"This is the place?" Xalan asked, irritably, as they stood before a crumbling gate way carved out of the side of a mountain. He still didn't like this, it felt like a trap, and they hadn't even been able to leave Tinuviel behind. Nobody trusted her to stay anywhere, so she was with them. Of course admitting that they couldn't leave Tinuviel behind had destroyed any argument he had for keeping Xina out of this. At least he had forced a promise from Xina. If that could be called a victory.
"I swear that I'll go back home as soon as I finish my quest," she had said, reluctantly enough.
"These are the gates mother's specter showed me in the dream," Amethyst nodded in return. "And I suppose he does know we're coming, his army has been destroyed after all." Xalan glanced at her. Amethyst was almost as annoyed with him as Xina was. Jolrael was maintaining the same air of cynical superiority he'd had when he first met the swordsman. Tinuviel wasn't annoyed with him at all, but then again she was generally too distracted to be annoyed with anybody. In fact, of the entire party he found himself agreeing with Val most often.
"This will be fun to fight in," Val mumbled, referring to the fact that he probably would be forced to remain in human form throughout the dungeon crawl.
"Any idea of what we're facing," Jol asked.
"Mother only knew where," Amethyst shook her head along with the answer. They started walking through the gates looking about cautiously for any sign of their enemy.
"Curious stonework," Tinuviel hummed to herself, pausing to investigate the gates. The others passed on into the structure as she did so. "Very familiar, I wonder why....hey!"
"When we kill the bad guy, THEN you can study this place to your heart's content, okay?" Xina asked as she returned from inside.
"But you guys always destroy everything when you do that."
"How are we going to destroy a vast underground complex?"
"This place stinks," Xalan muttered. Xina had to agree as she wrinkled her nose in an attempt not to smell anything.
"Yes, well its probably crawling with ghosts and other undead monsters so that makes sense," Jol said.
"No it doesn't smell like rot or death," Xina corrected. "It smells like..."
"...rusty metal?" Xalan finished.
"Do you want me to cast a light spell," Amethyst asked.
"We can see in the dark just fine," Xalan answered. "There's nothing but a bunch of statues lining the walls."
"Yeah, they must be made of metal," Xina commented.
"That's why the stone work is familiar," Tiinuviel slammed her fist into her hands. "This must be one of the lost dwarven strongholds. There was this one, Tumunzahar I think, that was supposed to be guarded by a force of enchanted statues." Everybody stopped for a moment.
"She didn't say anything we wanted to hear," Val asked. "Did she." The sound of creaking metal elicited a frustrated sigh from most of them.
Roquen sensed the guardian golems awakening in the upper levels and scowled, or tried to. The ancient decayed bones of the dwarven skeleton weren't useful for normal modes of expression. He cursed his enemies silently. In another month he could have gathered enough power to roam bodiless. Now instead of seeking out a fresh corpse, or better yet, a living body to possess, he was stuck with this rickety skeleton.
Still his power was much greater than it had been in life. He hadn't really had the chance to actually fight them last time. Then again, they seemed stronger than they had when the lot of them had stolen the staff. The necromancer turned liche turned to the other corpses in the dwarven catacombs. Without the staff he couldn't do much more than animate the corpses and load them down with various spells and enchantments. Still, it would disguise his presence, he doubted they would be able to pick him out from the other shambling skeletons until it was too late. In fact they'd probably target the shade that had carried his phylactery here past the golems that would have destroyed his living form.
Now all he had to do was find his way through the catacombs.
"Okay, which way now?" Amethyst asked.
"We're being chased by a bunch of walking statues that seem to regenerate faster than we can kill them," Xina noted, "What does it matter which way we go?" Xina turned ran around one corner of the fork.
"She has a point," Jol noted, and started to follow the fox-girl. Until she came blasting around back from the corner.
"Not that way!!" she shouted going down another cooridor. Everybody turned and saw another group of golems coming out of the shadows in that direction.
"I knew this was a trap," Xalan sighed as they followed Xina. About a hundred feet down the cooridor, they stopped and decimated the first two ranks of enchanted statues. Then turned and ran again while the fallen statues blocking the cooridor began to repair themselves.
"Okay, Tinuviel," Xina started as they stopped for a rest. "You're the one that knows about this place, what do we do to stop these things?" The elf was looking at a section of writing on the wall, next to a series of jewels embedded in the stone.
"'...seal the city against enemy armies...'" she muttered. "Hmm, oh, I think they'll stop chasing us if we leave the city."
"Well, that's no good," Val said.
"How can we bring justice to this vile necromancer if we leave the city?"
"At least it will give us time to figure out how to beat these golems." Then there was a loud rumbling sound followed by a resounding crash.
"Amazing the, mechanism for sealing the city still works!" Everybody looked at Tinuviel and sweatdropped. "I wonder what this does."
"NO!!!" Everybody shouted. Then the floor dropped from underneath them and they started falling into a deep darkness that only Xina and Xalan could see through. After hitting the ground a moment later, the ceiling closed above them.
"I wonder what the logic of that was?" Tinuviel scratched her head.
"I'm guessing some cosmic power just gets a laugh out of stuff happening to us," Jol grumbled.
"Now do I follow, or do I just wait," Sherra paced back in forth in front of them now sealed gates to the dwarven city. "No I have to follow him, but what do I do once I find him again."
Whatever happened to killing the children of Xellos Metallium for the greater glory of Dynast-sama?
"Well, won't it be better to recruit them to his side instead?"
After trying to kill his sister and that dragon?
"I'm sure they'll understand that it was all just a misunderstanding."
Usually I like psychotic behaivour, but this is just silly.
"Oh forget it," Sherra snapped. "I'll figure it out when I find him again." She teleported past the great stone blocking the doors.
You know, dwarves are one of the elder races.
"So."
Shouldn't you be worried about defenses?
"Oh they didn't show up here until well after their decline in power." She waved the concern away. Then she looked at the golem in front of her. "Hmm, good workmanship." The golem slammed her through the floor down to the level before.
As you were saying. Sherra reached a twitching hand out of the pile of rubble and pulled her self out, barely containing her rage.
"I broke a nail!"
....please tell me you're kidding.
"THAT THING DIES NOW!!!" she roared as she flew up through the hole in the wall.