"And who, pray tell, is that?" said the woman and even Ariana could tell that the shade was taken aback by the lack of knowledge she evinced.
"A human," said Tenebrous. "A powerful mage, the apprentice of Elucidor," he suggested and looked for any sign of recognition in the face of the woman.
"That name sounds familiar," she said with a smile and a thoughtful look. "I can"t remember exactly from where but it does ring a bell."
"He was the King of Das"von," said Tenebrous but the woman simply looked at him blankly.
"In the material world, where your worshippers reside," he prompted.
"Ah yes, my worshippers, you see darling," said the woman turning to cast a quick glance at Ariana. "Worshippers worship G.o.ds, it"s really rather simple to follow if you have a brain at all."
"Without worshippers much, if not all, of your power dissipates," said Tenebrous to the woman, his shadowy form somehow knelt down to the floor.
"My power is derived from my divine essence," said the woman. "How dare you suggest otherwise, Tenebrous? Shall I send you to back to the Deathlands?"
A small noise caught the attention of Ariana as the purple door behind suddenly seemed to change its hue by the slightest amount. A moment later a short little thing with long arms and a bulbous head popped out. A terrible burn covered one side of its body and it clutched in its hands the Staff of Naught. The creature took one step and collapsed to the floor its narrows eyes slit and unmoving.
Ariana did not pause, nor did the voice have to urge her to action. With a single motion she leaned down, grabbed he staff, and leapt through the gateway and into blinding brightness.
Chapter 31.
The woman by the throne stood in gap-mouthed astonishment for a moment unable to react in anyway. It was up to Tenebrous to suggest a course of action, "Perhaps some of the ghouls should be sent in pursuit," he said and pointed to the dozen or so things that lurked near the throne.
"This is your fault," shrieked the woman suddenly finding her voice with a glare at Tenebrous. "If you hadn"t distracted me the staff would have been mine!"
"While laying blame is pertinent," said Tenebrous his dark form backed away from the woman. "I would suggest a more immediate course of action is to chase after the staff. It doesn"t look like Englibirg there," with a glance to the smoldering corpse, "is capable of doing it and my own powers against the living are rather limited as you"ve seen to."
"Vile thing," said the woman but paused to lick her lips and look at her minion sprawled out dead on the floor. "But, you are right, Tenebrous. She is merely a girl. You ghouls, go get her and bring back the staff. If you have to kill her it is not a bother." With that she flounced back to her throne and sat down with a satisfied smile.
"You let it get through the portal," shrieked the voice of Seymour the Bright as he turned to Oliver who stood next to him, a long b.l.o.o.d.y wound down his right arm. "You missed it!"
"It was well skilled in the ways of martial combat, my liege," said Oliver as he looked down. "I"m afraid to say I let the light of the fireball effect my swing," he went on and bowed down towards the vague form of the Priest of Ras that he could make out in the array of spots that circled throughout his vision.
"Follow it as soon as your eyes allow," said the priest with a shake of his head, and he muttered under his breath. "Even the competent ones fail me, I fear for Tarlton."
If Oliver heard this comment he showed no outwards indications as such and continued to blink his eyes for a few moments until there was a shout from the door, "What happened?" said Hazlebub as she looked around the corner and saw the two desert dwellers near a large purplish door that seemed to hover over one of the sarcophagi with the smashed open lids.
"The beast took refuge around the corner apparently looking for a portal back to the Abyss," said Sutekha, "and when Oliver pushed off that lid we found it. The creature jumped through ..."
At that moment the portal changed from a dark purple to a slightly lighter shade and Ariana popped out, the Staff of Naught clutched in her hand.
"Ara!" shouted Hazlebub.
"That I did not expect," said Sutekha, stroking his hairless chin, and shaking his head.
"Praised be Ras," said Seymour and touched the Holy Symbol around his neck. "Take it from the girl," he ordered Oliver.
"No," screamed Ariana and held the thing up like a weapon. "If you try I"ll ... I"ll ... smash you."
Oliver walked over to the girl, looked down on her, sheathed his sword, and held out his hand. "Give it to me."
"No," repeated Ariana and Oliver swiveled his head towards Seymour with his eyebrows raised.
"Take it from the wretch, kill her if need be," said the High Priest of Ras, a fierce look on his face as his teeth clenched and his eyes narrowed into little beads.
"No take," said the voice of Shamki from behind Hazlebub and his sword was in his right hand.
Oliver didn"t even look in the orc"s direction and his own sword was out and at the ready whistling just past Ariana"s head so quickly it took the girl a moment to realize what happened and stagger backwards almost into the portal. She might well have fallen into it if a creature coming out the other side hadn"t smashed into her and sent her sprawling and the Staff of Naught once again skittered across the floor.
Seymour took two quick strides towards the staff and did not notice the cavalcade of ghoulish creatures that began to pour out of the portal as Oliver and Shamki whirled to face them. A blinding flash thrust from Shamki impaled one of them, Oliver"s sweeping blow beheaded the next, and both crashed to the floor where their gooey innards spilled out in copious quant.i.ties.
Even as the two swordsmen worked together the ghoulish foes poured out of the portal faster than Shamki and Oliver killed them and the two warriors moved slowly backwards away from the tide of ghouls. Ariana tried to crawl towards the staff and a large ghoul wielding a long scythe took aim at her head; Shamki managed to grab her by the foot and sling her back towards Sutekha and Hazlebub but at the cost of taking a slash to his arm from the crusty nails of another of the creatures.
"We have to shut the portal!" shrieked Hazlebub to Sutekha who nodded his head and pulled out a pair of small vials from his robes.
"What spells do you know to close it?" he asked the witch while his fingers twisted off the cork stopper in one of the bottles.
"I make love potions for village morons, mostly," admitted Hazlebub with a rather sheepish expression on her face.
Sutekha laughed for a moment but then winked at the woman and smiled, "That"s all right, my first teacher was a potion master, you can help."
Hazlebub smiled broadly and her body seemed to lose some of its tension, "Really?"
The wizard of the golden worm smiled, "Yes, really, but it might be a bit dangerous."
"What can I do?" said Ariana clambering to her feet.
Sutekha looked first to the girl and then to the witch who stood straight up instead of stooped with her face eager in antic.i.p.ation rather than screwed up in a scowl. For the first time he realized the woman was not nearly as old as she pretended and actually not particularly ugly at all. "Why, Hazlebub," he said. "You"re a fine looking woman."
Hazlebub suddenly blushed and patted her hair, "Well, I have to pretend to be a witch or no one buys my potions."
Ariana stood looking at the two, her hands on her little hips, "Really, right now you have this discussion?"
"Ah, yes," said Sutekha with a shrug and another wink at the witch. "Take this potion," he said handing it over to Hazlebub, "and work your way around to the portal. Try not to let any of those ghouls touch you, their claws can paralyze. Once you get there try and sprinkle as much as you can around the edges. Don"t throw it in the middle, the edges are key."
Hazlebub nodded her head, took the potion and moved far more quickly than she normally did to the circle, at one point dodging to the side as one the ghouls, it"s arm chopped off from a blow, staggered past her and collapsed in the corner.
"Watch out," screamed Ariana at the near miss.
"Ariana," said Sutekha and reached down and held the girl by the arm. She immediately tried to pull away, "I"m trying to help. I don"t want Seymour to have the staff," and at that she stopped struggling. "Look," he said and pointed to where Shamki and Oliver slowly gave way to the ghouls, "Shamki was wounded, he"s been paralyzed by the things. He needs a curative and that"s not my magic. After Hazlebub finishes pouring that potion out you tell her he needs her help, okay?"
Ariana nodded her head and smiled. "Okay."
With that Sutekha began to murmur slow words, sprinkle some powder from the second vial into his hands, and then began to gently rub them together. His words began to build in power as he rubbed his hands faster and faster.
Hazlebub approached the portal, knelt down, and poured some of the liquid out not even paying much attention as another of the hideous ghoul things came out. It was a ma.s.sive version of the species with a strange, squarely misshapen head in which three eyes seemed to loll about. It stood directly over the witch woman for a moment before the screaming sound of an ally caught its attention and it charged off towards the battle. The witch crawled across the floor and sprinkled the liquid evenly and carefully from the lip of the bottle to the floor. When she reached the other side of the portal she held it up and let some pour out and trickle down the side of the thing. So focused on her task was she that Ariana had to pull her sleeve to catch her attention.
"What," said Hazlebub with a look at the girl and a shake of her head, "what are you doing here?"
"It"s Shamki," shouted Ariana over the sounds of battle and the now screaming voice of Sutekha whose words actually seemed to have weight as they floated off his tongue and towards the portal.
Hazlebub looked over at the half-orc who leaned against one of the sarcophagi with the left side of his body drooping but still slashing away with his sword although his arm moved more slowly.
"Sutekha says he"s paraplyzed," shouted the girl her eyes wide. "He says you have a c.u.mulative."
Hazlebub looked at the girl a puzzled expression on her face for a moment and she scratched her ear and then suddenly she smiled and patted Ariana on the head. "Paralyzed, curative, yes. Here," she said and rummaged around in her sack just as the words of the Golden Worm Wizard reached a terrible crescendo. "Take this to him, rub it in his wounds!"
At that moment a terrible creature appeared in the portal, its body leaned forward to get at the girl and the witch. It stood at least ten feet tall and had to duck just to get through the portal. Its body was immensely fat with huge rolls of blubber that jiggled horribly as it raised a ma.s.sive stone club out towards the pair. Its eyes were equally large and leaked blood while its free hand ended in five black claws each at least three inches long, which also dripped b.l.o.o.d.y ichor. It smiled at the two as the club came swinging around in an arc towards them as the witch put her arm around Ariana and tried to push her back and out of the way. At that moment the dark purple portal suddenly vanished and along with it the back half of the thing"s body.
Both the girl and the woman stared up at the creature when the portal closed and it fell forward its eyes instantly glazed over and unseeing. Out of the back of its body a deluge of black ichor, a partial spinal column, several unidentifiable organs, and apparently a good dozen yards of intestines spilled directly on them with a hideous splash.
The weight of the blast pushed them onto the floor and the sheer volume of the liquid rushed them across it like fish swimming downstream. They cannoned into Seymour who had taken a more circuitous route the Staff of Naught while avoiding several of the undead minions of the Queen of the Abyss and sent the priest of Ras flying off his feet and into the vast lake of filth.
Hazlebub was the first to recover, she grabbed Ariana, tossed something unmentionable off the top of her head, "You didn"t open that bottle yet, did you?" she asked and looked to the little vial that the girl still clutched in her hand.
Ariana, with a rather dazed expression on her face, shook her head and tried to rub some of the thick ichor out of her eyes.
"Good," said Hazlebub, the first whiff of what was certainly a horrific odor came to her nose. "Get over there and help Shamki."
The girl leapt to her feet that skated for a few moments beneath her but then regained her balance and dashed across the room to where the fighters stood. They and the ghoulish creatures, gazed at the flood that emerged from the creature chopped in half by the closed portal and the room seemed to go suddenly silent. The lull afforded Ariana the opportunity to dash between the legs of one of the creatures and arrive next to Shamki where she immediately uncorked her bottle and began to spread its contents on a long slash on his arm.
Seymour looked at his beautiful robes now soaked through with bile and immediately threw up.
Two of the ghoulish creatures attempted to attack Ariana as she applied the poultice and Shamki tried to lift his sword but proved unable to offer further resistance. It was only Oliver, who exposed his left side to the remaining ghouls, slashed at one of the creatures, cut off the arm descending towards Ariana, and then with a following motion put his blade deeply into the second"s chest.
The ghouls to his right struck home with three or four slashes the long fangs dug deeply into the paladin"s flesh and a third creature bit him deeply in a gap of his armor just above his waist that was exposed because of the long lunge to his right. Oliver"s eyes opened widely his face only inches from Ariana and his fanged face suddenly broke the seemingly unbreakable stoic expression in a terrible snarl that seemed to emerge from his very core. Ariana felt her entire body freeze in absolutely paralyzing fear but Oliver turned with amazing swiftness and his backhanded blow decapitated two of his foes while his free left hand grabbed the neck of the third and last. The creature was a good seven feet tall and its arms thick ropes of exposed muscles. Oliver lifted the thing clean off the ground by the neck, took two ma.s.sive strides to the closest wall of the crypt, and smashed the back of its head against the stone.
"Ahhhhhhhhhaaa," screamed the Paladin as the sound of a crunched skull sounded throughout the chamber. Oliver then threw the creature onto the ground and raised his thick leather boot high before he brought it down on the thing"s face with a horrible smash. The paladin repeated this maneuver three times more, each time his boot came back with pieces of bone and brain until its head resembled a smashed gourd.
After this the paladin took a dazed step backward, his movements became shaky and uneven and then sat down on the ground with a thump. Ariana rushed over to him, her eyes somehow able to tear themselves away from the smashed head and she began to apply some of the potion to his many wounds.
Seymour continued to retch in the corner and Hazlebub, more used to vile smells but still fighting against it, scooped up the staff, and staggered over to Ariana and handed it to her.
Sutekha came over to the witch, the girl, and the paladin, whose movements continued to slow, and pulled a small rag out from one of his many pockets and began to dab ineffectively at the goo covered witch, "Sorry about that, Hazlebub," he said. "I didn"t get it closed quite in time."
Hazlebub looked up at the wizard and tried to keep from giggling as he wiped something black and rather ropy out of her hair, and smiled at him. "The nick of time is my way of seeing it, and call me Hazle."
Ariana felt a long strand of something in her hair, reached up to pull it out, brought it to her eyes, and immediately retched and threw up her breakfast in a heave that splashed a good quarter of the way across the room and even managed to throw a few drops on Hazlebub but completely missed Sutekha. The girl looked up at the witch her eyes wide and her mouth dangled open, "Blaaache, sorry Hazle."
"That"s quite all right, completely an appropriate reaction," said the witch, her face now positively beaming and she started to laugh. Soon Ariana joined in as did Sutekha, Shamki, who Humbort tended to, and even Oliver"s stomach began to shake a little although his face seemed frozen and unable to move. Only Seymour did not join in but looked at Ariana with the staff, the witch, and Sutekha who stood next to her, and most particularly at Oliver who appeared incapable of offering any support.
Chapter 32.
"Look!" shouted Shalalee as a shadow form appeared at the mouth of the stairwell that led down into the strange crypt. The shadow became a head and then a filthy face and the girl staggered back, "Daddy!"
The thing raised a hand and waved, "It"s us," and tried to wipe some of the sticky black ichor from its face, only partially succeeded, but revealed the gap-tooth grin of Ariana.
Lousa ran forward, "Ara!" and started to put her arms around the girl but the sudden stench that emanated from her forced the elf-blooded woman to stagger back with a shake of her head, and a sudden urge to vomit almost overwhelmed her. "Oh," she said and covered her mouth with her hand. "What happened to you?"
"Gross," said Unerus, looked at his little sister, and laughed but he stopped immediately when the others began to pile out as well. Humbort came out next and held up Shamki whose arm was thrown over the shoulder of the gangly man. Next up were Hazlebub and Sutekha as they half carried the paladin Oliver whose feet shuffled along over the ground. Last came Seymour, his fine robes drenched in the vile stuff, he had somehow managed to clean some of his hair although the expression of disgust on his face was more than obvious.
"Oh my darling," said Almara and rushed towards Ariana but also staggered a step backwards when she got close enough to smell the girl. "What happened? Shalalee," she said and turned to her daughter and son, "Tylan, get buckets and bring back water from the creek."
The two children stared at the bedraggled Ariana for a moment and Unerus laughed out loud, "It"s going to take more than a bucket!"
"The boy might have a point," said Lousa and held her nose. "Why don"t you take Ariana and Hazle down to the creek?"
"I might like to accompany them," said Sutekha and held up the bottom half of his jerkin. "I"m afraid I was a secondary casualty. If you wouldn"t mind my company?"
Hazle smiled at the man and, after they gently set Oliver on the ground, hooked her arm under his and the two followed Ariana and the children to the promised creek.
Seymour started to speak as he watched them walk off, the little girl still clutching the Staff of Naught, but a quick glance at Tanner and Lousa seemed to give him second thoughts and he shut his mouth without a word.
"Humbort," said Lousa and walked over to where he and Shamki sat on the gra.s.s. "What on earth happened down there? How did you get the staff back? Shamki, are you all right?" the last was said as she put her hand on his cheek, "You look terrible. Here, lie down, I"ll get some wet cloth."
"Ara found the staff and then we had a big fight!" said Humbort, a large smile on his face.
"Shamki?" questioned Lousa with a look at the big half-orc whose eyes seemed slightly glazed and whose breath was somewhat labored.
"About right," said Shamki with a nod to his friend.
Lousa looked at Seymour who sat on the ground and looked at his bedraggled robe with a disgusted expression on his face. "Why don"t you join the others down at the creek and get cleaned up?"
Seymour looked at the woman with a sneer and again seemed ready to say something but then slowly stood up and began to walk in the same direction as the others.
Almara emerged from the back of the wagon carrying a huge armful of rags, a washboard, several bars of soap, and immediately walked briskly towards the creek.
Tanner looked at Lousa and shook his head. "You were saying that you shouldn"t have stayed behind but should have gone with them?"
"I may have to rethink that," said the woman, her green eyes the shade of emeralds again as she gently stroked Shamki"s dark hair and smiled down at him. "Humbort, is it possible you could go into more detail about what happened?"
"But don"t elaborate too much," said Tanner.