'Agreed,' Yldar said. He glanced at Cythara, who bit her lip, and let the matter go for the moment. He stepped to the door and opened it slowly.
Within was the altar chamber of Graz'zt. Torches smoldered in wall sconces about the place and put off a hazy purplish light, producing a strange, surreal atmosphere. Musk and blood mingled in the air. Crude murals defaced the walls, depicting disgusting, horrifying demons and acts of violence and lust. A huge obsidian altar dominated the room, piled all around with skulls and bones. Something metallic glinted from it, and Yldar's eyes lit up.
'The Bracer!' he exclaimed despite himself. He would have continued had not Twilight slapped a hand over his mouth to silence him.
'Easy there, Goldie,' she said, gesturing around the room with her sharp nose.
Indeed, though they had not seen them before in the dim haze, black-robed bodies lay scattered about the chamber, all breathing shallowly. Most of them were half-unclad and entwined with one another. Cowls and shadows obscured the faces, but the elves were certain they were sleeping. Yldar could only imagine what their ritual had involved, and his gorge rose.
'Let's just get it and go,' Yldar whispered.
They moved slowly into the room, ever alert. Cythara cast a spell to make their movements silent, and they picked their way carefully over sleeping bodies.
It was not until they were halfway into the room that Twilight perked up and furrowed her brow. She stopped and reached for Yldar's shoulder, but he was already a step out of reach. She caught Cythara instead.
'What, thief?' Cythara asked.
'That's not it,' Twilight replied.
Yldar had not paused. He had just reached the dais and gazed upon the silver Bracer, plain of ornamentation but engraved through with delicate strands of three pointed leaves. It was, without a doubt, one of the most beautiful works of craftsmanship he had ever seen.
He traced his fingers through a detection spell, searching for traps or wards. There seemed to be none, but he detected an aura about the Bracer-one of illusion. Perhaps that was its own magic, meant to shield the wearer. Just to be sure, he decided to dispel it; he doubted his minor talent with the Art would permanently damage such a powerful relic. Yldar began the spell.
'The Bracer,' Twilight said. 'That's not-Yldar! Stop!' turn to catch her by the arm.
'Oh, let him.' There was newfound self-confidence in her voice. 'Have you not done enough?'
'But-but it's not real,' Twilight said, confused.
Cythara leaned in close and whispered something in Twilight's ear. The moon elfs eyes widened and she drew her rapier.
'Yldar!' Twilight shouted the same instant Cythara cried, 'It's a trap!' and began a spell.
As one, all the cultists in the room surged to their feet, wavy daggers or swords in their hands. The elves were surrounded.
In the same breath, Yldar's dispelling did more than suppress the Bracer's magic: it twisted and warped the false relic. The silver armguard dimmed, shriveled, and became a disembodied human hand, one that leaped up and clamped down on his wrist as though alive. Yldar shouted and shook his arm furiously to dislodge the fiendish claw, but it was in vain. The blackened, filthy nails drove into his flesh, through the mail hauberk he wore.
He chanted through clenched teeth a spell that would wrench it free, and barely managed to draw in time to defend himself against two burly cultists who hacked at him with flamberge swords. Letting his spell fizzle, Yldar sidestepped one slash and parried the other, but the strength of the blow sent him staggering. Combined with the lingering pain in his left arm, the ringing feeling in his right made Yldar dizzy.
Meanwhile, a cultist stepped out of the horde, pointing a zigzagging long sword in the direction of the two elf maids. 'Surrender or die!' he rasped.
That one got Twilight's crossbow bolt between his cowled eyes. At the same time, the moon elf thrust at Cythara, but the mage's ruby-studded bracelet flashed and the dusky-bladed rapier sparked off a shield of golden magic that surrounded her.
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Cythara countered with a spell, bringing her hands- blurring with energy, bolts of electricity arcing between them-together and lashing them apart. Twilight's eyes widened and she dived aside, twisting in ways that seemed impossible.
Crimson lightning erupted from Cythara's hands and lashed over and around Twilight, cutting down three hapless cultists. The bolts sprang from the smoking bodies back toward the moon elf, but she dodged again with seemingly unnatural grace. As though it gave up, the lightning went for another of the demonists, who screamed and blackened.
Twilight landed and rolled over the fallen cultists, coming up just in time to parry a swinging axe and dance away. Cythara's lightning ripped and flew freely around the chamber until a spell from one of the chanting cultists caught it harmlessly in a patch of icy darkness.
Meanwhile, Yldar had managed to elude one attacker by skirting the other. With only one sword to face, his fencing lessons came back in a flash, and he shuffled back, varying the distance. When the two-handed sword whipped out, predictably short, Yldar leaped in with a thrust and slash that cut deeply into the cultist's black cloak. The man went down with a grunt. Apparently, the cultists wore little in the way of armor under those robes.
He had a breath before the second swordsman came lumbering over his fallen comrade, and he dared a glance around the chamber. What he saw widened his eyes.
There Cythara stood, surrounded by hacking blades that bounced off her magical shields, weaving and lashing out with the fearsome powers at her disposal. Yldar knew it would not be enough-not with a quarter of the cultists chanting counter spells. The chain lightning had been one of her most powerful spells, and that had failed to fell the primary target: Twilight.
Twilight, who even then dipped and dodged cultists' slow strikes and parried their quick ones. Her bladework was excellent, her slim sword circling around blocks and parries as though the point had a life of its own, but her dancing footwork was nothing short of amazing. Yldar did not envy her opponents the chore of landing a blow upon her.
In that breath, Yldar watched as Twilight spun her blade in circles around a wild, jerking parry, leaped to the side even as she feinted, and ran the cultist through.
Then Yldar had to turn back to his foe, sidestepped, and barely avoided having his head chopped in two like a cabbage.
'Yldar!' Twilight shouted as she parried and leaped away from a cultist with a short, jagged sword. 'We have to get out of here!'
'No!' Cythara shouted, beads of sweat running down her bronze skin. 'Don't listen to her, Yldar!' She cast another spell, and five spheres of energy burst into existence around her, each with a different color, like rainbow marbles. They whirled around her head like tiny orbiting worlds. 'She's a traitor!'
Twilight growled and parried a blow high and sent in a low riposte that had her opponent scurrying back. 'She's the traitor, Yldar! Don't-' She might have said more, but the clashing of steel cut off her words.
Yldar's head spun. Who did he believe? His sister, who had stayed with him loyally through all his adventures since Evermeet, or Twilight, a mysterious, caustic, and deceptive woman-a thief by her own admission?
On the surface, the choice seemed perfectly obvious, but something in Yldar rebelled against it. What was this feeling that surfaced within him?
Then Twilight made the choice for him. Near the exit a feral-faced acolyte raised a hand to call down a slaying spell upon Cythara's faltering shield, thus revealing the glint of silver on a very feminine arm.
'The Bracer!' Twilight shouted.
A sudden leaping lunge drove her opponent from his feet, but Twilight made no move to follow with a strike.
Instead, she broke away and made a mad dash for the lady acolyte. As she ran, the shadows coalesced around her like a gathering cloak.
'Stop her, Yldar!' Cythara'shouted between spells. A wand she had drawn from her hip flashed, sending an ochre beam streaking at Twilight, but it struck a demon thrall instead, dropping him, melting, to the floor. 'She's getting away. Stop her!'
