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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3741156" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 2: More DarkThe corridor was tight, horrible smelling, damp, and dark. She could see relatively well thanks to light coming in from behind them, but it was still difficult, and considering the demon before, they weren’t about to give their position away to any other...thing that might be in this place. Best to just survive in the darkness. It wouldn’t be the first time.    The corridor went straight ahead for a few minutes before they reached a door. Aylana had nearly run into the thing, but thankfully saw it in time to avoid the clang of her shield hitting the metal looking door. She wouldn’t have heard the end of that one...but wait. Metal? Hmm. She’d expected stone like the rest of this place. And it didn’t look rusted, either. This was odd.    “Its safe,” Rennai’s voice was a whisper and at Aylana’s feet, which was a surprise. She glanced down to see the Elf girl prone on the stone floor, inspecting the door from a very awkward position. How she could tell it was safe like that was beyond Aylana, but Rennai had proven to be very good at finding, and, on some occasions, setting, traps of most kinds.    So, taking her word for it, Aylana’s shield arm reached over, groped at the door a bit before finding a handle, then turned it easily and pulled...realized it didn’t go that way, then pushed. It opened to reveal a torch lit, circular chamber with a somewhat low ceiling. There were various objects on the ground and red stains that were probably blood, but there were also three figures. Two of them were grouped in front of the third, their backs to the door, and probably Goblins from the way they were standing and their size, and were clad in black and red clothes. The third was human sized, and immediately spun around at the door opening, two red, glowing eyes staring in surprise.    “More fun!” Rennai almost giggled as she slipped past Aylana and went straight to the left of the Goblins, her rapier thrusting in before the creature could even react. It attempted to twist to the side, and half succeeded. Instead of being simply impaled by the blade, the Goblin got a good cut across its shoulder instead.    The little creature cursed angrily, drawing a dagger from its belt and slashing out with it in one swift motion. But the injury slower the attack, allowed Rennai to easily parry the strike with the dagger in her off hand. The other Goblin also drew a dagger, immediately stepping to Rennai and stabbing at her torso. The nimble Elf had no trouble twisting away to avoid the strike, grinning as she did so.    Cor, not nearly as brash as Rennai, took a short moment to look over the situations. He immediately identified the taller humanoid as a greater threat and extended a hand over the shoulder of his other two companions while calling upon a spell. There was a pop, a flash, and then a bolt of disgusting looking green shot out of no where and caught the humanoid square in the chest, splashing acid across him and burning patches of his cloak and armour when it hit.    “Nice shot, Cor,” Falen said over his shoulder as he drew an arrow and dropped to one knee. Down this low, he could shoot past Aylana and not get in the way of Cor’s spellcasting, while being harder to hit, too. Aiming a bit up so as not to hit Rennai, Falen took aim on the humanoid just as Cor had, and then loosed a quick arrow followed by another. The first arrow dug into the humanoid’s shoulder, causing him to stumble back and growl in pain. The movement was enough to throw Falen’s second shot off, and it simply flew past and hit the far wall.    Aylana let out a sigh, then raised her sword and shield and charged in after Rennai. She stopped right next to the manic Elf and, upon seeing the injured Goblin, attempted to finish the job with a good, strong swing of her sword. The poor Goblin, if that could ever be said of such a creature, probably didn’t even feel the strike as Aylana’s bright blue sword chopped straight across its torso and dropped the little thing into an unmoving pile on the ground.    The humanoid cursed angrily and reached up and removed the arrow from its shoulder. Though he spoke no words that any of the group could understand, he turned to Aylana and extended a hand, his fist slowly closing. Aylana could feel the air around her constricting, pulling inwards around her and locking her into place. But she resisted it, trying not to let it lock her in, and suddenly, it stopped and the feeling was gone.    “Show off,” Rennai muttered over her shoulder as the first Goblin hit the ground nearly in two pieces. She quickly turned her attention to the other Goblin, her rapier stabbing outwards as she spun to face it. The blade dug into the Goblin’s torso, causing it to yelp in pain and surprise, and Rennai quickly followed with a slash from her dagger. But somehow, the little Goblin managed to duck so that the smaller blade just went right over its head.    When her blade was past, the Goblin was up again, thrusting its own little dagger to her stomach. But Rennai’s main hand swung inwards, batting the dagger away with her rapier and spinning with the momentum of the strike.    Thankful that he no longer had to worry about hitting Falen with his spells, Cor attempted a safer cast so as not to hit the two women between him and the humanoid who was, somehow, still standing. At his calling, three bright blue bolts of energy shot out, arcing around the room and past the two women to hit the humanoid one after another in bright flashes of energy.    Smiling at the sight, Falen was already drawing and aiming another shot on the humanoid. He let it loose, and the arrow shot straight past Rennai, close enough to her face to get her to cry out in surprise but also missed its target. For his second shot, Falen made sure to take better aim, though with the way Rennai was moving, she was just asking for trouble. Despite that, though, he let the arrow fly. This one went over Rennai’s head, so she probably didn’t notice it, but instead of striking the humanoid in the upper body as Falen had aimed for, the arrow simply grazed the humanoid’s arm.    In the movement to avoid the arrow as best as an arrow could be avoided, Aylana saw something about the humanoid she had no seen before. The light shifted and the shadows changed, and she saw a pair of small horns jutting out from clean-cut looking hair. Another demon.    “More spawns of Hell!” she growled angrily, turning and taking a pair of steps to bring her face to face with the humanoid, her sword thrusting up towards its torso. The blade went straight up and through, impaling the surprised demon-spawn. Aylana gave her sword a good twist before removing it and then spit on the creature’s body as it slumped to the stone floor.    Rennai glanced to her right to see this, and just rolled her eyes. Sometimes that woman was just odd. Of course there were demons. Why was that damned woman surprised? Idiot holy people. Always shocked by the obvious.    But they weren’t finished yet so she’d yell at Aylana for being stupid later. Turning her attention back to the remaining Goblin, Rennai tilted her rapier slightly and thrust it straight downward. There was an odd sound as the sword made contact with its target, and then everything went quiet again, save for some heavy breathing from both Aylana and Rennai.    After a few moments, Rennai stood up straight, looked around the circular room, and slumped her shoulders, “That’s it?”    “It would seem that way,” Aylana said softly as she sheathed her blade over her shoulder.    There were no other doors. A stairway down, a main room, a corridor, and then this. That was it. Nothing particularly interesting looking to Rennai, either. Some tomb this was.    Falen finally walked into the room, with Cor behind him. As they stepped in to look around the relatively empty area, Rennai was knelt down digging through the bodies. Probably looking for anything valuable. While the little thief was trying to find anything of worth, Aylana had turned to a small wooden stand with a book on it that was behind where the humanoid was standing.    Looking to the left side of the room, Falen saw a small indentation in the wall. Slowly and curiously, he walked over to the section of wall, noting it was about the right size for a sarcophagus, which would be expected in a tomb like this...but there was simply dust. Well, not, there were rocks, too. Glancing around the circular wall, he could see multiple similar looking sections, but most seems to have been boarded over or were just as empty. Some tomb this was. Not even an old dead body...just fresh ones.    Cor was stepping past Rennai, who was now scrambling to the second Goblin’s body and looking angry. He rolled her eyes, somewhat insulted by the fact that she, too, was an Elf. But he ignored that annoyance and carefully leaned around Aylana’s shoulder to glance at the book that she had picked up and was looking through, “Something interesting?”    The human woman nodded, a strand of dark brown hair falling in front of her face despite the helmet that was supposed to be holding most of it back. She gave it an angry stare but then shifted the book so that Cor could see the writing more, “I believe it is a log of sorts.”    “Those are summoning diagrams,” Cor commented as he placed a finger on an illustration on one of the pages. He didn’t mention that he couldn’t read whatever language the writing was in, though.    Aylana nodded, “It seems this demon-spawn was involved with a cult of sorts bent on binding Elemental Gods to their service.”    “Elemental Gods?” Falen had made his way over to them and was now looking over Aylana’s other shoulder curiously. After reaching up and scratching his head, he mumbled, “I didn’t know there were Elemental Gods.”    “There’s a bloody God for everything,” Rennai’s grumbled comment came from below and behind them as she was now digging through the pockets of the humanoid.    The three others all gave her a casual glance before turning back to the book. It was Falen that spoke up again, saying quietly, “She has a point.”    Aylana dignified that with only a nod, which wasn’t much considering the heavy armour she was wearing, then turned a page in the book, “I believe that we have stumbled upon more than a simple grave robbing or haunting as the locals thought it was.”    “They’ll still pay us,” Rennai’s voice traveled up to them again, “Probably more, even.”    “Nonetheless,” Aylana tried to move on without sparking similar comments from Rennai, “This log suggests that the demon-spawn here was part of a much larger cult. He seems to have only arrived days ago with these two others. I believe they were simply the beginning of a much large group of similar creatures to come here.”    “And that matters to me...why?” yet again, Rennai cut in, though this time her voice was up higher, though not much since she was fairly short. She’d gotten to her feet and, when Cor and Falen glanced back to her, was idly looking over a palm sized red stone.    “What is that?” Cor asked, turning attention to the stone and reaching over to it.    Of course, Rennai immediately pulled her hand in and gave him a sharp look, “Its mine, that’s what it is. Looks valuable, too. About the only thing of worth and I’m claiming it since you three seem so interested in that book there.”    With those sounds, Aylana closed the book and then turned around to see what the question was about. She saw the stone that Rennai was protecting and then connected the object with some of the other pieces of text she’d read in the log, “This fiend here was a new member of this cult. He was sent ahead to prove himself...set up an outpost and then bind a minor being to his service. The log states that he was given a small, red stone as a focus for the binding.”    “Well its mine now,” Rennai pocketed the stone immediately upon hearing this from Aylana. Knowing that noble idiot, she’d want it for some greater good crap. Probably wouldn’t even be willing to sell the thing. Then they’d make barely any money at all on this waste of time trek into some foul smelling hole in the ground.    “May I make a suggestion?” Falen cut into the uneasy silence. When the three others looked to him, he decided that they were going to let him speak, and so, went on, “How about we leave this place, head back to town, and then decide what to do, hm?”    To the surprise of all of them, it was Aylana that nodded first, though the other two soon followed suit. So, a little less cautiously, they headed back the way they’d come.</blockquote>

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