Xanthippe (Chapter 31)

Template:Xanthippe nav Making their way further up the plateau around Mt. Arreat, Xanthippe and Kasim found more fortresses, more demons, and more bunnies. The bunnies were the worst for Kasim. As soon as she saw then, Xanthippe would coo, hop up and down, and start chasing them, even ignoring the whip lashes of angry Overseers. Of course, when you're sheathed head to toe in enchanted steel, a whip lash can't do much, but occasionally one of the Barbarians saw her like that. It was embarrassing. Kasim had seen her face down Hell's worst minions, scream in an angel's face, mud wrestle Asheara, even take on the Prime Evils. But throw fluffy white bunnies into the mix, and she goes to pieces.

The Barbarians who'd made it up this far were few and far between, but their tempers hadn't improved any. They still insisted on charging into battle wearing a kilt and a full helm, even though Larzuk had lots of fine armor for sale. At least they had the kilt; Xanthippe had heard some berzerkers even considered that too much. The look in their eyes was crazy, and they did the stupidest things, but Xanthippe did what she could to keep them alive. Most went for the forts; after clearing one, they'd often stay inside, looking proud of themselves. If they wanted to play "King of the Castle", it would keep them out of trouble, so Xanthippe let them think what they wanted.

The only noteworthy incident came when a naked slave, engorged with explosive energy from an Overseer's whip, burst, and a fragment killed one of the bunnies. Xanthippe challenged herself to see how many of his own slaves an Overseer could eat, stuffing them in with the butt of her halberd. The answer was: at least nine, but Kasim begged her to stop at that point so they could continue up the mountain. At the top of the plateau, a cliff blocked further ascent. Light shone out of a small hole in the cliff, and inside was a fire, in a cave with walls of clear ice.

Next to the cave was an urn, its base embedded in ice. When Xanthippe opened it, huge spiders crawled out; they creeped around slowly as she squished them. The base of the cliff also supported a small colony of rabbits. Xanthippe just had to chase the bunnies, and with a quick teleport, caught one. The poor thing was terrified, but she held it on her lap and petted it anyway, before letting it go. Then they went into the cave.

The walls, floor, and ceiling were made of solid ice, but strangely, it felt warmer inside than outside. The flickering fire wasn't hot enough to melt anything, so it must have been very cold indeed. The firelight and the glow of Xanthippe's spells sent light shining and reflecting through the crystalline cave walls. The red if her fire enchantment danced with the blues and greens of the ice, making subtle purples and flashes of orange. It looked like something from a fairy tale, or legends of the heavens. It was almost offensive to see the Minotaurs charging through the place, covered with armor and swinging axes nearly as long as her halberd. The place was too pretty for them.

Minotaurs are nasty bastards, fast and absurdly strong, and something new was with them: demonic women. Sharp-featured, long-legged, alabaster-skinned women with colorful bird wings on their shoulders, wearing almost nothing. Shrieking happily, they cast a barrage of spells at Xanthippe and Kasim, before swarming in like crows to a corpse. Xanthippe had to teleport them out of the mess, or the sheer weight of demons might have gotten them.

The Minotaurs were as tough as ever, but the winged women were fragile. They raked with their nails and kicked with their spiky boots, but made little impact on their layers of armor and protective magic. As they died, their bodies withered to heaps of dried-out bones, much like the crushed skeletons Xanthippe and Kasim had left behind so many times before. These demons were even less suited to open combat than Imps; their appearance suggested some perverted harem, not the battlefield. Maybe she wasn't as sturdy as some, but Xanthippe wasn't going to be b!tch-slapped to death by some half-naked flying bimbos.

"I wonder what all these bimbettes are doing here?"

"They sure didn't come dressed for a fight," Kasim opined.

"You noticed that, huh? Maybe Baal's putting his personal harem into action."

"He must be desperate. Girls shouldn't be in combat."

After a second, Kasim noticed that Xanthippe had stopped, and was glaring at him. Aw, man, what did I just say? he thought. "Hey, I didn't mean you. You're ok in a fight."

Now Xanthippe looked even more offended. "Only ok?"

Wearily, Kasim closed his eyes. "I thought we'd gone over this already."

"When did we do that? I don't remember it. All I remember is you making smarmy comments, I ask what you mean, you change the subject."

Damn, she's on to me, Kasim thought. "Well.... uh... I was talking about harem girls."

"You said, 'girls.' I did not hear the word 'harem' in that sentence."

"Sure, I had 'harem' in there somewhere. I'm pretty sure. Maybe I just meant to say it."

Xanthippe looked unconvinced. "So: what kind of girls do you think belong in combat?"

Kasim thought about that; actually, he was stalling. "I got hired by this assassin once. She was a mean bi -- I mean girl."

"Ok, magekillers. Not mages?"

"I thought you didn't like being a mage?"

"I like being a mage. I don't like mages. They're pretentious, snobbish blowhards who take forever to get to the damned point."

"Oh, yeah. And they never admit when they don't know something."

"Yeah, that's another thing: never admit you don't know, just keep talking and later pretend you knew the whole time. Oh, and even better, pass the buck to some other mage and try to get them to admit they don't know. Then they can say 'Ooooh! Look at the almighty size of my awesome brain! Wow, I'm so much smarter than you!'"

Kasim laughed. "And they say size doesn't matter."

Xanthippe snorted, trying to hold in a giggle. "Not for that head, anyway! But a really good one is when... DAMN IT! YOU'RE DOING IT AGAIN!"

Damn! "Doing what again?" Kasim asked in mock confusion.

"Quit changing the subject!"

Kasim scratched his head. "Uh... what were we talking about?"

Xanthippe opened her mouth... and closed it again. "It was about... assassins? No."

"You mean Natalya? She was kind of scary."

"No, not about her. Scary women... the flying bimbettes!"

"Oh, yeah! You know, that sounds like a name for a weird circus troupe, or a chorus line."

"A circus troupe?" Xanthippe pointed at the piles of bones. "Them?"

"Sure! Instead of having an act, they'd have... an unnatural act, I guess."

Xanthippe thought for a moment. "You know, there's probably a lot of people who'd pay good money to see that."

"That's a weird phrase, you know?" Kasim pondered wisely. "If there's good money, what's bad money? I never saw money I didn't like."

"Bad money is just not enough money," Xanthippe said.

"Doesn't make it bad. I mean, bad cheese isn't not enough cheese."

Sighing, Xanthippe closed her eyes. "Damn it. When I remember what I'm mad at you about, you're gonna be in trouble. Don't go running off anywhere."

Kasim shook his head. "No way. It's dangerous in here without you."

Her eyes snapped open, and Xanthippe smiled a bit. "Don't think you'd survive without me?" "Nuh-uh. Those bull guys are hella cruel."

Smugly, Xanthippe nodded. "Ok. I guess that's what I was mad at you about."

"Maybe. Your mind is one of the world's great mysteries."

Xanthippe grinned. "That's a quote from somebody, isn't it?"

Kasim smirked. "My dad used to say that to my mom. Then she'd laugh, and hit him with the rolling pin."

"What a charming little domestic scene that must have been. Let's kill things."

"No prob."

Moving through the ice caves, they found more monsters, including slow-moving demons who seemed to be made of ice. They were too pokey to be a threat in and of themselves, but they breathed chilling blasts of air. If there were Minotaurs in the area with them, they were worse than the bimbettes. There were also more urns in the caves, but when she opened these, demons appeared out of nowhere. The urns must be trapped somehow. One demon dropped a beautiful rare circlet, with wonderful properties... too bad it was ethereal.

Deeper in the ice caverns, Xanthippe and Kasim found a river of melt-water. Apparently, the river wasn't maze-like enough to keep the Minotaurs happy, but some big, white, hairy bipeds liked it just fine. The "Yeti" weren't as fast as the Minotaurs, or as well-armed, but they were very sociable and came in large groups. There were plenty of narrow places along the river's edge where they could attack them a few at a time, though.

Xanthippe nervously noted that even though the water was icy cold, bubbles streamed up to the surface. Volcanic gas was apparently escaping through the underlying rock, but she couldn't smell what kind of gas it was. Odorless gas, associated with volcanic activity, could mean a build-up of undetectable, deadly gas in a closed space like this cave. At least the Yeti, though in league with the demons, were only animals, and had to breathe too. The air was probably safe where Yeti weren't afraid to walk.

After chopping their way through the skull of an especially tough Yeti, they came to an odd tiled platform in the middle of a bubbling lake. A column of ice stood in the center of the platform, and by the light of her enchantments, Xanthippe could see something inside it. It was a person, a young woman, completely encased in the ice. This was very odd. Someone had built the platform, but it looked very old; the surface was dirty and deeply scratched. This frozen woman could have been here for a long time, her body preserved for centuries; Xanthippe had heard of mummies found in ice that were thousands of years old.

Wait a minute; did her ice-woman's eyes just open? Xanthippe took a step back and waved to Kasim, but the ice didn't burst asunder, unleashing a prehistoric ice mummy from days of yore. Stepping forward again, Xanthippe rubbed the frost of her breath off the clear block, and saw the woman's eyes were open, and her mouth was moving. Help... me... No, this woman was of much more recent vintage. Xanthippe started chopping at the block to free her, but on the first swing, her halberd froze in the ice.

"Argh!" Xanthippe twisted and pulled at her halberd.

"Don't do that, you'll break the blade." Kasim looked at it. "That thing's stuck."

"Oh, crap. Now what?"

"Maybe we can build a fire?" Kasim asked.

"From what? Besides, my enchantment had my halberd on fire. This ice is magical."

Kasim frowned. "Couldn't you just look and see that?"

"I didn't think it would freeze my halberd. Damn, that's strong stuff. Let's ask Cain."

Cain didn't know anything about breaking the ice with a young woman; venerable sages sometimes have trouble with that, Xanthippe surmised. But Malah knew something about it; it was a spell known to the elders of Harrogath, which took some time to cast, but could be used on anyone who had previously been rendered helpless. The victim was kept alive, but unable to move or act, perfectly preserved until freed by the caster's whim. Malah was sure the woman was Anya, and that it was imperative to free her. Nihlathak could do it... but since he was undoubtedly the one who put her there, why would he free her? Xanthippe sent Kasim to grab him anyway, while Malah mixed a potion that might thaw the ice.

Malah tossed some twigs into a very thick-walled bottle, then some yellowish liquid. "This is similar to normal thawing potions... but I am making much more, and much stronger."

Xanthippe nodded. "Smells like white wine. Not vinegar?"

"The tincture contains many oils, which act against the grip of water. Some are very rare."

"From what I'm smelling, capuscin is the main ingredient."

Malah glanced at Xanthippe. "You amaze me. I did not realize you were familiar with alchemy."

Xanthippe smirked. "Where I'm from, that's a spice."

Malah chuckled, skimming off a green liquid from a simmering pot. "You must be very hot-blooded there. I would scarcely think it, to know you."

Kasim came back. "He's not over there. I searched his house and everything."

"Crap. Are you sure that potion will work, Malah?"

"As sure as I am of anything," Malah smiled.

Xanthippe smirked. "These days, that's not reassuring."

Malah kept smiling. "Don't say such things, child." She quickly added a dash of red stuff to the bottle, then jammed a stopper in hard. "Here, take it, and free Anya. As our chief Aust's daughter, she is privy to many of the secrets of Mt. Arreat, which otherwise only Nihlathak would know. I cannot imagine why he would do what he has done... but now is not the time to guess at his motives. Anya will tell us."

The potion bottle shook with bubbles bursting inside, and stayed hot in her hand all the way back into the ice caves. Looking at the ice block, Xanthippe wondered how she should use the potion; but first, she had to get the stopper out. Malah had jammed the thing in hard. For a decrepit old woman, she had a heck of a grip. After watching her struggle for a bit, Kasim took the potion, and popped the cork out. "Don't start thinking I'm only good for mowing the lawn. Whoa!"

A blast of vapor shot out of the bottle, and the liquid boiled over instantly. Kasim dropped it, and Xanthippe screamed, "Get it on the ice! On the ice!" They kicked the bottle towards the block, thankfully splashing most of the liquid on it. At the touch of the boiling oils, the ice flashed up instantly into steam, and the huge block dissolved to nothing. The ice woman was left standing there. She was still blue, and hunched over, but Xanthippe could grab her, and carry her back to Harrogath.

It was Anya, suffering from the worst case of frostbite Malah had seen for a long time. The spell was supposed to keep the victim unharmed, but it seems Nihlathak had forgotten that part. Or just didn't bother.

"What's going on? Where's Nihlathak? Why'd he do this?" Xanthippe asked.

"Let her recover!" Malah said. "She is barely even conscious. I will do all I can."