The Quest for the Crystal

[Pheonix]

Pheonix sat from his lofty perch watching and waiting for the adventurers to open the great doors, when finally the Mage in the group put his staff against the door. The obviously inexperienced mage dropped his staff in suprise as a the knobs to the doors suddenly appeared.
Pheonix laughed softly as he watched one of the dwarves reach in vain for the handle.
 
He began idly fingering the hilt of his belt knife,
watching and waiting.

[Aruneko]

Aruneko bit his lip to keep from smiling at Tegdaen.  He walked up in front of the doors and gave a strong pull at the knobs, swinging them both open.  Aruneko\'s nightvision allowed him to see past the darkness.  He scanned the caves and saw someone- or something- standing there, tense.  Aruneko unwisely called out loudly, \"Hello?  Anyone there?\"

[Fiere]

It took all of Fiere\'s finely tuned self control not to flinch at the booming sound of the bronze doors swinging open. She tensed like a tiger ready to spring as a loud voice called out and sent echoes skittering into the dark.

An otherworldly snarl ripped through her concentration,and something raced past her at impossible speed. She held her position as it slammed straight for the city.

[Pheonix]

Sighing in spite of himself pheonix prepared himself to move as the doors flew open with a thundering boom,

He brought himself to a squating position staring into what would have been near absolute darkness for a human,
he winced slightly as the Elf among the adventurers yelled into the darkness
He is going to bring everything in those tunnels right down on tops of them  He thought grimly.
Suddenly he noticed something rapidly moving on the other side of the bronze doors he couldnt tell what it was from this distance but if its coming from that side of the doors it cant be good, instantly he had his bow drawn taunt with an arrow ready to fly,

It would seem they might have to find out Im here sooner than I like  he thought before letting his arrow fly it hit, whatever it was somewhere in its lower body

[Silverblade]

Tegdaen, standing off to the side of the gates, saw shock on the faces of the other party members. He looked inside, and saw what they saw.

The creature, white in colour, ran on four legs, and was advancing quickly.

Suddenly, an arrow flew from behind tegdaen, and struck the creature in the back leg. Unaffected by the blow, the creature continued charging at full pace.

Without bothering to turn around to see where the arrow came from, Tegdaen unhitched his axe, ready for another battle.

[Wormtail_]

The Doors slowly opened. Aruneko leaned in and shouted to see if anyone was there. Suddenly, a white four-legged something leaped at them. Out of nowhere, an arrow struck it\'s left leg, but the creature seemed unaffected. Rantal stared in surprise and shock, both at the sudden appearence of the arrow and the creature, then remembered what he was supposed to do. Rantal quickly took out his staff, casted a spell, and a white ray appeared from the top of his staff, hit the creature.... And only made it drop from it\'s big leap. Now the creature noticed Rantal, the person who attacked it. The creature leaped at Rantal. Rantal sighed, and took a defensive stance with his staff.

[Keldorn]

Keldorn had seen the creature make his escape towards the light, the creature had seem eager to escape those tunnels.
Though he didn\'t have much time to think about this, this creature was clearly on a mission to kill us.

Keldorn had drawn his crossbow and tried to get a good clean aim on the head of this creature, but was unable to because of the immense speed at which this creature was moving. He seemed to be as light as a feather and yet also as strong as a dragon.
When Keldorn saw the creature leaping at Rantal he couldn\'t wait any longer. He fired his crossbow and a bolt flew from the crossbow into the creature\'s neck. The creature fell, though it didn\'t seem to be any weaker. Well, atleast he is out of balance, Keldorn thought.
Keldorn put his crossbow on his back and took his sword in his hands. Let\'s see how he likes some sharp steel in his flesh.
Keldorn started to advance towards the creature with his sword at the ready.

[Aruneko]

Aruneko quickly drew his long dagger from its sheath and waited for the right time to come to strike as his companions and some mysterious archer from behind attacked the white beast, and he saw his chance.  Keldorn shot the beast, knocking it on the ground, and Aruneko leapt upon it, blade first.  The blade went deep.  In a moment Aruneko lost control of his dagger as the beast rose, wrenching it out of his grasp.  It turned on him and with what seemed to be two fangs slashed at him, which he very narrowly dodged and jumped back.  The thing seemed to move so fast he had a hard time telling what it was.

[Fiere]

Fiere observed the spectacle unfolding before her. Her dark lips curved into a sly smile.

\"Foolish males\" she thought.\"They never do learn\"

She lunged forward from her hiding place in the shadows and headed straight for a stalactite adjacent to the beast.  She took two steps up the base of the stone and pushed off hard towards the snarling enemy with both sai raised high.  She slammed her weapons into the creature\'s back as it roared in indignation.  It whirled about trying to fling her from its backside as she dug in with her blades.

The foul smelling thing ran headlong into the cavern wall as Fiere lept aside just in time. She ducked into a roll but she was unable to slow her momentum in time to prevent herself from slamming into the rocky wall of the chamber.

Dazed and bruised she rose unsteadily to her feet. The creature smelled offensively unnatural even to her extraplaner senses. Whatever it was, it had been affected by the same force she felt further back in the labyrinth. She looked to her right where the men who had attracted the creature stood.

When she turned swiftly back to face the monster it seemed to have sunk into the wall. The arrow in its leg was sagging and its color had become mottled.

\"Its knocked itself out!\" she thought. She crept cautiously towards it across the cold floor. Fiere poked at the injured beast with her sai but it did not react. It seemed to sink into itself and its color had faded to an odd grayish brown. As she inspected the creature she failed to notice a portion of its now indisguishable leg had oozed around her ankle...

[Wormtail_]

Rantal braced himself for impact, but none came. He slowly took his staff down, and saw Keldorn shoot the creature, and the creature dropped from it\'s leap, again. Now, Keldorn advanced on it, with blade at the ready. Aruneko reached it first, and seemed to have a tough time with it. Out of nowhere appeared a female Diaboli, who attacked and both, creature and stranger, somehow managed to get inside the Labryniths. Rantal decided to follow her, and saw that the creauture seemed to be dead. There was only one problem, though: a part of it with an arrow on it was wrapping itself around the Diaboli\'s leg, and the Diaboli didn\'t seem to notice. Rantal casted a spell, and out of his staff appeared... around seven stars that hit the cavern floor, doing nothing whatsoever. Cursing, Rantal threw his staff to the ground and took out his bow and arrow, stepping aside to let everyone else charge in. He notched the arrow to the bow, and prepared to let fly.

[Pheonix]

Pheonix watched as the adventurers began facing off with the creature, he already had another arrow ready but he did not fire as he thought they should be able to handle whatever it was now that it was wounded, why his arrow shot had even stopped it from jumping on the mage....even more fortuitous for his cause of remaining hidden was the fact that a diaboli appeared from within the tunnels and attacked the creatures back. He couldnt see where the crreature ran off to when the diaboli jumped on its back, but he noticed the adventurers running into the tunnel.....
He took this golden opportunity to run into the tunnel without letting the others see him.
As soon as he was beyond the great doors he took to a shadowy enclave and knealt down to remain unseen.

[FyreBlade]

Fyre cursed as he sprinted through the Stone Labyrinths. dammit, they\'re going to be halfway through the labyrinths with beards growing on their rotting corpses by the time you get to them, at this rate. the last time that the Bronze Doors had been opened had been a long time ago. who could it be this time? as the sounds of battle began to ring around him, Fyre skidded to a halt, and crept carefully into the shadows. He saw a party of adventurers just finish subduing a mimic slid into the shadows to watch. there was a dwarf, an elf, a ylian, a lemur, and a female diaboli standing near the mimic. there was also a faint elf-shaped shadow hiding in an alcove behind the group he\'s good Fyre admitted to himself but i\'ve seen better. suddenly, the mimic had finished playing dead and was slowly winding a strand around the diaboli\'s foot. Fyre slowly drew two blackened, reflection-stopping daggers and crouched in the shadows to watch the scene unfold. I don\' t know what this group wants, but i don\'t need to kill them yet. i will observe from the shadows and watch and wait to aid or stop them

[Pheonix]

As soon as he got into position to be hidden another winged-figure ran through the great bronze doors, the person quickly scanned the room taking in the party, also noticing pheonix , the position he had chosen would serving the purpose of hiding him from the party, but it would not hide him well from someone entering through the dooors with an observative eye.

Pheonix mumble a soft profanity and drew an arrow aiming it carefully at the figure that had just entered.
If this new arrival turned out to be hostile he would not hesitate to put it down.....
Especially since the party had their backs to the new visitor.

[FyreBlade]

noticing the bow pointed his way by an elf who looked like he knew how to use it, Fyre cursed softly and rolled behind a stalagmite. the bow followed him the whole way, but as soon as the rock formation was between Fyre and the archer, he jumped straight up, flapping his wings as he reached the inky darkness in of the cavern celings. as the archer looked for his target, Fyre flew over head, and dropped silently behind. he slid up behind the archer, clamped a hand over his mouth, dragged him against a wall, and slid a dagger into place under the elf\'s chin all in under 3 seconds. \"what do you want from me, and why did you point the bow?\"

[Pheonix]

Gritting his teeth at being caught off guard, pheonix let his bow and arrow drop to the floor with a clatter,
Smiling a bit pheonix quipped
As far as what I was doing and why you had a bow pointed at you I was watching thier back........Kill me if you will.....Slitting my throat will dispose of me easily enough but I\'m sure my friends over there won\'t have any trouble making you as dead as me once they see you standing over my corpse....after all I think the noise that a bow makes when hitting the ground is enough to draw their attention away from a monster carcass for a moment don\'t you ? Pheonix said as he used the noise of his speach as a distraction to skillfully and silently draw his belt knife and put it against Fyre\'s  crotch
Besides my winged friend I\'m sure killing one elf isn\'t worth losing an appendage, before they come and end your life that is.....then again I don\'t see any reason we could\'t walk away from this unscathed.