Diablo:The Beginning of new Anguish

As the morning came about I found myself walking the streets of Lut Gholein, marveling at its beauty and how busy its people were.

Children were playing about in the streets, people smiling as they go by.

I noticed after twenty years this place has changed so much so many more people came to live here. I figured I would try and see if some of the familiar people were still about in the city.

My travel around the city took me past the great palace of the sultan where many guards were standing about, there were also many guards traveling around the city, keeping things in order.

As I passed the town square I noticed many merchants trading with travelers and other folk, people were smiling happily and laughing talking about there travels, there past, and the hopes of there future.

As I neared the far east of the town I noticed a rather old man dressed in orange and black robes. He had a scroll in his hand and he seemed to be reading it, studying it intensely.

This came as no surprise to me, I neared him and made my presence known to him.

“Greetings stranger.” He said. “How may I help you?”

“Drognan?” I asked. I noticed that the last twenty years had taken a toll on him.

“Yes, do I know you stranger” He asked.

“Why yes, you may not remember me but I was a traveler, I was one of the people who spoke to you often nearly twenty years ago during the rather dark times.”

“Ah yes! You were one of the many heroes that came about, why yes I remember you now. You asked me about the nature of the Arcane Sanctuary and were rather interested in it.”

“Why yes I did. Also may I ask you a rather quick question. Did you happen to hear about any other heroes or travelers that arrived recently?”

Drognan thought for a moment. “Why yes I did. Lord Jerhyn was telling me about a few of them that came to speak to him. They tried to convince him to get ready for some kind of attack on our city.”

“Well you might want to start doing that. The demons have returned its only a matter of time before they start attacking.”

Drognan looked at me trying to tell if something should be done or not. “What makes you believe this?”

“I saw the town of Bramwell and many other villages fall with my own eyes. I don't want to witness this one suffer the same fate.”

Drognan nodded his head. “I'll tell Lord Jerhyn of your concerns. In the meantime I suggest you head toward the tavern, I believe that's where the other travelers that came by meet at.”

I nodded my head, “Thank you.”

As I walked away I could not believe Jerhyn would not take heed to the others warnings. He saw first hand the power of demons, especially after they murdered his harem girls.

As I walked into the tavern I quickly noticed two familiar faces. Atma who was happily serving drinks with another middle aged man and the laughter of Geglash who seemed to be the life of the tavern.

I had sometimes wished that Geglash would find a way to stop drinking so heavily apparently he ran into more problems in the past twenty years. He looked completely lost as he had drink after drink. The warrior in him has long faded.

I noticed four other people in the far back eying me suspiciously. I wondered if those were the group of people I was supposed to meet up with, the ones the four angels told me to meet.

I decided I would quickly find out, I walked toward them, they eyed me cautiously. They all were wearing dark cloaks hiding there faces, I noticed the eyes of one of them glowed a strange yellowish color.

“Greetings.” I said walking up to them.

“Hello.” One of them said. “How may we help you?”

“Do you know about the angels?” I asked.

The one with the yellow glowing eyes stepped forward. “Why yes we do, you are the last traveler sent this way?” Her voice made it apparent that she was female.

“Yes I am. I don't think we have much time before this city's in danger.”

“We are well aware of that.” She said to me. “Now that you are here, we need to move quickly.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Cultists. They inhabit the sewers under the city. I'm sure they are the ones getting ready to summon demons here.”

“Alright, then should we move now?” I asked.

“I think formalities are in need before we proceed anywhere.” The female said. “I am Natasha. As you will come to understand that I am a Demon Hunter. I lost my family and everything I ever loved to demons. You will do best not to anger me, or stand in my way, I will put an arrow in your back.”

The cloaked man sitting at the table spoke. “I am Auden.” He pulled out a sword and a shield. I noticed the shield had a cross on it.

“Are you a paladin?” I asked.

“I have lost my faith.” He said bitterly. “Twenty years ago I once was a believer of the Zakarum faith, but when the split happened because of the corrupt leadership I departed from the faith.

The man to the right of Auden spoke. I noticed a battleaxe in his hand. “My name is Remos. If you have not guessed I am in fact a Barbarian.”

“You do know about the demons invading up north?”

He nodded. “As much as I would love to be there defending my people, I was banished from my homeland. I will not indulge you on the details it is my shame to live.”

I nodded at him asking no questions

The fourth person in the corner spoke, his voice seemed rather weak. “My name is Drake. I am a simple warrior, don't let that fool you I can hold my own against a demon of any size and strength.”

“It is an honor to meet you all.” I said to them. “My name is Elijah.”

At the mention of my name they stood up and prepared to leave.

“We must act fast, we were tempted to start without you but the paladin insisted we wait. Even if he's now a nonbeliever he's still patient and persistent.” Natasha informed me.

“Patience and persistence are the things that kept me alive.” He replied.

We walked out to the street. Guards turned there head toward us in suspicion but doubted we would try and cause trouble.

“So which entrance are we taking?” I asked. “The one up the street or the one down by the docks.”

“The one down by the docks would be better, not as many people would see us head down there that way anyway.” Natasha said. “Also the less people know about us the better, keeps the guards from arresting us and throwing us in jail.”

As we made our way inside the sewer entrance I sensed dark magic in the air. I nodded at Natasha who apparently noted the same thing.

“This place reeks.” Remos said.

“Way to notice and pick up on something.” Drake said with sarcasm brushing by the rest of us.

Remos glared at him but did not say anything.

I was surprised to see the sewers was not littered with bones and skeletons. Someone must have actually cleaned the place up in the last twenty years.

Twenty years ago undead were massing in the sewers under Lut Gholein summoned by a greater mummy known as Radament. I was one of the few who went into the sewers and dispatched many undead creatures and eventually aided the great heroes in defeating the creature. Sad to say that was the only time I ever talked to them or assisted them.

We descended deeper into the sewers, the dark magic growing stronger, seeping through the walls. It was sickening.

As I led the way I came to a opening with four pathways, I had forgotten how much of a maze this place was.

“Where do we go now Elijah?” Drake asked.

I studied the paths trying to remember which way we needed to go.

“Were not alone.” Auden said, readying his sword and shield.

“About time we face some action.” Remos said with a smile, battleaxe ready.

“And here I was thinking you were more of the subtle type.” Drake said pulling out his two handed sword.

Undead skeletons were moving down the hallways after us, most had a sword and shield, a few bigger ones held a giant two handed sword.

“Four hallways, four of us, one of us on each. If you can handle that.” Natasha suggested.

“Sounds simple enough.” Drake said.

The skeletons started running at us.

Natasha quickly threw some type of gadget at there feet, when activated spikes flew out and destroyed a group of skeletons easily. She then shot an arrow into the ground which exploded causing the skeletons to nearly fall apart.

I stared at her amazed, I have never seen anything like that in my life.

“So pretty boy are you going to start doing something or are you going to watch me awestruck while I kill these skeletons?”

I quickly came to my sense and smiled. I pulled out an arrow and willed it to bring as much destruction to these undead as possible. I let go and to my surprise the arrow exploded creating a huge wave of fire that shot back into the hallway decimating every undead creature in its path.

I turned to her and found her staring at me. “Impressive.” She said turning her attention back to killing the undead.

I smiled looking for any other undead in my hallway to kill, for some reason to my dismay there were none.

I turned my attention to the rest of the group, Auden was easily slaying the skeletons with ease, he had a mace in his hand, his sword sheathed at his side, his shield glowing bright knocking the skeletons into many pieces with ease.

Drake was struggling a little but was doing relatively fine. There were not as many undead in his hallway as the rest, I suspected that was a good thing.

Remos was nearly at the other end of the hallway, he was spinning around utterly destroying the undead where they stood, not letting the undead come to him he was going to them dispatching them with ease.

As the undead were quickly being dispatched I remembered the way we needed to go.

“Are you sure?” Drake asked, he was the most beat up among us. Many cuts along his arm where the undead struck.

“I am positive.” I told them. “Lets go.”

We descended further into the sewers, we did not encounter any more undead along the way but we were cautious.

The silence was enough to nearly put me on edge, it was to silent. I could sense the dark magic was incredibly strong. Whoever was down here was planning something big.

As we came to a clearing to our horror there were many cultists chanting dark magic.

“You ready for this?” Natasha asked me readying her arrows.

“Yes, lets finish them off.”

We bot shot our arrows into the group of cultists who died instantly to our arrows, but they did not react to us, just continued chanting.

I willed my arrow to split apart and strike as many cultists as it could, to my amazement the arrow split into many tiny projectiles and sunk into about twenty of the cultists. When all of them were dead we smiled at each other marveling at our work.

“Impressive.” A voice said, it seemed to come from the shadows. “It's a shame if you would have arrived earlier you would have completely stopped our plans from working. Thankfully though the group of undead stalled you.”

“Reveal yourself!” Drake yelled, eager to fight.

“Foolish mortal.” The demon said. “You should not pick a fight you know you will loose.”

“I will destroy you.” Drake said running into the room.

“Drake come back!” Auden yelled.

It was to late, claws came out of the shadows and grabbed Drake and ripped his body in half.

A giant mantis like demon stepped out from the shadows. “My name is Xazax I will be the one destroying each and every one of you. My Master Belial would be pleased knowing the 'chosen' were out of the way. How the angels could pick a pathetic group like you to try and save this city is rather surprising, I suspect they are growing desperate.”

“You will pay for that.” Auden said. He charged in followed by Remos.
I notched an arrow thinking of how I can make it useful.

Natasha started firing away at the beat.

Xazax laughed he moved to the side avoiding the arrows swinging his claw down at Auden, who deflected it with his shield.

Remos spun around swinging his battleaxe aiming for one of his limbs, Xazax deflected the blow with his claw and backed up avoiding the constant arrows from Natasha.

I willed this arrow to be lightning fast and hit the target.

As I let go the arrow, moving faster than my eyes could follow, stuck into the top of the demons head.

Xazax screeched pulling out the arrow.

Taking the opportunity Remos and Auden quickly struck the demon with there weapons pushing him back, Natasha's arrows striking him in the chest.

“Damn you pesky mortals!” Xazax yelled smashing the ground sending Auden and Remos flying back into the wall.

I notched another arrow willing this one to do the same as the last. It struck the demons chest.

He let out a scream and backed up into the shadows disappearing completely.

We backed up together searching the room wondering where the demon was going to strike next.

He laughed. “What a huge mistake that was. You should have stayed spread out allowing me to take you one by one.”

Suddenly a claw came out of the shadows at me striking me in the chest sending me back flying.

Natasha shot arrows into the shadow where the beast has struck.

“Now you are mine human.” Xazax said with delight.

I felt his presence descend upon me.

“Enough of this!” Auden yelled. He raised his sword high over his head. “Let there be light!”

A bright light illuminated every shadow in the room.

Xazax screamed as the light blinded him, he backed into the corner.

Auden pointed the light at him, he seemed to try and back up searching for a shadow to hide in.

“This is not over!” Xazax yelled. “Belial save me so I may return!” The demon suddenly disappeared.

Natasha came over and helped me up.

“Are you alright?” She asked eying the wound on my chest.

“I am fine.” I said putting a hand over the wound willing it to heal. As the wound closed up the walls started to shake and faint screams could be heard in the distance.

“We have to get out of here!” Auden told us.

We took off running as fast as we could.

As we ascended the screams could be heard more clearly. Something was terribly wrong. I sensed the dark magic in the sewers was still lingering but we had no time to investigate further.

As we came out of the sewers in the harbor I looked to the horizon, the sky was red like blood. Demons were marching toward the town.

The city was abuzz screaming women and children trying to find a place to hide, the palace guards and mercenaries scrambled to get proper weapons and armor, I could sense Drognan gathering spell casters and preparing them for the battle to come.

“We have to get to the front lines.” Auden said.

“We will have enough time for that.” Natasha told him. “We must prepare ourselves mentally for this fight.”

I watched in horror as the demonic army started descending toward the town, the soldiers just now forming a line trying to defend the city, archers in the back, and atop towers began firing into the the horde of demons.

“Lets go.” I told them.

We ran to the front lines, the soldiers clearly happy with our presence.

Drognan and the spell casters began chanting spells.

The demons were nearly upon us. I took deep breathes trying to stay focused. I sensed not only demons but humans among the demonic army, if these humans were anything like Emma then I knew were were doomed.