Gaijin

You guys are all awesome writers! I have to second the WOW for Wyvern. It would take me several CHAPTERS to pull a characterization like that off. Now, another humble offering before the workday consumes me.


"Be done with it rogue, and quickly!"

Grin crouched by the chest, his nimble fingers playing deftly over the trapped lock's mechanism. He paused in his efforts just long enough to cast an annoyed glance over his shoulder at the Warlock who stood close behind him. "Quit breathin' down me neck and I mighta been done yesterday by now. And put an end to that infernal tappin', you!"

The Warlock's slippered foot had been beating a steady tattoo upon the stone floor. No more than a faint scuffle in my own ears, but I supposed it must have been quite a distracting clamor in the ears of the Ratling.

"I don't see why we need to open every single chest we stumble upon, really I don't..." the Warlock mumbled under his breath, his eyes roaming nervously around the shadowy, torchlit chamber. "Surely we -"

"Be still, Albuzar, let him finish his work." Elyssia's voice was soft, her tone commanding. "Do not forget how it was you came by that staff you hold so dear."

"Hrmph."

I turned from my bickering companions and resumed my inspection of the mural, mainly in an attempt to conceal the smile that had suddenly found its way to my lips. Though a proven and capable acolyte, I had sensed the air of trepidation that had been slowly gathering around Albuzar since we had entered the Temple of the Serpent earlier that evening. It was no secret among us that the Warlock harbored an unusually irrational fear of snakes. For him to dive headlong into the very lair of the Naga herself with so little hesitation impressed me greatly, though his increasing impatience to leave the Temple was beginning to cause me more than a little concern. He seemed to be slowly coming apart at the seams. I silently thanked Kerah for blessing us with the presence of Elyssia, who always seemed unflappable even at her worst.

"Albuzar, if it will help take your mind off of it, I could use a bit more light over here," I said.

"Ah..." The Warlock quietly spoke a short incantation, nodding as the air around my body shimmered and flashed into a dull coruscating brilliance. "What have you found? Certainly not another chest...?"

"Nothing of the sort, my friend," I laughed, tracing a finger along the graven contours of the mural. The scene depicted a throng of vile creatures, half man and half serpent, congregating around a beast that was so hideous as to defy the imagination: A giant serpent with the head of a hag and the twisted face of a demon. Venom (or was it blood?) poured in a thick wave from the mouth of the beast, and the creatures who appeared to be praising her reveled in the unholy torrent. A chill coursed through my body then, for I imagined I could hear their voices calling her foul name; and for the briefest of instants I could feel those cold, scaly bodies pressing in around me and the feeling was not entirely an unpleasant one. I quickly spun away from the mural to escape the vivid hallucination, my breath coming in short gasps.

Alarmed, Loren took my elbow and gazed questioningly at me, her eyes dark with concern. "By Kerah, you've gone pale as a wraith. What did you see Glaven?"

The remnants of the waking dream clung to my thoughts like sickly blackened tar, the voices of the serpent-men gradually hissing and fading into obscurity. "I - Nothing..." I stammered, and my own words sounded strangely foreign to me, as if I were hearing the voice of someone I used to know from a time long past. Perhaps it was Loren's use of my birthname, Glaven; the name that was mine before Gaijin, before my ascension to Samurai. Certainly that had to be it...

"Tell me, what has troubled you?" Loren spoke sternly, and from the edges of my frayed consciousness I noticed that Elyssia and Albuzar were also watching me with worried interest.

"Nothing, love... Evil trickery, nothing more." My senses were returning to me, and not a moment too soon. I had scarcely finished exhaling my last word before I heard the warning of Saethra, who had been keeping watch on the northern corridor.

"SSSHHAAAH!" The Lizzord's angry hiss reverberated harshly throughout the small chamber and beneath it I heard an unfamiliar voice speaking in a steady, rhythmic chant. Someone - or rather some THING - was invoking a spell.

Squealing a curse, Grin rose and darted for the safety of the shadows near the back wall of the room as the first sounds of battle reached my ears. Pulling my katana from its scabbard, I sprinted to the chamber's northern exit with Loren and the two Wizards close on my heels. As I barreled through the doorway into the corridor itself, I was momentarily blinded by a haze of putrid green mist that seemed to instantly clog my nostrils with its foulness. I squinted through the poisonous veil that hung in the air and saw Saethra not five paces ahead, her twin axes swinging furiously at the cloaked and hooded figure that stood before her. At least a half dozen cobras twined around her mailed legs, their fangs seeking gaps in the plate armor and, for the moment, failing to find the flesh beneath.

Without a further thought for my own safety, I leapt into the fray beside the noble Lizzordess, swinging my blade in an upwards arc that should have caught the unsuspecting robed figure just beneath the chin. The robed one turned my katana aside with an effortless flick of his staff, finishing the swing with a solid, square blow to Saethra's midsection. The barbarianess growled, her axe glancing harmlessly off the robed figure's shoulder. I noticed in my peripheral vision that the snakes coiled around the Lizzord's legs were one by one bursting into flame. The Wizards were at work. Oily smoke from the charring serpents added its own unsavory tang to the already nauseating atmosphere and I had to struggle to keep myself from retching.

It was then that I first looked upon the countenance of a Chosen Priest of the Naga. As Saethra's axes bit deeply into the creature's chest in a powerful counter-attack that shattered her victim's staff into kindling, the cowl of the robe fell back, exposing the horror beneath: The visage of a man, twisted with the features of a serpent. Its nostril-holes flared, expelling tendrils of venomous mist, and its evil eyes held me transfixed.

"You will join ussss... Or you will die..." the Serpent Priest spoke to me in a monotone hiss, its gaze driving a dagger of ice through my spine. It opened its mouth to speak again, but nothing issued forth save for a croak and a wheeze as Saethra planted her foot against its chest and fiercely pulled her axes free, sending the carcass skidding down the corridor. I was unable to move for what seemed an eternity.

"Is... Is it over yet?"

Grin's head poked into the corridor, his whiskers twitching as he sniffed at the pungent air. "Eeeew what a smell you made, Saeth! Fer shame on you, naughty, naughty Lizzie! No more Trollie toe snacks for you!"

I turned slowly and made my way past the Ratling back into the chamber, still pondering the words of the Serpent Priest and unable to shed the unrest that permeated my entire being after the encounter. I felt a wave of tingling warmth as Loren purged my body of the Priest's venom, but I silently feared that there was something hideous within me that no mere magic could dispel. What it was exactly, I could not say then and I surely cannot say now.

"Well, that wasn't so bad," Albuzar stated flatly, nudging a blackened cobra corpse with the toe of his slipper. "Did I ever tell you how much I HATE snakes?"