As if he were in a trance, Frey led them down long corridors that descended into the depths below the ancient city, and entered an area of wide low tunnels, flanked by statues with disfigured faces.
"The green-skinned ones have been around here," Elysia commented to Jules Gascoigne, whom she had by her side. Goblins were easy to identify due to their repulsive smell.
"Yes, but not recently. Those statues were broken long ago. Look at the lichens that grow in the broken areas. I don't like how they shimmer."
"There is something evil in this place; I can sense it" Zauber stated as he tugged on one sleeve of his robe and looked around nervously. "I sense an oppressive presence in the air."
Elysia wondered if she could sense it as well, or the sensation of it was only due to her being receptive to the warnings of her sixth sense. They turned a corner and headed down a path flanked by massive stone arches, between which strange sets of runes had been carved.
"I hope your friend is not leading us into a trap set by the Dark Powers," the wizard whispered.
Elysia shook her head, for she was convinced of the spirit's sincerity. Thought about it, she thought. "What do I know about these things?" She was so far outside her realm of experience that all she could do was trust the course of events and the continual calls of her sixth sense, possibly her most trusted ally after Frey. . She shrugged fatalistically, since the situation was out of her control.
"I hate to bother you, but our pursuers are back," Jules stated. "Why don't they attack us? Are they afraid of this area?"
Elysia turned to look into the glowing red eyes of the company of greenskins, and she made out the monstrous banner.
"Regardless of what scares them, they seem to have regained their courage now."
"Maybe they've been driving us here to sacrifice us," Zauber said.
"Yes, you keep looking for the positive side of things" replied Jules.
♦ ♦ ♦
They crossed a bridge spanning a chasm and entered other corridors flanked by decorative arches. Frey stopped at an open archway that was particularly large, and shook his head as if he woke up from a dream.
Elysia studied the archway and saw a huge canal made for a door to slide through. On closer reflection, she thought that if the entrance had been closed it would have been invisible, camouflaged among all the decorative arches they had passed. Then she lit her lantern and illuminated the gloomy darkness.
Across the opening was an enormous vault, flanked on either side by great sarcophagi carved to resemble noble-looking sleeping dwarf figures. On the right were the men, and on the left, the women. Some of the stone sarcophagus lids had been broken, and in the center of the chamber was a huge pile of gold and old banners mixed with cracked and yellowed bones. From the center of the pile rose the hilt of a sword carved in the shape of a dragon.
It reminded Elysia of the mound that had been raised to bury Aldred's followers on the road to the city. The awful stench wafting through the archway nauseated him.
"Look at all that gold!" the ranger said. "Why haven't the greenskins taken him?"
"Because something protects him," Elysia replied with the obvious, and then a question popped into her head. "Frey, this is one of the hidden tombs of the dwarves you told me about, right?"
Frey nodded in agreement.
"And why is it open? It should surely be sealed, shouldn't it?
Frey scratched his head and fell into deep thought for a moment.
"I think Grimmi opened it." she replied bitterly. "In other times he was an engineer, and he must have known the runic code. The ghosts only started to appear after he left town. He left the grave to be looted, and he knew what was going to happen."
Elysia agreed. The scout was greedy, and no doubt he would have plundered the tomb if he could. He had found the ancient treasure of the Five Peaks Fortress. If that was true, would the other part of the story also be true? Had he run from the troll? Had he left the paladin, Raphael, to fight the monster alone?
As they spoke, Aldred entered the tomb and advanced to the treasure. Turning, Elysia saw a look of triumph on the paladin's thin fanatical countenance. "No, get out of there!" she wanted to yell at him.
"I have found it," exclaimed Aldred. "The lost sword, the Dragon Slayer. I have found her! Praise be to the gods!"
From behind the pile of gold came the shadow of a horned head, twice Aldred's height and wider than it was tall. Before the catgirl had time to notice, the troll lopped off her head with a single sweep of his mighty paw, spilling the paladin's blood onto the ancient stones. Then, the monster leaped forward and pierced through the pile of treasure with irresistible force.
Elysia had heard stories of trolls, and perhaps that thing she had once been, but she had undergone a monstrous change. She had wrinkled skin covered with huge oozing tumors, and she had three tremendously muscular arms, one of which ended in a pincer. On her left shoulder, like an obscene fruit, she grew a small, baby-like head, which gazed at them with cunning, malicious eyes, and babbled horribly in a language Elysia did not recognize. From a gaping leech mouth below her neck, she dripped pus, which ran down the monster's chest.
The beastly head roared, echoes reverberating down the long corridor. Catgirl saw that on a chain around the creature's neck dangled an amulet of shimmering blue-black stone. "Mana stone." She thought she; it had been deliberately placed there.
She couldn't blame Grimmir for running away; nor Prince Beliar. She was paralyzed with fear and indecision. From one side of her came the sound of Zauber's vomiting. She knew that it was the mana stone that she had created that thing, and she thought about what Frey had told about the war that had been waged under the mountain in ancient times.
Someone had been insane enough to hang the manastone around the troll's neck, deliberately inducing the mutation. Perhaps it had been the ratfolks Frey had mentioned; although Elysia had met a clan of relatively civilized Ratfolks at a curious event in the sewers of Riverheim, she knew that not all of them were so civilized.
The troll had been there since the time of the war, a festering abomination that continued to change and grow out of the sunlight. Was it perhaps the desecration of the tombs by this manastone-spawned monstrosity that had made the ghosts grieve? Or perhaps it was due to the mere presence of that stone, the very essence of magic in its solid state?
Those thoughts reverberated within his mind as the roars of the maddened beast echoed through the vault. She was unable to move, paralyzed with horror, as the monster drew ever closer and the stench of her invaded her nose. She heard the hideous sucking sound of the ghastly leech's mouth, and the mutated troll stepped out of the darkness. His grief-stricken face was lit from hell from below by the amulet's glow.
This abomination was going to get to her and kill her, and there was nothing she could do to save herself from it. She would receive death as a blessing, having witnessed that manifestation of the insanity of the universe.
Frey jumped up and stepped between her and the monster, his legs flexed in a fighting stance. The dark hero's shadow loomed long behind her in the bluish light, so that he stood at the edge of a pool of darkness, sword raised, runes glowing with arcane light.
The troll stopped and looked down at him, as if stunned by the recklessness of this little creature. Frey returned a fierce look and spat.
"Your time to die has come, you filth," he said.
He slashed at it with his sword, opening a terrible gash in the monster's chest. He remained motionless, studying the wound with fascination, and Frey delivered another blow to his ankle with the intention of hamstringing him. Once again, he gushed green blood, but the creature did not fall.
With blinding speed, the huge pincer lowered and closed, and she would have lopped off Frey's head if he hadn't ducked. Then the troll let out an angry bellow and lashed out with a clawed hand that Frey managed to deflect with his sword. He then dodged or parried, either with his sword or his armor, the rain of blows raining down on him.
The dark hero and the troll began to circle warily; both expected a breach in the other's guard. Elysia realized with horror that the wounds Gotrek had inflicted on her enemy were healing, and as they did, they made the sound of a drooling mouth closing.
Jules Gascoigne rushed toward the contestants and slashed at the troll. The blade sank into the creature's leg and got stuck there, and as the ranger tried to pull it out, the monster landed a backhand blow that sent him flying into the air. Elysia heard the crack of ribs snapping and saw the Ranger's head hit the stone wall with a bang. Jules was left lying in a pool of blood, dead.