VII
Trouble
Louie returned and gave his report.
They entered the complex and crept past several disarmed traps. When Fearless saw a set of glowing runes drawn onto a nearby outcrop of rock, he pointed to them and gave a sign that alerted them to it. He witnessed Jenna stopping long enough to study the runes for a moment, and then she caught up to the rest of the group.
'Mina, aren't you going to dispel those?' One of the spell-runes he'd bought a month ago allowed him to use Mental Speech at will. Of all the spell-runes available, it was the most popular, especially among the Operators and Rangers he knew.
'All magic makes psychic noise. I would rather this Necromancer not know that we are here. So no more mental speech, My Love.'
He nodded in acknowledgement, and then followed behind her.
The corridor snaked and twisted around, and then sloped downward. Along one wall Jenna and Mina must have both sensed the presance of Old Magic because they stopped long enough to study the wall for a moment before moving on. According to what he'd read in a Preserver's secret library a few months back, all Anshahnii ruins had traces of Old Magic, super powerful spells and wards that were used to defend against armies of humans and summoned creatures that numbered in the tens of thousands.
After a few hundred more feet they came to a room, no, a chamber that must have been the size of a football field. Or close to it. The cieling was 20, maybe 25 feet high, but what struck him as most amazing was the 100 foot pit in the center of the floor. From below he could hear a cacaphony of yells, grunts, screams and insane laughter. It was so disturbing that it drove him to distraction.
"Can we do something about that noise?" As he looked into the pit, he could see what at first looked like a bunch of demented nuclear holocaust victims. But then realized that they weren't human anymore. It was thier skin...a sort of jaundiced whitish-yellow.
Ghouls. He'd heard of them but had never seen any of them in person before. They were wretched things. Aside from the constant insane babbling, they wore the clothes they had in life -- robes and togas. Several had the green and brown studded armor of Warmaedyn's military. But all of the clothing was ragged and falling apart. These had not suffered from some zombie plague, no, these people had been turned into the things they now were by the use of dark magic.
As if they'd heard him, the ghouls below stopped, and all of them watched in expectation of something. When he looked over on the other side of the pit he could see a human woman about his age with a thin, gaunt face and arms that used to have some nice muscle definition. She reminded him of an anorexic model that he'd once met.
The woman, no the Sergeant sat with her back against the wall, next to a pile of bloody arrows. He could see by her wounds that someone had used her for target practice.
His hands clenched into fists without him realizing it, and he felt a need to hurt someone coming on.
As if sensing his anger, Mina put her hand in his. He squeezed it slightly. She looked up at him.
