Xanthippe (Act IV)

Template:Xanthippe nav A narrow causeway of steps led down from the Pandemonium Fortress to the outer steppes of Hell. There weren't any roaring flames, pitchforks, or parades of the damned. All was quiet, gray, and still; the only sound was the granular soil crunching under their feet. Just outside the gateway at the bottom of the stairs, Xanthippe looked around. A few columns, made of either gray stone or some strange metal, were scattered about, broken chains hanging listlessly from their peaks. Nothing else could be seen.

The material composing the columns did not reveal itself to closer examination, either. It rang dully when struck and could not be scratched; the chains seemed to be made of the same stuff. A rough line of the columns extended into the distance; maybe this had once been some large building or covered corridor. Further down the line, Xanthippe could see some people, tied to the columns. They looked as gray as everything else, and their sex and age was uncertain, but maybe she could get something out of them.

As Xanthippe and Kasim approached, the people tied to the column's base looked up. They had no hair, and their legs were fused together, but their eyes and ears were grotesquely huge. Xanthippe stopped and stared, horrified. They began a low wailing moan, and the nearest flailed their arms at them both, clutched and clawing with over-lengthened fingers. Soon, all the others on the line rose and took up the call.

Some things approached fast, kicking up grit and dust. Their skin was pale and fleshy, but there the resemblance to humanity ended. Shuffling on long, backwards-bent legs, their bodies were taken up almost entirely by a single, huge... opening, and a featureless head crowned the whole grotesquerie. Kasim and Xanthippe ran to attack; a column thing grabbed at her as she went past, tearing her surcoat. One of the shuffling things squeezed itself together, and from its orifice, a fleshy worm shat out into the world. More and more of the worms came; soon, they were surrounded.

Taking out the big grotesques, before they could give birth to any more of those things, was the best tactic to take. As Kasim chopped through the little ones, Xanthippe ran around to tackle the big mothers. Her frozen armor shield, quite strong by now, stopped the worms as they leapt onto her; it gave her valuable time to reach their mothers and slice them to bits. The new armor she'd bought held up wonderfully. Once they were all dead, Xanthippe went back to the column things. "Who are you? Can you understand me?"

The thing that had grabbed at her was dead; its fellow beings had torn it to shreds. They were now busy tearing each other up, fighting over that tiny bit of green silk, which was already ripped to pieces. After they died, Xanthippe watched as their bodies slowly shriveled and crumbled, like sand pouring out of an hourglass. The ground itself was exactly the same color, the same consistency; she bent down to take a closer look. The loose grit was full of tiny fragments of bone, and broken, human-looking teeth.

Looking around, Xanthippe saw other things approaching. There were running leapers, which jumped from pillar to pillar, and huge demons with swords and vast bat wings. The big guys looked exactly like the paintings of balrogs, except that they were much, much worse in life. The battle was long and very bloody; Xanthippe and Kasim were almost constantly on the run, either chasing the bouncing leapers or trying not to get surrounded by the balrogs and grotesques. Huge cracks ran through ground, which they had to avoid, and many more people-things were laying out everywhere for them to trip over.

Once all was quiet again, Xanthippe looked at the... dead souls? The gray people scattered on the ground, or tied up to columns. All looked mostly human, but were deformed and mutilated in horrible ways. Some were on the ground, their bodies thrown over a small stash of treasure, often a bit of gold or trinketry. Others were bundled up like firewood, thrown together in huge cages, and set on fire, lighting up the vast emptiness of the steppe. A few pairs were melded together at the lower body, with their arms cut off at the elbow. None had any legs, nor would any of them speak. Most of them could scream, especially the ones in the fires, as they burned down to sandy ash.

The cracks in the ground went deep. Looking down, Xanthippe could see buttressing columns and huge chains supporting the deep, deep layers of ash and bone, which went down at least 30 feet and probably much further.

"What is all this?" Xanthippe asked no one in particular.

"Uh... Hell, I guess?" Kasim answered.

"But... but... are these things people? What are they doing here?"

Looking around, Kasim shrugged. "Being in Hell?"

"But why are they here? What are they doing here?"

"Uh... well, those guys are on fire. Those two look like they died doing something obscene."

"No! Why are they here at all?"

Kasim looked confused. "Uh... punishment for their sins, and stuff?"

Xanthippe went silent, staring at the unknowably thick layers under her feet, and at the former human beings slowly joining them. "But WHY? This serves no purpose!"

After a moment's pondering, Kasim rubbed his chin. "Punishment... ?"

Xanthippe shook her head in irritation. "Look, when you punish someone, you're trying to get them to stop behaving a certain way, right?"

"I guess."

"Then what's the point of punishing someone for all eternity? After they're dead, they can't change the way they behaved, or atone for their sins, if you believe in that kind of thing. What purpose does it serve to punish someone when you can't change them?"

Kasim hated it when Xanthippe got to asking stupid questions like this. It made his head hurt. "Uh... I guess they're not being punished for eternity, then."

"No, they're just... crumbling into nothing."

"Yep."

Xanthippe shook her head. "But why?"

With a shrug, Kasim opined, "I dunno. Let's kill things."

Xanthippe just stood there, staring around. "Why are we here? There's no point to this."

"We're here to get Diablo, right?"

"Yeah... Diablo, Baal, all their hoary minions. They're invading the world. Killing and torturing everybody. They want to make the world like this."

That sounded plausible to Kasim. "Maybe, yeah. That would be bad."

"Very bad."

"I'm not gonna burn in a cage for the rest of my life."

Xanthippe nodded. "Or whatever. But..."

Quickly, Kasim said, "Whatever. Let's kill things."

"Yeah. Okay."

The steppes were full of more dying souls, and more demons. They killed lots of things. During a return trip to the Pandemonium Fortress, Tyrael told Xanthippe of an angel named Izual, who had betrayed Heaven to the demons, and had been punished by imprisonment within an abyss demon. Xanthippe wondered if angels and demons had bodies of their own, or if they always had to possess something to act in the mortal world. Maybe the dying souls down there were people who didn't have their bodies anymore. No, that couldn't be right; there were too many of them, and there had to have been thousands -- no, millions -- there in the past. There couldn't possibly be that many demons possessing bodies.

As she stood there thinking, Xanthippe suddenly realized Tyrael had stopped talking. "Huh?"

"I believe he has suffered enough," Tyrael said.

"What? You mean... the people out there?"

"The mortal souls troubling your mind sank to this depth of themselves, but an angel must not be allowed to suffer so. The torture my lieutenant suffered was beyond the endurance of even the noblest spirit, and further punishment is undeserved."

"You say the people out there are being punished?"

"Izual is being punished, for betraying the light of Heaven. The mortal souls littering the plains of despair are damned by their own weight of sin. There is nothing you or anyone can do for them." Slowly, Xanthippe let that sink in. "Why are they there? What's happening to them?"

"Long ago, the Seven Great Evils came to this place, and made it their own. Seven layers of the Abyss, each ruled by one of them, make up Hell. After their first invasion of the mortal realms, Heaven surrounded Hell with a towering wall. Now that wall is buried under the sinners of your world, those whose weight has not sent them further down."

"They just... fell?"

"Yes. The human spirit is eternal. But in time, these ones come to a kind of end, as the weight of despair crushes them. Now, they make up a new ring of Hell, out of the exhausted remains of their own souls."

"Rings? I thought they were layers."

"The two are not incompatible. You will not have to enter the inner seven. Your destination lies in the second, just within the wall. There, you will find the Hellforge, which Izual assaulted so inadvisedly, and the Chaos Sanctuary, Diablo's staging post."

Xanthippe counted. "That's nine layers."

"The Nine Hells. The second was a moat, built next to the wall. It is now a river of flame." "Sounds wonderful."

"Though it is a wonder to behold, caution is advisable. The effluvia of Hell's malice overflows into the river of flame, and millions of mortal souls burn forever in its depths."

Abyss demons, rivers of flame... this just gets better and better. Wandering back to the plains of despair, Xanthippe avoided the damned souls as she looked for Izual. Though when she found them, she kicked over the greedy ones who were hiding treasure; no sense wasting it. Kasim seemed to think chopping them to bits was fun. On the plains of despair, they met the first undead beings they'd seen in Hell. So, they weren't all demonic; maybe only the most malicious didn't wind up as legless slugs on the ash-heap. There were great cracks on the plains under their feet; a hellish red glow glared from underneath. Even though she knew she'd be going there eventually, but Xanthippe could not bring herself to look down to what lay below.

Alone in a ruined building, Xanthippe and Kasim found a huge demon. Its body was dark blue, vaguely translucent, and covered with huge icy spikes. Deep inside it, a light struggled and quivered like a butterfly in a bottle. This was almost certainly Izual, being punished for breaking under torture that would have broken anyone. Xanthippe wondered if that's the sort of justice Heaven usually doles out. No matter; she said she'd get Izual out, so she and Kasim got to work breaking the ice.

The demon, or ice thing, had a very thick skin, and it took a lot of chipping and chopping to finally smash it to bits. The only blessing was that the thing was slow as a glacier; it was easy to avoid its blows. As the demon crumbled to the ground and its body melted away into nothing, the bluish light inside spread its wings, and floated free.

"FREE!" a huge voice rang out. "You were sent by Tyrael!"

"Yes..." Xanthippe said, not sure what to make of this. Something wasn't right.

"What a fool! And what a fool you are for following him!"

Something definitely wasn't right. "Izual, I presume."

"What a great fool, imagining that I, his superior, would be content to remain his lieutenant!"

Ah, so it isn't just megalomaniacal mages who use the word 'fool' so much. Izual continued his ranting: "I shall tell you a secret, mortal... now that it is far too late for you or any other power to stop the plan set in motion ages ago. I am the one who convinced Tyrael to use the soulstones on the Three Prime Evils."

Xanthippe nodded, her brain racing. "He wouldn't have thought of it on his own, huh?"

"Tyrael is a slow, stupid, half-witted, blind FOOL! Using crystals to trap spirits is an idea completely beyond his comprehension! I knew when I suggested it that his meager intellect could not possibly see the terrible flaw therein!"

Judging from his word choices, Xanthippe decided that sucking up to this crazy angel was the best option. That works best for the 'smart and arrogant' types; sometimes, they'll tell you their whole plan, just so you'll be impressed with how smart they are. "But I don't understand! How would trapping the demons work to their advantage?"

"Your tiny mind would be blasted into gibbering madness if the full plan were known to you!" As Izual laughed, light pulsed and flickered through his form. "The soulstones can be flawed by the corrupting power of darkness, as all things can be. That is why Hell will be victorious over Heaven in the end! All can be corrupted, and corruption is mastery!"

As much as she hated listening to people like this, Xanthippe kept talking. She needed more information. "But that can't be! Tyrael knew the stones were flawed; that's why the demon spirits were imprisoned in mortal bodies!"

That provoked such roaring laughter, even Tyrael must have heard it. "IMPRISONED!! You fool, you cannot imagine the purpose of the stones! They were tools to gain great and powerful bodies for my Lords to possess! Full of knowledge, magic, and strength! Inside these powerful shells, The Three are hidden from the power of the Worldstone, and may roam your world at will. You, and all your kind, are doomed!"

Izual vanished with that last, oh-so typical threat. Why do all big nasty evil people talk like that, anyway? They all think they're better than everybody else, but they all sound exactly like each other. Tyrael was very surprised to hear about this. At least, Xanthippe got that impression. Hard to see facial expressions amid all those tendrils of light.

"If what you say is true, we may have been played for fools all along."

"We?" Xanthippe said.

"The Horadrim and I, of course. I am sorry, I had no idea Izual's betrayal went so deep; this has affected me."

Xanthippe frowned. "The Horadrim and you. Didn't the Horadrim do what you told them?"

"Not entirely. But..." The light around Tyrael trembled. "My judgment may have been in error, and led those I felt most responsible for astray."

Xanthippe stared at the angel. She wanted to say something. She wanted to scream at him. She wanted to do something besides stand there, staring at an angel who was supposed to know better. Finally, she said, "Do you know where Diablo and Baal are?"

"That is hidden from me, in the depths of Hell."

"How do you know they're in Hell?"

For a moment, Tyrael was silent. "I do not know."

Suddenly fearful, Xanthippe asked, "When I killed Mephisto, among his remains were three human skulls. Who were they?"

Tyrael's light trembled again. "I have no knowledge of this. Mortal, I fear this is a ruse, meant to draw our attention from the Three's true purpose. I must go for a while. My servants should keep the Fortress safe during my absence. Should an assault breach the fortress, please, take Cain and return to Kurast. My servants will find me."

With a soft sound and a smell like a freshly-cut apple, Tyrael vanished. Cain, who had heard all this, looked like he was going to faint. Xanthippe said to Kasim, "Well, we're fvcked."

"Kind of figured, when you said we were going to Hell."

"No, we're fvcked in new and totally different ways."

Kasim shrugged. "Want to go home?"

"No. I wanna kill things."

Kasim thought about that for a while. "Sure, why not?"