Act1	Act2	Act3	Act4	Act5	Epilogue
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

They hurried through, stepping back into the Durance and onto the bridge of bones. Cain studied the flame-wreathed portal for a moment, then started chanting. After a few moments, the portal flared dramatically. They regrouped, and stepped into the portal.

They emerged on a blasted landscape. The air stank of poison and smoke, and the land around them was gray and dead. Demons turned, howling in fury as they spotted the mortals, flames shooting from their mouths. Cain pointed into the distance. "There! Run for that staircase! It leads to the sanctuary!"

They ran, fighting every step of the way while trying to protect Cain from the demons. After a seeming eternity, they reached the bottom of the stairs, and Tyrael suddenly appeared before them. Silently, he strode through their ranks, pushing them out of the way to confront the mass of demons.

Raising his hands, the angel summoned light, so pure and blinding that the mortals were all forced to look away. When the light suddenly vanished again, they blinked the spots from their eyes to view several small piles of ash, slowly being dispersed by the smoke scented winds that blew past.

After another moment of staring off into the distance, Tyrael turned and started up the staircase. After a few steps, he paused and looked over his shoulder. "Welcome to Hell," he spoke quietly, and strode up into the sanctuary.

---

They followed Tyrael up the stairs, stepping onto a wide platform. The air up here smelled clean, and a pair of armored mercenaries worked on either side, tending to equipment and books. Cain hobbled swiftly after the angel, asking him questions in some lost Horadric tongue.

In confusion, and tired from the fight for the stairs, the heroes sat down on the platform and the stairs. After several minutes of waiting, Rupert got up in disgust, striding over to Cain. "Well? What should we do now?"

Tyrael slowly moved forward as the other heroes gathered around behind Rupert. "The first task you should work for is a former angel named Izual. He was captured during an assault on the Hellforge, and the Prime Evils have bound his soul into a demonic body."

The angle waved his hands in the air, conjuring up an illusion of the demonic body. Sharp, blue-tinted scales stuck out everywhere. "If you destroy the body that holds his soul, Izual's soul will be free. We believe he is somewhere on the Plains of Despair."

Ignoring their questions, Tyrael turned away. Furious, Erris turned away to stare out at the smoky ruins of Hell. "Well, let's get down there and start looking around. Might as well start looking for Diablo somewhere around here!"

Furious, she started down the stairs, back into Hell, firing down the stairs at a few straggler demons.

---

They wandered through the landscape of Hell for hours, fighting groups of demons. Tortured souls were all around them, tied to poles and driven mad with terror, attacking anything that came near. But the broken ground, and the monotonous grayness that enveloped everything in this area of Hell confused them, and they ended up back at the stairs up to the sanctuary.

Erris threw down her bow, screaming in frustration. "How are we supposed to find anything out there? Let alone a giant demon or Diablo?" She sat down heavily on the stairs, burying her face in her hands. Ron Bars patted her on the shoulder for comfort.

Garou looked at Munin, perched on a broken outcrop of stone. "Well, feather duster? See any stairs down while we were wandering around after demons?" The bird cawed, sounding rather smug, and Garou smacked his forehead with one hand. "Stairs down, birdbrain, not the ones up to the sanctuary."

Munin cawed again, and flew around behind the stairs. Curious, Jezebel followed, and stared out at the empty void behind the stairs. Slowly, the others gathered around behind her, and stared out as well.

On the other side of the stairs, on the bottom side of the sanctuary, was a vast open plain of gray. Demons wandered the landscape, occasionally lit by gouts of flame leaping from the rocks. Rupert held on to the side of the stairway carefully, leaning over to tap on the underside. "Brilliant. So how the heck are we supposed to get over there?"

Tharos directed a skeleton with his wand to the base of the stairs, and holding on to the edge, it jumped off, swinging around to crash onto the underside of the stairs. Picking itself up, the skeleton clattered up/down the stairs towards the new plain. Shaking his head, the necromancer followed his minion, landing with more grace. "It's weird, but it does seem like the right way to go."

Garou and Ron Bars carefully handed over Dogmeat, and one by one, the others followed him, and headed for the Plains of Despair.

---

They reached the "bottom" of the new staircase, trying not to look back at where they had been, just in case. A large stone archway separated the stairs from the open plain, and they moved quietly, trying to avoid being noticed by the demons. They stared across the open landscape of endless gray, hearing the maddened cries of tortured souls and the lumbering bellows of demons.

Rupert raised his scepter, almost in challenge, and stepped boldly out of the archway. As if magnetized, demons started streaming towards them, and the heroes fought their way free. Much like the first section of Hell, they fought almost endlessly, wandering aimlessly across the plains.

Then a ground shaking roar caused them to turn. Striding towards them, wielding a sword of diamond, came Izual. The demon leaped over an outcrop of rock, landing on one of the tortured souls and grinding it into the dirt.

Erris took careful aim, and fired an arrow when Izual stepped forward. But the arrow shattered on his scaly hide, and with another step the battle was joined. The demon was as skilled with spells as weapons. Blasts of cold energy radiated from him, and the lightning bolts from Jezebel and Oksana's traps seemed to have little effect.

Finally, Ron Bars got around behind the demon, and leaped upon his back. Grabbing Izual's sword arm, he braced with his legs and pulled. As the demon screamed in pain, the barbarian ripped his arm free, falling to the ground. Steaming blood poured out, lighting flames across the ground as it flowed away.

They all stepped back, watching in shock as the demonic body slowly disintegrated, falling into a pile of gray dust to match the landscape. The diamond sword turned dull and brittle, flaking away into ash as well. Finally, there before them stood the angelic soul of Izual, who slowly began to laugh evilly.

"You fools!" he cried out, "did you think this would be simple? Tell that fool Tyrael that he has been mislead the entire time! It was I who created the plan to send the Prime Evils to the mortal world, to have them placed in the soulstones. Your race is naught but a disease upon the firmament of Creation! You must be destroyed, and no cost is too great for that!"

Even as Rupert stepped forward to challenge the fallen angel, his incorporeal soul faded away into nothingness. Feeling downcast and defeated, the heroes continued their wandering through Hell. Again, they returned to the staircase, and Garou snapped his fingers. "If we had to jump onto the other side of the staircase to get here, then when we jump back, we should be right at the sanctuary!"

With a slight bit more cheer, they jumped around the staircase again, and looked in both directions. Behind them, "up" was nothing but a gray stone cliff, solid and smooth. "Down" the stairs was what appeared to be a city, laid out in gray stone. Dog-faced demons, similar to the ones at the Sister's monastery, wandered freely.

Jezebel stamped her foot angrily. "This doesn't make any sense! I'm going to try using a town portal scroll, and see where it leads us." The others waited as Ron Bars stepped through it, then returned.

"Ron Bars in sanctuary!" he boomed. They trooped back and gathered around Tyrael.

Rupert spoke up first, hanging his scepter on his belt. "What is the deal with this place, Tyrael? We wandered around for hours, only to get back at the same staircase, and follow the underside to get to the plains."

The angel was silent for a moment, then raised a hand. "Yes, I sensed your defeat of Izual, and heard his words. It pains me greatly to think that one of our most trusted servants could have betrayed the light so. But you wish to know of the nature of Hell, and I will explain as best I can.

"Imagine a corkscrew." He waved a hand, conjuring a spiral shape into the air. "Both Hell and Heaven are designed in a similar fashion. To descend, you must travel around to the left. Though the staircase you find might seem the same one, it is not." He waved a hand at their surroundings. "The magical nature of both Heaven and Hell do not lend themselves to your mortal perceptions."

Garou frowned. "So, you mean that all the time we're wandering aimlessly, we're actually traveling down to the bottom of Hell?"

Tyrael inclined his head. "Indeed. At the very bottom is the River of Flame, and the Chaos Sanctuary. There you will find Diablo."

Cain approached the group. "More importantly, along the river is the Hellforge. There, you can destroy Mephisto's soulstone forever. Once you defeat the Armorer, take his forge hammer, and shatter the soulstone on top of the Hellforge."

They considered all the information carefully, and wandered down the sanctuary towards the two other warriors there. "I think this is all a bit too complicated, if you know what I mean," Garou said. He approached the female warrior, who sat on a stool, staring at a box with a crystalline side. "Who's Jumping Jack Flash, anyway?"

Jamella jumped up, screeching in surprise. "What do you think you're doing looking over my shoulder? Damn, boy, you trying to give me a heart attack?" Her hair flew wildly as she confronted him.

Garou stepped back hurriedly, holding up his hands. "Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't realize. What do you do here, anyway?"

"I'm a merchant. I sell weapons. What do you think I'm doing here, sightseeing?" Jamella put her hands on her hips, glaring at him.

Trying to contain his laughter, Rupert dragged Garou away. "Come on, leave her alone, we need to rest before continuing into Hell."

Behind Jamella, a wooden panel slid aside, and a young woman in a nun's habit looked out. "Are they gone? Can we get back to our roulette game now?" Jamella waved her hand irritably in consent, and from behind the panel came squeals of joy.

---

After a few hours of sleep on the surprisingly comfortable stone floor of the sanctuary, the group stepped back through the portal onto the one-way staircase, and stared down at the stone city. Demons wandered through the darkness, and they slowly descended to the edge of the city.

As they stepped into the city, the air grew even darker around them, as though they were trying to look through a cloud of ashes. But the demons they had seen earlier were gone now, the streets empty and silent. Remembering Tyrael's words, Rupert led the party off to the left, pacing through the barren streets.

Finally, Garou stopped them at an intersection. "Something smells funny ahead." Ron Bars moved forward, his axes held ready. A skeletal warrior suddenly popped up at a window of the building, launching magical balls of ice at the barbarian. He tried desperately to get away, but more warriors appeared, firing away with elemental magics.

As the half-frozen barbarian fell, Erris screamed, "Man down! Man down!" Oksana started throwing traps through every window around them, and around one corner came a sudden swarm of the Damned. "Ambush!" she screamed again, firing off a hail of arrows at the charging demons.

They fought through the ambush, dragging Ron Bars until he recovered. With the barbarian's might, the demons were quickly routed. They backed into an empty building to stop and regroup. "Is the whole area like this?" Jezebel asked. She gestured out the window, and a fire wall sprang up to block them from the street.

Garou nodded. "That's the way it appeared from the stairs. So we have to go around until we get back to the stairs, and then we'll be down to the River." The druid paused, then suddenly glanced up. "Look out!"

From above them came a flight of the lightning enchanted bats, striking out of the sky. To their surprise, the heroes discovered a moment too late that the building lacked a roof. Oksana screamed in outrage as a bat sent electricity coursing through her hair, but it fell with a swipe of her cestus.

They fought frantically for the first few moments, but soon their attacks had killed all the bats but one. As it flew away, Ron Bars gave a war cry and charged back to the door of their building, fighting to hold out the demons again. "We've got to find a way out of here!" Tharos shouted, launching a bone spear into the ranks of the Damned.

Garou and Ron Bars waited at the door, and on the right signal, they charged out into the melee, swiping with abandon. The others followed frantically, fighting their way out of the building. Oksana strapped a lightning trap to her arm, and started to blast away at demons from point blank range.

The ranks of demons seemed endless, and the heroes left a trail of shattered bodies as they tried to fight their way through Hell and back to the staircase. But Garou tripped, and their progress stalled as he fought to recover. Suddenly, all of the Damned dropped to the ground, and a group of skeletal warriors at the edges of the group all fired at once.

Rupert dived to the ground, trying to pull the others after him. Everyone but Erris managed to duck the fusillade of magical energy, and she danced back and forth frantically for a moment. But the energy sped back out over the crowd, striking down the skeletal warriors all around them.

The demons were surprised, and the heroes wasted no time. Their charge carried them halfway through the crowd before the Damned recovered enough to keep attacking. "There's some sort of light ahead," Rupert called, and Ron Bars led the charge for it.

As they neared the stairs again, fiery light spilled up from around the edges. The Damned seemed to spill away as they reached the stairs, falling back and staring angrily at them from the edge of the light. They stared back for only a moment, then descended the stairs down to the River of Flame.

---

The stairs below were rough stone, and the walkway was surrounded by a river of orange flame, swirling and eddying with no discernable destination. They reached the bottom, sending a last few worried glances back to the city above them. Jezebel shrieked in fright as a skeletal figure tried to claw its way out of the river, only to fall back beneath the surface, bony fingers grasping desperately.

They spread out, and started exploring the walkways here. Giant maggots, much like those they had faced in the deserts of Aranoch, littered the place, their young attacking in almost endless waves. With them were twisted demonic women, belching up grotesque worms to assault them as well.

While these weak opponents were hardly a challenge for the heroes, the sheer numbers almost pushed them back more than once. Before long, they had reached a split in the path. Oksana pointed off to the left. "The Hellforge is that way," she said, pointing.

Rupert looked at her in doubt. "How can you be so sure?" In response, she just stared at the surface of the river for several seconds, until another skeleton broke the surface. This one held a crude sign in its hands, with arrows pointing for the Hellforge and the Chaos Sanctuary. In triumph, Oksana turned and led the party towards the Hellforge.

Before they could see the forge, they heard the sounds of hammering coming from up ahead. Soon, the lumps of stone no longer blocked their view, and they could see the hulking figure there, on the platform, pounding away with the hammer.

Bugs and demons came swarming up from somewhere behind the forge, and Griswold turned, raising the hammer ominously. "Oh crap, not again!" Erris cried, impaling three bugs together. The heroes fought quickly and savagely to clear the field of common monsters.

But Griswold ignored his lesser allies, squishing worms underfoot as he charged at the heroes, twirling the hammer as though weightless. A quick flurry of blows knocked aside Garou and Ron Bars, and his next step left him looming over Erris. The hammer knocked the bow from her hands, and he grinned savagely as he raised it again.

In anger and desperation, Erris screamed, and slapped Griswold. Everyone paused for a moment, as Griswold slowly lowered the hammer. Then suddenly, he dropped the hammer, tears pouring from his eyes. They all watched, stunned, as Griswold fled across the pathways bawling.

Jezebel snorted. "That's it? That's all it took to scare him off, was a little slap?" Garou shook his head in astonishment, lupine teeth glinting in the orange light.

With both hands, Rupert heaved, picking up the heavy forge hammer. He held it for a moment, then staggered towards Ron Bars. "Help!" he squeaked, then tipped over from the weight of the massive thing.

The barbarian picked up the hammer, and twirled it effortlessly. "Hammer light," he boomed, scoffing at Rupert as he hauled the paladin to his feet. With a mighty leap, Ron Bars jumped up in front of the smoking anvil. "Where stone?" he asked?

Jezebel snapped her fingers. "Cain still has it. I'll be right back." She quickly read off a portal scroll, and dashed through before the others could stop her. A minute later she reappeared, the portal winking shut. "Ok, here's the - eek!" In her haste, Jezebel crashed right into Garou, sending them tumbling to the ground, and Mephisto's soulstone flying through the air.

Ron Bars hefted the hammer, looking at the stone as it flew, and swung. The stone shattered in midair, the bright fragments skimming across the fiery river. Smugly, he dropped the forge hammer onto the anvil, leaving a massive dent.

Jezebel had fallen on top of Garou, and suddenly smiled at him. "Wow," she purred, "being a werewolf certainly does come with some advantages, doesn't it?"

The cross-eyed werewolf shook his muzzle from side to side slowly. In a high-pitched voice, he said, "That's your staff." With Oksana giggling madly, Jezebel managed to get to her feet, beet red, and removed her staff from between Garou's legs.

Rupert looked at everyone impatiently. "All right, let's get this over with. Diablo must be close by, in his lair, and I don't want to stay down here any longer than necessary." Feeling triumphant (and bruised) they turned around, and started walking towards the Chaos Sanctuary.

---

Inside the Sanctuary, Diablo and Baal watched through a scrying pool as the heroes chased away Griswold and shattered the magical soulstone. Diablo roared in rage, shaking the walls of the oddly cross-shaped cathedral. Baal paced for a moment, then turned. "Patience, brother. All is not lost."

Diablo turned with a snarl, but the smug look on Baal's face gave him a moment of pause. "Your campaign on Mount Arreat continues then."

He laughed. "Of course it does. The only remaining elder of Harrogath has been corrupted. He will be bringing me a relic soon, that will allow me into the chambers of the Worldstone. Once it is corrupted, humanity is doomed. And, brother," he moved forward with a sudden angry look, "your job is to delay them. If you can kill them, fine. If not, it does not matter. They cannot truly kill you here."

Diablo matched the anger and fury. "They have killed our brothers and sisters. Permanent or not, they must pay for their impertanence!"

Baal reached for both his infernal powers, and the magic that Tal Rasha had possessed. "That is not important," the eldest demon rumbled. "Delay them so that I can destroy the Worldstone, and they will be punished whether they defeat you or not."

Diablo shook with rage as Baal vanished, teleporting back to the slopes of Mount Arreat.

---

Soon they approached a wide platform on the river, with rows of demonic statues. Standing serenely in the middle of the statues was another angel, Hadriel. Behind him ran a maze of smaller paths, leading to the Chaos Sanctuary some distance away. Hadriel sighed as they approached.

"Took you long enough. Do you have any idea how much my feet hurt from standing here waiting for you? Next time Tyrael asks me to do a 'small favor' for him, I'm bringing a book and a chair with me." The angel then closed his eyes, and took a deep breath.

"Anyway, here's the deal. Diablo is in the Sanctuary. But, you can't see him, or effect him, quite yet. There's five magical seals inside. Trigger the seals, and it'll reveal him to you. Have fun!" With that cheery rejoinder, Hadriel leaped into the air, spreading his wings and soaring away.

They watched him go, then turned back to look towards the building hiding the Lord of Terror. With a sigh, Rupert raised his scepter. "Let's get this over with," he said, and they started across the walkways.

The narrow maze helped them against the bugs, as their arrows and spells quite easily soared across the ten-foot gaps to crush the monsters. Before long, they stood at the entrance to the corrupted cathedral. Even as they stared at the building, glowing, moth-like creatures swooped down from the rafters above.

The demons attacked with magical balls of energy, swerving around to strike the heroes unerringly. But they were not so hard to defeat, as Garou proved by grabbing two from the air, smashing them together, and hurling the corpses into the fiery river.

They stepped inside, staring around for a moment. Then, from deeper inside the cathedral, came a group of skeleton warriors. Raising their swords, they charged, as their leader in the back gestured, laying a curse on the heroes. The first group was easily trampled despite the curse, their leader trading magical bolts of fire and ice with Tharos' minions.

The rest of the Sanctuary was much the same. Glowing, moth-like demons fought beside the skeletons. They reached the center, where a large set of bridges formed a pentagram. They looked around, before Rupert pointed to the left wing. After another moment of rest, they hefted their weapons again, and charged down the left branch.

Another group of moths dead, and they stood to examine the first seal. Garou chuckled. "Ah, I've seen these before. Not usually used for demonic purposes, but it's not that hard to activate." He stepped up into the metal circle, paws grasping two metal branches, laying his muzzle against the third.

Beneath his feet, the metal shifted, and runes started glowing brightly. To his surprise, magical energy also bound him to the seal. Twirling lights, like they had encountered with that Wanderer in the jungle, appeared. Everyone scattered, except Ron Bars, who stood right in the center, waiting for the demons to appear.

They were not disappointed. More of the glowing moths appeared, to be met instantly with a crash of axe, arrow, and spell. Their leader, glowing green, managed one attack before Ron Bars swung his axe together, cleaving it in half. The body exploded, showering them all with gore.

With the monsters dead, the energy on the seal dissipated, and Garou was freed. He glared at the seal. "That's not supposed to happen," he growled angrily. Rupert walked over to the second seal, and activated it the same way. This time, no magical bonds or demons appeared, and they crossed the cathedral to the opposite wing.

Again they fought their way through a crowd of demons, and Rupert again activated the seal. The trap sprung, and lights danced their way downward. This time, though, Oksana had prepared the ground ahead of time. Fire-breathing Balrogs appeared, to be cut down by a dozen lightning sentries all attacking at once.

They activated the other seal, and headed for the last one swiftly. Again prepared, the skeletal mages that appeared died quickly, Rupert's paladin aura driving them back while the others hammered them. Everyone waited quietly as Jezebel stepped off the seal, and stood there staring at the large pentagram in the middle of the Chaos Sanctuary.

After several minutes, Erris stamped her foot impatiently. "Alright, where is the bastard? We activated all the seals, just like Hadriel said!" From behind her, Tharos started to shout a warning, but a whip of red lightning came blasting through their ranks. Everyone dove out of the way, hair and armor sparking from the attack.

Behind them stood Diablo. The demon stood almost cat-like, and laughed easily. "Did you think it would be so easy as that?" He spread his hand, launching a wave a fire that crumbled Tharos' skeletons to ash.

Erris screamed in victory. "Time to die, bastard!" She launched a dozen arrows, some shattering, but others digging under the demon's scales. Ron Bars leaped, crashing into Diablo's side, and hanging on as his axes dug into flesh. As the demon opened his mouth to scream in fury, Oksana threw a firebomb into his mouth, which detonated when Jezebel's lightning bolt hit it.

The Lord of Terror staggered, his jaw blown off, but his fury no less dampened. The resulting fight ranged all across the Chaos Sanctuary. After twenty minutes of fighting, Erris pulled herself off the wall from another lightning whip attack. Looking around, she saw all her friends down, except for Tharos.

The necromancer cursed Diablo, even as the demon charged at him, trampling the necromancer into the floor. Reaching for an arrow, Erris found she had only two left. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the open. "Hey, ugly!" Not the most original insult, but Diablo turned, and glared at her.

As he started to charge, she pulled back one arrow and aimed very carefully. With a whispered prayer, she let the arrow fly. The demon started to laugh as it went cleanly under his body, then he felt the arrow strike. Screaming in pain, the demon slammed into the floor, his hands reaching back between his legs to feel the arrow, somehow shot right up his ass.

Erris smiled, pulling back her last arrow. Diablo's eyes focused again, just in time for the arrow to burrow through his eye and into his skull. He shuddered twice, then went still. The amazon stood there triumphantly for a moment, until she realized that all of her friends were laying there, on the point of death.

Her hand scrabbled at her belt, but she was out of healing potions. So was everyone else. Rupert was unconscious, so his paladin healing aura was out of service. Ron Bars lay crumpled against a wall, his head slashed open and bleeding sluggishly. She rushed over to Jezebel, grabbing up the staff.

Erris ran her hands all over the staff, trying to figure out how to open the compartment where the sorceress kept her scrolls. Finally the end popped out, and Erris sobbed in relief as she fumbled the scroll open. She read it frantically, dashing through as soon as she could fit.

She charged across the Sanctuary, skidding to a stop in front of Tyrael. "You've got to help them!"

The angel looked down at her, with almost glacial slowness, she thought. "Diablo is dead." The angel thought a moment. "But Baal has escaped."

"I don't care about that," she cried. "You've got to help the others. They're almost dead. You've got to heal them!"

Tyrael shook his head. "If I leave here, the Sanctuary will be overrun with demons."

Angrily, Erris grabbed the angel by his robes. "Didn't you hear me?" she screamed at him. "We defeated Diablo, but they'll die if you don't help them. Don't you care?" After a moment of silence, she swung her fist at Tyrael. "You're no better than Diablo, are you?"

He blocked her blow, driving her backwards with nothing but the fury in his face. "Do I care? Of course I care! I have no wish for them to die, no more than you. But I cannot leave this Sanctuary to travel further into Hell. I have no choice."

Sobbing in fury, Erris turned to run, only to crash into Jamella. The black woman pressed a set of vials into hands. "Go, girl, get out of here!" Shouting a thanks, Erris dove back through the portal.

Almost tripping over her own feet, she dropped to her knees by Rupert, forcing one of the potions down his throat. As the paladin coughed and stuttered, she leaped up again, charging from one to another, administering potions of healing. She reached Ron Bars last, skidding to a stop and lifting the potion.

As she started to tilt his head back, the barbarian stopped breathing. She stared for a moment, uncomprehending, then screamed in fury and pain. Almost mindless, she lashed out, striking the body as she screamed out her grief for all to hear. Garou and Oksana tackled her, pulling her off the body.

Then, to all their surprise, the barbarian toppled over, barely catching himself on the floor. Rupert pried the last potion from Erris' shaking hands and helped Ron Bars force it down. She broke free, wrapping her arms around him, tears rolling down her face. "Damn you, you big ape! Don't you ever scare us like that again!"

Everyone sat there, holding each other for comfort, as the barbarian coughed several times. Dogmeat barked happily, licking his face. Finally, he cracked an eye open, and smiled faintly at Erris. "No problem, cutie," he said in a normal voice.

Everyone stared at him for a moment, then Erris slapped him. "You can talk normally, and all this time you've been leading us around with this pigeon speak? What was it, some barbarian tribe custom to act like an idiot?" Her eyes shone, anger and relief warring for dominance.

Ron Bars coughed again, and shook his head. "It helps sometimes if the people I should be helping underestimate me. Like the rogues, or Lord Jehryn." He grimaced. "I just couldn't figure out a way to tell you guys after we started fighting together."

She stared at the man in her arms for a moment, then shoved him to the floor, kissing him passionately. Oksana whistled in appreciation, and Rupert turned away, blushing. After they came up for air, the paladin cleared his throat. "Alright, let's get back to Tyrael and hitch a ride back to our mortal world."

Garou stood, picking up Jezebel and returning her staff. "Don't forget, Baal is out there somewhere. And since he controls one of the greatest mages the world has ever seen …" The druid didn't need to finish the sentence.

Jezebel pulled out her last scroll, and they stepped through, weary and battered, to safety. Munin sailed through the portal right before it closed, cawing in annoyance. Behind them, the body of Diablo slowly shrunk, losing the demonic attributes and returning to the haunted, though human, face of the fighter who had battled his way through the horrors of Tristram. Now, finally, he was at peace.

---

They arrived back in the Sanctuary triumphant. The two warriors there congratulated them, and even Cain gave a cheer. Tyrael was silent, his face as always a mask of schooled indifference. "I have found where Baal has headed. This victory means nothing."

Erris started to get angry again, but the angel held up a hand. "Baal has headed for the peak of Mount Arreat, where the Worldstone is kept. That stone is the source of all magic in your world. If Baal reaches the stone first, and corrupts it, then all magic on your world will be controlled from Hell."

The heroes were silent, pondering his words. Ron Bars and Garou, knowing the history behind the mountain, were particularly worried. The angel gestured, and another portal opened. "I can get you safely to Harrogath. From there, you must fight you way up the mountain, to overtake Baal before he can reach the Worldstone chamber."

---

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