Difference between revisions of "Xanthippe (Chapter 24)"

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Xanthippe (Act IV)#Chapter 24

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-All was peaceful when Xanthippe and Kasim returned to the Pandemonium Fortress.  At least, no demons had invaded that they could see.  Xanthippe did not feel peaceful at all.  See if she'd ever apologize to certain people again.  And Kasim, the way he'd been looking her over after Asheara's trick.  He was quiet now, but every now and then his attention would wander and he'd start grinning; didn't take a genius to figure out what he was thinking of.  Since all was well in the fortress, they took the waypoint back to the ruined city, and bravely stepped down the long, narrow stairway into the glowing inferno.
-Down they went, though thick accumulations of gritty soul ash, and past a polished stone layer many feet thick.  If this was the wall Heaven had put around Hell, Xanthippe wondered why it was laid down horizontally.  Then she remembered that Tyrael had spoken of Hell's layers as rings.  Maybe the layers of Hell manifest as spheres, nested one inside the other, and a wall around them would make a larger sphere.  The inner rings must be very small, then.  Maybe the evil was highly concentrated down there.
-Once they'd gotten through the wall, Xanthippe and Kasim saw the River of Flame.  It wasn't nearly as frightening as the harsh glow suggested -- Xanthippe was reminded of a huge lava flow.  In color, it was full of bright oranges and yellows; had it been molten rock, the heat coming off of it would have parboiled them both, but the temperature was quite tolerable.  A few islands of rock were scattered over its surface, and they could see demons crawling and stumbling towards the stairs to greet them.
-They were more grotesque spawning things, chained giants, and undead mages.  Nothing they hadn't met before.  They say you can get used to just about anything.  During the first few battles, Xanthippe noticed that Kasim was helping her a lot more than he should be.  She'd square off with some big brute, the big brute would slam her into next week, but get frozen by her cold aura.  Then Kasim would come in and chop the frozen thing to ice cubes while it was helpless, like she couldn't do it herself.  Even after she glared at him, he kept doing it, though he had to know he was irritating her.  Finally, after clearing out a pack of grotesques, she just couldn't stand it anymore.
-"Will you stop doing that!?"
-Kasim looked confused.  "Stop doing what?"
-"I can take some of them on myself, you know!"
-"Yeah, I know... I'm just getting the ones --"
-"The frozen ones are not dangerous, the ones that are running around are."
-Suddenly feeling very tired, Kasim said, "the frozen ones are easier to take out."
-"Do you think I can't tell that?  Do you think I'm stupid?  Listen --"
-Kasim interjected, "Is this about looking at you while you were naked?"
-"NO!  Yes!  What the hell do you think you were doing?"
-Kasim glanced heavenward. "Looking at you while you were naked?"
-"No!  What makes you think you could do that to me?"
-"Because... you were standing there, completely naked?"
-Panting, Xanthippe glared hard at him.  "First, you say I look fat..."
-"I didn't say that."
-"I KNOW what you MEANT!"
-"Aw, hell!" Kasim shouted, "If I thought you were fat, I wouldn't want to look at you, would I?"
-Xanthippe opened her mouth... then shut it again.  "Ok, point.  But you do not just stare at me like that!"
-Kasim folded his arms.  "I thought you said you could laugh at yourself."
-"That was humiliating!  I just stripped Asheara!  She took two hours to get my stuff back!"
-"She did offer you one of her outfits..."
-Eyes narrowed, Xanthippe hissed, "I'd rather die."
-"I don't think you're going to die from wearing a leather bikini.  She even said you'd look better in it than she thought."
-"What she said was that the plate mail made me look fat.  You told her, didn't you?"
-"No."
-"You told her bodyguard, then."
-"Vanji?  Uh... yeah, I guess I did."
-Xanthippe went quiet, just seething with anger.  "All I want... is a little respect.  That's all.  Just a little bit of respect.  No talking about me behind my back, telling me I should be prancing around in a bikini, or getting stripped.  Just... respect.  Is that so much to ask?"
-They stood there for a moment, Xanthippe silently boiling over, and Kasim slowly putting together a response.  He had found, over the course of his career, that when a woman talks about wanting respect, she's in a really pissy mood, and will try to bite your head off no matter what you say.  But you have to say something, or she thinks you don't respect her enough to pay attention to her.  The best tactic is to start getting philosophical: talk about something else that has something to do with it, and hope she'll get the connection.
-"Ok... it's like this."
-"What?!" Xanthippe snapped.
-"When I was growing up, in our neighborhood, there were a couple of dogs who lived there.  There was a big dog, and a little dog."
-"Ok.  What about them?"
-"The big dog was a great dog, everybody liked him.  He'd let you climb on him, the girls would dress him up in clothes and stuff, he didn't mind.  You could tell he was laughing, you know, going along with the joke, right?"
-"We can argue about how much a dog understands jokes, you know."
-"Yeah, but anyway, he was a great dog.  Everybody respected him, because he could rip your arm off if he wanted, but he didn't have to 'cause everybody respected him.  The little dog yapped and yapped all the time, morning 'til night.  Everybody hated that damn dog, he wouldn't shut the hell up for anything."
-Xanthippe nodded.  "Go on."
-Kasim continued. "The little dog was trying to tell everybody he was, like, dangerous and to respect him, but all he did was annoy everybody.  We used to drop buckets over him, or tie things to his tail, the little guy totally went ballistic.  Never did that to the other dog.  You could drop a bucket over his head, he's just shake it off and look at you."
-"And rip your arm off."
-"I don't think he ever bit anybody.  He didn't get upset over nothin'.  The little guy just kept tryin' and tryin', but the more he yapped, the worse it got.  Cause everybody hated him, you know?  It wasn't respectable, it was annoying."
-"Yeah, annoying yappy little mutt.  What are you telling me all this for?"
-Kasim looked at Xanthippe for a minute, then sighed.  "No reason, I guess."
-Irritatedly, Xanthippe let the matter drop.  There was no point in even trying to talk to Kasim about most things anyway.  He just didn't get it, and never would.  They continued making their way up the river of flame.  Every now and then, a scorched, skeletal form would rise screaming out of the river, then fall back out of sight.  Guess there had to be something to remind them they're still in Hell.  The stone platforms and narrow bridges eventually led to a large island, with one peninsula off to the left.  A waypoint was on the island; Xanthippe activated it, then went left.
-Amid a crowd of grotesques was a big fat demon who reminded Xanthippe of the demon smith from the Rogue Monastery.  He was laboring over a forge, but dropped everything when they came in sight.  An aura surrounded him, which suddenly made the heat of the river more palpable; the hammer he was swinging was white-hot, and getting hit by it would probably hurt a lot.  Running around him, Xanthippe and Kasim concentrated on killing the Grotesques and their wormy brood before they got out of hand.  The armorer was easy to avoid until they could deal with him by himself.  Concentrating on hitting hard and fast, they never let him get in a good strike with the hammer, and eventually he went down.
-Back at the fortress, Tyrael still hadn't returned.  According to Cain, that was the Hellforge, which Izual had supposedly assaulted all those centuries ago.  Hell's greatest weapons were forged there, amid the raging heat of the river of flame.  Xanthippe informed Cain that the river wasn't that warm, but Cain told her the heat was produced by burning souls on the bottom.  The roiling vapors of the river tended to keep the energy insulated in the river's channel, except what was routed through the forge.  The Hellforge was also the place to smash the corrupted soulstones.
-"How can you be sure?" Xanthippe asked.
-"Tyrael has told me this.  When the soulstone is smashed, the spirit contained within is released into Hell, and its connecting links to the mortal realms will be no more.  The demon lord Mephisto will never be able to enter our world again."
-"And how does Tyrael know this?  Did Izual tell him?"
-Cain thought about this, beads of sweat forming on his brow.  "I do not know.  Oh, this is terrible.  Without heavenly wisdom, what is there to guide our path?"
-"Cain..." Xanthippe shook her head.  "We're supposed to be standing up on our own two feet anyway.  Come on, if we just apply logic, we can figure this out.  What do you know about the soulstones?"
-"Hmmm.  I am afraid the Horadrim never knew very much about their exact nature.  They were given to us by the archangel Tyrael, for use in imprisoning The Three.  Their perfect crystalline structure acted to counter the natural resonance of the spirit contained within, but now that they have been corrupted, I have no idea what properties they possess."
-Xanthippe got Mephisto's soulstone out of her luggage.  The shard pulsed from within with an evil blue light; it reminded her of Izual, but more diseased-looking.  "How does the stone get corrupted?  Did Mephisto alter the crystal lattice pattern?"
-Cain just looked at her.  "How am I supposed to know?  I had no idea this could be done, and now you ask me how it was done?  What you say sounds reasonable, but there are many other reasonable explanations.  We have no way of knowing.  With years of time to study the stones, we might be able to deduce the weakness the demon lord exploited, but we do not have that time!"
-"Nor will you need it," Tyrael's voice intoned.  The angel floated down from above.  "The Three's plan is a diabolical one, but the soulstone may be safely destroyed on the Hellforge.  After the Three opened the hell gate, each went a separate way.  Mephisto remained in Kurast, to guard the gate and forestall your invasion of Hell.  Diablo has entered Hell to raise his army, in case Baal should fail on his mission."
-"What's Baal doing?  Where is he?"
-"Baal remains in the mortal realm.  The Lord of Destruction is making for the Barbarian lands at great speed.  He has recovered his own soulstone, somehow.  For Hell's invasion to be halted, all three brothers must have their soulstones smashed on the Hellforge."
-"Great," Xanthippe said.  "They scattered.  I have to chase each one down."
-"The Lord of Terror is closest at hand, so you should continue your pursuit in Hell until he is vanquished.  When this is accomplished, the pursuit of Baal must begin in earnest."
-"Yeah, right.  Get moving, in other words.  Are you sure smashing the soulstones is safe?"
-Tyrael was silent for a moment. "You feel you have cause to doubt me, mortal.  You may be correct in doing so.  I am sure.  The Lord of Hatred's ties to your world will be broken when the soulstone he has bound to himself is destroyed."
-With grave misgivings, Xanthippe returned to the river of flame and found the armorer's hammer.  It had cooled, and she could pick it up without burning herself.  Even approaching the Hellforge was difficult; the heat coming off it was intense, scorching and shriveling the flesh.  Carefully, she put the soulstone on the huge anvil in the heart of the forge; it glowed with the heat of the screaming souls surrounding it.  Lifting the hammer, she brought it down as hard as she could.  Thunder and fire shook the forge, and a scream of rage billowed up into the air.  Hundreds of skeletal spirits floated away from the shattered chips of crystal; Xanthippe wondered who they were, and where they were going.  Among the crystalline shards, she found several gem-quality pieces: a perfect emerald, a flawless emerald, a flawless skull, and a ruby, as well as a Sol rune.  In her cube, she was able to make another perfect emerald and a perfect skull.  Hopefully, the mule would he happy with those.

Difference between revisions of "Xanthippe (Chapter 24)"

Latest revision as of 09:24, 12 February 2017

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