Spinning around the sailors dragged Parn with them and darted to the second
entrance. Zyn stared at the menacing lycanthrope who broadcast a predatory
sneer. A hand lunged and snatched him by the shoulder, jerking him back like a
rag doll. “Zyn, come on!” Lum shouted. Stumbling in the sailor’s wake, Zyn
hurried behind him along with Lorian to reach the second entrance. Panicked
fire raced through his limbs as the true gravity of the situation came fell
upon his consciousness, this crashing reality that they had been discovered,
and if they didn’t get out immediately, cornered.
Out of the main arched entrance came a floating horde of the demon worshiping
scum that had claimed this place, racing over the tops of each other in their
sinister enthusiasm to capture the interlopers. This, however, barely had time
to register in Zyn’s mind before the six men came to a screeching halt as the
second smaller entrance they were headed to was blocked off by five very irate
looking merfolk, three mermaids and two mermen.
A mad scramble backward ensured the men practically tripped over each other
onto their backs, resulting a chaotic mess of torsos and limbs. Zyn rolled
over to his side, trying to get to his feet. A long object, some shaft, spear,
whatever, whacked him across the head before he could gain his footing, and
down he went. He fell to his knees struggling as hands smacked into his
shoulders and held him down.
Amid the frantic movements and chaotic shouting, Zyn turned and saw that all
of his fellows were now similarly captive, held still various knives, spears,
and simple clubs hanging menacing above each of them, the men’s own weapons
confiscated and carried hurriedly out of the chamber. Gulping, the implication
of his situation belatedly hit him; they had failed, and were now at the demon
worshippers’ mercy. The thought occurred in the back Zyn’s mind what Xayk
could possibly be up to, that if only he hadn’t run off they might have had a
chance.
Like cattle they were herded and pushed back into the center of the room,
amidst angry jeers in the mer’s clicking foreign tongue. In the pandemonium of
the situation, however, even now the wereorcas and their mer counterparts
glared and tossed semi-hostile sneers at each other, and indeed a competition
seemed to take place as to whether the lycanthropes or the normal mers could
rough up their captives more. None of this mattered, none of this registered
as it should. Zyn fought, struggled to worm his way free even as a rain of
blows came down each time he did so; he struggled in his mind, fought to
concentrate, to [i]focus[/i] on survival, but only panicked, disjointed
thoughts found their way into the fore of his mind.
It wasn’t enough.
With great slams they were all brought to the center of the sacrifice chamber,
thrust onto the ground with enough force to crack open skulls. Dazed, Zyn
staggered his gaze up, his head searing and throbbing from a not insubstantial
gash in his forehead. To his left he saw Grumiah with several cuts on his arm
and a similar gash on his face; several of the others looked beaten and bruised
as well.
A gasp ushered as Parn froze and stared ahead, looking as if he were about to
pass out. In the confusion Zyn almost didn’t notice where they had been
brought: all of them were situated in an arc near the front of the sacrificial
altar.
A graceful form floated in from the gathered congregation of angry merfolk and
lycanthropes, a single mermaid endowed with exquisite jewels and a decisively
immodest frame. With smoldering indignation she hefted in her hands the
crystal that the men had attempted to make off with. “More thievery, when you
have already stolen much,” she declared with unremitting hostility. “Perhaps
it is not such a terrible inconvenience, for you shall pay for your previous
transgression; you shall pay six fold.” One by one her eyes passed over each
of them, as if to remind them of their number. Nearby Parn shook visibly; Pols
clenched his fists in infinite, helpless frustration. Grumiah attempted to
bury his fear behind a stoic mask, while Lum seemed to cave under a crushing
weight of weariness. Zyn knew what it was, that this meant that a year old
child would never get a chance to see her father.
As for Zyn, his mind raced, paced, frantically pulled and pushed in every
which way, only to go nowhere, only to end up right back in this moment. The
here and now, where he was going to die.
Two figures made their way through the crowd, figures Zyn recognized by their
ornate garments. The wereorca and merman priests that had been hovering over
Sreenii the day before, just before they had rescued the hapless intended
sacrificial victim; they were here now to finish the job. Dutifully but with
dark satisfaction the mermaid that had spoken turned and passed the dark
crystal to her mer counterpart, who received it thoughtfully but with severe
purpose. Quickly he clicked a line in the mer’s utterly alien tongue and a
second mermaid approached and received the crystal, who then rose and placed
the abomination in its hanging position above the altar.
The wereorca priest, meanwhile, studied the men with his large hideous eyes,
even more disturbing and alien than that of a normal mer, being the combination
of merfolk and one of those predatory black and white beasts that swam under
the waves. As he did so, Zyn noticed Lorian, staring back up at his captors
not with fear, loathing, or defiance, but... a strange countenance, a peace
that stood strong like a rock against a storm. The lycanthrope priest seemed
quick to notice it, and without further ado pointed to the one armed man. Two
pairs of hands grabbed him and gruffly dragged him to the altar, hoisting him
like some sack of grain, and deposited him just as callously.
In the back of Zyn’s mind he realized what the demon-worshipers were doing;
Lorian was the one who had shown the most strength, the most resolve; killing
the strong would leave the weak to cower and tremble in fear. With a heavy,
crushing realization, Zyn wondered if that made him just so, not strong enough
to stand up to what was happening. But what could he do? What could he
possibly achieve? All he felt now...
Floating on his plank in the middle of the ocean, he had furiously pondered
the separating line between life and death, that thin division between this
world and the next. He had wondered if he was strong enough to face that final
challenge, that final test.
It seemed he was about to find out if indeed he was strong enough.
Lorian let himself be chained down without a struggle, without the slightest
piece. With that done, the mer priest unsheathed a wicked, jeweled knife, the
same he had held to Sreenii’s face the day before, threatening him with death.
Uttering more words in that incomprehensible tongue, the priest raised the
knife upwards. Apparently they saw fit to dispense with the pleasantries of
excessive ceremony or taunting as they had done with Sreenii, whom they had
left by himself to contemplate his fate. Then again, they had five others who
would have plenty of time to do just that, after they had killed the strongest
of will among them.
Feelings bubbled and burst in Zyn’s skull, raging to and fro. He couldn’t for
the life of him figure out what it was he felt, seeing that merman hold that
knife above his mentor, his friend, the closest person he had ever had to a
father, but...
Even as the knife was raised to its highest, ready to strike down upon him,
and the crystal began glowing anew with its rending, pulsating evil, Lorian
somehow cracked a wry smile as he stared at the spectacle that was to end his
life. The priest shouted another phrase, then lowered the knife to above Zyn’s
mentor’s throat.
Lorian’s eyes briefly passed to his student, then up into the air, gazing
seemingly at nothing in particular. “There are always possibilities...”
In that moment his throat was slit.
Blood spurted out in a gushing fountain, and the old man coughed a chortle of
blood which spilled all across his lips. Flaring a deep purple the crystal
shone and in the deepest possible sense it [i]roared[/i], a soul shattering
rumble that shook Zyn’s heart, rattling it.
Unexpectedly he felt a tug as he and the others were dragged to their feet; it
took him only moments to figure out why, or rather see. Here now they saw the
dark light from the crystal soak and bathe Lorian’s dying body, his blood
glistening in its dark glow. Forced to watch they observed in mute shock
Lorian’s body twitch no more as it caught alight with a tremendous, roaring
black flame.
This was not the worst. Not in the slightest. Zyn [i]felt it happen[/i]. He
could feel the wrenching, shredding energies that were sapping at his mentor’s
energies, his soul feeding the flames. The distance between him and the altar
was inconsequential, he may as well have been the sacrificial victim himself.
Every spike and roar of that hideous unholy process he felt crash into him like
a wall of water threatening to drown him in its blackness, just as that dark
wave that had shattered their ship had done in the darkness of that storm.
And like that wave it sought to subsume him into the deep. Cast him aside to
either death or madness, never offering an in between.
Just like every pain he had ever fought sought to do to him, to cleave him in
two, to [i]break[/i] him...
[i]No[/i].
[i]Like[/i] Hell [i]it will[/i].
It wasn’t going to happen like this. He wasn’t going to sit and let the
darkness claim him.
With a roar equal to the unholy fire that even now consumed the last of
Lorian’s remains on the altar Zyn’s heart pushed, making him stand straight.
The fear was overwhelming, over bearing, but he took it full force, grabbed it
by the scruff of the neck and lassoed it firmly. All that wild fear, hate, and
uncertainty, poured into one raw molten furnace and forged in fire.
He saw the others, some defiant and some nearly broken, but all slaves to
their fate. And he saw surrounding them their captors, the merfolk and
wereorcas who had put aside their differences to worship in this unholy place.
They had put aside their hatred to be united by hatred...
There wasn’t a second thought. There was only this one moment, and Zyn
grabbed it for all it was worth. Spinning about, much to the surprise of his
immediate captor who had loosened his grip, Zyn faced down the nearest
lycanthrope. But he raised no hand against it. Instead, he backed against a
startled mer and, before his captors could snap him back into place, shouted at
the wereorca.
“Lycanthrope! Filthy were-monsters! We’ve got you now. Us un-[i]tainted[/i]
got you in our noose now, ain’t that right!”
As he had hoped, for a brief infinitesimal moment the throng of demon
worshippers was too caught off guard by his sudden and very directed outburst
to beat him back into place. “The trap’s going great, we’re all ready to gut
you now, ain’t that right guys?” he snapped and smiled darkly to several
merfolk floating behind him.
It was impromptu, it was ludicrous, it was downright insane, but Zyn knew they
had one shot, and he knew that the mers and the wereorcas already hated each
other. This was the only reason he hadn’t been beaten and told to be silent.
But even now, he had no time to waste. All it would take was just one cool
head to prevail and dismiss him and it would all be over for the men. So it
was time to make things hot.
“Filthy lycanthropes!” he shouted and moved to shove the wereorca in front of
him, who fortunately floated right next to a mermaid. He made deliberately
sure that his shove pushed the wereorca right into the mer.
“Dirty monsters!” another shout came out, one which Zyn instantly recognized
as Pols. The bald sailor, probably as a result of having been through his
share of barroom brawls, caught onto to Zyn’s crazy plan and shoved the nearest
wereorca.
The lycanthrope Zyn had shoved shouted indignantly, but at that moment was
snarled at by the mermaid he had been sent crashing into. Zyn quickly stoked
the fire as furiously as he could. “Yeah, come on guys,” he shouted to the
mers, “the plan’s ready! Let’s kill these bastards now! Kill these degenerate
bags of shit! Kill ‘em all!”
Zyn let loose another violent shove, and when he was pushed back by the
incensed wereorca he exaggerated the force and flung himself back into two or
three merfolk bunched together.
Shouts started emerging from all across the hall, angry and accusatory shouts
if the tone was any indication, and more shoving as the rest of the sailors got
into the act as well only added fuel to the flames. As Zyn fell completely to
the floor, he saw a mer and a lycanthrope angrily shouting at each other before
they were shoved from behind. Amid the waving mass of bodies some encounters
got more violent then they were intended to be, and tempers took on from there.
In a matter of seconds the shouts morphed from denunciations to screams as a
blow or two was exchanged, and then all hell broke loose.
Blood sprayed through the air as someone grabbed a spear or knife and sliced
open their neighbor. Blows came raining in left and right as Zyn got up and
crawled low beneath the floating forms of the mers and the wereorcas,
unnoticed. His eyes darted around as he tried to locate the others, whom he
saw piling around the altar amid the chaotic mess that the sacrificial chamber
had devolved into.
He also spotted them just in time to see Grumiah stabbed through the chest
with a spear. The offending wereorca, however, wasn’t off scot free as the
quartermaster had apparently already sealed his fate by slicing open a good
portion of the lycanthrope’s belly. Both combatants fell on top of each other
in a dying heap.
Zyn watched the ordeal occur as if in slow motion, but quickly shook his head
for letting it distract him. Scrambling forward to join his remaining fellows,
Zyn saw Pols with a spear stolen from their captors skewer the lycanthrope
priest, and just beside him on the other side of the altar Lum had jumped on
top of the wereorca’s mer counterpart and after a brief struggle snapped the
priest’s neck.
All around them screams of the enraged and the dying filled the chamber with
an ear shattering cacophony, leaving only four men out of the original six to
stand against the horde of demon worshippers. Fortunately the horde was much
too occupied with cutting itself to pieces and with their priests dead no one
seemed to be left who could bring any sort of order to the scene.
However, even in chaos there was extreme danger, as Parn, who was huddled
small against the side of the altar as he tried to make himself as invisible as
possible, was spotted by a particularly cut up grisly looking mermaid whose
eyes thirsted for blood and vengeance. Zyn saw the sacrificial knife the mer
priest had used to kill Lorian laying on the floor beside the demonic clergy’s
body, and wasted no time in snatching it up. Parn screamed as the mermaid was
about to thrust a spear into his gut when Zyn leaped up and delivered the knife
into the aquatic bitch’s back. A staggered, breathless gasp escaped her mouth
as she struggled paralyzed in her last moments; Zyn stabbed her again in the
back of the neck to hasten her demise.
Blood covered his hands and had splattered onto his face, but he realized that
for the first time in his life he had killed someone. He took little time
contemplating this, however; there was work to do. He snapped around to see
Lum already grabbing Parn’s arm and dragging him up, telling the mage that now
was the appropriate time to “get the hell outta here!”
But first, there was one last thing to do. As mer and wereorca slaughtered
each other Zyn climbed onto the altar and snatched that crystalline abomination
that had so gloated and roared upon the death of his mentor. If there was
anyway he could end this unholy device, he was going to find it.
This act, however, seemed to at last attract some of the fighting throng’s
attention. Apparently attempting to thieve (again) their precious crystal that
lay at the heart of all their deadric rituals was enough to distract them from
their hatred, for a few of them at least. At least seven wereorcas and mer
approached them menacingly.
Suddenly behind him a blindingly bright wall of light seemingly erupted from
nowhere, causing the demon worshippers to stagger back clutching their eyes.
The burst was only momentary though and by the time Zyn snapped around he saw a
trembling Parn lower two stones that glowed with some residual energy as he
breathed heavily from his burst of spell casting. The stones too looked to
have been worn by the power that had flowed through them as they started
crumbling like talc. Fortunately it seemed to be enough to daze their pursuers
for now.
“Come on ladies,” Pols shouted as he nabbed a couple spears from two dead
mermen and tossed one to Lum, “time to skedaddle!” For once, Zyn wasn’t going
to argue in the slightest with the short sailor.
Bolting, they took the secondary entrance to the chamber and just ran, not
caring much at all where they went for the moment. Right at the moment, they
were putting as much distance between them and that throng as possible. As
they did so, Zyn took the knife, hoping that it could have some mystical
properties seeing as how it was used for human sacrifice, and tried to shatter
the dark crystal with its blade. Again, not the slightest chip or crack
appeared.
Up and down, left and right they ran, how long Zyn couldn’t say for certain.
It felt like forever, but part of him figured that it was only one or two
minutes. Eventually the tunnel they were following spilled out into a
gargantuan chamber, larger even by far than the sacrifice room. “By Eli, you
could stuff an entire cathedral in here,” Lum said between gasping breaths.
Zyn tapped them all on the back. “Come on, we can’t stay here.” But before
they could get moving again, a great slam shook the whole cave, sending it
shaking and quivering with a torrent of loose rocks. Above and ahead of them a
good twenty feet an entire section of the ceiling collapsed, raining rock down
as a storm in the tropics might release a torrent of rainwater. With it a
great dark form fell with it and smashed onto the ground in front of them.
Coughing and choking midst the dust, Zyn tried to wave his vision clear.
Suddenly a great light burst forth, a familiar ambient kind, accompanied by an
equally familiar voice which rang out, “Well there you guys are!”
Shocked, Zyn stared through the dust and sure enough as his vision cleared a
great scaled beast now stood where the ceiling had just caved in, sitting
expectantly on his haunches, this time his head absent a crude wig made of
sailor’s hair; his face composed in a pleasant smile.
“Where the pagan hells were you!?” Pols furiously demanded of the dragon.
“D-do you realize what we just went through while you waltzed off and abandoned
us!? Lorian and Grumiah are dead and we almost got killed ourselves!”
Xayk just shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, it appears you succeeded
nonetheless,” he responded nodding to Zyn, who stared at the dragon then at the
crystal that he cupped in his hand. Without further preamble the dragon
reached forward with one of his massive taloned hands and plucked the dark
abomination from Zyn with his claws. Rolling it into the center of his hand,
Xayk just squeezed and with an ear puncturing crunch, Zyn heard the crystal
shatter into a thousand pieces.
Lum looked like he was just about to say something when another fierce
rumbling shook the cave, and at the far end of the chamber a great heave of
dust and rocks rolled forth as an entire section of wall fell away. A great
roar rolled forth and out of the frothing dust emerged two dark shapes, very
[i]large[/i] dark shapes, which stomped forth on massive feet. As they stepped
into the furthest reaches of Xayk’s light spell, Zyn saw what appeared to be
two huge black minotaur looking creatures with enormous tattered looking
draconic wings sticking out of their backs. With tremendous bellows the
creatures hefted what appeared to be maces the size of carriages.
Xayk suddenly acquired a bemused look on his face and turned to regard the
four men. “You might want to haul thine butts outta here; I’ll deal with these
rather rude fellows. Take the left passage just behind you and go left then
two rights; there’ll be a shaft that leads straight up back to the surface.
Wait there ‘till I come get you.”
With that Xayk slowly spun about to face the demons and sat back down on his
haunches, and smiled to himself as the monstrosities roared and charged with
enough power to plow a church over. Zyn and the others wasted absolutely no
time and bolted from the spot; even Parn had no trouble keeping up in the
adrenaline of the moment.
!DSPAM:4af0ddfe230701804284693!
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