Nephalem Valor » Places

         The answer to Arkas' question would have to go unanswered for some time longer. At that moment, there came a loud clanging and a thunderous boom. The earth began to shake, and the Cathedral doors came slamming together. From the crevices there shone an intense green light, whose disappearance left a strange run burning on the door.

It was undoubtedly sealed, and there was nothing the three adventurers could summon that would open it. The seal would have to be broken elsewhere.

Already on edge, Oriana nearly jumped out of her skin at the din around them. She glared defiantly into the light, recognizing it as some trickery or arcane device. It was quite obvious now that their meeting was not by coincidence, and as the rune stared back at them all, the demon hunter whirled on Zander. There was no evidence that he'd done this, and though her gut told her that he hadn't, she knew the Cathedral had a way of twisting even the most sound of minds.

Oriana tried to relax. She needed to, if she were going to come through this alive or remotely sane. It wasn't that she was afraid; on the contrary, sending a volley of bolts into some hellspawn's skull would certainly take the edge off. It was that she knew now that there were eyes upon them that none of them could see, that every step they took would be anticipated. The element of surprise was a demon hunter's cup of tea, and without it, she was at an extreme disadvantage.

"Someone else has been expecting us, it seems," she said coldly, her eyes caged on Zander. "I suppose it was someone's plan to have us descend into the lower levels of the Cathedral. The door topside has been sealed, and I'm quite confident of my ineptitude in arcane magics."

         There was plenty of scolding to go around, and just when she'd mustered the courage to spit something scathing in the barbarian's face (for his chuckle had not gone without her acknowledgment and utter chagrin), Arkas stopped short. Oriana came to her tiptoes in an attempt to see over his hulking form, but grew impatient and came to stand at his side.

There was something ... off about this man (if such a term could be used). She'd seen her fair share of hell hounds, of mysterious beings with hooded faces and foreign robes; she'd often been guilty of fitting such a description herself, as often the art of demon hunting required her to be both mysterious and foreign. She knew instinctively that what stood before them was neither alive nor dead, but could not be sure it was what held the skeletal army's allegiance. It was this uncertainty that caused her to grip her crossbows tightly again, and to give Arkas a nudge with her shoulder. When he looked at her, her eyes now tinged with a red glow beneath her heavy leather hood, she tried her best to shoot him a look that said, I'm not sure this is our guy, and most importantly, We should be careful.

She wondered immediately if barbarians were even capable of interpreting facial expressions as saying more than "To battle!" or "Where's the beer?"

         The horse was spooked by the weather, that much Arkas could tell. The white shaggy pony gave a loud 'whuff' and a few nods when he approached. The barbarian patted the horse's face, murmuring something in the animals ear and secured his saddle, pulling off a sack and dumping it on the dirty stable floor.

"No. I don't. You're the book reader, you tell me." Arkas replied.

The first thing to leave the sack was a twin horned helmet with the two horns curling under the lip. Arkas hefted it up in his hand, hitting the top of it with his fist and made a dissatisfied noise and shoved it back in the burlap. The second item was a selection of throwing ax, and the he retrieved a few more items that looked like tubs of blue paint.

"Why think when I can get you too." It was probably one of the reasons he had got into a partnership with her.

Arkas spat into one of the tubs, crudely stirring it and raising it to his face to paint small viscous lines down his face and lips, giving him the appearance of a badly accented skull. When that was done, he tied his ponytail into a tight knot behind his head. It wouldn't do for it be caught in combat and have his throat slit.

Arkas stood up and started for the cathedral. "I'm ready. Let's kill."