Act1Act2Act3Act4Act5Epilogue
The Den of Evil
Blood Raven
The Rescue of Cain
The Countess
The Horadric Malus
Andarial		 Radament's Lair
The Horadric Staff
The Claw Viper Curse
The Arcane Sanctuary
The Summoner
The Tomb of Tal Rasha		 The Jade Figurine
The Ghidbinn
The Pieces of Khalim's Will
Lam Esen's Tome
The Kurast Council
The Durance of Hate		 The Fallen Angel
The Hellforge
Diablo's Sanctuary		 The Siege
A Rescue of Friends
Put on Ice
The Betrayor
The Ancients
Final Destruction		 Act 1, Nightmare
Act 2, Nightmare
Act 3, Nightmare
Act 4, Nightmare
Act 5, Nightmare
Hell


Tyrael appeared in Heaven. The souls of the goodly humans stared momentarily, before continuing with their assigned tasks. The fight against Hell and the forces of evil was never ending, and required much work. Even the dead could not rest and bask in paradise.

He strode through the shining streets of gold and marble, until at last he found the building he wished. From the outside, it appeared to be a rather non-descript library, the architecture a sort of neo-classical Greek. Tyrael strode up the steps, furling his wings in as he stepped through the open doorway. He stopped to look around the shelves of books and scrolls, then headed for the back of the library.

He found Hadriel where he expected, sorting through tomes of demonic lore and tales of human magic. As the lesser angel looked up, Tyrael grabbed him by the collar and lifted him off his feet. Hadriel looked down at him almost with pity, and fluttered his wings briefly. "That's not very effective, you know."

Tyrael scowled, and tossed him down again. "I'm angry. What the hell happened to my plans? I had everything set up for a single hero to show up at the Rogue camp, drive out Andariel and catch Diablo before he reached Baal's tomb. Instead, I get that group of … of …"

Hadriel chuckled, leaning back in his chair and putting sandaled feet on the table. "Miscreants? Misfits? Oddballs? Rejects? Well, sorry to disappoint you, but Belial found out about your little hero first. That's what happened to him." Hadriel pointed at the table, and an illusion sprang into being. The warrior was there, hanging from a gibbet, every bone in his arms and legs broken. "I won't tell you all that they did to him, and I had to put together something really fast."

Tyrael scowled, his hand sweeping away the illusion. "So you grabbed whatever came to hand?"

The other angel scoffed. "Hardly. I drew up a table and rolled a die." As Tyrael's scowl deepened, he relented. "No, I looked around the world to see who was available. Despite their appearance, their skills complement them very well. And the fact that Belial was actively campaigning to destroy them helped as well."

Tyrael rocked back in surprise. "The Lord of Lies recognized them as a threat?"

Hadriel threw up his hands. "Gabriel has been working non-stop to make sure the forces of Hell don't get any reinforcements, either. They're on their own, but they seem to be more than capable of stopping Diablo and Baal."

Tyrael nodded. "Interesting …" He stepped forward, and put a hand on Hadriel's shoulder. "Sorry. I was just shocked to see such a misbegotten group walking into Tal Rasha's tomb."

Hadriel snickered. "Anytime, Tyrael." The senior angel quietly left the library, headed out into Heaven to continue his research into Diablo's plans.



The boat pulled up on the dock at Kurast, and the seven heroes quickly piled off. Jezebel fell to her knees and kissed the salty wood. "Please, dear angels in Heaven, never again put me out on the ocean!"

Garou laughed as Dogmeat flopped down beside the sorceress, whining and licking her face as she tried to squirm away. "I know he agrees with you," the druid joked as she tried to fend off the mutt.

Their banter stopped as a man approached. Though his clothing seemed rather well-worn, he carried himself with an aura that spoke of authority. He looked at them for a moment, then scowled. "Well?" he asked.

The group exchanged several confused glances. "Well what?" Rupert asked.

"Well, aren't you going to start unloading the boat now? You are the laborers, correct?" He looked down his nose at them.

Erris surged forward, but Tharos and Oksana were ready for her, grabbing her arms. "Let me at him, dangit! After being trapped on that rickety pile of driftwood, I'm ready for a fight!"

Rupert turned back to the man with a frown. "I don't know who you are, but we're not laborers. We're here with Deckard Cain to track down Diablo."

The man rocked back on his heels, and examined them all again. "My name is Hratli, and I am in charge of these docks, all that is left of glorious Kurast. I am afraid that even if we recover your bodies, we have nothing but a watery burial to offer you."

They once again had to hold Erris back, fuming. Rupert shrugged and tried to smile. "Don't worry about it. After facing down Andariel and Duriel, I think we stand a chance."

Hratli smiled a very thin smile. "If you say so. Well, if you need any equipment, my forge is on one of the more stable areas of the docks. Feel free to ask any of the other merchants around the docks as well." He turned away, and walked away across the creaking, salt-encrusted boards into the fog.

Oksana finally let go of Erris' arm. "Please, don't go picking any fights until we're out into the jungle after Diablo, alright? You'll have plenty of demons to slay, I'm sure." The amazon scowled and huffed, but they all followed Cain as he departed the ship and started his way through the docks.

The main area of the docks looked to be a former stepped temple, sunken into the water. A tall figure rose out of the fog to confront them, dressed in red and black robes. They were held together with an elegant gold pin, and a staff at first hid his face from view. But he approached Rupert, and took him carefully by the arm. "Captain," he said in a flat, emotionless voice, "I must have a word with you."

Rupert looked up at him oddly. "What? I'm no captain."

Oksana stepped up and reached for his pointed ears. "Are those real?"

But the figure carefully moved out of her reach, and looked back at Rupert. "Don't worry Captain, we can talk again later." He moved back into the fog, and they heard him say "Highly illogical," as he vanished into the thick cover.

Tharos glanced at Garou. "Well?"

The druid shrugged. "Don't ask me. Doesn't strike me as unusual."

Oksana looked at him oddly. "He had pointed ears. And he talked oddly. You don't find that unusual?"

He shrugged again. "I've met worse, you know."

Erris growled at all of them. "Can we get on with it? I want to kill lots of demons to make me forget the month we just spent on the boat!"

Tharos chuckled dryly as they fumbled through the thick fog.



They emerged off the docks onto the marshy ground of the jungle not too far away. "You sure this is the right way?" Oksana asked.

Erris grinned darkly as she put an arrow to her bow. "This is fine. We can talk to the other merchants when I've had a chance to calm down and kill a few things first."

Ron Bars pointed ahead through the foggy day, and they rushed forward, weapons at the ready. Ahead of them in the gloom walked a cloaked figure, shrouded in darkness. Rupert called at the man to stop, and he hesitated only momentarily. With a wave of his hand, the figure vanished, and sickly lights sparkled through the fog like a collection of will-o'-the-wisps. But when the lights touched the marshy grass, they burst.

Demon worms sprang from the lights with a snarl, fanged mouths open and gaping for food. The worms were hardly a challenge to the heroes, but the distraction had cost them. The strange figure had vanished into the jungle and the fog.

Oksana looked around warily. "Maybe we should go back now?"

Even Erris didn't complain this time. They slowly backed into the city again, weapons at the ready the entire way.



Once safely behind the spiked barricades, they turned and tried a different walkway. Through the fog they could see the red glow of Hratli's forge, but Oksana let out a squeal and dashed away in another direction. "Natalya!"

The woman in question turned, her cape flaring, and gasped in surprise. They embraced each other fiercely, before Natalya pushed her away. "What are you doing here, girl? I thought they kicked you out just before I finished training."

Oksana grinned. "They did. I ended up near the Sisterhood of the Sightless Eye, helped my friends here fight off Andariel, faced down Duriel, and came here looking for Diablo and Baal."

"Baal? You mean Tal Rasha has escaped his tomb?" She drew in a long and nervous breath. "Aw, crap. I hope my next carrier pigeon gets through."

Rupert blinked as he heard that, walking up behind Oksana. "Carrier pigeon?"

Natalya seemed to choose her words carefully. "Yes, I'm here as a scout, to determine whether or not we should hire an army to put down the madness that engulfed the Council. It will likely take a great deal of effort, but Cain has said a few things that might help us."

Jezebel shook her head, slightly confused. "We leave for five minutes, and the whole town converses about everything behind our backs."

The elder assassin patted her consolingly. "Don't worry about it too much. If the lot of you actually faced down Andariel and Duriel, you certainly have my wishes for good luck in tracking down Diablo and Baal. The jungle has overtaken half the city in the last few years, but if you head southeast, you should be able to find something pointing you towards the capital."

"Well, thanks for the advice," Tharos said hurriedly. "We'd best talk with Cain ourselves, and head back out there." He led the group away, Oksana glaring harshly at him.

Garou spoke up first, however. "You want to find out what Cain told her about defeating Diablo and Baal?"

He nodded. "Not to mention, if the whole city has gone crazy, then Mephisto must be involved as well. Tyrael said this was where the soulstone was left for safe-keeping."

Oksana fumed slightly less as they walked back across the rickety docks to where Cain stood. "So, what do we need to do?" Rupert asked.

The old sage regarded them carefully. "This is not going to be easy. If the three brothers are together here, and they likely are, then this battle will be like nothing you have ever encountered before."

They stood there and gave Cain condescending looks until he relented. "From what the townsfolk have said, one of the Council members did not fall under the reign of madness that engulfed the city. But Khalim was butchered by the others, and his body scattered around the city. Some of it is undoubtedly in the jungle that has overtaken the city so quickly."

Erris looked skeptical. "You want us to find the pieces of this dead guy?"

He nodded. "I believe that the angels have prevented the body parts from decaying. If you can find me the pieces of his body, I might be able to use the cube you found to recombine them into a weapon, that will show you where Mephisto's lair is."

Jezebel shivered. "Sounds creepy." Cain just gave her a sardonic smile. With a sigh, she hefted her staff, and turned back towards the entrance to the jungle. "Well, let's be off then. I hate this place already."

The others followed her, Rupert favoring his now-bruised shin.



They journeyed back into the forest, through the rapidly crumbling buildings past the edge of the docks. The land was wet and marshy, and their boots were quickly saturated with water. The fog did not lift at all, so they moved almost in their own little world. The trees and vines grew so dense in some places to be harder and thicker than a castle's stone walls.

They wandered almost aimlessly through the jungle for hours, fighting the midget-like Slayers that abounded. Occasionally, giant mosquitoes would zoom out of the fog as well, only to be felled by an arrow or a vicious axe swipe. Finally, as their progress was once again halted by a wall of trees, Erris screamed in frustration and outrage.

"What in the blazing hells is wrong with this place? There's less direction around here than there was in the rogue catacombs!" She paced as she ranted, finally kicking one of the trees.

The tree came alive under her foot, twisting around to regard her with beady, glowing eyes. Ron Bars roared, rushing in to protect her from a descending branch, and buried his axe deep into the tree. But the axe then stuck in place, held tightly by the sap.

Other trees started to move as well, breaking up the wall, as the behemoths turned to regard the insignificant humans that had interrupted their slumber. The heroes quickly retreated to form a circle, Dogmeat whining in the center. "Anything you can do, Garou? I mean, you're the druid here." Rupert looked at him hopefully.

The druid chuckled sardonically. "Yeah, aim for the eyes. That's about their only weak spot."

"Those eyes are ten feet above my head, in case you hadn't noticed." Rupert looked up as the moving trees slowly surrounded them.

Erris shrugged, aiming and firing an arrow. With a soft, whooshing sound, one of the trees collapsed, turning to ash as they watched. "Wow," she commented, fitting another arrow to the string.

But the trees moved faster then, one of them swinging a massive, barbed branch at the group. They all ducked, except Ron Bars. Instead, the barbarian swung his axe at the branch, and again the blade buried itself deeply. But the momentum from the branch smashed into him, picking him up and throwing him at another tree. They batted him around the group, before letting him drop at Jezebel's feet, battered and covered in lacerations from the barbed branches.

Erris fired two more arrows, but the last three trees had them hemmed in. Almost as one, they all lifted massive branches, poised to bring them crashing down and squash the intruders. But Oksana flicked her wrist three times, very quickly, sending inferno traps high into the branches. The traps deployed right away, setting the trees alight, even in the damp, foggy air. As the trees stumbled about, trying to put themselves out, Erris managed to pick them off quickly.

The group carefully picked themselves up, and prepared to continue their exploration. But as they started, Jezebel tripped over something, falling with a splat to the saturated grass. As Garou helped her up, he also picked up the small figurine she had tripped over. "Well, look at this little thing," he said as he held it aloft.

The green jade sparkled in the faint light, carved into the shape of some bird, wings outstretched. Jezebel ran a hand along one wing, admiring it. "What should we do with it?"

"Well, Meshif has quite a little collection of similar statuettes in his cabin." At her questioning glance, he chuckled and blushed. "I noticed them while we were drinking one night."

With a humph, Jezebel turned to follow the rest of the group deeper into the jungle.



Night didn't really fall, but rather snuck up on the party. In the thick, warm fog that blanketed the jungle, the light seemed to simply slowly leech away, until the group could hardly see their own feet, let along the trees of the jungle. Rupert cautiously called the group together.

Erris wearily rubbed a hand across her sweaty forehead. "Now what? It's darker here than a moonless night in the bottom of a cave." She stopped, swearing, as she swatted a mosquito.

Jezebel conjured a ball of magelight to the end of her staff, but it did little to dispel the gloom. Tharos gasped, however, pointing at the ground not far away. "Look at all those webs!"

They moved forward slowly, as Rupert and Ron Bars lit torches to help guide their way again. Garou knelt by the webs, carefully examining them. "These must be big spiders," he said, using a small stick to lift up the thick, gooey strand. Oksana shivered, and carefully tossed two sentries forward into the dark.

But the expected blast of fire did not come, and Rupert led the party forward again. The webs grew thicker, almost blanketing the ground. Some were covered in dead leaves, and in a few places they could see the gnawed skeletons of whatever poor souls had been trapped when the jungle engulfed the city.

Then one of the inferno traps suddenly fired, the gout of flame incinerating webs and the horse-sized spider that had crawled out an almost invisible hole. With a piercing keen, the arachnid collapsed, legs burned clean away and internal fluids bubbling under the assault. Erris put an arrow through the spider for good measure, splattering the charred webs with fetid entrails.

Even Ron Bars looked disgusted at the sight, and Dogmeat whined in protest, shaking his head and sneezing. Jezebel looked disparingly at the hole, then turned to Rupert. "Please tell me we are not going down there." The paladin said nothing, and she turned back with a curse.

Tharos waved his wand forward, and his sole skeleton clattered forward. Taking the torch from Rupert, the bony minion stepped forward into the hole, climbing down the rather steep ramp to the bottom. As the skeleton moved forward into the burrow, Tharos closed his eyes to better concentrate.

Two spiders arose out of the darkness, clacking their mandibles. As its master directed, the skeleton carefully set down the torch, and fire sprang up around its hands. One spider moved forward, only to be met with a blazing throw from the skeleton. Frantic, painful keening echoed out to the heroes, and Tharos opened his eyes. "Well, they know we're up here."

Ron Bars hefted his axes, and with a war cry, charged down into the burrow. The skeleton was being torn apart, even as it melted chitinous armor. But the first group of spiders fell with surprising ease. Oksana wiped away some green residue, and shuddered. "Did I mention I hate bugs?" She shook her hand, trying to rid it of the filth.

Elsewhere in the burrow, they could hear others awakening to the threat in their midst. Erris turned and asked, "Well? Can you raise another skeleton?"

He raises his eyebrows, and pointed at the pile of dead spiders. "Out of what? No bones, no skeletons. If those damn pigmies in the jungle weren't so damn small, this would have been easier." Tharos changed his grip on his wand, and lowered it offensively, launching a half dozen bony teeth at the first skeleton that appeared.

Oksana pushed them forward. "This spot is too open, we need to find a better spot!" Indeed, the ramp had opened into a very open area, with almost a dozen tunnels branching away into the darkness. They ran forth, even as spiders seemed to burst out of the very walls.

The burrow was nothing but a giant maze, and the supply of monsters seemed endless. Garou rubbed at a spot on his muzzle where a swooping bat had hit him with electrified claws. But finally, they reached a dead end, and turned to confront the other monsters following them.



As the light shone forth, it illuminated barely a half dozen spiders, most showing small wounds. In surprise, the heroes paused, and the monsters skittered forth to attack. But a simple fireball cast the arachnids back, burning away legs and armor, and the quick volley of teeth and arrows finished off the last ones.

Garou snorted as he reverted to human form, cautiously rubbing the burned spot on his cheek. "Well, that was a tad surprising." Oksana chuckled at him, and again took the lead to try and explore the burrow in a more seemly manner. They carefully checked all the tunnels, and finally ended up facing a small chest, festooned in webs and coated with soil.

Erris looked down at it. "Well, let's see what's inside." Setting aside her bow, she knelt down to pop the latch. But as the webs around it broke, a sudden skittering made them all look up.

A giant spider, easily the size of a bear, appeared at the edge of their circle. The torchlight highlighted purple and orange swirls in the spider's exoskeleton, and the multiple eyes stared at them blankly. But even as the group hefted their weapons, the beast skittered forward, charging straight into Rupert and blasting him back against a wall. Erris desperately dove away as the spider went right over the chest.

A lightning bolt ricocheted from its armor, and it caught one axe in its mandibles. But the beast was outnumbered, as a hail of teeth knocked chips from its shell, and werewolf strength tore away one leg, then a second. Oksana carefully ducked under the captured axe, and forced a firebomb up into the spider's mandibles, and the beast swallowed by reflex. With a muffled boom, the shell was instantly covered in a network of cracks, liquefied organs oozing out of the edges.

After looking at the dead beast, Tharos stumbled away and puked. Dogmeat licked his face as he recovered, and the heroes again circled around the chest. This time, though, Jezebel flipped open the lid with her staff, miraculously not striking anyone in the process.

Ron Bars held up a torch and pulled out the contents - a small pouch full of gold, and a surprisingly preserved liver. As the barbarian moved to take a bite out of it, Erris grabbed his arm. "Don't eat that, you uncultured fool! That must be one of Khalim's body parts that Cain sent us to find!"

He slowly lowered it, then sniffed it. With a shrug, he tossed it at Erris, who almost dropped it. "Smell good," he boomed, slightly uphappily. Jezebel shook her head sadly as she intoned the scroll, opening the now-familiar swirling blue portal.



Back in town, Cain's eyes did indeed light up at the sight of the liver. "Yes, Khalim's liver! This is an excellent start." The sage promptly opened up the cube, and dumped it inside.

"What the heck do we need his liver for?" Erris asked, dubiously.

"Because the liver is important for screening out poisons in the body. Metaphysically, it will help the weapon to screen out the poison that Mephisto has spread through Kurast." He smiled smugly, and she promptly ignored him.

They trooped across the docks toward Meshif's ship, and woke him up. Garou held up the jade figurine. "We found this on a homicidal tree in the jungle," the druid explained. "I know you collect stuff like this, so I figure we can make a trade."

The ship captain examined the figurine carefully, then nodded. "Sure thing. Say, what about that golden bird I have? It doesn't really fit in with anything else I own." As the others nodded happily, he ducked back into his cabin, returning with it. "Hope you find something better than melting it down, though."

Jezebel waved jauntily as they left the boat. "Don't worry about it, Meshif!" He merely grumbled in response and went back to his bunk.

They showed the golden bird to Cain. "Well, I once heard a story about the sage named Ku'Leh having his ashes put into a golden bird statue. Maybe you should show it to the alchemist, Alkor."

They asked him for directions, and set off across the docks. Everyone except Rupert, however, for he had drifted over to where Ormus stood. With a raised eyebrow, Ormus acknowledged him. "I did wonder when you would stop by to talk with me, captain."

"Why do you keep calling me captain? And what did you want to talk about?" Rupert felt slightly frustrated already.

Ormus led him over to a small pedestal, or possibly an altar. The stone was covered in a number of magical symbols, some carved into it, and others seeming to float on the surface. "As you can see, captain, the strength of the shields is rapidly failing around the docks. Unless we find a new power source, they will fail in approximately ten days."

Rupert blinked in confusion a few times, staring at the stone. "The spell holding the jungle at bay, you mean? Well, what am I supposed to do about it?"

Ormus' face never changed. "The locals have talked of a device called the Ghidbinn. If the reports are correct, Hratli and I could modify the shields to use the power embodied in the device. But the Ghidbinn was lost when the city was overrun."

Rupert kept staring at the stone. The sigils had an almost hypnotic effect. "So you want me to find this Ghidbinn, and bring it here to you?"

"Yes, captain. With a new power source, the city will be able to hold out for at least another year. Even if you fail at your attempt at infiltrating the enemy stronghold, the non-combatants here will be safe until reinforcements can arrive from Starfleet."

Rupert turned away from the stone. "From where? Never mind, I don't think I want to know." He shook his head irritably. "Fine, I'll try to find this Ghidbinn while we're out in the jungle."



The others approached Alkor's shack. Despite the rickety appearance, light speared out from the shack, and the beaded curtain kept them from seeing the inside. Oksana stepped up and pushed it aside, then gasped in wonder.

They stepped in, marveling at the shelves inside, carrying any number of mundane goods and foods the normal population was bound to need. Behind a counter was a strange machine, turning two different colored liquids. Then Alkor popped up from behind the counter. "'allo! Welcome to Quik-E-Mart! All slurpees today half price." He stood behind the counter beaming at them.

With very confused glances, Garou advanced upon the counter and placed the golden bird atop it. "Cain said something about this statue and a sage named Ku'Leh?"

Alkor's eyes widened, and he picked up the bird. Turning it upside down, he pulled out the cork on the bottom. "Yes indeedi, this has the ashes of Ku'Leh! Hold on while I am making for you a special slurpee!"

He pulled the lid off of the strange machine, and dumped the ashes into one side. Puttering around behind the counter, he added a few other things, then replaced the lid and sat back to wait. Within a few minutes, the liquid had changed color from red to a rich, royal purple, and he jumped up again.

Pulling out seven small, paper cups (as Rupert had entered the shack by then), he emptied that side of the machine into the cups, put a straw in each one, and passed them out to the heroes. Ron Bars looked at the straw, then promptly downed the entire cup in a single swallow. "Good drink!" He boomed heartily, then whimpered and grabbed the back of his neck. "Cold," he boomed, though quieter, and coughed through the constricted throat.

The others finished more slowly, and with smaller effects than the poor barbarian. As they headed out the beaded curtain, Alkor called after them, "Quik-E-Mart, always open! Prices best in Kurast!"

Garou led them across the weathered docks toward the largest building around, where they seemed likely to find some room to sleep. "Well, that was interesting," he said.

Jezebel smiled at him. "Problem?"

The druid creased his eyebrows. "Nothing really, I just didn't think artificial grape flavoring had been invented yet."



They stepped into the large building. It looked like a former warehouse, before everyone had moved in. Iron Wolf mercenaries sat around, sharpening swords, practicing magic, or napping. Their leader, Asheara, sat on a stool, arguing with some of her men. As they approached, all of the men dropped their jaws, and Oksana whistled. Asheara was wearing barely enough to cover her decently, and all of her attire was made of burnished copper armor.

She looked over her shoulder at the whistle, and glared at the group. Finishing her conversation abruptly, she turned to look them over. "You must be those heroes everyone has been talking about. I'm Asheara, and these are my Iron Wolves. What the hell do you want?" She cautiously fingered the sword that hung from her waist.

Oksana started to speak, but Tharos and Rupert both clapped hands over her mouth. Jezebel stepped to the front of the group, and greeted her by conjuring a globe of magelight. Asheara chuckled and nodded. "At least one of you is worth something. What do you need from me? I can't spare anyone, if that's what you wanted."

Jezebel shook her head. "No, just looking for a place to sleep for the night, and this looked like the best place around."

"That's not a problem. Look around, find a comfortable spot of floor. I'd offer the upper story, but it's packed with the last of the goods that were in here." She waved a hand in dismissal, and walked away to a different part of the building.

Garou shrugged and peered around. "Well, that didn't go too badly." Several of the Iron Wolves had sized them up, and returned to their activities. He pointed to the rear of the long building. "Let's try to find someplace for the night."

Despite the chatter of several dozen mercenaries and the roughness of the conditions, they slept remarkably well. As the sun arose, brightening the everpresent fog, they took weapons in hand and stepped back through the portal, into the jungle.



They quickly made their way out of the spider burrow, back into the muggy fog and blurred outlines of the jungle. With determined resignation, they continued into the jungle, forcing their way east. As the sun rose higher into the sky, they again began encountering the violent, midget natives.

As Ron Bars and Garou strove to keep the little bastards down, Tharos tapped Erris on the shoulder. "See those two standing together?" He pointed at them, one wearing a garishly ugly mask, standing on the other's shoulders.

She frowned, arrow still held at the ready. "Yeah, so what?"

"Kill the one on the bottom." He readied his wand, and she shook her head, aimed, and fired. The fetish dropped heavily, his companion landing on top of him with an angry shout. A moment later, the corpse exploded, spattering everyone with blood and flesh.

"Impressive," Erris admitted, plucking a bone shard out of her chain mail. Tharos gave a mock bow, then animated a few midget skeletons together, combining them for height. As the skeletons rose, fire sprang into being around their hands. With the way currently cleared, they again went exploring.

The day wore on into midafternoon, when Tharos stopped the party. In confusion they waited, as his skeletons slowly clattered forward into the fog, vanishing from sight swiftly. "What is it, Tharos?" Oksana asked, wiping blood from her cestus.

In response, they heard the echo of several fire blasts. "Zombies," he muttered, "animated drowned zombies. Unfortunately resistant to fire." They headed forth, now warned of what lay ahead.

They came upon the zombies swiftly, gathered in a circle, pounding away at the skeletons. Indeed, the blasts of fire did not do much but raise clouds of steam from the walking corpses. Jezebel stepped forward, raised her staff, and blasted them with a massive bolt of lightning.

The charge jumped from one to another, round and round the circle, moving faster and faster as Jezebel motioned with her staff. The water logged zombies were trapped in place by the energy, pulsing and lighting the area with a harsh blue light. Finally, Jezebel stamped the end of her staff into the ground, and the lightning ended with a crack. Almost as one, the zombies wavered and crashed to the ground. Garou clapped his paws together, and Dogmeat barked happily.

Chuckling, Tharos reanimated his skeletons. With sweat pouring off them from the afternoon heat, they stepped into the Great Marsh.



They slogged through the marshy ground, often stopping to try and find firmer ground, tramping across tufts of grass to avoid the knee-deep puddles of leaf-covered mud. But as the fog again began to darken, they stepped onto a sudden area of firm ground. To either side of the tree-walled corridor were numerous carved pillars of stone. "Fetish territory," Oksana muttered.

Indeed, as they continued down the corridor, the pygmy warriors appeared from the trees, firing sharpened darts from cover. But arrow, trap, and spell soon sent them fleeing in retreat. More and more warriors came running out, wielding knives the size of their heads, trying desperately to halt the heroes advance.

But despite the resistance, they soon reached the village that the Fetish were trying to defend. Crude huts, covered in leather skin, housed their women and babes. But the seven showed no mercy, as all the monsters capable of holding a weapon charged at them.

Before long, the scattered remnant of the Flayer tribe were fleeing into the jungle, and the heroes let them run. They started exploring the village, moving around scorched huts and giant cauldrons with human bones still in them. Before long, Ron Bars pointed into the fog. "What that?" he boomed, and they moved to the center of the village to get a closer look.

Out of the fog rose an altar, designed for display, not sacrifice. Strung up with threads of sinew was a remarkable golden dagger. It actually glowed with its own light, and the fog kept back from the altar. "That must be the Ghidbinn!" Rupert said with surprise. In reply to the others' blank looks, he elaborated. "Ormus said he can use it to strengthen the protective spell on the docks."

Rupert stepped forward confidently, reaching for the altar and the dagger. But just before his hand reached it, a pygmy warrior swung down from the trees, snatching the weapon and zipping away on his vine. "Hey! Give that back, you little monster!" Rupert shouted.

The warrior dropped to the ground on the other side of the village, and slowly the surviving Flayer tribe formed up around him. The leader piped something in their strange tongue, and in a mass, they charged. Jezebel threw up a fire wall in their path, but the dagger cleaved a hole right through it.

This battle did not rage for long. The other pygmies dropped quickly, not having any protection from the incredible forces the heroes used. Yet their leader, with the Ghidbinn, fought on. Not until they had him surrounded, attacking from all sides, did he finally fall.

They stared down at the miniature corpse, and one of Tharos' skeletons clattered over, burning away the hand that still held the Ghidbinn. Erris cautiously picked it up, and slipped it into her belt. "Thank the angels these little bastards won't be bothering us anymore. Now what?"

"Jail!" Ron Bars boomed. He led the others to the edge of the village, and pointed at a large metal grate, covering a deep pit in the ground. "Little bastard jail, more liver?" Garou nodded slowly, and the two of them released the locks holding the grate in place.

With a loud clang, it swung down, forming a ladder into the depths. Rupert lit a torch and dropped it to the bottom, where it sputtered on the damp, mossy stone. The skeletons hurled themselves to the bottom as well, reforming as the others climbed down. Tharos sniffed the air and peered around in the gloom. "It's not that bad," he said. Oksana looked at him incredulously. "Well, I'm not saying I'd like to build a summer home here, but the moss is actually quite lovely."

Erris muttered something insulting and took the lead, heading down the sloping passage deeper into the dungeon.



Somewhere several dozen feet below the surface, Rupert cursed and stumbled backwards, wiping blood from his eye. "Damn those skeletons!" he said, holding still as Tharos plucked the bone shard from his forehead. "Why do they have to explode when we hit them?"

"I don't know, but it's not easy to animate skeletons like that." They stopped to look at the grate blocking the end, and waved to Ron Bars and Garou. The two moved to the front of the group, taking careful grips on it. One pulled and one pushed, and the grate popped free of the wall with an agonized screech of metal. They leaned it up against the wall, and they group started forward again. "I hate this maze," Tharos muttered as his skeletons threw fireballs at another batch of exploding fetish skeletons.

Before long, they reached a large room, close to the center of the dungeon. As they stepped out of the corridor, eight pairs of eyes lit up. The painted masks of the Fetish shamans leered at them from the darkness, and all of them lifted their arms at the same time.

The heroes dove back into the corridor, as eight bursts of flame shot towards them, combining into one blazing, white-hot jet. Erris fired arrows back, but the flames turned them to ash. Retreating swiftly in the face of the fire, they missed the turn in the corridor, and ended up against another grate. "We're trapped!" Jezebel screamed in fear.

Garou shrugged in melancholy, and reached for his belt. In surprise, he pulled off a small bottle. "Well, how about that. I've still got some of old Lysander's sacramental wine. What the heck." He upended the bottle, chugging it swiftly. It hit his stomach like a brick of ice, and he turned, coughing out.

His breath whooshed forward, ice crystals forming in the air. To his surprise, it beat down the jets of flame. With the druid forcing the cold air out, they advanced into the weakened flames. The masks revealed nothing of the shaman's surprise, but as a flying axe almost split one in two, they screamed in their peculiar language, redoubling their efforts.

But with the druid's breath keeping the flames down to almost nothing, Erris felled the shamans one after another. The last one retreated, still casting gouts of fire, trying to get them around Garou as the druid did his best to freeze him solid. Finally, the shaman tripped over something, and Ron Bars sprang forward, bringing his remaining axe down with a sickening crunch.

It turned out the shaman had tripped over another chest, nearly identical to the first. They opened it up, and Oksana gasped in surprise, as Rupert turned a beet red. "Well, no wonder he was a most important priest," she said, her eyes wide. "Can I keep it?"

"No."

"But -"

"No. It goes to Cain." Very gingerly, Rupert pulled out Khalim's manhood, and swiftly dropped it into his pack, wiping his hand clean on his pants. "Please tell me the next part is something fairly normal."

Oksana pouted at him, as they trooped through another portal back to town.



Back on the safety of the docks, Rupert carefully handed the next body part out to Cain, who opened the box and had him drop it in. "Don't tell us, we really don't want to know." Rather glum, they trooped around the corner of the sunken temple to where Ormus stood.

Erris pulled the Ghidbinn from her belt and handed it to the pointy-eared man. "Here, we liberated this from a couple of short freaks." He took the dagger silently, and turned to the stone nearby. Silently he placed it above the stone, and the dagger began hovering there, spinning slowly. As Ormus touched several of the glowing sigils, golden and blue sparks began shooting from the dagger, slowly forming into a sphere of light.

With a silent shock wave, magic shot out to the edge of the dock. The ever-present fog on the docks slowly dissipated, and they could see faint sparks outlining the docks, bright blue and muted gold. "Wow," Jezebel whispered. "I've never seen anything like that."

Ormus nodded solemnly to her. "It should hold the evil at bay much more efficiently." He turned away, climbing the top of the stone temple to gaze out into the jungle. In impressed silence, they headed across the docks to Asheara's building for the night.

Inside, she met them. "I felt the wards on the docks improving. You had something to do with that?" As Jezebel nodded smugly, she continued. "Well, now that fewer of the Iron Wolves are needed here on the docksides, I might be able to spare one to help guide you. When I decide who, I'll tell you in the morning."

In better spirits, they again headed for the rear of the warehouse to rest for the night.



As they prepared to leave that morning, Asheara met them at the doorway. "This is Jelani," she said, and he bowed. "He volunteered to go with you and guide you to Travincal." She turned and walked away, and Jelani shrugged. Ice crystals danced in the air around him.

With their local guide now leading the party, they ascended out of the Flayer dungeon and followed Jelani south. "Not all of the city has vanished," he explained, using his sword to hack through the jungle vines. "Travincal, much of the bazaar, and parts of the city around there have been kept clean. Mostly because the corrupted citizens are still there."

As they approached the still-clear part of Lower Kurast, they could hear it for themselves. Occasionally, the wind would carry to them a voice, half-mad with hatred or jealousy. Then before them, the fog cleared slightly, and they could see into the city. A man stood there, hunched over, striking at the ground repeatedly with a rusty halberd.

They stood there for a moment, watching silently as the man ranted nonsensically. Finally, Munin cawed from his perch on a jungle tree, and the man started. He lifted his weapon cautiously, peering around in the gloom. "Who's there?" he rasped out, swinging the halberd back and forth. "Who is it?" Deep scratches covered his face, one of them right over an eye.

Then the man caught sight of them, and screamed in fury. He charged, only to be met by an ice bolt, followed by a swift sword thrust from Jelani. In disgust, the mercenary wiped his sword clean. "Only thing to do. Can't sneak past them, and there's no way around through the jungle."

In silence, they walked past the body into the city, frost on the man's face slowly vanishing in the hot jungle air.



To their relief, the city had fewer humans than expected. Demonic vultures abounded though, and more trees uprooted themselves and attacked the heroes. But Jelani led them straight through, and before long they had reached the bridge to the bazaar. "Once we reach the Bazaar, we should go through the sewers."

Jezebel shuddered at the thought. "Do we have to go through the sewers? Especially in this climate?"

He shrugged. "We think that the corrupted Zakarum took another body part down there. Plus, we can go almost straight to Travincal through the sewers. It'll be a shortcut."

"Why do I feel nervous after hearing that," Erris muttered to herself.

But their luck seemed to hold, as they dashed a short way into the bazaar, and down a set of worn stone steps, and into a small access tunnel to the sewers. Below, in the darkness, they lit torches and magical lights to lead their way.

Unlike the sewers of Lut Gholein, these were open, with stone-lined trenches carrying water and waste out to the rivers. They wandered through the darkness, occasionally fighting against more Flayer skeletons and giant bats. They stopped at one spot to rest, and Oksana sat down next to a pile of garbage. "Even if that other part of Khalim is down here, it'll take us forever to find it at this rate," she grumbled.

As she leaned back, the pile shifted, several pieces toppling into the trench behind her. But one pole shifted, and with a grating noise, the stone beneath them began to move, sliding aside. Everyone leaped to safety, and watched at it revealed another stairway down into the depths. "What the heck," Rupert muttered.



Most of the room was a large, brackish pool. But out on a rock in the center was another small chest, remarkably like the first one. They gathered at the edge of the pool, and one of the skeletons stepped into it, dropping swiftly to the bottom. They followed its slow progress for a few feet, then something slammed into the skeleton, and the magical fires went out.

Almost in perfect unison, everyone stepped back from the edge of the pool. Dogmeat hid behind Ron Bars and whined. "Ok, something is down there, and I'm not swimming across to get that chest until I know what it is," Erris said.

As if to answer her, a giant, reptilian head lifted out of the water, gazing at them for a bare moment before dropping back beneath the surface again. The ripples slowly spread out, and the pool returned to stillness. The heroes waited, ready for a clear shot if the beast should appear again. Then, with a giant splash, a dozen tentacles leaped out of the water, lunging at the heroes.

The tentacles slapped at them from all angles, and right away knocked several of the heroes sprawling. Garou managed to bite off the end of one tentacle, but another one wrapped around the werewolf, hurling him across the room to land with a sickening crunch. Ron Bars swiped desperately with his axes, turning around in circles to keep the tentacles away from him.

Then the tentacles retreated, just as suddenly, back into the water. A half dozen heads popped up, spitting poisonous mucus at them. This time, the heroes attacked better. An arrow vanished up to the feathers in one eye, and twin lightning bolts cast another down, smoking.

The heads vanished under the water, and they rushed around the edge of the pool to where Garou had fallen. His arm was bent back, slivers of bone poking through the skin. "Oh no, his arm is broken," Rupert said. "Hold him down, we need to set it, now, or it'll get worse.

With the three women watching the water's surface, they held Garou down. His arm went back into place with a grating noise, and a hoarse scream before he fell mercifully unconscious. Erris called out as a dark shape went past them under the surface. Oksana muttered, and fell back. "Cover me, I've got an idea."

Tharos stepped up to watch the water, wand at the ready, while the other two guarded the unconscious Garou. In a few minutes, Oksana crawled up to the surface of the water, and dropped in a dozen lightning sentries, all tied together. They stared into the water for a moment, as the traps sunk to the bottom.

With an incredible boom, the whole surface of the underground lake jumped about three feet, showering all of them with the stale water. "What the hell did you do?" Jezebel asked, extending her magelight over the surface. Everything was still, the tentacle beasts sinking to the bottom of the pool.

She grinned. "Put all my firebombs in the middle, tied all the lightning sentries to fire towards the center, and dropped it in. As soon as they tried to shoot those monsters, all of them blew up. So all that magical energy had to go somewhere, and voila - mega firebomb." She crossed her arms, looking smug.

Tharos laughed and kissed her. "Brilliant idea," he said. "Now we just have to get whatever is in the chest." Erris grumbled, but after another few minutes of watching the pool, she stripped off her armor, carefully jumping into the water and swimming out to the small platform in the middle.

She opened it without climbing up, and pulled out something, and swam back swiftly, climbing out and shivering. "That water is freezing. Anyway, here's his tongue." She handed the slimy thing to Rupert, who took it with two fingers. "Let's get poor Garou back to the docks, and see if Ormus can do something about his arm."

In grim silence, Ron Bars and Erris picked him up, carrying him through the portal back to town.

Jelani cast a last nervous glance back at the pool before he left, but all was still.



In town, they rushed Garou around the docks to where Ormus stood. In surprise, the citizens of Kurast started to gather around. "Ormus, you're a healer, aren't you? We need to do something to fix Garou's arm."

Ormus slowly bent over, examining the unconscious druid carefully. "I believe there is something I can do. Follow me," he said, and began walking up the steps of the stone temple behind him. Slightly confused, they followed, doing their best to protect the shattered arm.

Once atop the temple, Ormus stepped into a carved stone circle, and indicated with his staff where they should lay him down. As gently as possible, they set Garou down, Jezebel cushioning his head. Then Ormus tapped the gold pin he wore. "Mr. Scott, beam us directly to sick bay." In a sudden swirl of light, Garou, Jezebel, and Rupert vanished with Ormus.

Erris rushed forward again, examining the stone before stomping on it. "Damn it, what is that freak doing now?" Ron Bars patted her shoulder consolingly, if a little clumsily. They sat down on the edge of the flat roof to wait.

Inside the temple, Rupert and Jezebel looked around in great surprise. They had appeared in a fancifully decorated room, with smooth metal and fine cloth everywhere. A middle aged man walked over and knelt down to take a look at Garou, waving a small metallic device in his hand. "Damn, that's a bad break."

He brought over a stretcher, and helped them move Garou onto it, transferring him to one of the beds. As Jezebel and Rupert watched in silence, metal shields rose up from the sides of the bed to encase him, and the doctor placed a metal cylinder against the side of his neck. "Don't worry, he'll be fine in about half an hour. How's everything going out there, Jim?"

Rupert scowled at him. "My name isn't Jim. Are you going to start calling me captain like he does?" he asked, pointing across the room at Ormus.

"Doctor McCoy, I believe that perhaps we have another mirror situation on our hands," Ormus said in his flat, toneless voice. "Which begs the question of where the real captain has disappeared to."

"Damnit, Spock, I'm a doctor, not a scanning system!" he shot back. "What the heck are we supposed to do?"

"At the moment, wait. This double and his companions have so far been successful in limiting the incursions of the hostile native lifeforms. If they can achieve their goal of defeating the being that controls them, it will make our search simpler."

As Ormus and McCoy argued, Jezebel and Rupert exchanged very confused glances. "Any idea what they're talking about?" she asked.

He shook his head sadly. "Sounds like some drunkard's new language to me," he replied. "I don't have any brothers, so I don't know what they mean by a double, either."

Jezebel did not reply, looking down at the healing Garou. In silence, she brushed a lock of hair away from his face. Rupert said nothing, merely smiled.

A half hour later, McCoy came back, muttering darkly about "green-blooded aliens" and "technobabble," but he pressed some buttons on the bed, and Garou awoke. In great surprise, he looked around. "Where the heck am I?" he asked, staring at the metallic walls rather worriedly.

"Ormus brought you here to fix your broken arm," Jezebel replied, somewhat cheerily. "It took a while, but this doctor worked his magic just fine!"

McCoy groaned from across the room. "Clarke's Law, never fails. Just don't go out there wearing a red shirt!" he half-shouted, as he left sick bay. In considerably more confusion, they followed Ormus silently through several corridors, to be teleported back to the top of the temple.

Back at the top, they rejoined their friends quite happily, and prepared to head back into the sewers and the trek towards Travincal.



Before they could actually reach the portal though, Alkor came across the docks towards them. "My friends! I am hoping you could be helping me with a tiny small problem," he said cheerfully. "Somewhere in Kurast there is a most wonderful tome, that has the recipe for the ultimate slurpee! I am hoping that perhaps you could be finding this for me?"

Rupert thought a moment and shrugged. "Do you know where it is?"

He grinned and nodded. "Yes, I am knowing! There are several old temples, much forgotten, and no doubt have demons living in them now. They are in the Bazaar, and the Causeway. Inside one of these magnificent old temples you will be finding the tome."

He waved cheerfully as the group trooped back through the portal. As soon as they were out of sight, Jelani burst out, "Forget the tome, it's not worth the trouble."

Erris raised an eyebrow at him imperiously. "And why not?"

He snorted. "Going back into the Bazaar is a mistake. There's at least a half dozen of those temples that haven't been buried under the jungle yet. And all of them are packed with demons." With some frustration, he shot an ice bolt into the murky water.

Oksana pushed him towards the stairs back up. "Let's not find out if those monsters survived, alright?" With suddenly worried looks, they dashed up the stairs, and peered about in the darkness. "We should go look for this tome. Killing demons is what we're here for."

Debating it back and forth, they progressed through the sewers, reaching another set of stairs. Jelani read the symbols carved into the stone. "This one goes back up to the Bazaar as well. Are you sure about this?"

Simultaneously, they all said yes and Jelani sighed. They creeped up the stairs, peering out into the noon-day fog. They could hear the mutterings of madmen, echoing through the buildings from somewhere far away. Then suddenly, Munin let out a frightened squawk and fled back down into the sewers.

Ron Bars looked up just in time to see the demonic vulture diving at him. The searching claws barely missed him as he ducked, and the others scattered. It let out a screech of rage, echoed throughout the Bazaar. "Now we've done it!" Jelani shouted, firing numerous ice bolts into the air.

Yet somehow the agile bird dodged all the missiles aimed at it, and others of its kind joined it in the air, swooping in and out of the fog. They hunkered down, still firing spells and arrows at the birds. With a shattering crunch, one of them snatched a skeleton, flinging the minion into a tree, bones flying everywhere.

With the fog so thick, they had no idea of how many birds were actually attacking. Yet everyone swiped as they passed, even Dogmeat tried to leap up and bite one. But the next pass knocked Oksana sprawling, bloody furrows across her shoulder.

Then, suddenly, the birds swooped away. Looking about warily, they all waited for the next attack. Out of the fog shuffled a few humans, their eyes bright with malice and hatred. "Those are the corrupted priests," Jelani called out in warning. Even as he said it, one of them raised a wand and prepared to attack.

But against these opponents, the heroes had no trouble. In a bare second, axe, arrow, spell, and claws had cut their number in half. And while one discharged a lightning bolt, knocking Erris to the ground with sparks flying from her armor, they did not last long.

In the sudden silence, they crouched, waiting for the birds to return. Ron Bars motioned to all the others, a finger pressed against his lips. He closed his eyes in the silence, listening to their echoing shrieks. Then, as the first one dived, he threw his axe.

It spun through the air to land, bloodied, at Erris' feet. The headless body of the bird crashed into a wall a few yards away. Their shrieks now turned to fear, the birds vanished again into the fog. As he collected his axe, Erris smiled at him. "Nice shot."

"Ron Bars great warrior of Shadow Wolf tribe!" he boomed out. Jelani tried to shush him, as they made their way hurriedly through the streets. Before long, he stopped them at a set of large steps. "At the top is the way into the temple. I have no idea if this is where the tome is, but since you're so determined, have at it." With some reluctance, he followed them up the stairs.

In silence, they descended into the temple.



Before Ron Bars had even gotten off the stairs, a group of mad women charged at him, waving spears or even just sharpened poles. The heroes killed them easily, but with much grimmer looks on their faces. With sadness in her eyes, Jezebel asked Garou, "Were we so less concerned when we fought the rogues corrupted by Andarial?"

He grimaced, and pulled a splinter out of one paw. "There is a slight difference. Those Sisters chose to betray their companions. These citizens had no choice in joining Mephisto's ranks." She nodded thoughtfully as they fought their way through another doorway.

Demons and humans driven mad fought side by side, but the heroes pushed their way forward into the main room of the temple regardless. The altar had been despoiled, a rotting human body laying atop it, the ribs broken outward. Near the altar stood a small pedestal, guarded by another group of women.

After another short, bloody fight, the victorious group moved forward. As Rupert whispered a prayer over the poor sacrifice victim, Tharos stepped up to the pedestal. "Well, it's got some kind of book." He blew dust off the cover, rising in a thick heavy cloud. "I can't fully read the name though, there are bloodstains on the cover."

Oksana carefully opened the book, and read the inscription on the first page. "To Lam Esen, from your eternal love, Betty Crocker." They all looked at the book in some confusion for a moment. "Anyone know who either of these people are?"

Shaking his head, Tharos flipped through the large tome carefully. In surprise, he stopped, pointing at an image in the book. "Those look like those drinks Alkor gave us! This must be the tome he was looking for."

Jelani snorted in laughter. "How about that, first one we try. Well, put it away. We should go back through the sewers, it'll get us closer to the causeway."

Erris raised an eyebrow. "The causeway?"

He sighed. "Yeah. A really big, old stone bridge. It's almost underwater at this point, but it's the only way into Travincal. The capital was founded on this tiny island in the middle of a lake, and they only built one bridge."

Moving as quietly as they could, they left the temple and returned to the dark and quiet of the sewers, slowly moving east toward Travincal.



After an incredibly long distance through the sewers, Jelani led them up another stairway. In the twilight fog, they crouched in the pit there, as Garou crept up the stairs to look around. With a quick twitch of fingers, he waved them up, and they silently moved across the open avenue into the shadow of a building.

Jelani looked around for a moment to get his bearings, then led them through the streets. In the growing darkness, they slipped past humans and demons alike, leaving most of them unaware of their passing. But every so often, Oksana would creep to the front of the group, to slay someone who barred their progress. By the time the sun had vanished, they were at the base of the causeway.

Rupert tried to peer out along the length of the enormous stone bridge to the capitol. Out of the darkness rose a giant shape, an enormous ape-like demon, and he held still as it stood there at the top of the steps. After sniffing the air for a moment, it vanished back onto the bridge. "What are those?" he whispered.

Jelani scowled. "Temple guards, some native ape. The corrupt Council members did it." Moving quietly as possible, they slunk up the steps. "If we can get past them without fighting, it might help."

Erris rolled her eyes in irritation, and from up ahead they could hear a group of the apes arguing wordlessly over something. In the dark and fog, they had to crawl forward along one edge of the bridge. After what seemed like an eternity, they reached the halfway point.

To either side swept away stone platforms, the other temples that Jelani had spoken of. As the heroes crept off to one of them, Oksana stayed at the back. With a wink, she disappeared back onto the bridge, even as Rupert and Tharos tried to motion her back. From the other platform, they could hear the guttural shouts of the apes, and hunkered down in the darkness to wait.

After almost a half hour, Oksana came creeping back to the top of the stairs. With the edge of her cestus, she pried loose a stone, and tossed it back onto the bridge with a loud clatter. With shouts and screams of anger, the apes rushed from their spots out onto the bridge towards Kurast. As the last one passed her, Oksana waited a moment, then lobbed two firebombs into the air after them.

Two giant explosions came booming out from the bridge, shaking the whole area. Birds flew from the trees in terror, fleeing deeper into the jungle, and with a great splash, a portion of the bridge collapsed into the water. Tharos stared into the fog. "What did you do?"

"I made two lines of firebombs across the bridge. Once they would have been close, or past it, I made sure they all went off. Now, none of those monsters can follow us into Travincal." She beamed at her idea.

Jelani stared into the fog as well, but in the opposite direction. "Yes, and now all the madmen left in Travincal know we're coming, and we have no way to retreat."

Jezebel chuckled and clapped him on the back, accidentally nailing Rupert in the knee with her staff at the same time. "Don't worry so much. We haven't needed to retreat yet!"

But from out of the darkness of Travincal, they could hear the ravings of the maddened citizens that still dwelt there, enraged from the nighttime disturbance.



They camped on the edge of one platform, keeping watches through the night as they tried to sleep. But in the warm jungle night, the mosquitoes were out in hordes vaster than any demons. Tossing and turning, waking to slap at the biting bugs, they greeted the morning sun tired and haggard.

Rupert gnawed on a piece of cold sausage. "So, where is the temple and the Council members? Don't we have to get something from them?" As everyone gathered around in a circle, he broke off a piece to offer Jelani for breakfast.

The mage muttered a thanks as he chewed. "The temple is almost a straight line from the causeway. But we have to go through most of the city to get there. Bad tactics." With a greasy finger, he drew a square on the stones. "The bridge ends here, and the temple is back here. We should go around the edge of the city," and he traced the border of the square again, "first, so the madmen can't flank us. Then go at the temple."

Rupert furrowed his brow. "A frontal assault? Isn't that usually a bad idea?"

Jelani snorted again. "No choice. Only entrance to the temple is a little door in the front. Normally, ceremonies were held in the open square in front of it. No one went into the temple except the priests and the Council." He rose, wiping greasy fingers on his tunic. The others followed his lead, marching up the bridge towards Travincal.

As they reached the edge of the city, a group of men, armed with irregular weapons, charged down the bridge at them. With great reluctance, they were all killed, but the heroes continued anyway. They traveled the edge of the city, fighting on the raised walkways that defined the edge of the island. In a surprisingly short time, they were back at the bridge.

Straight through the city they went, to stand in front of the temple. On the steps and the balconies were the members of the council, their bodies twisted by Mephisto into a mockery of the human form. One of them raised a hand, magically covered in ice, and shouted in a demonic language.

The monsters swarmed down the steps, only to meet withering magical attacks. Inferno traps crisscrossed the path to the heroes, while lightning bolts and arrows came burrowing in, striking numerous enemies at once. Those fortunate enough to survive that were then met with vicious claws and deadly axe.

But at the end, three Council members stood there on the steps, looking at the heroes and their dead brethren. Another one, with red-tinged hands, made a magical gesture. Out of the ground rose three fiery heads, and began spitting firebolts at the heroes. As they scattered, the leaders of the Council came down to meet them in battle.



Ron Bars and Erris were faced off against the one with the frost-covered hand. He attacked Erris first, and though she tried to dodge, his hand clipped her ponytail. Instantly it froze, the ice covering half her body as she tried to move away. His next attack knocked her to the ground, and he prepared to finish her off.

But as he raised his hand, Ron Bars threw an axe, almost taking his arm clean off. The demon roared in pain, leaping over the fallen amazon, but Ron Bars swung the other axe with both hands, cleaving him easily in half. The body exploded in a flurry of magical snow and ice, and the barbarian fought quickly to clear his eyes.



Tharos, Oksana, and Jelani were cornered by the third Council member, this one with a hand curled up, withered and diseased. As the demon pressed forward, Tharos animated a skeleton. "Stay away from his hand, I think it's cursed!" Jelani muttered something darkly, throwing an icebolt over Oksana's head. But it missed, shattering harmlessly against the side of the temple.

The assassin dodged the demon's attacks, striking out with her cestus whenever he presented her an opening. Before long, his arms were covered in wicked slashes. But the three heroes had been backed into a corner, and the skeleton was trading shots with the hydra.

Tharos and Jelani both readied spells at the same moment. "Duck!" they cried, and Oksana dropped to the stone, the withered hand narrowly missing her. But the ice bolt hit the demon in the face, and the bone spear impaled him, driving the council member backward as his intestines spilled out.



Garou, Rupert, and Jezebel had been cornered by the Council member with the red hands. With a screech of rage, he threw himself forward upon them. He effortlessly blocked Garou's attack, punching back and driving the druid to his knees. Rupert attacked from the other side, but after two solid hits, the demon dealt a backhand that tossed Rupert backwards like a fallen leaf.

He closed on Jezebel, and as he started to swing at her, she brought her staff up crushingly between his legs. The demon shrieked in pain, doubling over, and Garou lurched forward, biting down hard on his knee. Dogmeat yelped, harrying him from the other side.

As the demon stumbled backwards, he shrieked again and clutched Garou's bite. The flesh began to turn green and poisonous, and Rupert struck him again from behind. They all watched as the council member writhed in agony from the poison, until Dogmeat lunged forward and ripped out his throat. Somewhat nervously, Jezebel patted his head. "Good dog," she said, and he barked happily.



They gathered in front of the temple, and walked up the steps. Inside, Munin perched on a glowing, red orb in one corner of the temple. It positively radiated malice and hatred, and they quickly turned away from it.

Rupert noticed the flail hung on the wall first. He carefully picked it up from the hooks, and nodded. "I think this is the weapon we need." With a last nervous glance at the orb, Jezebel cast a portal, and they returned to town.

Cain quickly took the flail and the tongue, combining them in the box. After a moment of fiddling with it, he drew out the new weapon. Each ball of the flail had become one of the organs they had retrieved, and it seemed to move on its own. Looking slightly disgusted, Rupert took the flail. "I hope this thing doesn't start humping my leg," he muttered.

Inside Alkor's shop, the apothecary seemed ready to burst his skin with happiness. "The tome! I am impressed at you foreign heroes. You have done the impossible!" Flipping open the book, he made them wait while he mixed up another slurpee for the group, passing around the bright green liquid.

After downing their rewards, the heroes left his shack with friendly waves, and gathered in front of the portal again. Ormus approached, moving with his slow, deliberate approach. "You are on your way to destroy the compelling orb, correct?" he asked, and they nodded. "It will take some time to restore the people to normal. But given a few days, the jungle will have started to recede again, and the citizens will again have their sanity. Good luck to you."

They stepped back into the temple, and Rupert walked over to the Compelling Orb. The flail started to writhe in his hand, and he brought it up against the orb. The liver started to swing through the air, cleansing it and removing the aura of hatred that permeated the temple. The other two parts started banging and scouring away at the orb, until it shattered apart, falling into a pile of glassy dust on the floor of the temple.

With the orb destroyed, the flail fell still, and after a moment, fell apart as well. The magically preserved flesh rotted away almost instantly, and the flail dissolved into rust and splinters of wood. After a moment, a rumble came from the back of the temple, and the stone sunk down, forming a stairwell into darkness.

Tharos stood at the top, looking down with his skeletons. "I'm pretty sure this is the way to Mephisto's lair." The others nodded, and with skeletons leading the way, they traveled down into the Durance of Hate.



The air down there was stale, and stank of sulfurous fumes. Voices echoed through the halls, and Erris muttered something about being locked in an asylum. Darkness practically ate away at the borders of their torchlight.

Bodies lay piled around, or slumped up against walls. Many of them had been gutted, sacrifice victims tossed aside carelessly. And the halls were layered with monsters, many of them fire-throwing Ghoul Lords and exploding Fetish skeletons. They wandered the first level, fighting almost blindly through the darkness. Finally, they found another set of stairs leading down.

The room at the bottom of the stairs was empty, but for more corpses. As they started through the room, Jezebel suddenly whimpered and backed away. Everyone came to a halt, looking around, weapons at the ready. "What's wrong?" Garou asked, sniffing the air with his heightened lycanthrope senses.

Wordlessly, she pointed her staff at one of the piles of bodies. These ones had had their throats slit, skins left pale from the absence of blood. Garou slowly moved closer to the pile, and after a moment, he suddenly backed away as well. Tharos peered at the bodies in horror. "I didn't know that could be done," he whispered, holding a hand to his mouth as though sick.

"What is it?" Rupert asked, backing away from the bodies as well.

"Do you hear the voices?" Tharos replied, waving his wand vaguely into the air. When Rupert nodded, he pointed it at the bodies. "Mephisto bound their souls into their bodies. It's their voices we're hearing. They've been slowly going mad, trapped inside their slowly rotting corpses." He gulped down nausea. "It's a form of necromancy I didn't think was possible."

As though listening, the voices in the room intensified, some of them practically shouting in their thin, whispery tones. So distracted by the voices, they almost didn't notice the swarm of Fetish skeletons come swarming into the room. And as they began to fight, from another doorway came ogres, large clubs held ready.

In the front of the group, Jelani was firing ice bolts at the skeletons, and did not notice the ogres' entrance. One of them hefted a club, knocking the mage across the room. Jelani screamed as he flew through the air, landing onto a Fetish skeleton. The undead exploded, ripping his body to pieces.

In shock, the heroes were almost killed that moment. Only a frantic shot from Erris halted the lead ogre, and they were forced to retreat back to the stairs. After a long fight was the room finally clear, and they slowly gathered around Jelani's corpse. Rupert quietly said a prayer for his soul, and silently the heroes continued their search for Mephisto.



They stormed through the maze of rooms and corridors, smashing apart any monster foolish enough to get in their way. Their faces were set in grimaces of hatred and rage, and everyone was happy to charge into battle, to try and vent their anger against Mephisto's minions.

Diablo leaned back from the large bowl where the divination spell was in effect. "You do not disappoint me, brother," he rumbled. "You have managed to exert your power over even Tyrael's chosen warriors."

Mephisto laughed, a harsh grating noise. "Truly these silly fools are nothing for me to worry about. It is surprising they were able to overcome Andarial and Duriel, but they have not faced a true Prime Evil in full command of his powers!" He raised a clawed hand, and throughout his chamber, monsters howled.

Baal nodded, tossing the blood-filled bowl aside. "We have much work to do before we can rid this world of these pesky humans. Diablo and I are on our way to Hell. Please make sure every one of these six heroes is dealt with properly, hmm?"

Mephisto smiled, serrated teeth glinting in the red, smoky light. "Have no worries, my brother. It shall be done."

Baal and Diablo hefted their demonic bulk from the stone floor, and moved forward across the bridge of bones to the portal. Baal cast a last look back at his brother, before vanishing into Hell.



One floor above, as the others continued their hate-filled rampage, Oksana drew her cloak of shadows even closer around her. The mental training of the assassins was allowing her to avoid Mephisto's corrupting spells, but only barely. She halted again, to focus her thoughts, and when she looked up, all of her companions had vanished.

Oksana muttered a silent prayer, and continued wandering the floor, looking for the way to Mephisto.



The heroes had slowly separated completely, and Erris was the first to find the stairway down. She fairly flew down the stairs, jumping the last few to land at the bottom. A hail of arrows flew away, striking down the last of the Council members. As she strode forward into Mephisto's main lair, the demon grabbed her from above.

Though she struggled, Erris could not break the demon's powerful grip. Contemptuously, he snapped her bow in half, and hurled her across the room. With a sickening thud, she hit the wall, falling to the ground unconscious.

Moving silently across the ceiling like a spider, Mephisto picked her up again, and locked her into a set of manacles on the wall. Grinning with victory, he turned back towards the stairs to await the next warrior.

Oksana finally found Tharos and the stairs at the same time. Silently she followed the necromancer and his skeletons down into the heart of Mephisto's lair. She watched helplessly as Mephisto battered the skeletons apart, and threw Tharos into a pillar. As the demon picked him up, she crept silently to the edge of the main room.

She could see her friends chained there to the opposite wall. Chewing her lip in anticipation, she started around the side of the room. Slowly she crept up on another leader of the Council, this one with a missing hand, and slit his throat, lowering the body to the ground. Oksana gathered the shadows closer around herself, and continued.

There on the bridge of bones, Mephisto talked quietly with Griswold. Keeping an eye on them, the assassin scaled the wall, picking her way up to the ceiling, and then across the rough stone. When she hung there above Mephisto, she thought another prayer, and dropped from the ceiling.

She landed heavily on the demon's back, and both he and Griswold roared in anger. Without hesitating, she grabbed Mephisto's forehead with one hand, and yanked the edge of her cestus across his neck. Her anger was so great that it nearly decapitated the Prime Evil, and he fell heavily to the ground.

Griswold lurched forward, raising his hammer in the air. Peering about in the dark and the gloom, he moaned in apprehension. Suddenly, Oksana cast aside her cloak of shadows, raising her bloody cestus in her hand as she pointed to the portal behind Griswold. "Run," she said, and the blacksmith did not argue.

Oksana watched him slowly back away into the portal to Hell, not moving until he had vanished. Running to her companions, she swiftly picked the locks on their manacles, and forced a healing potion down each of their throats. She kept a watch as they recovered from their wounds and the magical hatred.

Garou looked at the corpse of Mephisto, the demonic form slowly melting back into the body of the Zakarum priest. "You did that?" he asked quietly, pointing at the almost decapitated head.

Oksana shrugged. "Yeah. I managed to avoid his hatred up until about the time I landed on his back." Garou shook his head, amazed, and then stared at the flame-colored portal. "I think that leads into Hell. Diablo and Baal were already gone, but Griswold went back into the portal when I killed Mephisto."

Rupert stepped over to the body, and carefully pried loose the Soulstone that held the essence of the demon. Looking at the bright blue stone, he chuckled. "I suppose we should ask Cain what to do with this before we go jumping into Hell."

Carefully, they retrieved their equipment, much of it broken, and stepped through a town portal. Rupert cast one last look at the dead body, and shivered. "He almost looks like me," he muttered.



Stepping onto the docks, everyone around them slowed at the serious faces they wore. Cain walked up slowly, peering at them in turn. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Holding up the Soulstone, Rupert tried to explain. "Jelani died in Mephisto's lair, and all of us fell under his influence. We were so consumed with hatred that we stopped thinking about what we were doing, and just rampaged around killing demons." Hanging his head in shame, Rupert walked off onto the docks.

Cain looked at the others. "How did you manage to defeat Mephisto, then?" He stared at the Soulstone for a moment, almost hypnotized, before shivering and putting it into a pocket. "And what about Diablo and Baal?"

Tharos put an arm around Oksana. "She used her assassin training to avoid the spell. Mephisto captured the rest of us, but she snuck up on the demon and cut his head off. Then chased Griswold through the portal and back to Hell."

His eyebrows shot up alarmingly. "Hell? There's a portal to Hell down there? Take me to it right away!"

Erris chuckled. "I'm sure there's a better way to get to Hell if you're in a hurry."

"You stupid girl!" he shouted, whirling on her. "If Diablo and Baal have reached Hell, it means they're planning to pour all of the hordes of Hell into the mortal world. We have to get there and stop them!"

Garou patted Dogmeat on the head. "Fetch, Dogmeat!" With a bark, he ran off down the docks. Somewhere near Hratli's forge, they heard a cry of surprise, and soon Dogmeat came running back up, chasing Rupert. "Into the portal, we're bound for Hell!"

Ron Bars picked him up by the back of the shirt, stopping the druid's charge. "Ron Bars need axe," he boomed, almost sounded offended, as he held up the broken axe handle. Everyone hurried across the docks to Hratli's forge, and fumed impatiently as he repaired their weapons and armor. Then back to the portal, Dogmeat leading the way and barking happily.



Lord of Distractions and everything not already owned by Blizzard is copyright BlueNinja

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