I was going back to guild with minotaur called Angnus. He was brave
warrior from famous family which symbol was golden eagle. Like every
member of his family he was wearing it proudly on breastplate. Angnus knew
the way back, so he was leading us home as we took few ranks and decided that we are tired from ranking. When we found ourselves on a big arched stone bridge, we could clearly see some valley on the west. However, it it was black and burned. Remains of trees were charred and envellopped
with the white clouds of smoke and layer of ash. In black and grey color
of defiled valley we could distinctly notice long blue hair of an elf, who
was fighting with zombie. I wanted to take a closer look on him, so we
went down in the valley. It was her. Long waves of rich hair were shinning
on the sun, reflicting the sunlight as she was moving swiftly and
graciously trying to evade her foe. She was young, with small, rounded and
pretty face, shinning blue eyes and cherry-red lips. Her cheeks were red
because of excitement and danger of battle. It was obvious that her foe
was much stronger. However, she managed to kill him. Her armor was the
armor intended for persons of much higher rank. She was wearing exquisite
and powerful rings, and her extravagant armplates were relic. Hmm, so
powerful things on someone who holds middle rank? It was quite suspicious
to me. I was thinking should i complain how she is favored from someone.
Her name is Inthiniel, red mage. She saw that i was staring at her gear
and she understood what i was thinking about. 'Follow me and I'll show you
how i got such armor', she said and pointed her staff in the direction of
nearby big and black hole. I nodded. 'Excuse me', said Angnus, 'but i am not
going there. I will be in Palanthas if, er... when you come back...'
We smiled at his joke and joined to her.
While we walked to the hole, Inthiniel gave us quick instructions. 'There
is Gharak living down the hole. It is powerful foe, almost unkillable; but
it has a weak spot. I killed his twin using that spot and got this gear.
One can kill him instantly if you pierce his heart with hawthorn arrow or
spear.Gharaks are something between ogre-mages and vampires. They are not burned instantly by sun like vampires. However, they are still hurt by the
sun, so they prefer living in dark places, places like this catacombs we are
going into. They are fat like ogres and they do not have to drink
blood, though most of them can cruelly eat flesh. In fact some of them
look civilized in some situations. They collect treasures. Their wealth is
the most important thing in their life. They hate everyone, but thieves
are their worst nightmare. Therefore they are agressive and they will kill
anyone who enters their domain. They kill with fireballs. Ghorak is able
to shoot fireball from his mouth. Fireballs itself are not fast and are
often easy to evade. On the other hand fireballs are massive and deadly.
One shot in fatal in most cases. You may survive the first strike, but
when fireball explodes, fire keep to flow surrounding you burning you
to death. Their claws are also dangerous. With sharp claws they can slice
part of body. They use claws when they eat or when they fight. Such is our
foe. The only one they greet here are merchants and traders. Traders make
appointments so they can safely meet with Gharak and bargain for rare
items or to sell beautiful female slaves...'
We approached to the hole. From outside, the hole was looking like a mouth
of a huge hungry monster. We went down using a small staircases. It was
quite dark place and man could not decide what is a shadow and what is
something else that could be dwelling here. We walked through a long tunel
On its end, the tunnel was continued by spreading into a wide stone
corridor. The spiral corridor was leading us deeper down the hole which
become a wide hall. Something black was laying all over the stairs. My
mage told me those were undead bodies of thieves and unlucky adventurers.
Those bodies could not move, but if would happened that some new traveler
comes here and walk near without seeing them, such undead creatures would
catch traveler legs, bring traveler down and eat him until he becomes
undead like them. That was working as security device against intruders
and it was invented and built by Gharak itself. I thanked to Inthiniel
again for her infravision spell.
When we evaded all traps and finally went down, we saw shadow of Gharak in
his hall. Few torches were lit. Gharak was walking tirelessly all over
the hall, probably making plans of how to add some new precious things
to his collection.
As Angnus was tougher than both of us, Inthiniel made simple strategic
plan of defeating Ghorak. With her fire shield she protected Angnus,
so he could withstand 2 or 3 fireballs. During that time, Inthiniel and me
should be trying to hit Gharak's heart. Like every brave warrior Angnus
entered quickly in the hall with his fiersome warcry. Gharak grumbled.
It was like we planned. Gharak ate the bite and began to shoot his hot
orange-red fireballs with yellow heated core. Soon the hall become very
hot place. Ball of fire were flying all around, hitting stone walls and
exploding into thousand sparks, releasing tons of energy, waves of heat
and deafening sound. One of them hit Angnus. His face was covered with
painfull grimasse but he released another warcry and flexed his muscles
still standing on his iron strong legs. Inthiniel and me were quite
unsuccesfully trying to hit Gharak's heart. I was throwing spears and
Inthiniel tried with arrows. The problem was that we had to come very
close to Ghranak to pierce his fat skin and to hit the correct place.
But he was swirling all around with his long clawed hands, so it was very
hard to come closer. With cunning maneuvre Gharak turned away from Angnus,
spinning around he made his next fireball to have an unpredictable line of
flight, thus surprising Angnus and hitting him right into his torso.
'RETREAT!' Inthiniel exclaimed and we run to exit door. We got out of
the hall, running upstairs when one of late fireballs went through window
and made Angnus to feel like in a furnace. Flame tongues were eating his
body, disintegrating him and he disappeared. However, that was not the
time for the sorrow because we had to quickly save our lives too.
When we went to safe place, we gave respects to the soul of my dead friend
Angnus. We had one more reason to kill Gharak and it was revenge. However
only 2 of us have left and we had to find better plan.
Then brilliant mind of Inthiniel came forward with nice plan. I put her
hands together on her back and tied them with a rope. The rope was not
tied too strong so she could free herself easily if needed. Now i was a
slave trader and she was my beautiful female slave. We were ready to join
to first merchant or traders. Finally some of them were here and we joined
them. We had no problems to come close to Gharak because the courtesy of
his hall was always there for merchants.
We were standing in his hall again, surrounded with boxes of silk robes,
mithril shirts and other lesser items. But, one item among many was
unique. Everyone become silent and watched with wide opened eyes when one
of merchants took something and put it before Gharak. Gharak was stoned;
his breathing stopped for a long moment while his eyes were greedily
swallowing the shinning piece. It was a twin ruby, known as 'The soul of
Archangel'. Twin rubies are the rarest among nature precious stones. They
were made in the natural ways. Two rubies are connected with a thin ruby
liaison. Because of this junction, light that enters the twin-ruby
resonates and gives to a ruby the glow for thousand times stronger than
usually. They are very hard to find and even harder to mine witouth
splitting them. Thus such rubies are something the most precious in the
realms. Masterfully crafted and shaped, 'Soul of Archangel' was crown of
jewelry, was the lord of all twin-rubies. For the moment i forgot why we are
here. I remembered that I should expect the sign for action from
Inthiniel. She released herself and took her crossbow but she couldn't
target well because of merchants standing around Gharak. With snap of his
fingers, Gharak released a wired cage to fall down on Inthiniel. Her quick
jump aside saved her and she avoided that trap. Seeing what is going on
everyone run out in a second. We shoot several arrows very close to his
his heart and that weakened him; he was shooting his fireballs and running
around blindly after Inthiniel trying to catch her. She was jumping over
stones laying on the ground, making Gharak to follow her over fires from
his own fireballs. He was burning but that was not enough, he was nearly
impervious to fire. Finally Gharak made one lucky jump and grabbed
Inthiniel's waist with his fat hand. With one hand he was holding the twin
ruby and the second hand with sharp claws was near Inthiniel's neck.
I was targeting with crossbow right into Ghorak's heart. In threatening
voice, Gharak shouted 'Her or the ruby?' I had no second thoght knowing
that i must save her. 'Her' i said calmly and Inthiniel eyes met my eyes
and began to shine. Simply by looking at each other, we knew feeling
between us. She felt my feelings in her heart and I felt her's. Neither we
nor Ghorak, master of underworld, knew one thing : Ghorak's are vulnerable
to divine feelings such as love. Ghorak's body instantly crumbled to dust.
Ghorak's head was still whole to say only one word 'HER?'and then crumbled
too. When we got out we decided to continue to grow separately until the
day when we will meet again. From then i live for such moment.
Four days have past since then, and now i am drinking in tavern. 'One more
glass please'. I become very thirsty when i remember of hot fireballs. A
bartender approaches and begins new rumour while he is cleaning the table.
'Do you know', he said, 'people are talking of some fool, lost in the maze
of Kalaman mountains. They talk he was wearing some burned breastplate
with the picture of the golden eagle. What an unlucky fool he is when he
likes to play with teleport potions...' When the bartender raised his eyes
instead of me he could see only an empty chair and glass with barm. I was already on my way to Kalaman to find 'unlucky' Angnus, who obviously
used teleport potion in the last moment to save his fat tricky *ss, hehe
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