Amanita (Chapter 26)
Template:Amanita nav Sixty-six steps down from the fortress, and I was in Hell. I guess I knew it was going to happen someday. At first, the inferno wasn't blood, flame and nightmares, just dark gray ash and grit that felt like cremated bone. A metallic taste hung in the air, maybe from the fires I could see in the distance. The horizon was completely black. I couldn't see far in the gloom, but there didn't seem to be a single living thing around. Something had been here, at least long enough to build some free-standing pillars and what looked like doorways. None of them were part of anything, or even connected to each other.
There were no obvious threats, so I went to look at a doorway. It was probably a gate, but opening it would take a spell. I didn't mess with it. When I came up to one of the pillars, it opened its eyes and looked at me. A person, as ash-gray as everything else, was melted halfway into the pillar, and more were around the sides. They stared as I paced a slow circle around them, but their eyes were empty, like they were just tracking movement and nothing else. I couldn't tell what sex they were, what race, anything. Everything individual in them was gone. So this is damnation. Looks incredibly dull... which may be the point.
Something rustled in the grit behind me. I dove away as a red-and-gray blur bounced off the pillar and skidded off, kicking up clouds of ash. More came behind it. They looked a lot like the leapers from the desert, but bigger, spikier, and covered with open sores oozing bloody liquid. An odd choice of creature to demonize -- I would have picked Flayers. They were as vulnerable to poison as ever, so I put them down fast. One damned soul took a swipe at me while I was maneuvering, and hit just hard enough to upset me. I paid it back with a bolt in the throat once the leapers were dead. It died too. Are souls in Hell undead? They could die, or at least stop moving... nah, too much thinking. Undead, demons, animals, people -- everything dies if you hit it hard enough.
Hell didn't have many landmarks. One direction looked the same as another. I couldn't get lost with the fortress up in the sky, so I picked a horizon and started walking. It wasn't long before a bloated shape picked itself up and started slouching vaguely in my direction. It wasn't headed towards me, so I held my fire and watched. The creature was big, mostly a huge gut with some spindly limbs pushing it along the ground. Its head was small, perched over a gaping mouth surrounded by feelers. It shambled right past me to a dead leaper, ducked its head, and consumed the body in one gulp.
All right, the thing was gross, but it was just the clean-up crew. It would account for the lack of recognizable remains around here. I was about to move on when it turned towards me, and spat. The dead leaper, already partly digested, arced gracefully over the plain and splattered on the ground behind me. It missed, but the smell almost killed me anyway. Teeth clenched, I barely managed to keep breakfast down, and with my eyes tearing up, shot the biggest moving thing I could make out. Mr. Mouth hurled two more bodies before he died, but I wouldn't expect poison to much bother something with that kind of diet.
Exploring around, I found a few things, none of which made any sense. There were plenty of pillars, with dead guys and without. Some also had big chains draping off them, or running along the ground. Every now and then, I'd find a skeleton hanging in an upright tomb. It probably meant something in some religion's symbology. I just saw a "hung skeleton" and thought of this one Necro joke I heard once. The land had an edge to it, supported by buttresses made of either shiny stone or dull metal. What the buttresses were resting on, I couldn't see -- everything down there was dark. Looking over the edge made my scalp crawl, so I didn't stay long.
There were also a few recognizable demons, wandering around in packs. The most common were Balrogs, one of the biggest, angriest, and stupidest demons around. Poison didn't mean much to them, but they're easy to turn on each other. Just whispering in one's mind "Hey, that guy's been looking at you funny" was enough to start a fight, and I could snipe away to my heart's content. The dangerous ones were rarer: Doom Knights. They're faster and a lot smarter than Balrogs, and almost as poison resistant.
"How are you getting along?" Cain asked me back at the fortress.
"Fine," I shrugged. "It's business. Ran into a pack of Doom Knights, that was bad."
"Dear me! I hope you were not frightened by their skull spirits."
"What? Nah, they weren't that powerful, just curses and poisoned blades. Diablo's probably keeping the big boys closer to him. Speaking of the lesser of evils, have you heard anything about where Baal went?"
"I have spoken with Tyrael. Baal's whereabouts are unknown to him... and he has asked to speak with you himself."
Damn. My stomach knotted up again.
Hi there GREETINGS.
THERE IS A TORTURED SOUL WHO WAS TRAPPED WITHIN THIS FORSAKEN REALM AGES AGO.
Z
U L A
WAS HIS NAME AMONG MORTAL MEN. HE WAS MY MOST TRUSTED LIEUTENANT.
L N O I
AGAINST MY WISHES, HE LED AN ASSAULT UPON THE HELLFORGE
L
THE RUNEBLADE AZUREWRATH.
I
T STRENGTH AND VALOR PREVAILED NOT
W G
AND IZUAL WAS CAPTURED BY THE PRIME EVILS.
S
TORTURED BY THEIR PERVERSE POWER,
E
IZUAL WAS FORCED TO BETRAY HIS OWN KIND
AND GIVE UP HEAVEN'S MOST CLOSELY GUARDED SECRETS
D A
E D D N
S E F I D
E G O S F
CORRUPTED BY THE PRIME EVILS, HE BECAME A SHADOW OF HIMSELF
R A L O E L N
A D E R F L G
T E D T I NEITHER HEAVEN NOR HELL WOULD TRUST.
E D E L N L
D D E
D
FOR HIS TRANSGRESSIONS, IZUAL'S SPIRIT WAS BOUND
WITHIN THE FORM OF A TERRIBLE CREATURE SUMMONED FROM THE ABYSS.
HIS MADDENED SPIRIT HAS RESIDED WITHIN THAT TORTURED HUSK FOR MANY AGES NOW,
ROAMING THE EMPTY PLAINS OF HELL'S OUTERMOST STEPPES.
IT SEEMS TO ME HE HAS SUFFERED LONG ENOUGH.
AMANITA, I IMPLORE YOU TO SEARCH OUT IZUAL AND RELEASE HIM.
Um... how?
DESTROY THE PHYSICAL FORM IMPRISONING HIS SPIRIT
AND PUT AN END TO HIS GUILT AND ANGUISH.
THOUGH HE NO LONGER WIELDS AZUREWRATH,
SUFFERING HAS POLLUTED HIS VISION,
AND HE WILL ALMOST CERTAINLY BE HOSTILE.
BE CAUTIOUS.
Cain smiled in a way he hoped would be comforting as I came stumbling back. "There, that wasn't so bad, was it? What did Tyrael wish to speak with you about?"
"He wants me to go after his lieutenant Izual."
"Tyrael has asked you to confront Izual the Fallen? He must have great faith in your abilities! But then, why shouldn't he?"
"I dunno. I wonder why he wants me to bother with a corrupted angel, though. You'd figure that would put him beyond redemption, and he should stay locked up. Unless he and Tyrael were more than friends or something."
A frown darkened Cain's brow. I still envy those eyebrows. "I hope I'm not going to hear more innuendo..."
"Hey, love flies out the door when money comes innuendo. Besides, angels probably don't do that kind of stuff. They probably don't have thingies. Demons sure don't. Well, most of 'em. Goats do, and the cat women had boobies..." I glanced at Cain. He was so blanched and sick, I wondered if he'd had a heart attack standing there. "Why don't I head back out right now before I say any more?" He nodded quietly. I went.
By one edge of "Hell", a stairway led downwards to another ashy plain. The bottom of the previous area was solid stone, supported on pillars from the level below... an ash pit the size of a country, built on top of another pit. I'd heard once of the "666 layers of the Abyss," but didn't think that meant literally. Did they build a fresh layer when one filled up? Whatever, this fresh hell looked a lot like the one above: gray, gloomy, and lifeless. The big difference was the cracks in the ground: down here, faint red light flickered up from below.
The demons were mostly familiar too. There were Balrogs and Vomiters, but also some weird things that looked like stiff starfish floating through the air. They were magical, and used their arms to make little crackles of lightning that crawled along the ground. Bizarre, but not a serious problem.
It took a long time to find Izual. I actually found a stairway to the next layer first, but decided to make a clean sweep before I got myself in any deeper. Izual was pretty easy to identify. The body he was in was icy blue, covered with horns and armor, and incidentally, about twice the size of a Balrog. Also, strongly poison resistant. He was too heavy for my bolts to knock back, and too stubborn to run. You'd think an angel would be wise enough to mention little things like that... or that I'd remember to ask instead of wondering if they were making hot, hot angel love back up in Heaven.
I gave Izual a lot of exercise. Say what you will, Heaven knows how to make a prison. I ran him all the way to the stairs up to the fortress and back again, but he just wouldn't die. Finally, I closed and sliced him up with the katar. It still took forever, but at least dodging him kept me from getting bored. Finally the body cracked, then shattered in an explosion of ice chips. A spirit floated free. It was sort of angelic in shape, and almost as bright as Tyrael, but something was wrong... I snapped my shields up in time, just before something hit me.
mortal fool! you mean to stop me??
I think I just did
You bounced, pretty-boy
i am weak now
but when my strength returns
you will suffer as no other has!
do you think a mortal pawn
can affect the outcome of this
magnificent game for your world?
Sure I can
know that it was I who told
the PRIME EVILS about soulstones,
and how to corrupt them!
He was tricked!
Who was tricked? he was!! ha!
I don't think so fool!! you mock me?
Look, you're obviously
kind of a lightweight
You can't even bring yourself
to say Tyrael's name of course I can!
I will not sully my lips with it.
When are you spirits
going to figure out that
YOU DON'T HAVE LIPS!?!
my body has been destroyed
my power has been dissipated
but my masters will remember
the service i have given them
now they plague your world
bringing destruction to you
from two directions.
nothing can stop them.
your doom is assured.
He floated away. I've heard that you shouldn't gaze into the abyss, lest the abyss gaze into you too. At his low point, Izual couldn't look into my mind, but I could look into his. Some of what he said was true. He did tell the Three what Soulstones were, and how they worked. But he didn't do it of his own free will. The same pride that got him to charge the Hellforge wouldn't let him understand that the Three broke him. His head turned going against Tyrael's wishes into a clever plan to fool him. Izual's deluded wreck of a mind faded into the distance, giggling about plans and promises made. Then I went down, deeper into the abyss.