I've been procrastinating a lot, and yes, it HAS been a long while since I last updated. For any readers who got frustrated because of this, my apologies.

So, I'm now in my last year of my Bachelor degree, even though I plan to stay for another year of Honours and possibly… more. That, and Church has been pretty nuts with bombarding me with positions and duties. Along with trying to fit judo training a few times a week into my schedules. In any case, please bear with me.

A big thank you goes out to the people who added me to their alerts, favourites, and especially reviewed during this hiatus, some new ones: Luna Atra, Ddangerdan, IHeartFaith, Metastasis and Razbash. Of course, there's the perpetually diligent and loyal Emmelyn Cindy Mah, whom I just want to hug the living daylights out of for being such a great mate.

Hope you'll like this chapter! It's almost all original, so if you don't like it, it's my fault entirely.

Disclaimer: The Diablo series of games is owned by Blizzard, including the up-and-coming Diablo III! 8D


Chapter 33

The Crumbling


Tyrael stayed for a mere two days before he went off again. Jamella insisted that he remained within the refuge of the Fortress for a little longer, but as Tyrael put it, duty called. The restraints that had been placed upon Baal, the Lord of Destruction himself, were failing as the demon lord regained his power, slowly but surely.

"I don't know when I'll be back," the young boy before my eyes spoke in a spookily solemn tone as his mercury orbs swept past us. "I'd like to be able to take care of Mephisto's Soulstone personally, but even for ethereal beings, there is the limitation of having only a single existence at any one moment."

"Soulstone?" I inquired.

Oread bowed her head in contemplation for a brief moment. "Are you talking about that long bluish piece of rock that got caught on my spear when Mephisto was killed?"

Tyrael nodded, his fine white-blond hair shimmering as it caught the dim light. "I trust that it is still in your possession?"

"Yeah," Oread looked away, wrinkling her nose and brows in an expression of disgust. "It's tucked away somewhere. I didn't want to touch it or look at it anymore than I had to."

Tyrael dropped his gaze. "It holds great power," his voice was solemn and resentful. "It's the dark essence of Mephisto's being. The only way to ensure that Mephisto is well and truly obliterated is to have the Soulstone destroyed at the Hellforge, where such artefacts were imbued with demonic energy in the first place. It's guarded by Diablo's underling, the armourer Hephasto." He glanced across all of us, then looks straight ahead towards nowhere again. "You'll need to be careful."

I turned and saw the Amazon and the Necromancer looking at one another with the comfort of mutual understanding in their eyes, and suddenly felt something sink in my chest. "I'll –"

"I'm accompanying the two of you." Jamella spoke up with her smooth, dark voice, drowning my voice out. She was not looking at me.

A grunt sounded in my throat. "But Jamella, I'm –"

"I know my way out there; I can lead us to the River of Flame." She was still looking at Oread and Nyhl. "You've gone as far as the City of the Damned, haven't you? If we're efficient and all goes well, we may be able to return within a day's time, thereabouts." She quickly turned to me, looking at me squarely, looking down at me, and ordered, "The Fortress cannot be left unguarded. You'll stay here with Halbu and make sure it stays safe." She shifted her gaze to her husband, and her eyes as well as her tone of voice immediately softened. "I didn't mean you're incompetent, dear… it's just not enough."

Halbu smiled and nodded mildly. "I understand. We weren't enough to begin with." He looked tenderly at Kande asleep in his arms, her head resting in curve between his shoulder and neck, and rocked her gently.

Tyrael's unfazed expression suggests that he took no heed of the couple's exchange. "I wish you all the best, for the sake of yourselves and of the Sanctuary." His body suddenly burst – unravelled – into a white, blazing form, and I caught the glimpse of the glorious archangel but for a split second, before he – and the light – disappeared without a trace.

I confronted my master later that night; that intense feeling of being left out was wearing on me. It was one thing to be in love with a fellow companion, but… leaving another behind was something else.

"I'd have preferred you to come along in Jamella's place, but you heard her." She said matter-of-factly, not alleviating the nagging feeling in my chest. "I'm a lot more comfortable with you when I'm out on the battlefield, but Jamella's right. She knows her way, and she knows what we're in for." She reached up with one hand and pushed her hair roughly from her face. "Or I hope she does."

"We could've both come." I objected. "I haven't been in action at all since I got here, you realise?" My head canted and my eyes narrowed – the stance of an interrogator. Unmannerly, yes, but I was unimpressed… no, I was angry.

Oread blinked slowly, mildly, "It's precisely that, Celadon." Then her eyes flicked up instantaneously, her gaze almost severe. "You haven't seen just how fragile this place is… this little island oasis, the last trace of there being some control so that everything doesn't just blow over."

"Do you not trust me out there?"

"No, I trust you here. I trust that you'll keep this place safe from the forces that are constantly trying to engulf it." She paused for half a second, and then added, "You may think that you won't ever see this place collapse; but at any moment, it just might."

"But I –"

"It's not a request; it's an order." She spoke up; the volume of her voice was maintained, though her tone had hardened. "Will I not have your compliance, Celadon of the Rogues?"

The words struck my mind with ice and metal, forcing the solid truth to the surface – I was her mercenary; and at the end of the day, that was all that I was really good for.

My face fell from its former display of gaping-shock as I slumped and bowed, my head held low enough to hide my expression from her view. "You have it, master."

She sighed, and I felt her hand upon my lowered head. "I'm sorry I did that, but please… just put up with this one more time, okay?" I could hear the gulp as she swallowed. "I won't neglect my comrade."

"Not unless you have to, right?" I muttered, the dark defiance creeping into my voice despite my best attempts to fight against it.

"You know how life works these days." She lifted her hand and waited for several seconds, but I held my bent posture and she soon gave up. "But that will not happen if I can help it."


I saw them off as the three left for the Hellforge in the following morning – not that morning was much different from night, though. The way to tell the two apart was to see what colour the rivers of lava glowed; it glowed a dim crimson at "night", a rich orange in the "morning", and at "noon", it often gurgled loudly and coughed out bright spittle of acidic yellow.

"Guard this fortress safe before our return, Celadon." Jamella held both of my hands in her large ones, heavy and hard from work and wear, and almost seemed to pierce me with her gaze as she said the words.

"I'll do my best," was all I could promise.

Halbu came up to me and put his hand on my shoulder afterwards, as I kept staring after them even though they were long out of sight. "Don't make such a face." His hand gave my shoulder a soft squeeze, and I could faintly hear the smile in his voice. "You've had that look on you a lot lately."

"Which look?" I turned around to two pairs of eyes with identical shades of sea-green; Kande's were wide and bright, filled with the innocent, pure curiosity and appreciation of everything that people gradually grew to take for granted. Her small chubby hand fisted as she clung tightly onto the front of Halbu's shirt. I felt my face relax; I did not realise just how tense and drawn it was before.

"The look that says someone's died." He laughed dryly, with little humour. "It's not good for a young lady to have such a sour face; it ages quicker."

I chuckled in reply, the sound equally forced as his laugh was. "Speaking of which – if you'd pardon my bringing up such a grim topic," I gave Kande a small pat on the head, my fingers entangled in her mass of dark ringlets. "My master mentioned that her sister passed away here; surely many have done so before her, and many after her."

The dimmer pair of green eyes closed momentarily. "She's brought that up, yes." He then paused and waited for me to go on.

"What do you do with the bodies?" The words shot out, all too bluntly. "I mean… I don't see a cemetery here, though surely you don't just –" I considered the possibility of me getting this wrong, and decided that it would at least be forgivable of me to do so. "– leave them out there."

"Oh, no!" Halbu's brows gathered in obvious distaste at the thought. He shook his head, "No, we don't do that. They deserve better." He knelt down on one knee, set Kande down on her feet, and kissed her on the forehead. "Mama's got some breakfast on the dining table. You start first, and I'll come with everyone soon, okay, sweetie?"

The girl nodded twice, vigourously, her tightly-coiled hair bouncing on her shoulders. "Okay, Papa." She stood on her toes and tried to mimic her father's actions, but could not reach his forehead and so instead substituted the subject of a kiss to his cheek, before half-skipping, half-dashing off.

He stayed on his knee and watched her go, then straightened as he exhaled, his face turned away from me. "I'll show you. Come."

He led me to a small black tent, tucked away into a corner behind the more elaborate tents that had been their makeshift home for the past two years. He lifted the heavy entrance flap of the tent, and it took me half a second before I realised what the small, identical, repetitive shapes inside it were –

Rows of neatly-aligned off-white urns adorned the dark wooden shelves dusted with powder of various pale grey shades, each weighing down a small square of parchment, with letters and numbers printed neatly upon them.

Ashes.

"We wouldn't bury the bodies upon such tainted grounds," Halbu stated mildly. "We cremate them and try to send the remains back to their homes, but it's not always possible – some die too soon, without leaving much information behind, and there are others that were apparently just… insignificant; they had no-one to be sent back to."

I had nothing to say to that; the mere sight of what was left of so many who were once alive, now reduced to something so small, so transient, so dead… dust that can simply be blown away…

"Let's leave them in peace," the flap to the tent fell back into place, a bleak curtain that hid a stage for the final scene of a tragic play. "Such a sight is unhealthy for the living soul; it eats away at the spirit."

Perhaps even this Fortress is slowly succumbing to the choking clutches of Hell.


Giggling – an incongruous sound to my ears, and a bizarre one in this place.

Still, it brought a smile to my face; I finished polishing the short sword that once belongs to my master's late sister, slid it snugly back into its dark wooden sheathe bound by tough rawhide straps, and turned to the source of the laughter.

In the small open courtyard, right under the bloody sky, Leaf was holding Kande in her arms as she danced about, lifted her as high as her arms could manage as the infant squealed with laughter. Her long dark hair flowed like a fine sheet of silk as she swivelled on her heels, the golden strands catching the light, seeming almost to glow.

She turned towards me, and I saw the joyous look on both girls' features, and a funny, though not unpleasant feeling crept into my chest – here were two children, indifferent to the danger and darkness that envelops them, and enjoying this moment just for what it was worth.

Leaf… she looked so radiant now, despite her lineage, her birth, her handicap, her past… despite what may lie before her, as a half-demon child doomed to a life of ever-incomplete humanity, she seemed so grateful for what she did have.

"Quite a child, isn't she?" A husky, somewhat strained voice rose up from behind me. "Tirral of Zann Esu."

I turned and gave Master Cain a small nod, "She is indeed." I was surprised that the sage addressed her as such – noting not her corrupted blood, but the human, righteous part of her identity.

He settled down in the chair beside me. "And the daughter of the Guardians of Light… Kande, she's lively." He smiled, the wrinkles on his cheeks shifting as he did. "It's good that she's still young, and that she's nevertheless created as a being of the human realm. With any luck, she won't remember the worst of this place after all this is over, when she's grown up."

He stopped; not willing to encourage any further speeches from the old sage, I lapsed into silence. My mind first considered the young family of three, and then moved, of its own accord and rather inappropriately, to the rows and shelves of ashes.

Then, looking at the two young girls, the scenes in my head dissolved into one of my own childhood... some time before Oread came into my life, before I followed her and left the little girl that I was behind.

My fourth and youngest elder sister, the one known as "Flavie" by the Sisterhood, was with me, standing before a pyre. My third sister lay upon it, her flesh gradually being blackened by the flames. A sweet, pungent aroma rose into the air.

"It's just us two now, Cel." My living sister said solemnly, an edge of dark anger in her tone.

"No," I shook my head, determined to believe. Wanting to believe. "Mother's still at the Monastery fighting monsters."

"She hasn't come back since after the funeral… the other one." She was referring to my eldest sister, whose mangled body was sent back to be cremated several months earlier. "She may still be alive, but I don't think she'll be coming back, even if she isn't dead y–

It was at that point in my thoughts that the last defence crumbled in reality.

I was thrown onto the ground by an unseen force, a sharp chill. It washed over me and my mind blanked out totally for a split second. When my senses returned, I finally appreciated just how quickly the store of ashes would have accumulated.

This place was death.

The thick air, full of sulfur and smoke and steam, singed and seemed to coat my eyes and airways in powdered glass. The heat made my skin sting and burn. There was an ongoing, inaudible hum that resonated within my bones, the sound so low that one could only feel it and not hear it. Then there were the sporadic sounds of hollow shrieks and not-so-hollow explosions.

I straightened, strapped the sword onto my belt and reached for my bow and quiver by the wall of the tent. Cain was blubbering somewhere behind me, Kande was screaming, and Leaf had her hands wrapped around the infant, her own eyes wide, the maroon irises reflecting the crimson sky, which now looked like a whirlpool of gore.

I ran up to the girls and stood between them and the exit of the Fortress to the rest of Hell, gasping in shock and then choking at the clarity of the barren landscape as the sky cast its violent light upon it – it was an immense sea of blood, its islands the shapes and colours of splintered bones and rotting flesh and festering organs.

And from this land of dread and horror, things were stirring.

"What's happening?" I tried to shout beyond the jumble of noises. My view brightened as I tuned my mind's sight to the mana contained within all things living, and then blurred as sickly grey tones washed over the entire scene. I was knocked off my feet once again as something immaterial pounced onto me, and my windpipe was obstructed by what felt like hot embers.

I saw Halbu's shadow looming over me; the pressure left me, and a strong arm looped around my waist and practically heaved me up. "Stay close to me." He leaned close and muttered, then held out a hand as a dark, smoke shadow advanced on us. The shadow glowed antique-brown as it touched the blacksmith's hand, then crumbled into black dust that quickly disappeared into nothing.

I nocked an arrow onto the newly-tightened string of my bow, and repeated my query – "What is happening?"

"The protection failed." Halbu answered through gritted teeth, as he gripped the hilt of his sword with both hands and hacked it at a bird-like demon with wide, gaping jaws, each set with multiple rows of razor-sharp teeth. "I don't know wh–"

"The Soulstone," said a quiet, quivering voice from behind. I let my arrow find its target in the chest of a screeching ghoul, its skeletal fingers twitching wildly before it collapsed onto the ground, the tattered cloak that it wore popping with residues of lightning. Master Cain continued, his voice getting smaller and smaller, "Mephisto's last struggle against his damned fate. The physical destruction of the Soulstone must have released a sudden surge of demonic energy, shattering the Fortress' shield and awakening these terrors…"

He trailed off and crawled back inside the nearby tent. This was about the first time I had seen him cease speaking by his own accord, though there was no time for me to comprehend the humour there.

"Papa!!" Kande shrieked from somewhere, startling her father. He began to look back and opened his mouth to call out to her, his concern blinding him from an oozing zombie, its boils-covered grey skin peeling off him in dangling ribbons. It leapt at Halbu, grinning, revealing its blackened teeth, like lopsided and weathered tombstones of tar erected in its greenish infection-ravaged gums.

In panicked reflex, I drew my arm across and elbowed the corpse in the hinge of the jaw. A sickening crack issued forth from the brittle bones long dead, and Halbu, regaining his focus, lopped the head clean off the slackened shoulders.

I took half a step back to evade a swipe of the claws of what looked to me like a naked half-woman, half-wolf, its limbs elongated and skeletal, its skin tinged a cold inhuman blue beneath a thin, coarse coat of silver. It tried another strike, but one arrow pinned its hand onto the ground, and another followed to impale its skull. Steel-blue blood leaked from its eyes; I kicked it aside as I turned to the children. "Leaf! Get yourself and Kande inside!"

Leaf looked up, her expression one of dull shock as she hugged the screaming infant close; then she started, a shudder rippling through her body. She hitched Kande onto one hip and bolted.

Another shadow, cutting out the red light from above. My arrow was aimed before my eyes saw what it was, and by the time I took in what I shot, the arrow was halfway into the monster's chest – a flying, reptilian beast, with its long, slender tail spiked like whips for brutal scourging, and a head that was overtaken by jaws of black, dripping teeth. Black blood oozed slowly from the hole in its chest, dripping into my hair, thick and sticky like honey.

I took another shot, and the beast was frozen from the inside out; it crashed solidly to the ground as I quickly stepped out of the range of its wings. The sky was full of them; with Halbu busy with the infantry of Hell's soldiers, my worry grew into panic as I shot down another reptilian foe.

Kande screamed again, ever more piercingly, no longer fear but terror in her strained cry.

I jerked around just to see the toddler tumble out of Leaf's arms; the latter had almost thrown the younger girl into the safety of the tent. She whipped around, and I saw the patch of red on the front of her pale blue dress expand as she lifted her eyes, staring right into those of a reptilian monster before her – it was substantially larger than the others, its scales bore a particular bronze sheen.

"Get back, Leaf!" I yelled, my voice hoarse with panic. Nocking an arrow and pouring my energy into them, I aimed directly at the bronze dragon's head. Then, just as I was about to release the bowstring, a mass of fire erupted in my right shoulder.

I drew my other arm across, knocking the assailant off with the end of my bow; my brief glimpse told me that it was one of the razor-teethed demon birds. Blood poured down my arm from the tens of puncture wounds, but as I drew my short sword to stab the fallen foe through its head, my eyes were locked, wide and gaping, upon the scene before me.

The demon opened its jaws and charged down at the small girl, as if to swallow her whole. Leaf looked up, naught but fierce focus in her eyes.

Time seemed to slow as she gritted her teeth, opened her arms, and held the dragon's jaws open. Her small hands closed around the teeth, and the blood from her palms mingled with the dribble that ran from the mouth of the monster.

A sharp exhale – a shout, if only her voice still existed – and the drips of stained spittle became balls of fire. Flames ran up the slim tongue of the dragon, down its throat, and at the moment the girl finally relinquished her iron grips, the monster exploded into blood-red flames.

A second later, the dragon was no more than a burnt charcoal skeleton.

Still in shock, I barely evaded a strike from a she-wolf-demon. My mind's eye directed my sword through the base of its skull, while a ghoul glided towards Leaf.

Leaf faced the incoming foe, and I saw her eyes now – the maroon of her irises seemed to have brightened, as the whites of her eyes became as blood. From a distance, her eyes were like two chasms into hellfire.

She held her hands up, blood trailing behind them in thin streams, and a mighty explosion boomed and resounded as they made contact with the ghost-like being. Flames of the same blood-red substituted the form of the ghoul for an instant, then puffed out of existence.

Tirral, "leaf", a Zann Esu spell of fire and pyrokinesis. Carved and imbued upon the girl with her mother's blood.

Blood and fire.

No longer able to hold my gaze upon her for fear of my own safety, I returned my attention unwillingly to the action immediately around me. I managed to steal a glance once in a while, watching demons burst into flame, smelling their flesh and bone as they crisp. Leaf's blood drew flaming trails that sought and reached out to all that threatened her, and all the while, it was flowing.

Two blows landed simultaneously, one behind my knee and the other in my stomach, and I crumpled to the ground, unable to breathe. I anticipated the pain of my back being sliced open by the claws of the reptilian monster above me; instead, the beast landed on me rather gracelessly, coating me with thick syrupy blood.

"Celadon!" Oread's voice cut through the sounds of wet, thick explosions, no doubt the work of the Necromancer.

I forced air through my aching lungs, and huffed my words to the dirty boots before my eyes. "Get Leaf out."

Oread made no sign of having heard me, as she spun around on her heels. Then came the humming of her mana, and the continuous twangs of her bowstring. The low wheezing of fire charging through matter continued, and in my mind was the colourless mana of the girl, leaking, draining.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Jamella's huge glaive swing down, followed by a wet clash. So all three of them were back… and all three were preoccupied.

Fighting back the pain that seemed to have spread over the entire lower half of my body, I pushed myself to my feet. I made my way towards Leaf, nocking an arrow and drawing the bowstring most of the way back before realising that my right arm was shaking; the entire length of my undershirt's sleeve felt wet and sticky.

A desperate moan escaped from my throat; slinging the bow over my bad shoulder, I drew out the sword, and hacked right through some small demon that leapt up from the ground, its body splitting apart before the jump managed to carry it to my eye-level. That was a shot of pure luck, but it startled the surrounding foes enough for me to sneak a few more steps forward, opening my view to Leaf once again.

To my horror, she was face-down on the ground, her long silken locks puddling in the pool of crimson beneath her small body. A ghoul pounced, the bones of its clawed fingers tearing out chunks of her hair and scalp.

I amputated an arm of another hulking shape that approached from the side, gritting my teeth as I braced myself for the mind-numbing bellow, and staggered over to Leaf after recovering from the nausea as quickly as my protesting legs could manage, my sword dividing the ghoul, before I threw myself over the tiny prone form.

She twitched, and then lifted her head a little towards a she-wolf-demon sprinting towards us. The moment its front leg touched the edge of the puddle, droplets of blood snaked up its leg, then over the rest of its body, and the howl came at the same time as the explosive burst of crimson flames from its entire mass.

"Leaf!" I cried, closing my hands around the girl's thin shoulders; they felt strangely cold. "Stop it!"

She turned, very slowly, then her hellish eyes locked onto mine. But beneath it, I still saw the little girl that she was, innocent despite her predestined damnation.

There was love in those eyes. Love, gratitude, and… regret.

Then they flared, and so did my arms. I fell back from her, flames licking at my forearms. They fizzled out almost as soon as I started shaking my hands to be rid of them.

I looked back, reaching out to hold onto Leaf, but grabbed only empty air; only my sight followed her as she ran off, blood falling in a trail behind her and bursting alight at her heels.

She ran into the thickest of the hoard of demons, forcing the rest of us away with her fiery aura. The gold of her hair caught the light once more before the monsters engulfed her.

A rumble; then a mighty explosion that knocked all that was standing flat onto the ground. A great surge of dry, baking heat, and a giant fireball, bright as rubies reflecting the rays of the sun, grew to fill almost half of the Fortress before shooting off into the crimson sky, joining it in its bloodiness.

Then it rained. Raindrops of black ashes, still warm to the skin.

Ashes that crumbled to dust upon landing, burying the living in its silence.