The jail was a dark place. Not simply for lack of light, but due to an oppressive sense of dread that hung in the air. They could all feel it like a rotten breath at the back of their necks, like the whisper of madness at the edge of their hearing. The crushing silence was only broken by anguished screams and the occasional rattling of chains.
They moved swiftly along the dim corridors, heedless of stealth. The enemy knew they were there, and if they didn't the light from Galen's aura, Dana's spear and Talia's staff would soon advertise their presence.
Paige flinched every time she heard a scream, and the amazon could feel her getting more and more agitated. She understood all too well the young rogue's burning desire to rush to the deliverance of her imprisoned sisters, but time was against them and they could not afford to clear the entire dungeon of foes. They had to hurry to activate the inner cloister waypoint so they could bring in the rest of the rogue forces, who would liberate the monastery while they dealt with Andariel.
- "Steady, battle sister," Dana said when Paige flinched at another scream. She managed to sound both firm and gentle.
- "I follow your lead, my captain," the rogue said as she took a deep breath.
The amazon smiled at the honorific. She hadn't been addressed as anything more than a mercenary since she'd left the home isles.
Another scream suddenly echoed through the hallway, but this one was not human. Ahead of them, a band of fallen screeched to life as they spotted the intruders, but they were swiftly silenced by the archers in the party.
The commotion drew more enemies, however, and soon packs of goatmen charged in from both the front and the back, their skin black as night, barely distinguishable in the darkness.
Talia was ready. She greeted the ones to the back with a chain lightning spell that carved a deadly arc among them. The ones left untouched received a fireball to the face for their trouble, the explosion making a hole in their ranks. The ones that made it through both magical onslaughts slammed into the twin walls of Aan and the reanimated smith, neither of which budged an inch as they felled foe after foe.
The goatmen to the front were having even less luck, and before long the deathly quiet reasserted itself as the last of them fell.
- "Move!" the paladin intimated. "We can't get bogged down here."
Picking up the pace, the party marched briskly though the winding hallways, dispatching what scattered resistance they met. Fallen patrols, dark rogue jailors and goatman guards barely slowed them down.
They were within sight of the stairway leading back up when a scream tore through the air. It came from nearby. Paige turned to Dana, her eyes pleading. The amazon simply nodded.
The door to the room where the screams were coming from flew open as the barbarian charged through and kept going, the others rushing in behind. Two dark rogues within dropped their implements in surprise and scrambled to retrieve their weapons. They never made it.
The place was clearly a torture room. Racks, iron maidens and other monstrous devices abounded, bearing the marks of blood and gore. In one corner, a pile of rotting corpses spread a putrid miasma that threatened to make everyone lose their meals. Cyrus and his pet guarded the door while the others approached one of the racks in the far end of the room, which still held an occupant.
A mewling groan escaped said occupant's lips, and as they came closer, they were horrified at the sight before their eyes. The woman on the torture rack was one giant naked wound: her skin had been flayed in places; her feet had been burned; some of her nails had been ripped out; some fingers were broken, others missing entirely; her torso was a mosaic of cuts, her face a kaleidoscope of bruises; One of her eye sockets was smashed in, and some of her teeth were missing. Talia turned away and vomited where she stood, unable to bear the sight. Paige reached a trembling hand to touch the prisoner.
- "Johanna?" she asked of the woman, and the latter turned her good eye to look at the source of the voice calling her name.
- "Paige," she answered in a hoarse whisper.
The young rogue grabbed her elder's hand as gently as she could, tears pearling at the corner of her eyes.
- "What have they done to you?" she cried.
Galen shook off the horror that gripped his heart and forced himself to stir to action. He stood on the opposite side and placed his hands on the worst wounds, suffusing them with healing light. Johanna grunted in excruciating pain, her voice dulled by sheer exhaustion.
- "No!" she pleaded. "Please, stop…don't try to heal me. I don't want it…Please."
The paladin stopped his ministrations in confusion, looking to Paige for guidance. The young rogue moved closer to her elder, speaking softly.
- "Johanna, he is a powerful healer, he can save you."
- "No!" Johanna croaked. "I don't want…to be saved. What they did to me…to the others… it's too late…too late for me…I just want it to end. Please, Paige…sister. Give me…release."
Paige's eyes went wide, realizing what her elder was asking of her. The tears were now streaming freely down her face. She lowered her head, and a tremor went through her body. She pulled out her dagger.
- "Paige, wait!" Galen cried as he reached for the young rogue. "I can heal her! Just give me time, I can…"
He was seized by the shoulders and pinned against the nearby wall before he could finish. Dana's calm but melancholy eyes stared sadly at him. She shook her head. Slowly, he dropped his gaze, anger and shame warring over his features. He slammed the back of his fist into the wall. Feeling the tension escape his shoulders, the amazon released them.
Paige held her dagger in a trembling hand, but could not bring herself to do the deed.
- "Please, sister," Johanna urged her on in her labored voice. "Release me…from this agony. Let me go to our foremothers…knowing the fiends could not break me."
The young rogue grit her teeth and placed the tip of her dagger at her elder's heart.
- "Thank you," whispered Johanna, and she closed her eyes, her contorted features relaxing into a semblance of peace.
With a wailing cry Paige pushed down with all her strength. A sharp gasp escaped Johanna's lips, then a soft sigh, then nothing.
The young rogue remained there unmoving, white knuckles contracted around the pommel of her dagger. She did not stir until she felt Dana's hands on her own, gently prompting her to let go. She turned and buried herself in the amazon's chest, who held her firmly as sobs racked her body. For the next few minutes, her cries were the only sound that could be heard in the underground prison.
The party emerged into the inner cloister on a warpath, their pace reckless and unconcerned with the possibility of ambush. They spread out with the efficiency of trained soldiers to secure the courtyard while Dana led Paige to the dormant waypoint at the center. She grabbed the younger woman's hands, still stained in Johanna's blood, in her own.
- "Paige, you honored your sister's last wish. Now honor her death. Blood opens the way; let her sacrifice be the key to the liberation of your home."
Though still shaken, Paige steadied her crimson hands and placed them upon the stone surface of the waypoint. The arcane sigils flared to life, pulsing blue as the air around them shifted. The young rogue closed her eyes and pictured her people's encampment.
When she opened them again, she was kneeling before Kashya, who stood battle ready with most of the sisterhood's remaining forces at her back.
- "It's about time!" The redhead announced eagerly, helping her subordinate to her feet. "I was beginning to worry something had happened to you. Well done, Paige. Are you strong enough to continue the fight?"
- "Yes, captain," the younger rogue declared, and the fire in her eyes convinced her superior she meant it.
Kashya turned to face her troops.
- "Sisters! For the past weeks we have been refugees, driven from our home in the dead of night. Our friends were butchered in their sleep as demons stalked the walls we grew up in. But tonight, it is we who are the hunters, we who are the fangs in the dark, and I swear by the Sightless Eye that, by dawn, Eastgate will be ours again!"
A cheer erupted as ranks upon ranks of rogues lifted bows, fists and torches to the sky, as if to defy the night. The two rogues who flanked Kashya joined her and Paige upon the stone of the waypoint, and their hearts burned to see their home again as the familiar hum of the displacement magics intensified. Behind, the rest of the rogue forces were lining up in groups of four, awaiting their turn.
The waypoint flashed again, just as it had when Paige disappeared, and now there she was again, accompanied by Kashya and two of her personal guard. Dana offered the rogue commander her arm and the redhead clasped it in a warrior's salute.
- "Captain," Paige piped up, "we passed through the jails on our way here. The dark ones…they've done unspeakable things to our sisters. Some of them might still be down there. Please, captain. We have to rescue them."
The commander's face turned grave.
- "I'll lead a force there myself," she decided, "and then trough the armory to storm the barracks. I want you and the other scouts to remain with the outlanders. Guide them to the catacombs, where the bitch queen has likely made her lair. I promise you, she will not be receiving any reinforcements."
- "Kashya," the amazon interrupted, "your scouts have done enough already. They have fought bravely and sacrificed much. Perhaps they should help clear the rest of the monastery."
- "No!" Paige protested. "I wish to make Andariel bleed for what she has done to my people. I will see this through to the end, no matter what. Please, let me fight at your side."
Dana recognized the pride that flared in the young rogue's eyes, and she knew it was useless to deny her. Despite her worries, she felt pride herself; pride in the blossoming warrior before her.
- "I will be honored to have a stalwart young woman like you as a battle sister."
Paige's fierce demeanor dissipated as she reddened under the amazon's warm gaze.
More and more rogues were teleporting in, filling the courtyard as they organized into warbands.
- "It's time for us to move," Galen announced to his companions, drawing his sword. "The Great Evils think they can defile our world as they please. Let us show them Sanctuary still has heroes defending it!"
The others roared in approval, all except Cyrus, though he nodded grimly.
- "I will send a squad of my best to aid you in your fight," Kashya chimed in. "May your gods watch over you, my friends."
Paige's fellow scouts refused to leave her side, and, together with the force assigned to aid them, they led the party through the courtyard to the very doors of the monastery's cathedral. It was once the spiritual center of the sisterhood, but as they opened the gates and entered, they found it ransacked and tainted.
Some of the perpetrators were still there, fallen camping among the ruins of the interior while their shaman shrieked from the pulpit like some raving mad bishop. He and his "congregation" were quickly dispatched to their fiery afterlife. As he and the others walked beneath the arches of the cathedral, the paladin felt a familiar twinge.
- "This place reminds me of the great cathedral back home," he remarked.
- "It was built by the same man, was it not?" Paige inquired as she led them to a staircase near the altar.
- "Yes, king Rakkis. The man who founded Westmarch."
- "And the man fool enough to try and conquer the North," Aan added as the party proceeded downwards.
- "Though he was a pious man, above all else he was a warrior," Galen admitted. "It is good he failed in his last war of conquest. It taught him humility and the importance of statecraft over military glory."
- "I would have expected you to have nothing but praise for the man who spread your faith west, Zakarumite," Cyrus taunted.
- "Many try to bend faith into a convenient stepping stone to worldly power, but all they do is set fire to the night and pretend it is the dawn. The teachings of Akarat warn us to resist earthly temptations; they are meant only to provide us with a spiritual path to the better angels of our nature."
- "This man, Rakkis. He was of your order?" Talia asked.
- "No, he lived centuries ago," Galen replied. "My order is barely a couple of generations old. My grandfather was among the founders who fled Kurast and established themselves in Westmarch."
- "You can take the fanatic out of Kurast, but you can't take Kurast out of the fanatic," the necromancer quipped.
- "You know nothing, death mage," Dana admonished. "If all the children of Zakarum were like the Knights of Westmarch, we would never have had the Times of Trouble."
The paladin said nothing as they finally reached the catacombs. They were deep underground by now, and as they ventured forth into the stifling darkness, it felt like the world itself was on their shoulders. On either side of them skulls looked out from the walls, their frozen grins unmoved by the intruders.
- "No welcoming party," Paige noted. "The demon queen must have pulled her remaining forces back to defend her."
- "Then we will strike them down where they stand, and she will know the retribution that awaits her when they lie broken at her feet!" Galen declared as his eyes filled with determination.
- "You've grown more warlike of late," the amazon remarked.
- "Violent self-righteousness is always bubbling beneath the surface of a zealot," Cyrus noted. "He can pretend to be a man of peace all he likes; the sword is his trade."
- "You speak of what you do not know," Dana reprimanded. "He is the gentlest and kindest of us all. We have all dedicated our lives to martial pursuits; not to harm, but to protect."
- "I never said it was a bad thing," the necromancer replied. "Sanctuary needs warriors. What it doesn't need is sanctimonious hypocrites."
She was about to retort again but the paladin interrupted her.
- "It's alright, Dana. He's right. You both are. A part of me does yearn for this fight. I feel like I've been fighting an invisible enemy for years who has now revealed himself. I can finally see my foe and strike at him directly. So yes, I am eager for the sword-work ahead."
As if to answer the challenge, an eerie glow materialized at the far end of the corridor they were in, and a sound of rattling bones grew louder not just in the distance but all around them. The bones in the walls stirred and whole skeletons emerged menacingly as more of their kind appeared down the hall. At their head was a skeletal mage with hands wreathed in flame, burning ferociously in the dim surroundings.
The rogues and Dana were already shooting at the foes ahead while Galen and Aan took positions to guard the flanks, but arrows proved little more than a nuisance to the undead. The paladin manifested his pristine white aura to provide an impenetrable sanctuary to his allies, and the skeletons that were surfacing from the walls were pushed back and undone by the life energies.
The bone archers and mages, however, were too far to be much affected by the aura. Led by their glowing master, they unleashed a hail of arrows and magical bolts on the party, and Galen no longer had a shield to protect himself or his companions. Two rogues in the front went down under the barrage, while three others were wounded or severely burned. Paige was only saved by the charging corpse of the smith whose massive bulk provided a couple of them with cover. The necromancer's pet seemed no more fazed by arrows than the skeletons, and Aan rushed after him, letting him take the brunt of the enemy's missiles. The paladin placed himself in front of the others, hoping to let his heavier armor absorb the hits, but he could only really cover Dana. Talia was exposed.
The young sorceress saw her peril and focused inwards, channeling the primal force of lightning into herself, until she herself became the lighting. Before any of the missiles could reach her, she vanished in a flash of burned ozone, and a similar flash behind the skeletons signaled her reappearance. She was already casting another spell as she rematerialized, sapping the heat from the air around her until it froze; she slammed down her staff and a frost nova burst out from underneath her, blasting through the undead ranks with bone-shattering cold. Their limbs frozen in place, they could do nothing as the two charging behemoths smashed into their lines.
Only the glowing skeleton had managed to resist the effects of the ice, and it turned its burning figure to the caster that had devastated its forces. Its blazing hands hurled twin bolts of searing flame that converged onto Talia, but she instinctively manipulated the fire, spinning as she redirected it and fueled it with her own flame before launching it back at the undead mage. The blast knocked the thing to the ground, but when the smoke cleared it got back on its feet, unharmed. You could not, it seemed, fight fire with fire after all, the sorceress mused.
You could, however, obliterate its skull with a crushing blow from a twohanded mace, as the barbarian swiftly demonstrated.
With the last of the skeletons trampled underfoot by Cyrus' minion, the party could finally look to its wounded. Two were dead. Some had suffered arrow wounds, others, burns and frostbite from the magical bolts. Galen had taken the brunt of a volley, and though his armor had managed to stave off the worst of it, he had to heal himself first before attending to the others. No one protested when Cyrus raised what remained of the mess of bones into five skeletal warriors and three bone mages of his own. No one said anything at all; the party made its way forward again in complete silence, their senses on high alert, grim focus written on their faces.
