Above me the second of four pillars that held up the ceiling of this enormous top chamber of the ancient ziggurat was starting to crash down. Bits of stone were flying everywhere and a thunderous and deafening scraping and creaking and breaking sound filled my senses, almost drowning out the battle hymn playing in the back of my mind.

Below me a writhing mass of snarling clawing vicious undead skeletons were trying to climb upon each other to where I was. Or rather used to be. I had just let go of the pillar and was falling down right towards the thick of them.

Mentally I leaned into the music, closed my eyes and clung to the connection to my deity. I pulled in my legs and at the exploding crescendo of the music I kicked against the pillar, pushing myself into a stretched backwards somersault.

Trithereon guided the strength in my legs and the balance in my tail, as I cleared most of the skeletons, and landed straight down (natural 20), flicking my tail between the legs of one and supporting myself on the floor with one hand with my torso twisted to the side and one arm pointed to the ceiling to fit between the skeletons roaming this place.

Immediately I moved again to the music to get clear of these skeletons and what I saw next almost made me freeze up. I was now in an almost clear area, with the skeletons divided between stuffing themselves into the tunnel where my friends were, and gathering around the pillar. I needed to get out of here, and that tunnel was the only way out.

The music picked up, and lost all nuance, it turned into a Wagner-esk rumbling war beat of just maddening drums at full power and full chaos. I reached into my infernal heritage, and let darkness flow from that heritage into the entrance of the tunnel, blocking out all sight, even my own dark vision. I lowered my head, pointing my horns at the entrance of the tunnel and screamed louder than I have ever done in my life. Sweating and bleeding I bull rushed straight into the darkness, straight into the back of that mass of skeletons. Hundreds of them between me and my friends. Between me and my survival.

Behind me the rumble and crashing sounds became even louder and wind and dust reached my back as I crashed into the undead bones in front of me.

I don’t remember much from the next minute or so. Just flashed of bones punching me, scraping me, in total darkness, and the sound of screaming, the war music pounding in my head, and dust, dust everywhere. I flayed about me blindly, keeping me head down, shattering bones with my fists, my blade, my horns, even my teeth.

Then suddenly, heat! A hot blast of intense heat rushed away the skeletons in front of me, around me, behind me, and I stumbled forward, suddenly out of the darkness. My infernal heritage again helping me to resist the damaging heat. Smoking, bleeding, and very barely standing (1hp!) I ran right into a blind wall! Then a hand came through the wall, looking like that of a dragon born. I grabbed his clawed fingers and Romero pulled me into the hut with my friends. That is when the music quieted down, and I took a deep breath.

Pausing just a second to scream at them (I could not stop screaming), pointing back at me and shouting something like ‘IT IS ALL COMING DOWN! GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE’, I started running again.

We started a mad dash down the tunnel, as the rumbling got bigger and we could feel the structure shaking under our feet. As we ran I pushed a little bit of holy power into myself to stop the bleeding (2hp now). We moved from our secret tunnel into the larger pathway that the skeletons were taking into the ziggurat, just like we used to get ourselves into this mess.

After a while the tremors subsided, and we pulled into a side chamber, with some of those machines, and made for a rest. That is when I managed to heal up some of my wounds, with some help of my friends, and focussed on the Mace that had drawn my attention, bonding with it, it is also when I scribbled down these notes in case I would not survive.

Trithereon favoured me with insight into the Mace, and it seemed to be the legendary Mace, or Rod of Lordly Might! What a blessing! I gathered understanding of the six buttons but still felt compelled to use only my old blood coloured sword of vengeance in battle. Damned curse! Hopefully Trithereon will help me rid myself of that dependency soon.

<Messy scribbling on the paper, much more hasted handwriting>

We are still alive, most of us. Thorns body is now buried under tons and tons of rock so there is no way we can resurrect that guy. Esk is taken. Lots of undead on our mad dash down. Rubble coming down constantly, just managing to stay in front of it. After resting a big quake came, and we started running again. Still running. People kept falling behind, but we are together and we pulled through.

Skeletons hurt us, but if anything will kill us off it will probably be the lava! Lava stream started rising. Like the collapses have blocked the flow. We needed to get to the surface, right now, more than anything. That is why we passed by our fire beard friends, and went back the way we came, North by North east.

Passed one broken bridge and lava stream using my Mace turned into a climbing pole. It wasn’t easy and I almost fell in and almost lost the Mace, but we made it across and we managed to retrieve it. I must practice, it was a shameful performance. We came to the last bride just before the path up to the surface of the city, and there they were, three of those enormous gargoyle guardians that we had so much trouble with last time. Esk morphed into a giant own, grabbed the Leprechaun and flew up and across. Immediately two of them followed, leaving us one to deal with as we rushed across. It was a nasty battle but after Ricardo pummelled it, our little sneaky Garitas hit is just in the right spot and it crumbled into stone fragments.

Meanwhile Esk suddenly turned and dropped Corry over the Lava! Corry screamed ‘no FRIEND save me’, and Esk dived down. She folded her wings and soared in between the attacking Gargoyles. As she was about to snatch up Corry she suddenly pulled up, aborting the rescue and flew away at full speed with the Gargoyles in pursuit.

Corry plummeted towards the lava, and I shouted Romero to help hold fast to the staff as I punched the button to transform the mace into a climbing pole. Corry hit it with a sickening crunch, breaking a few bones, but we managed to pull him in as our friends dealt with the last gargoyle.

We rushed up the path to the surface with the lava lapping at our heels. Just as we came up I reached into my divine sense and felt for undead. And they were everywhere. Not just a few, but 60 of them! Will this ever stop? How much more can we take? Skeletons surrounded the point where our path reached the surface, with all of them ready to pounce out from hiding. I screamed a warning and we moved back down the path as they crawled and ran and clambered towards us.

It was a hard battle with us holding down a choke point and a division of the skeletons dropping stones on our back. Corry was a great help in thunderously wiping the path clear of them with magic, and Ricardo wiped them out about 4 at a time with his awesome quarterstaff action. We made it to the top, and Corry told us about the succubus that had enchanted Esk. Ricardo spit in the dirt and cursed as it was probably the same big tit bitch that got him to attack me when we arrived here. We fear for Esks life and for her soul. Let’s see if she is ever returned to us…