired with notable concern.
"Yes…" Oread looked back at him, then at me, and I could not decipher the mix of emotions in her eyes. "Thanks, I suppose…? Thank you too, Celadon."
Nyhl leapt down beside her. "No problem, Captain." He grinned. I would not have been surprised if Oread smacked him right then and there; his humour just seemed so out-of-place.
But Oread just managed a half-hearted glare, and turned around. "Be quiet and just get ready. We've created such a scene and they'll probably be waiting for us by the time we get down there." She looked down into the darkness below, then reached into her belt, and handed two antidote potions to Nyhl and three to me. "Ormus advised that I should invest in these."
She did not say anything to Nyhl about paying her back.
Sure enough, by the time we reached the bottom, we were greeted by mobs of skeletons, both undead humans and flayers. We retreated up a step, and shot them down from above.
The skeleton mages threw elemental attacks at us; over the past weeks Oread had taught me Slow Missiles again, and this time I thought I finally understood it a little. I tried it; and it worked.
I beamed at Oread, and she granted me a quick nod of approval. The joy that resulted stayed with me for some time to come.
Nyhl, in the meanwhile, retreated. It was only after the numbers had lessened a little that he went and started his own body count with his sword.
"Aren't Necromancers meant to be ranged mages?" Oread asked as she leapt down the step to stand beside him during the temporary peace.
"Well, in my case, no." He replied and wiped away the powdered bones that stuck to the edges of his blade. "And you seem to have established that I'm very much a Necromancer."
"You used a lot of magic the day before yesterday." I interfered. There was a contradiction here about him, and it made me edgy.
"Yes, but that was a volley of magical attacks. That's different to fighting with magic."
"You're not making sense." Oread just shrugged. I did not comprehend what he was trying to get at, either. He was just… odd. "Let's move on, anyway. I expect you to help this time, Necromancer."
Nyhl just smiled and I felt his energy focused just a little. Then a thin layer of it expanded out from his body and what looked to me like a dusty haze enveloped him – the light was dim, and I could not see clearly. It must be a magical skill, and it felt… somehow familiar.
"So, which way do we go?" He asked.
The sewers were a lot larger than expected. The systems were well-built, with deep trenches that channelled the rejected liquid from above ground, and bridges that connected isolated islands amongst the narrow artificial streams. There were dim torches in old wooden stands that burned weakly in every corner. The floor was surprisingly dry and free of filth. The place did not smell of excrement; instead it reeked of poison and fierce chemicals that would cause flesh to fall off bones. The entire place was made of stones stained dark with wastewater, but the scent of chaos and corruption had long since overpowered the organic stench that they might once have possessed.
As we walked on, there were only a few solitary foes – it promised more violence later on, but I was unaware of it at the time. Perhaps it was this lack of action as well, but I was pretty certain that the fumes that rose from the stagnant liquid in the trenches made me queasy. I fired a few times, but I had probably missed. Once a fireball whizzed past me and I could hear it crisping a few strands of my hair; by the time I reacted and fired, Nyhl had killed it.
I did not realised that the magic of my Inner Sight had worn out, and for some reason, although the light was quite enough for us to navigate, I did not see it when the huge shadowy form came up to me.
"Celadon! Look out!" Oread yelled, and I heard her let fly an arrow. I was only vaguely aware of Nyhl slipping himself between me and the shadow.
A crackling bang accompanied the piercing sound of an arrow finding its target. As the victim screeched sharply, my view of it was blocked by an opaque shield of dull-ivory in front of Nyhl. Something familiar flashed in my mind again, but it was gone so quickly… I would have to try and retrieve it later.
Nyhl's shield disintegrated back into the fine dust that encircled him. I realised then that they were pulverised bones. There was another shadow, and Oread shot that one down as well with an Exploding Arrow.
"Celadon, what's wrong?" Oread glanced back at the corpse once more before turning to me. I saw that it was a giant bat; its wingspan must be at least five feet.
"It's… just the air, I suppose." I shook my head and my eyes cleared and focused. "I just lost my concentration, that's all."
"Well, you better get it together now." Oread said as we approached a tight corner. She cast Inner Sight, cut around the tight corner and let fly two Immolation Arrows. Several screams in unhuman voices, and then explosions. Those flayer skeletons again.
Oread retreated as I took a peek. My eyes widened in shock and I probably uttered aloud. The scene was a lot more than I had expected.
A huge square chamber opened up; the light of the fire brought out the monsters that lurked in the shadows. I recognised the giant bats, and a few monsters that looked like Radament, with one of their arms as a gigantic scythe. There were skeletons were a-plenty, and as I moved out of the trajectory of a few elemental missiles, I also saw the figures rising from the large toxic pool that sat into the floor in the centre – their silhouettes told me that they were related to Falcon's killer.
Behind them, an even larger bat, its black skin tinted a sharp violet-blue, guarded the small altar beyond the horde. I was sure that I heard the monster-equivalent of a dark chuckle.
"So they waited for us, damn cunning bastards… and all this for a heart?" Oread groaned as she reached inside her quiver to check her arrow supply. "Do we have to?"
"We don't seem to have a choice." Nyhl answered, his left hand flying to the hilt of his other weapon as the demonic war cries echoed.
