Hi everyone! Sorry about the LONG hiatus! I've just been putting this chapter off, and I've had a trip to Canada, then I need to wait for my sister to resume school so that I can write again.

Excuses, excuses, you think. Fair enough.

I want to thank those who have commented in this time, Kaede Shinomoriand BloodHeron, as well as all those regulars who've been so patient and kind with me. In particular, I need to acknowledge Phreno and Emmelyn for their part in making me take a wild turn in my plans for the future progression of this story. You guys probably have no idea what you've done, but you've done it and I'm grateful!

Disclaimer: I do not own Diablo or any of its merchandises, so I can change the layout of the Sewers as I wish! Though I seemed to have achieved some kind of resonance with Blizzard in the lack-of-punctuality department.


Chapter 28

Bled-Out


Aroma exploded into the stagnant air – roasted blood that was oddly sweet. An eerie, acidic yellow-green glow illuminated the chamber from behind me, casting my shadow – it looked so small – upon the monster before me, the outlines of my body jagged and serrated upon its crackled, time-eroded skin. I brought my sword down as the light died.

"You fight rather efficiently, Necromancer." The impressed laugh was obvious in Oread's voice. Slash of a blade. Whiz of an arrow. BOOM. The light came again. This time my shadow was perfectly shaped and defined on the grey stone wall, a thick splatter of blood, almost greenish in the lighting, seemed to have erupted from my shadow's head.

"We should keep doing this; whatever poison's on that blade of yours, it seems to be explosive." Oread sounded as if she was having fun.

"We can't afford a long fight; there're still more levels to go." I could see the deadpan face of the Necromancer from his voice. It sounded too far away, and I whipped around to catch up with the two of them.

A large shadow fell over me as I felt the wind muffling the sounds of explosions. Reflexively, I slashed my sword across the front of my face. As the giant bat screeched, I planted three arrows into its head. The bat fell, sort of floated to the ground despite its size, and there was a small Radament-look-alike behind it.

Concentrated poisonous aura jumped and jostled upon its scythe-like arm; I sidestepped as it came down, smelling the poison burn and dissolve the ends of a few strands of my hair. The monster's bladed hand was stuck in the stone wall; I slammed my left forearm into the side of its ribcage, feeling it crack easily under the force of my strike.

What I did next I did out of impulse.

Without looking, I spun around and sliced at the skin, opening a huge whole from which blood and bits of shattered bones gushed out. I jammed my left hand into the wound, burying my arm into the monster's body up to my elbow, feeling the lung, then the heart.

I closed my hand around the huge heart that was beating furiously, amazed by its power and warmth. The monster shrieked. I held on, and then ripped my hand out of the inhuman body.

It appeared that I had held onto a bit of lung as well; it stuck out of the wound like a ludicrous tongue dripping with crimson saliva. It deflated one last time, and the monster collapsed.

I looked at my blood-coated arm, with the hot, muscular organ in my hand. It seemed to quiver just ever so slightly... even after it had been detached from its owner.

"Celadon!" I looked to my right, and the giant violet-blue bat was nailed to the wall beside the former-altar-now-stairs, burning and crisping beneath a greenish flame.

I dropped the heart and ran, nearly slipping on the blood, evaded the sewer-equivalent-Tentacle Beast's burning spittle (and planted four fire-imbued arrows into its eyes and two in the mouth for good measure), and arrived at the stairs –

Then I tripped.

I tumbled down the deep, tall steps. Oread got a hold of me after I had made painful contact with the floor twice.

"Are you okay? You fell behind back there." Asked my master, concerned. "It was no use trying to kill them al– what did you do to your arm?"

"Oh, it's nothing. I guess I got the blood on me from the floor when I fell over." I tried to wipe off some of the blood with the back of my right hand and looked around. We were on the step just above the second level's ceiling, and weak amber light streamed from below. Nyhl was on the step one below ours.

Oread grinned and shook her head. "Just watch where you're going next time." Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the piercing glare that the Necromancer directed at me.

I had just started a nod when the floor rumbled. "They must've reversed the mechanism from up there. Come on."

We hurried down the remaining four huge steps, and ran straight into a horde of undead corpses. We tried to back off, before the wall blocked off our retreat. Nyhl grunted as he beheaded the one closest to him, and before the corpse could fall all the way down, he placed his hand on its chest, paused for a moment, then shoved it further away.

Then it exploded. The thick, pungent smell of decomposition hit us, as well as the blackened flesh and the maggots that were feeding on them.

"Necromancer, that is disgusting!" Oread bellowed. "What did I say about exploding corpses?"

"You said you didn't want the scene to be full of blood and guts, so dry corpses are fine, right? We needed to clear some ground somehow." Nyhl replied, in all seriousness, as he exploded another two undead corpses.

One of those explosions killed several Flayer skeletons, and they exploded as they usually do upon death. There was a wet splatter somewhere off in the shadows beyond.

"Now you've done it!" Oread yelled as she shot down a few corpses, and then retreated to avoid the cloud of gas that burst from the bodies.

Nyhl just sighed hard and gave up the argument. As a form of protest, he killed quite a few Flayer skeletons from afar with his teeth-like projectiles, causing a volley of explosions.

"Damn Necromancer." Oread cursed, sending up huge flames of her own with Exploding Arrows.

This level was notably smaller than the top level, and was totally open. It was roughly square, with a square pool set in the centre. The dark, opaque liquid in the pool stirred and bubbled.

We dare not go near the pool for the time being, so we took down the monsters at a range. I ran out of arrows, and had to back off while the other two went about with the killing. I then noticed that Oread's quiver had five arrows left. It was at that moment that the splashes came, flying toward us from the pool.

Some of the dark liquid got into my eyes, and it burned. As I tried to recover my physical sight, my Inner Sight showed me where Khalim's relic was – in the pool, just below the surface… inside a small chest.

My Inner Sight also told me that we were surrounded by enemies that emerged from the pool. Their aura hummed at a particular pitch, one that was familiar.

Claw Vipers?

Their water-dwelling cousins, then.

Tears streaming from my eyes, I unsheathed my sword and sliced a wide arc before me, cutting a few serpentine foes. One leapt at me from behind, to my left. I put up my arm to block it, and sharp, smooth teeth glided through my skin.

It did not hold on for long, though. The jaws opened up again quickly, almost as if it were startled. Maybe it was the demonic blood that was still on my forearm.

Ignoring the pain, I grabbed at where the monster's throat would be. Judging by the ragged gasp, I was dead-on.

I plunged the sword through its heart; either the skin of the monster was very thin, or I had grossly misjudged the force of the stab – my hand, with the sword, came out through the back. My wrist was locked amongst wet muscles.

I was still blinded, but I knew that there were a few creeping up from behind. I spun around and swung my right arm out, the body still locked around it. I heard and felt the wet squeak as the body flew off my arm and bowled three of its living kindred over. Bringing my sword arm back quickly, I slashed through the neck of another monster. Cool blood squirted onto my face and dripped into my mouth. It tasted bittersweet.

My mind reached out further to my companions. Oread was not doing badly, though she had sustained quite a bad cut to the back of her left shoulder – I could see the glowing energy that had gathered there, as her body attempted to fix itself up through the strain of using a spear.

A little further off, Nyhl's life force was significantly weak. I could not tell if it was because it was reserved deep inside his body, or if it was just insufficient. In any case, it was building up in the ground, above which a serpentine foe lied dead.

My eyes opened and focused just as I felt teeth sinking into my right thigh. I kicked the monster off, its fangs ripping out of my leg with small chunks of my flesh. Despite that I planted my boot into its chin when it was trying to regain balance. The head snapped back and there was a sharp sound, more dramatic than a pop but crisper than a crack.

It was then that the poison finally reached its critical amount in my body; my muscles cramped up and I hit the floor. My heart raced as I fumbled for an antidote.

I finally got the cork out, and tried to swallow as quickly as I could. Blood rained over me again, and as my vision focused, I saw Oread standing on top of me, and the monster sprawled out between us, cut in half at the midsection, its intestines tumbling out, filling the air with a mix of sour acid, bitter bile and sweet blood.

I looked towards my other companion; he was attacking four monsters with his long sword. He drove them to the nearby corpse, and then with a shout, he dropped low and placed his left hand on the ground. Thick, curved bars of bone burst forth from underground, caging the four victims inside a prison of bone.

His energy concentrated once more, and the corpse on the floor exploded, destroying the cage and its occupants, splattering blood, organs and flecks of bone in all directions, decorating the wall of age-bleached bones that Nyhl had conjured up before him with extravagant shades of red, pink and grey.

Electric crackling; Oread splitting the head of a monster with her spear, the lightning crisping its brains, sending up a stream of bluish-grey smoke and a waft of something that smelled somewhat creamy.

Then it was still except for the breathing. Oread dropped to her knees before me, her right hand clutching at her left shoulder, which was still bleeding freely. There was another sound – probably Nyhl collapsing – then came the wheezing coughs of the Necromancer.

"Is everyone alive?" Asked Oread, sweat dripping down her forehead and off the tip of her nose.

"Yes." Nyhl answered simply, wheezing and gasping then coughed a bit more.

"You're pretty torn-up, Celadon." Oread took my arm gently, then set it down and turned to my leg. "That's nasty. You're bleeding heaps."

"None of the fangs are still lodged in there?" Nyhl had come over and knelt down beside Oread, who had taken out a long strip of bandage and was binding my leg up rather tightly. There was no serious injury on him that I could see, but he looked pale. "You've gotten rid of the poison; Asheara should be able to fix up the flesh wounds."

"The heart," I began. "It's in there." I pointed at the pool, set in the centre of the room.

Oread made a grimace of disgust, Nyhl blinked his eyes slowly – probably trying not to roll them. "I'll get it."

Sure enough, the heart still seemed fresh, as if it would start beating in any second. I could see the veins that laced the strong muscles.

Then the image of the warm heart that I ripped out of the monster flashed and obscured my vision for a split second. I shook my head and it cleared.

"Some ladder here, leads straight up." Oread, who somehow still had energy to walk around to the other side of the chamber, was looking up from the far right corner. "By the height, maybe it'd even bypass the floor above."

"Do you really want to go on?" Nyhl asked, with notable exasperation.

"Do you want to go and then come back here in a few days when this will be a bloody scene of decaying bodies?" Oread shot back. "You know, for a guy, your stamina's pretty shit."

That was true; I realised that Nyhl's energy level had gone down to a level that I could barely pick up. "I don't deny that." He smiled, despite the insult. "It's an old injury."

"Whatever." Oread shrugged. "I'll go up and investigate. If it's clear enough, I'll open a portal and you guys can come up then."

It seemed logical enough. Nyhl did not object to this decision. "Be careful." He said.

"You'll come straight back down if it's bad up there, right?" Anxiety tugged at my chest as Oread started to climb the ladder.

My master sighed. "No, Celadon. If that happens I'll go and get myself killed and my ghost can come back to tell the tale." She disappeared out of sight.

It took me a moment to pick the sarcasm; after that my muscles relaxed, and I slumped back against the wall.

"So," I turned to the Necromancer. "'Old injury'?"

"Never mind that." He turned to me, his eyes sharp and penetrating. "What did you get up to back there? Before you came down?"

"Nothing!" Childish defensiveness rose up in me; Nyhl's frown deepened a little and I fought to regained control over my voice. "I just cleared my way and headed towards you."

"Pardon me if I'm being rudely frank, Celadon, but when you came down, I could sense bloodlust." He stared at the ladder, not meeting my eyes. "And then just now, just before you went down with the poison, that same bloodlust boiled."

I was silenced. However he could have sensed it and identified it as "bloodlust" I could not know, but I felt guilty and strangely exposed.

"It's all clear!" Oread's voice echoes down the narrow shaft. "Get your asses up!"

"Coming!" Nyhl stood up and called back, then he helped me to my feet. I winced as I tried to shift as much weight as possible to my good leg. When I finally stabilised myself, he picked up the small chest with the sage's heart inside it.

We went over to the ladder, him holding me so that I would not slip or trip. "It's dangerous to have found enjoyment in shedding blood. It makes you lose yourself." He said as he climbed the first few rungs. "You'd suffer when your bloodlust had gone too far, and you realised that there was nothing that could quench that thirst, except for the blood of yourself. Be careful with it, Celadon."

Those words echoed in my mind as I dreamed of utter darkness that night. I woke up, my body cold, my clothes clinging to my sweaty skin, and I wept until the bloody light of dawn overflowed from the horizon.