Light the Way Home

        "That's odd," Ramza Beoulve commented, staring up with a mixture of confusion and amusement at the low ceiling of the darkened cave through which his party was traveling. "How do you suppose he got up there?"

        A soldier stepped up beside him, a lithe, wirey man with spiky blond hair that seemed to consciously fight any efforts to control it. The soldier followed Ramza's gaze, took one look at the strange object stuck into the ceiling of the cave, and shrugged.

        "Think something threw him into the ceiling?" the foreigner known as Cloud asked, sounding as if he cared little for how the silent armored warrior had been embedded in the ceiling and even less for the question asked. It was not rudeness on his part, or even sarcasm--it was preoccupation. Ramza understood, as best he could, as best as anyone could understand such a strange situation. Cloud was a man without a past, a man without a memory, a man without a world to call his own. Hence why Ramza's party was working their way deeper and deeper into this hateful mess of caves, fighting off loads of Goblins and darker things, all on what could be at best considered little more than a rumor left in the Warjilis bar by a patron who had likely had one too many drinks.

        "He's not moving." Agrias Oaks walked up to stand between the two men, holding a smoldering torch aloft and brushing back a few strands of long blond hair with her other hand as she peered at the strangeness above. "You think he's still alive?"

        Ramza heard the sound of thick boots crunching loose rock, and knew that the last of the party was finally catching up. In the narrow confines of the cave network it was hard to keep track of everyone, but he had no doubt that the rear guard would keep things well in hand. In all his battles alongside the man, Ramza had never encountered a single warrior, monster or man, that Cidolfus 'Thunder God Cid' Orlandu could not best in single combat. The former leader of the Nanten Knights was a legend in his own time. Ramza knew that no matter how much battle experience he accumulated, he would never equal that great warrior. It simply wasn't possible.

        "Well, we can't just leave him up there," Ramza said finally, as Beowulf walked out of the dark to give him a quizzical glance, obviously wondering why they'd stopped, and then took his own look at the armored figure stuck to the ceiling. Strangely, there was no sign of Orlandu. "We have to, at the least, give him a proper burial."

        "And how to you propose to do that?" Agrias asked, lowering her torch and giving him a mildly curious glance. "Sabrina is with the other party, and she's the only person I know who's capable of jumping high enough to get him down. It may seem callous to just leave him there, but if we can't get to him, there's really no point in standing around here waiting for the monsters to find us."

        Ramza glanced up at the armored warrior once more, idly scratching his head, turning the problem over and over in his mind but finding no usable solution. Cloud was staring off into the darkness, his eyes distant and lost.

        "Perhaps if we threw something at him," Beowulf suggested. Ramza glanced at the Lionel Knight in surprise, expecting the suggestion to be some sort of joke. Beowulf never joked.

        "A shuriken or rock," Beowulf clarified, his tone all business.

        Ramza raised an eyebrow. The man was serious. He was not sure if that should disturb or relieve him.

        "If he is dead, I doubt that we'll be doing him any great disservice. And if it hits in the right place, it just might knock him out of there. It looks like the spikes on his armor are what have lodged in the rock, not the armor itself. We should be able to knock him loose by knocking off the spikes."

        "Hmmph." Ramza pondered, noncommittal. "Well, Agrias does have a point. We can't just stand around here forever. Does anybody have any other ideas for getting that man down off the ceiling?"

        Agrias shook her head, and Cloud was still staring off into the darkness. Ramza momentarily considered getting his attention, but decided against it. For the moment, Cloud was lost in his own little world, and there was no harm in letting him stay there.

        "All right, then." Ramza could see no help for it. "Agrias, your torch please."

        The blond-haired Knight lowered her torch closer to the ground, illuminating the area as best she could, and Ramza quickly discovered a rock of suitable size and picked it up, tossing it into the air and catching it, once, to test its weight. It seemed usable.

        "All right." His eyes rose to the ceiling and the armored figure stuck in it. "Here goes nothing, I guess."

        He brought his arm back, gauging the distance between his position and the unknown warrior with his eyes, as best he could in the dim light provided by Agrias' torch. Rock throwing was not exactly his forte, but he was competent at it. He took another second to check his aim, silently chiding himself as he unconsciously began to take into account the nonexistent wind, and let fly.

        His aim was off by a few inches. The rock, which he had aimed for the uppermost spike on the warrior's shoulder guard, smacked instead into the rounded metal of the fore of the guard, skittering off to strike the silent warrior directly in the left cheek.

        "Ow!" the man yelped, startling all in the cave, as his eyes flew open and the rock fell back to the floor with a satisfied clatter. For a moment, he merely twisted his head around in confusion, his eyes wide, obviously very confused. Then the gyrating stopped, his eyes seemed to focus, and he looked down at the small group clustered below his resting place.

        "Hey!" he yelled angrily, attempting to twist one of his arms up to the ceiling to get some leverage, and failing due to the lack of joints in his armor. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

        For a moment, no one said anything, struck mute by the warrior's unsuspected resurrection. Finally, Ramza found his voice.

        "Sorry." He felt warm blood rushing to his face. "I thought... you know, since you were stuck in the ceiling and all... I figured you were..."

        "What are you, stupid?" the unknown warrior interrupted, his voice a low, guttural whine. "Dammit, man, you don't just go throwing rocks at people just because they're..." He paused in midsentence, his head twisting about again and craning to see his surroundings. "How the hell did I get stuck in the ceiling?!"

        Agrias gave Ramza a warning glance, obviously growing annoyed with their newest acquaintance. Ramza didn't acknowledge her.

        "Look, um, I'm sorry I threw that rock at you." Ramza had to admit the words sounded lame, even to himself. "If it comforts you any, I was trying to knock you down."

        "With a rock?" The befuddled warrior shook his head in sincere disbelief. "What kind of herbs have you been smoking, kid?"

        Ramza narrowed his eyes, annoyed at the response. "Anyway, I'm sorry to have bothered you. I guess I'll leave you to it."

        He turned away and motioned to Agrias. She gladly began to lead the way forward again, her torch held out to push away the darkness. Beowulf started forward as well, and Ramza idly tapped Cloud on the shoulder, catching his attention, as they began to move out of the chamber.

        "Hey, now, now wait a minute!" The warrior's voice had gone from arrogant to undeniably whiney. "Where are you going? You can't just leave me up here!"

        Ramza continued to walk as Agrias marched purposely for the small tunnel leading out of the chamber.

        "Now hold on just a second here! Hold on! Look, you've got to get me down from here! I can make it worth your while! Really!"

        Ramza paused, obviously appearing to think the matter over. He really had no intention of leaving the man stuck in the ceiling, but the longer the unknown warrior was under that impression, the better.

        "Uh huh." His gaze revealed nothing as he turned and glanced up, expressionless. "I'm listening."

        "Okay, look." The man gestured futilely with the one arm that he had some control over. "I know you're not down here wandering these caves for your health. No one sane would, right? You're looking for something. Something valuable. Right?"

        Ramza shrugged. "Maybe. What's your point?"

        Agrias was standing at the entrance to the tunnel, holding the torch and tapping one armored foot impatiently. Cloud took a few steps toward the tunnel, staring into it with that distant look still in his eyes.

        "Well, I bet you I know what you're looking for." The man smiled, a rough, greasy smile that caused simultaneous urges to kill him and shake his hand. "You're looking for something magical. Something big. Something like a 'Gate'. Am I right?"

        Ramza kept shock from his features only through careful practice, amazed that the man knew enough to say even that much. Perhaps there was some benefit in freeing him from the ceiling after all. The rumor floating around the Warjilis bar had mentioned some sort of treasure buried deep beneath even the Deep Dungeon, but its actual identity was known to very few, only two of which were still living. One of those was the demon possessed Temple Knight who had once been Vormav Tingel. And the other was himself, the current holder of the 'Germinok Scriptures', the only remaining reference to the 'Gate'.

        There had been little in the scriptures about it, hardly anything at all that Ramza could read, as he only had a small portion of the book to work from, that which Simon Pen Rakshu had translated before his death at the hands of the Temple Knights. According to the scriptures, at least if the vague scrawlings that Ramza had managed to decipher were correct, there were not just one, but two 'Gates' hidden somewhere in the land of Ivalice.

        Unfortunately, Simon had been unable to translate any location information for either of the gates before his death. This lead they were following in the Deep Dungeon was unsubstantiated rumor at best, but it was the only lead they had. He only prayed that his dear sister was still safe. Vormav and his Temple Knights could not open the 'Gate' until they got their hands on the 'Germonik Scriptures', and he knew that they would almost certainly hold his sister hostage, alive and safe, until they received them. That did nothing to ease his worry. But he had responsibilities to fulfill before he left on a journey from which he might never return, and the first of those was to the man who called himself Cloud.

        It was largely through Ramza's actions that the foreign warrior had been called into their world (although Mustadio and Besrodio could at least bear some of the blame), and before he could finish with Vormav and save his sister, he had to make some attempt, at the very least, to send Cloud back to his own dimension. The machine that had brought him here had shattered shortly after its maiden activation, and this second 'Gate', which for all Ramza knew didn't even exist, was the only thing that he could think of which might offer the strange warrior a chance to get back 'home'. Wherever his 'home' was in the grand scheme of things. If it even existed.

        "Yeah, you know what I'm talking about, don't you." The warrior appeared pleased with himself, obviously reading Ramza's surprise despite his attempt to hide it. "You're looking for the 'Gate'. But I bet you're just wandering, searching these caves randomly. That could take hours, days. Weeks."

        Ramza said nothing.

        "Or," the man said airily, glancing innocently up at the ceiling in which he was trapped, "you could get me down from here. And I could lead you straight to that precious 'Gate' that you're looking for."

        "Oh, please." Agrias blew out a long breath from the tunnel, taking a step toward Ramza and the warrior stuck in the ceiling. "Do you really expect us to believe a buffoon like yourself knows where something as powerful as the 'Gate' is located?"

        Cloud walked slowly into position behind her, still staring into the tunnel.

        "Buffoon?" The man swiped his arm around in mocking outrage. "Please, lady, try not to hurt my innocent ears!"

        "You know where the 'Gate' is?" Ramza asked calmly, ignoring another warning look from Agrias.

        "You bet." The man nodded eagerly. Perhaps a bit too eagerly, in Ramza's opinion. "But, as you can obviously understand, I'm not just gonna' tell it to you. You have to get me down first."

        It was then that the sound of crunching gravel became audible from the far tunnel, and Ramza stiffened, quickly drawing his sword as Beowulf spun around and did the same.

        "Hey, what the...," the man on the ceiling protested, but then Ramza relaxed as Orlandu stepped into view.

        "Hey, glad to see you made it." Ramza narrowed his gaze slightly. "What kept you?"

        "Ramza," a calm voice said from behind him. It was Cloud. What did he want? Ramza turned, as Orlandu opened his mouth to explain himself. Orlandu didn't get the chance.

        Everything happened in a blur. Cloud stumbled back, shoving Agrias forcefully to the side as something quick and dark flew from the tunnel ahead and smacked into his armor, driving him back even as his Materia Blade flashed angrily and bit into its flesh.

        Instantly Ramza was running for it, Beowulf slightly ahead of him. The thing, which Ramza now recognized as a Cuar, roared angrily and attempted to close its massive jaws around Cloud's head, but the foreign warrior was too quick, rolling just enough to the side to deflect its attack by shoving his sword into its mouth. It roared in anger and pain, drawing back and allowing Cloud to roll free, at last giving Ramza and the others an opening for attack.

        Their efforts were not needed. Even as Agrias pushed herself to her feet and raised her sword, and Ramza and Beowulf came within striking distance of the creature, a massive shard of glowing purple energy erupted from the floor like a living knife, slicing directly through the center of the Cuar's torso and splattering its guts across the wall behind it.

        The magic faded, as various bits from the unfortunate beast fell to the ground around the epicenter of the explosion. Orlandu evaluated his handiwork without reaction, and then sheathed his mighty sword once more.

        "Sorry for being late." He idly brushed a few bits of gathered dirt from his cloak. "I got held up by a pair of Behemoths."

        The man stuck to the ceiling was gazing at the shattered beast in slack-jawed amazement.

        "What the... who the hell are you people?" His question was tainted with just as much anger as disbelief.

        Orlandu glanced up at the armored warrior, a hint of amusement momentarily visible on his normally taciturn features. "Well, hello. What have we here?"

        "What have we here?!" the man asked in genuine amazement. "What the hell do I look like, you dumb old goat? A goddamn stalactite?!"

        Orlandu evaluated that comment for a moment, his eyes curious, and the warrior began to turn pale.

        "Um, now wait a minute," he began as Ramza helped Cloud back to his feet, relieved to see that the other had suffered little more than bumps and bruises from his encounter with the Cuar. The blond-haired warrior nodded quickly to show that he was all right.

        Without another word, Orlandu slowly drew his sword, staring up at the man in the ceiling with that hint of amusement back in his face.

        "Woah, woah..." The warrior raised his free arm. "Hold on just a sec now, pal, I didn't mean nothin' by that. Let's just all simmer down here and talk this out logically--"

        Orlandu closed his eyes, smashing his sword into the ground even as Ramza yelled out a warning, wondering what in the world 'Thunder God Cid' thought he was doing.

        As before, unreal energy flared from the floor of the cavern, this time in the form of a massive spectral scythe which sliced up and crashed into the unknown man with shocking force. There was the sound of tearing metal, and then the warrior was falling.

        "Orlandu!" Ramza called out in protest, but the unconscious warrior had already crashed to the ground in a crumbled heap, his spiked armor shattered.

        "He's down off the ceiling." Orlandu gave him a barely recognizable shrug as his mouth quirked. "That's what you wanted, isn't it?"

        Ramza stared at him for a second. Orlandu merely stared back, that odd quirk tugging at the edge of his mouth.

        "Well, don't just stand there like idiots!" Agrias rushed forward, stopping to kneel by the unconscious man and quickly drawing from her stash of X-Potions, opening the first and pouring its holy liquid over the unconscious man's head and chest. "He's still breathing! Help me cure him!"

        "You really shouldn't bother," Orlandu commented as he knelt at the warrior's side. "He's just out for a bit. All I did was shatter his armor, not touch his skin. What a Lancer like him was thinking wearing spiked armor I'll never be able to understand, but I didn't do any permanent damage. Give him a few moments."

        Taking Orlandu at his word, Agrias rose to her feet and put away her X-Potions. Cloud and Beowulf watched the exit to the chamber for more Cuars, and Ramza kept one eye on the entrance. Just as Orlandu had promised, in a few moments the warrior stirred, idly bringing one hand to his forehead and groaning pitifully.

        "Get up," Agrias ordered. "You're not hurt, and we've dawdled here enough already."

        The warrior managed to open his eyes, still a bit disoriented. "Huh?" he managed intelligently. After a second, he added to that statement. "What?"

        Taking pity on the man, Ramza leaned over and locked his fingers around one of the man's limp wrists, taking a firm grip before pulling him to his feet. The bare-chested lancer stumbled uncertainly for a second, but seemed to regain his clarity rather quickly. Ramza noticed what looked to be a strange fighting stick, half wood and half metal, held in a long holster attached to the side of his leg.

        "Hey...," the man said accusingly, glancing down at his chest and then around at the rest of them. "What happened to my armor?"

        Orlandu pointed to the nearest fragment of metal within sight, his face now expressionless.

        "Sorry." The word sounded less than sincere. "It was the only way to get you down."

        After staring at Orlandu for a few moments with disbelieving eyes, the unknown warrior smiled uncertainly. "Uh, thanks, I guess."

        It was an obvious and poor attempt at diplomacy. Ramza acknowledged the fact that, though he was rather short on manners, this man was quite good as figuring out who it was best not to annoy.

        "Ramza," Cloud said softly, pointing at the exit to the tunnel. This time, he had no trouble figuring out why Cloud had called his attention.

        The fight was upon them before they were even fully prepared. In all, more than eight Cuars poured out of the exit to the chamber, their massive fur covered forms darting like wraiths through the darkness that surrounded the party and then leaping in to finish their prey.

        "Stay behind me," Ramza warned the man they'd dislodged from the ceiling, as without armor, he was going to be little more than a liability in this fight. "Don't do anything stupid."

        The form of a Cuar leapt at him from the shadows. Ramza twisted to the side to force its claws into the protective casing of his armor and brought the twin fury of a Rune Blade and Excalibur down into its flesh. The enhanced speed offered by the mythic sword made the entire conflict seem to pass in slow- motion, giving him more than enough time to aim his slices for the place where they would cause the most damage. The Cuar went down with a horrible screeching cry and did not get up.

        Ramza heard the sound of flaring energy and more angry shrieks, and knew that Agrias and Orlandu were likely dispatching more than their fair share. A Cuar leapt at Beowulf, tearing a pair of gaping scratches in his shield, and then froze in midstride as the Lionel Knight's sword smashed into the ground. The eyes of the Cuar seemed to widen in disbelief as its flesh was quickly covered in stone.

        Cloud sliced a leg out from under one of the Cuars that had chosen to attack him, silencing the thing's enraged cries a second later as he activated his Limit attack and sliced it apart with a Braver. Another Cuar leapt for Ramza, and he braced himself to meet its charge. Strangely, it never landed from its leap. There was a deafening sound from almost directly next to his ear, and he stumbled to the side clutching at the sensitive organ. The Cuar was nowhere to be seen.

        One more flare of Holy Magic from Orlandu and Agrias finished what little of the small pride remained to attack them, and the chamber fell again into deafening silence. Wincing at the loud ringing in his ear, Ramza turned to check on the unknown warrior. The man was standing, legs slightly apart, looking quite pleased with himself and holding his long, wood and metal fighting staff straight out in his hand. Only now did Ramza notice that one end of the staff, the metal end, was hollow. The Lancer flashed them all an arrogant smile as he spun the long device in his hand, lengthwise, several more times, and then with a practiced flick of his wrist the warrior stopped the spin of the weapon and slammed it into a long holster attached to the top half of his leather pants leg.

        "Interesting trick," Orlandu commented as he approached the lancer, who was smirking with satisfaction. The smirk quickly began to fade as he noticed it was Orlandu who had given the statement.

        "I've rarely seen a Cuar disintegrated so completely. How'd you manage it?"

        At that, the warrior broke into a genuine grin, drawing the long staff from its holster once more and flipping it up to point the hollow end straight at Orlandu. He spun the object and then flipped it sideways, taking the stock in his hand and holding it up proudly.

        "This," he began with obviously practiced flare, his eyes lighting up, "is my boomstick!"

        Agrias rolled her eyes and stepped carelessly over the bloody carcass of a Cuar. "And?" she prompted.

        The warrior gave her an annoyed glance, seeming almost hurt that she didn't seem impressed with his grand assertion. "Listen up, lady. This is a vintage Remington twelve-gauge. Es-Mart's top of the line." He raised a hand, gesturing grandly around the chamber. "Remember!" he warned. "Shop smart! Shop Es-Mart!"

        "He's from Goug Machine City," Orlandu remarked disinterestedly. "Es-Mart is an Item Distributor that competes with Besrodio's company, one of many that mine the ruins of that ancient civilization for working artifacts. He must have found a working gun down there."

        "Hey," the warrior agreed eagerly. "You're pretty sharp, old man. So you've heard of me, eh?"

        "Can't say that I have." Orlandu shrugged disinterestedly. "Those who mine those ruins are little more than grave robbers, regardless."

        The warrior's expression darkened at that, but he was obviously too smart to say anything.

        "So who are you, then?" Agrias was obviously anxious to get on with the journey.

        "Name's Ash," the warrior commented, his cocky grin returning. "Housewares."

        "You work in Housewares?" Beowulf asked, sounding a bit confused. "Seems an odd occupation for an adventurer."

        "It's my last name!" Ash clarified with a shake of his head. "No big, though. Everybody makes that mistake when I tell them my name."

        "So what exactly are you doing here?" Agrias pressed, her tone still more than a bit annoyed. "You said you know where the 'Gate' is located. How did someone like you come by that information?"

        "Someone like me?" Ash had obviously taken offense at the stigma that Agrias' title applied. "Hey, lady, I hate to break this to you, but you ain't no big prize yourself."

        Agrias gritted her teeth, but Ramza quickly stepped between them, putting on a conciliatory face. "She didn't mean anything by that, I'm sure, Ash. Now, you said you know something about the 'Gate'. You said you'd tell us if we got you down. We got you down. So tell us."

        "Speaking of which, how'd you get stuck up in the ceiling anyway?" The question came from Cloud, which struck Ramza as a bit irregular. Even in the short time that Ramza had known the foreign warrior, he'd never been what one would consider vocal.

        Surprisingly, Ash colored a bit at the question. "Well...," he began hedgingly. "You see..."

        Suddenly Agrias snickered, and Ramza glanced at her. "Oh my god." She put a hand to her forehead as if suddenly discovering a great truth. "You're a Lancer, aren't you? And you were wearing that spiked armor, and... oh... oh my god..." She sunk to one knee, shaking with laughter, as Ash stared at her angrily, fuming.

        "So that's it." Just like that Ramza understood as well, putting two and two together at last. "You're a Lancer. And here, in the tiny space of this low ceiling cave--"

        "It was an honest mistake!" Ash protested angrily. "It surprised me!"

        "What surprised you?" Orlandu asked, obviously amused by Ash's reddening face.

        "A goddamn Behemoth!" Ash gesturing angrily and spread his arms out to give them an idea of the monster's bulk. "The thing popped up out a nowhere and came running at me! It was just instinct! You know, battle instinct! I did what was natural!"

        "You jumped," Beowulf clarified in all seriousness, a far cry from Agrias, who was still shaking with laughter, slapping her armored knee in mirth. "You jumped, hit the ceiling, and knocked yourself out. And the spikes on your armor got stuck in the rock."

        "Hey, it worked, didn't it?" Ash gestured angrily around the small interior of the cave. "What would you have done if a Behemoth came charging at you from out of nowhere? The damn thing would have flattened me in this cramped environment! At least I escaped!"

        "By getting yourself... stuck... in the ceiling," Agrias managed from her post on the floor. "Oh my god... I can't imagine..."

        "Yeah, laugh it up, sister," Ash commented angrily. "You can laugh all you want. But the fact is that Behemoth would have flattened you if you were in my place. Give that a little thought before you start judging my tactics!"

        "Probably wandered away laughing its ass off," Orlandu muttered almost inaudibly.

        "Why were you wearing spiked armor in the first place?" Beowulf asked in genuine confusion. "What if you fell? Wouldn't that be more dangerous to you than your opponent?"

        Ash looked even more annoyed at that question, if such was possible considering his current state. "You ever been picked up by a dragon?"

        Beowulf considered that for a second, and then shook his head. "No."

        "Well, I have." Ash made a squeezing motion with his right hand. "Fact is that spiked armor saved my life, buddy. Sliced that dragon's claw nearly in half. Then it dropped me, and I split its skull open with my pike."

        "Fascinating." Agrias seemed to sober up quickly, soon becoming all business, a state that she seemed much more comfortable with. "So what do you know about the 'Gate'? You'll be sorry if you lied to us. Spit it out."

        Ash grimaced, took another look at Orlandu, and nodded quickly. "All right, then, no time for small talk." He took a quick swallow. "Fact is the 'Gate' is about a mile below where we are now. You gotta' head down the tunnel till it splits into thirds, then take the far right passage. Then there's a narrow rock chimney you gotta' inch your way down for about two hundred feet or so, and at the end of that is another tunnel leading further down. You gotta' make several turns, but I got 'em memorized. At the bottom of that tunnel is the large underground cave with the 'Gate'. That's where you're headed."

        "Thank you," Agrias said curtly. "Ramza, let's go." She turned away and headed for the exit to the tunnel.

        "Hey!" Ash called after her. "You aren't thinking of just walking in there, are you?"

        She turned and gave him a cold glance. "Is there some reason I shouldn't?"

        "Is there some reason I shouldn't?" Ash mimicked her question almost precisely, with just an added amount of derision. Agrias glared at him.

        "Charming," Ramza commented, growing bored with the conversation and increasingly tired of this small cavern. Cloud was still without a home, and Alma was still in Vormav's evil clutches. At least this Ash person had given them the location of the 'Gate'. How he'd come by it Ramza could only guess, and it was quite likely that he was simply lying through his teeth, but regardless, it was a lead, and it was the only one they had. They'd have to check it out.

        "No, you go on ahead and walk right in," Ash offered with a dismissive wave. "If you enjoy getting your brain fried, that is."

        "And what do you mean by that?" Agrias demanded.

        Ash was smiling like the proverbial cat that had just eaten the equally proverbial canary. "Ask me nice, and maybe I'll tell you."

        "Ash, we don't have much time." Ramza again cut into the conversation, making a vague gesture to Agrias to cut off her acid response. "We're here for one reason. To find this 'Gate' and see if it can get our friend back to his world. We've got other things to do and other places we need to be. So, please. If you have any information for us, share it. Otherwise, we need to be on our way."

        "So that's why you're so interested in the 'Gate'." Ash stroked the small goatee on his chin, obviously pleased to have gotten that bit of information. "Than you must be Ramza Beoulve. The 'heretic'."

        Ramza's expression darkened at that. "If you've come from the Church, I'd advise you to leave us. Now. The last few people who've attempted to 'absolve me of my sins' have not fared very well."

        "Woah, don't get your panties in a bunch." Ash put up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I'm just tellin' you what I hear on the streets, Ramza. Fact is I don't give a damn what the Church, or any of those high and mighty royal types, think about anyone. I work for one person. Me."

        "What an tragically sad life you must lead," Agrias commented dryly. Ash didn't even bother replying, obviously deciding it best to simply ignore her.

        "Look, you want to find this 'Gate'." He nodded his head, although Ramza was not quite sure what he was agreeing to. "Well, I'm looking for it as well. And the fact is, I know something about it that you don't. The protection spell that's been placed over it, and how to get rid of it."

        "Protection spell?" Ramza asked. "And what exactly is that?"

        Ash shrugged. "I don't know, really. Some kind of powerful magic which is supposed to melt the brains of anyone who tries to enter the chamber with the 'Gate', that is, if they don't disarm it first."

        "And you know how to disarm it." Agrias did not sound like she believed it for a second.

        "That's right, lady." Ash nodded in satisfaction, obviously feeling that he had one-upped her. "So if you want to get in, you gotta' take me with you. I figure we'd work good together, you know? With my brains and your brawn, we'll mop up anything that gets in our way and get through to the 'Gate' quicker than you can shine up that cute little sword of yours."

        "Cute?" Agrias demanded, glancing down at her Rune Blade and then up in obvious anger. "You think my sword is cute?"

        "I'm sure he didn't mean anything by that, Agrias." Ramza heaved a deep, long sigh and wrote the both of them off for good. "Look, Ash, if you want to tag along with us, that's fine. You're welcome to join us. Just don't get in the way, and don't try to stop us."

        He glanced momentarily at Orlandu, then at Beowulf. "And don't even think of double-crossing us," he warned quietly, turning back to Ash. "Or you will regret it."

        "Hey, no problem here," Ash replied quickly. "You want gates, we'll go find gates. Don't get so defensive. Lighten up."

        Ramza stared at him for a moment and then turned away, leading the way into the chamber exit. "I'll take point. Agrias, you're behind me with the torch. Orlandu, you're rear guard. Everyone else, file up between us." With that, he marched for the exit, Agrias quickly falling into step behind him, followed by a still thoughtful Cloud and ever calm Beowulf.

        "Hey, wait up!" Ash jogged in behind Cloud and quickly merged with their ranks. Ramza did not even glance back, trusting Orlandu to know his business. They moved single file into the dark, low tunnel and began to descend.

        Agrias Oaks let out a low, angry hiss as a bit of tar from the burning tip of the almost exhausted torch touched her hand. It had crept its way stealthily down the length of the wood while she stood holding the burning stick above the thick metal door that had barred their progress for the duration of the flame. As the tar continued to sear the flesh of her hand, she forced her fingers to remain clenched around the length of the torch long enough to pull another from the pack she carried on her back, and light it. Finally, certain the second torch was burning steady, she cast the hateful thing away into the darkness and idly shook her hand, sucking air in through her teeth and ignoring the pain of burnt flesh as best she could.

        "Agrias, are you all right?" Ramza looked up from his study of the ancient writing around the sealed door and noticed her pained expression. "What's wrong?"

        "Nothing," she said quickly. "Some tar just burned my hand, that's all. Nothing a quick potion won't cure." As she spoke she reached back with her free hand and pulled the required item from her pack, still careful to hold the newest torch out at a safe distance. She popped the stopper free with one finger and paused for a moment, trying to figure out the best way to apply the liquid to her burned hand while simultaneously holding the torch, bottle and cap.

        "Agrias, let me." Ramza reached for the potion, but she snatched it away and shook her head.

        "I don't need any help," she warned him coolly. Not from anyone, not even you. "What I need is for you to figure out what those symbols mean, so we can open this door and get out of here."

        Ramza stared at her for a moment, his face oddly pensive, and then raised an eyebrow slowly.

        "Can I at least hold the torch?" he asked softly.

        Agrias merely stared at him for a moment as he took a step closer and held out his hand invitingly. Finally, she gave in, handing him the burning stick of oil soaked wood. Although she refused to acknowledge the fact that she was now able to fix her hand with little trouble, she was privately touched by Ramza's concern for her. He really was far more 'noble' than either of his elder brothers.

        "I'm not having any luck with these blasted glyphs anyway, if you can call them that," Ramza said into the darkness as Agrias silently treated the burn on her hand. "Finding something in the 'Germonik Scriptures' that matches the writing around this door is almost impossible. There's just so much text!"

        "We need a man like Simon." Agrias finished with her hand and put the stopper back in the half empty bottle of X-Potion, placing it back in her pack. "That's kind of ironic, in a way. He goes his whole life with people telling him he's not needed and by the time he finally is, he's dead."

        She glanced away in the darkness, pushing away a momentary image of Simon lying dead in a puddle of pooling blood and water. It was still so fresh. Massive swarms of raindrops were pouring down from the Heavens, as if in an attempt to somehow wash away the tremendous amount of blood that had been spilled in and around the Monastery on that horrible day. "I still find it hard to believe that he's actually gone."

        Ramza evaluated her for a moment, and then handed the torch back to her waiting hand. "I didn't know him very well," he admitted. "But from what I did see of him I know he was a good man, both to Ovelia and yourself. His death was a tragedy."

        Agrias said nothing, merely nodding her head and motioning to Ramza to go back to his work with the scriptures. The mention of Ovelia reminded her again of her failure to protect her young charge. After a second's reflection, Ramza turned back to his work, seeing that further discussion of the topic would only be painful. He had barely immersed himself in his attempts to read the symbols around the door before they were joined by two more of their party.

        Ash came first, walking with a confident swagger than annoyed Agrias for reasons she couldn't be completely sure of. To be quite honest with herself, everything about the man annoyed her. There was just something in his flippant, devil may care manner that irritated her, and not solely because of his seeming indifference to the world around him.

        She had seen plenty of men like him in her life, men who wandered the world seeking only their own petty gains, fighting for no cause and answering to no master but their own greedy hearts. Men like Gafgarion. She had sometimes been forced to fight men like that, even kill them, but she had never felt for them what she felt for Ash. She had been angry, disgusted by those other men, even pitied them. But she had never been annoyed by them. And Ash annoyed her. And she didn't know why.

        There was something else beneath that flippant, cocky exterior, something that she didn't want to acknowledge if she was given any choice. Strangely, she had the vaguest feeling that his indifference, his attitude, was little more than a carefully orchestrated act, a ruse so he could avoid getting involved with anyone or anything. Somewhere underneath his rough exterior, she thought she could see the makings of a hero. Perhaps that was the reason he annoyed her so. There was nothing that got under her skin more than a man afraid of his potential.

        "Area's clear," Ash commented as he walked closer to the torchlight, holding a flame of his own. Cloud walked a few steps behind him, as silent and distant as ever. "Monsters must have heard I was down here and run with their tails between their legs. Can't blame 'em, I guess."

        Agrias shook her head slowly and turned away from him, saying nothing. "Let's hope the others bring back as encouraging results."

        Ash walked up beside her, and she sensed his eyes upon her, searching. She stared at the door and did not look at him, hating the feel of those eyes. She almost stared back, almost dared him to continue to stare at her, knowing that the moment her eyes confronted his, they would dart away and he would find something else to focus on.

        Yet she didn't. After another moment, Ash moved on and knelt by Ramza, carefully holding his torch away from the 'Germonik Scriptures'. Agrias had a momentary image of the idiot holding the torch up to read the scriptures and letting a piece of flaming tar drop onto their pages, causing them to burst into flames. She swore to herself that if he turned out to be that stupid she would kill him on the spot.

        "Hey, and I found something that could help you with this door too." Ash gave Ramza a ready half-grin as he reached into the pack that Beowulf had given him and pulled out a thick, metal object. Staring at it in the flickering torchlight, Agrias abruptly recognized it as a key.

        "Where did you get that?" she demanded, taking a step forward.

        "Hey, trade secret, baby." Ash flashed her a cocky smile. "Sometimes you just get the job done right."

        "Where did you get it?" Agrias continued forward until she was glowering down upon him, her hands curled into fists at her sides.

        "That is a good question, Ash." Ramza's eyes were fast growing suspicious, the eyes of a man who had been betrayed before and knew he could be betrayed again. Ash glanced back and forth between the two of them, evaluating their unflinching glares, and then threw his hands up in exasperation.

        "See if I ever help you people again." He sounded genuinely hurt. "I took this off a Hydra that we ran into on patrol. After I blew a couple of its heads off, it turned tail and tried to run."

        "I thought you said that you encountered no monsters on your patrol," Ramza stated evenly.

        "I said there were no monsters left on my patrol, Mister Heretic." Ash grimaced and pointed out, into the darkness. "After I knocked the last head off, the thing stopped moving. When I checked out the corpse, I found this clasped in the jaws of one of its heads. I pried it open and brought it out here."

        He pointed down at the massive key and traced his finger over its surface eagerly. "You see? Look! It's got the same type of writing as this door! It has to be the key!"

        "Is that true, Cloud?" Agrias turned to the silent foreigner and tried to press down her annoyance at his distance from their plight. "Is that how it happened?"

        Cloud stared at her and thought, his eyes still distant. Agrias had to suppress a shudder at the emptiness in his eyes, which sent chills running up and down her spine. It felt like he was staring straight through her.

        "I don't really know," he said at last. "I really wasn't paying attention."

        "You weren't paying attention?" Ash blinked in disbelief. "A Hydra pops up in front of us, I start blasting at it, and you weren't even paying attention?!"

        Cloud shrugged. "I wasn't paying attention. He did kill the monster, though. At least if blasting off all of its heads qualifies as killing it. I know about as much about this world as I remember about my past, but yeah, that's basically what happened."

        "See!" Ash rose to his feet, vindicated. "When are you people going to get it through your thick skulls that I'm on your side? Why would I want to double-cross you? I need you as much as you need me!"

        "Who told you we needed you?" Agrias growled. She shoved the hilt of the torch at Cloud. He took it from her without even rousing from his walking dead act.

        Ash seemed taken aback at that, but he quickly found his tongue. "Like it or not, lady, you need me to get you into that 'Gate'. And I need you guys to get me there. So we're partners."

        "My name," Agrias said crossly, "is not Lady."

        "Oh, excuuuuuse me!" Ash performed a graceful mock bow, a bit of tar from his torch splattering on the ground in time with the motion. "Lady Agrias! I didn't mean to be rude!"

        Ramza shook his head almost imperceptibly, and Agrias could see that he had made the firm decision to stay the hell out of this. Fine. She would settle with this arrogant man once and for all.

        "First of all, what you meant is irrelevant." Agrias took another step forward, facing him down with less than an inch separating their bodies. She could feel the heat rising from his skin. He didn't seem afraid of her, but then she doubted that he would be. He was a foolish man.

        "You are with us because you might serve a useful purpose down the road, and because you decided to tag along. That's it. We don't owe you anything, and you don't owe us anything. If you don't like our company, the door is back the way you came."

        Ash merely glared at her, searching for something, but whatever it was he seemed unable to find it. Agrias found herself wishing that he would leave, that he would walk right out of this chamber and never come back. It would be one less annoyance to deal with, one less worry to weigh down her already troubled mind. Why was it that the man vexed her so?

        "You want me out of here, huh?"

        Ash was obviously angry, but Agrias was amazed to detect a hint of hurt in his voice as well, genuine hurt. It both surprised her and annoyed her at the same time. Men like him weren't supposed to care about or for the opinions of anyone. Yet he did, and at the same time, didn't give a damn what other people thought. There again was the contradiction, and it was bugging the hell out of her.

        "You want to just walk right into that 'Gate' with no idea of what's inside it or what might be waiting for you. Is that it?"

        "Yes," Cloud murmured almost imperceptibly from behind them. As one, Agrias and Ash turned to look at him, both surprised by his unexpected admission, their own debate momentarily forgotten.

        "I need to see what's beyond that gate." Cloud's eyes were lost in the distance, staring at something very far away. The torch he held momentarily burned brighter, as if the very strength of his convictions was somehow adding to its light.

        "I need to see what's behind it. I can't stay here, can't wait much longer. I have to get back... to the Planet. To the Lifestream. I have to find her."

        "To the what? Find who?" Ash sounded far from a mood to listen to Cloud's babbling. "I mean, what's wrong with him, anyway? Why's he looking for this 'Gate' and talking about his 'world'? Who's this woman he's looking for?"

        "I can't explain it." Cloud turned away from them, back to the darkness, and shrugged again. "I just know I have to go there."

        "Uh huh." Ash brought a finger up to the side of his head and twirled it in a narrow circle. "Well, when you get there, be sure and look me up."

        He brought his attention back to Ramza, holding up the thick metal key. "So, what are we waiting for? Let's try the key!"

        He turned and shoved its thick metal length into the dark hole in the door before anyone could stop him. Ramza jumped to his feet, and Agrias rushed forward.

        "Ash!" Ramza protested angrily as the other turned the key in the lock, but it was already too late.

        A deafening click sounded from somewhere inside the doorway. All three of them stopped dead in their tracks, and Ash's hands leapt from the key as if it had burned him. The click echoed over and over around the close walls of the cavern and tunnels, and not a one of them moved until it had fading away.

        "There, see!" Ash grinned, that damned confidence of his slowly returning. "It unlocked the door! Now all we have to do is push it open!"

        As he said this he leaned over and extended one hand to meet the door, straining his arm, even though he was obviously trying to look as if he was merely leaning on it. With an anguished moan of rusted joints, the right side moved inward almost a half inch.

        Agrias slowly moved up to stand next to him, racking her brain for something, anything to criticize about his rash action, but, sadly enough, he had opened the door. There was nothing she could say.

        "Sometimes you just have to trust me to know what I'm doing." Ash smiled as Ramza shook his head, took one last look at the 'Germonik Scriptures', and then slammed the book closed with an air of finality. Ash reached down to take hold of the metal key, still in the lock, and attempted to turn it back around and pull it free from the mechanism.

        "Hmmph." He grunted, the muscles in his arms and chest straining. "Damn thing is stuck."

        "Oh, please." Agrias reached down in exasperation to grasp the free portion of the key and started helping Ash twist it out. "You can't even get a key out of a--"

        Her words were sucked away by the air which came ripping past them barely an instant later, as the key slid from the lock and the floor fell out from under them. All she knew was that it was now completely dark, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, beneath her feet. Something slammed into her, a body, arms wrapping around her torso, and as she struggled angrily to free herself, something sharp smashed into the back of her head.

        Thunder God Cid crouched at the edge of the seemingly bottomless hole that had opened up in the center of the archway, staring down with his keen eyes as if he could make out the floor, even though it was obviously levels distant. After a second's more observation, he rose and shook his head, regret in his features.

        "No way they could have survived." He spoke matter-of- factly as he turned back to face an anxious Ramza, a stern Beowulf, and a clueless Cloud.

        "No way in hell. However deep that pitfall goes, it's far further than any of us could have lived through."

        "Ash was a Lancer," Ramza protested, the cast of his features showing that he still refused to accept Orlandu's assertion. "Surely a Lancer could have survived that fall."

        "Maybe." Orlandu's tone of voice cast obvious doubt on that single word. "If he was more skilled than any Lancer I've ever known. If he could somehow manage to avoid being smashed apart by the rocky edges of the walls. If whoever made this pit didn't put a bed of spikes at the bottom. Then, yeah, maybe he survived. But Agrias..."

        He trailed off, realizing how cold he sounded.

        Is that the sign that you've fought too many wars, old man? He thought momentarily of Olan, back at Zeltennia Castle watching over Ovelia. With the monarchy in flux and men like Delita Hyral running around, Orlandu could only hope that Olan would be all right. Such an environment was treacherous, even for the son of a great General.

        Agrias was a good woman, and a skilled warrior, but she's dead. Can you really write her off as nothing more than another statistic?

        Ramza was staring at the floor, an old anger and hurt that seemed to grow with each new betrayal burning hot in his eyes. "Ash," he said, the name sounding truly wretched in his tone. "If he's alive... if he managed to survive..."

        Ramza looked up, his eyes still angry. "He won't betray us again."

        Beowulf gave him a doubtful glance. "There's no real evidence that he meant to betray us." He still spoke hesitantly, wary of Ramza's dark mood. "Maybe he just didn't realize what trying to pull the key out would do."

        "Then he is foolish and stupid," Ramza said coldly. "Either way, he got one of my people killed. That I will not forgive."

        Orlandu merely nodded. "You will do what you must should we encounter him again. We will support you."

        Orlandu held Ramza's eyes for a moment, saw a bit of normal calm forcefully thrown over the anger and the hurt, and was relieved to see that Ramza was regaining his cool. Like his father before him, Ramza cared dearly for those who fought under his lead, but also like his father, he knew enough of the art of war not to jeopardize the lives of the rest of his men by acting hastily. A foolhardy attempt to avenge one of their lost number that risked everyone still alive was the last mistake of a doomed leader.

        Ramza must learn to save his worry for the living. Orlandu had learned that long ago, on the battlefields of the Fifty Year war, but Ramza was still learning, though he was learning well, and quickly. That was the only reason 'Thunder God Cid' was willing to follow the younger man's lead, at least for the moment.

        "We'd best see what's beyond the door, then." Ramza sighed and motioned Cloud and Beowulf to follow, cautiously starting his way around the narrow perimeter of floor that surrounded the gaping hole, a hole that had swallowed Agrias and Ash.

        "I'd like to wait here, to see if Sabrina and the others can link up with us, but we really can't wait. They can take care of themselves, and they know the way home."

        "A suitable course," Orlandu agreed, easily negotiating his own way across the opposite side of the pit perimeter. "Ash said that this tunnel should lead to a narrow rock chimney. Assuming that he was correct on at least that account, we should reach it in a bit."

        "What about the spell he mentioned?" Beowulf asked. "The protection spell?"

        "I don't even know if he had any idea what he was talking about," Ramza commented irritably. "Besides, whatever it is, I'm sure we've faced worse in the past. I can't think of much that could be more dangerous than a Lucavi, and we've killed those before, even the one we fought in the Deep Dungeon, which was likely the most powerful of them all, after Vormav. Whatever is in our way, I'm sure we can handle it."

        "Reckless?" Orlandu questioned lightly as they proceeded down the dark tunnel, Ramza holding the torch that he had taken from Cloud to light the way.

        "Realistic," Ramza replied without batting an eyelash. "I think we've already faced the worst of what was waiting for us in this Dungeon, and we've bested it. The simple fact is that we have the advantage in both numbers and strength. The Lucavi we've encountered have been powerful, yes, fearless--but for the most part, not very smart. We have the tactical advantage, and the advantage of human intelligence. Therefore, it is likely we will prevail."

        Orlandu felt his mouth quirking. "You're willing to wager your life and the lives of your men on that assumption?"

        Ramza glanced at him and nodded, once. "I have few other options. We don't know what's waiting for us down there at that 'Gate', if anything at all. But we do have to go down there. If we keep our guard up, we can give a good fight to anything that tries to stop us. That's all we can know at this point, and that's all I have to base my decision on. Hence my decision to move on."

        Orlandu considered his words, revealing nothing in his features, and silently acknowledged Ramza's rationale. He had hoped that the youngest Beoulve would not disappoint him, and at least for the moment, he hadn't. He was a good leader, if a green one. That, for now, was enough.

        They found the three way split Ash had described soon enough, and despite his obvious reservations, Ramza led the party to the right. The tunnel curved sharply before they came to its end, and the flickering light of the torch revealing a narrow, dark hole which looked as if it had been drilled into the floor by some frightening natural cataclysm. It seemed Ash had at least been telling the truth about this part.

        "Is this the rock chimney?" Beowulf walked forward to kneel at the edge of the dark hole and peered down. "There don't seem to be any more doors."

        Cloud stepped past Orlandu, and the Thunder God watched in dispassionate evaluation as the foreigner walked up to stand in front of the hole and slowly tilted his head forward, sighing as if in a trance.

        "It is down there," he said slowly. "I can feel it... calling."

        "Cloud?" Ramza sounded more than a bit unsure of himself. "What do you mean? You can feel it calling?"

        "It is calling me." Cloud turned back to face them, his eyes curiously blank. "Calling my name. It's her. Her voice." He smiled. "She's calling me. Calling my name."

        Orlandu exchanged a concerned glance with Ramza, but it was obvious that the other had no better idea of how to evaluate Cloud's mystical ramblings than he did.

        "The 'Gate' is waiting." Cloud closed his eyes. "It is waiting for me. But you do not have to come. You have brought me this far, but there is no reason for you to go further. Your... lives. They may be at risk."

        "What about your own life?" Ramza was not having any luck hiding the concern in his voice, but Orlandu supposed there was no harm in that.

        "My own life..." Cloud trailed off, shrugging, his characteristic answer to just about everything. "That's funny to say. I don't even have one."

        "Cloud?" Ramza moved forward as if to physically restrain the man.

        "I'm going down there." Cloud opened his eyes and seemed to focus on them for the first time in a long time. "I must go. I can feel her calling me. You... should not come."

        "No way," Ramza said forcefully as he grabbed Cloud's shoulder. "We've come this far together, and I'll be damned if I'll abandon you now. If that 'Gate' is down there, we'll find it. Together. Okay?"

        Cloud smiled, just a hint of an expression, barely readable against his distant eyes. "Thank you, Ramza."

        Ramza removed his hand, a touch of humor breaking over his features. "Don't thank me yet. We still don't know what's waiting for us down there."

        "The 'Lifestream'," Cloud offered softly.

        "The what?" Ramza exchanged another glance with Orlandu, and the General had no choice but to shrug.

        "It is nothing." Cloud walked to the edge of the narrow pit, kneeling at the edge and then bracing his legs against the far wall.

        "It is the right width for safe climbing." He began to lower himself into the pit, his feet moving slowly lower as he slid his back down the shaft. "Keep your back firmly against the wall, and keep the pressure on your feet. Don't go too fast, and you'll be fine."

         Orlandu tapped Beowulf on the shoulder. "How many fresh torches have we got left? I know Ash had more than a few of them."

        Beowulf grimaced. "We've got twelve left, enough to get us down that chimney, and back out, perhaps. If we only spend a few minutes down there. If we don't run into any monsters on the way. As it is, we're cutting it closer than I like, but we really can't turn back now."

        "You're right," Ramza cut in sternly. "We've come too far to turn back, and besides, Cloud seems intent on finishing this. If worst comes to worst, we can use spell flares to guide us out. So let's get moving."

        Seeing that Cloud had worked his way down the rock chimney a sufficient distance, Ramza settled himself on the edge of the pit and set his legs against the wall, still holding the lit torch in one hand.

        "Cloud!" he called down. "Wait just a minute. You should hold this. Otherwise, it might drip on you." Ramza began a quick but cautious descent into the chimney, and Beowulf moved to follow.

        "Have you ever done this before?" the Lionel Knight asked as he sat at the edge of the pit and braced his legs, more than a bit hesitantly, against the wall. "How difficult is it?"

        "Last time I did this, I had to scramble back up the hole with a horde of ghouls snapping at my ass." Orlandu felt his mouth twisting slightly again and wondered how long it had been since that gesture had become his only visible expression. "That was a long time ago, though, and I was much younger. I wouldn't worry. You'll manage."

        "That's supposed to reassure me?" Beowulf shook his head as he began to lower himself into the pit. "For a General who fought in the Fifty Year War, I'm not too impressed with your ability to rally your men."

        "Chalk it up to old age." Orlandu chuckled as he crouched at the pit and waited for Beowulf to work his way down. "I've been alive a long time, my friend, and I don't think Mother Fate is finished with me yet. I'm sure she's got much more in store for the both of us."

        "That she does," Beowulf agreed solemnly. "Reis is waiting for me back at the camp. She would be angry if I didn't come back to her."

        Thinking on that simple assertion, Orlandu momentarily saw Agrias' stern face flashing before his eyes. He pushed away the momentary pang of sadness at her loss. Now was not the time. He would mourn for her later, when they were no longer in a hostile environment. For now, his only concern was to make sure that no one else in their party joined her.

        It took a second to wake up. The pain of waking up put her immediately back to sleep. There was darkness, and dreams. She did not like the dreams.

        She was running, her sword heavy in her hand, a painful gash carved into her left shoulder. A gash where an enemy sword had hit bone. She was following a narrow creek, splashing in and out of the water, praying that the dogs would lose her scent in its flow. She ran on despite the pain, despite the forest crushing in around her, knowing that she must keep running. She must keep running until the men behind her were either exhausted... or dead.

        She could hear the dogs baying loudly, could hear the crunch of undergrowth beneath armored feet and the shouts of men. Betrayers, all of them. Knights of the Church. Knights of Cardinal Draclau. Knights that wanted her head on a platter.

        They were many, but she had the advantage. They were chasing, following orders, but their souls weren't as pure as hers, and they were not as willing to die for their cause. She would find the others, find Ramza and his soldiers. They would help her. She had abandoned Ovelia to find them, knowing that it was the only way she could save the life of the young Princess. That was why she was better than them. That was why she would outrun them. That was why...

        There was a momentary break in the woods, a rocky hill which she began to climb, hoping to find some place to hide until her pursuers passed. She had only gotten a few steps before another form burst from the trees.

        "There she is!" a familiar voice cried.

        She heard the angry wark of a Chocobo and the charge of three-toed feet. A second later the rider and steed were almost on top of her. She turned and brought up her sword in one last act of angry defiance. This one would not take her. She focused her Holy Power, casting a prayer to all that was above and willing the light to flow into her body, into the blade of her magnificent sword where it would smite all those who opposed her.

        She prayed. She prayed. But the light would not come.

        The Knight brought his weapon around in a sweeping arc as she stared down at her sword in disbelief, unable to imagine where the light could have gone. She saw the confusion in her face and eyes reflected in its glistening blade, saw the wind tugging at her tattered blond hair, but no Holy magic came. Even her God had betrayed her?

        The sword came in for her neck, slicing her blade in half as it went. She felt cold steel bite into her throat. She felt a warm rush of blood. Her head flew into the air as the world spiraled about her in a crazy mess of colors, her lifeblood spouting from her open neck in a brilliant shower. She watched her body fall as her head landed roughly in the dirt. Her eyes stared up at the rider as he reined his steed around and trotted back to stare down at his handiwork. He stopped, looking down and chuckling.

        The impossibility of her plight was almost painful. She was dead, beheaded! How could she still see?

        The soldier reached up and flipped up his metal visor, revealing the top of a face that she instantly knew, set with arrogant eyes.

        "Face it, lady." The barely perceptible wrinkles around Ash's eyes crinkled, and she could imagine the white-toothed smile hidden behind his mouthguard. "Sometimes you just have to trust me to know what I'm doing."

        He dismounted quickly, moving over to stand above her, and then knelt by her severed head. Then, his hand reached down and gently stroked her cheek.

        She backhanded him.

        There was a white flash of pain, and everything went dark. She heard a body crashing into the loose gravel, and an aborted, angry shout. She thrashed about in the rocks, realizing that she was whole again, not knowing where she was and knowing even less of how she'd gotten there. It took a second for it all to come back.

        Ash had the key. He'd tricked her into turning it. The floor had fallen open, and Ash had wrapped his arms around her as they fell, smashing his gauntlet into her head, knocking her out. So why was she still alive? And, most importantly, where was Ash?

        "Sweet Saint Ajora, Agrias, what the hell are you doing?"

        The Lancer's voice came to her angrily from the darkness, and she heard the sound of his feet scrambling on the rock. She fumbled about for her sword, her hands desperate in the darkness, but she came up with little but gravel.

        "Stay back, Ash!" She hid a burst of primal fear, crushing it by being angry with herself for even feeling it in the first place. Even in the dark, even unarmed, he would not take her easily. "Just stay back!"

        There was silence, and she didn't hear any more movement. She slowly rose to her feet and then crouched again, knocking her head on a ceiling that was very low. Her head felt wet, and as her hand reached up to touch the base of her neck, she felt warmth there, liquid warmth. She knew it was blood. She heard another shuffle of rock, and the sound of metal hitting metal. There was a barely recognizable flash, a tiny spark, and then Agrias remembered Ash's massive gun, and what it had done to the Cuar. She scrambled back a step, feeling its empty barrel leering at her from the darkness, waiting to blow her apart with one massive shot.

        Metal hit metal again, producing yet another spark. Then another. Finally, a dim smoldering, a bit of light, and then the light was lifted into the air, slowly catching. She recognized it, finally. A torch, one of theirs. As it flickered into existence, she could finally make out the form of a crouching Ash, holding the torch out before him protectively.

        "Agrias, are you insane?" Ash blinked against the light. "Why the hell did you hit me?"

        "You..." Agrias stared at him hatefully. "You won't get away with this."

        He merely stared at her for a second in confusion. "Get away with what? Sweet Saint Ajora, Agrias, I know that rock hit you pretty hard, but this is unreal! Wake up!"

        "Who do you think you are?" she demanded, touching the warmth at the base of her skull. She looked at her hand, in the dim light of the torch, and could see that it was covered in red.

        "Hello!" Ash waved the torch angrily. "I just saved your life here, woman!"

        He tapped his left cheek, and she saw the angry bruise that was already forming. The length of it matched her gauntlet almost perfectly.

        "And do I get ever a scrap of gratitude for my trouble? No! I get a slap in the face!"

        "You didn't..." Agrias began angrily, but then it began to sink in. They had been falling, and she had known that they were falling to their death. She glanced up, discovering the long pit that reached into the ceiling for the first time, the light from the torch illuminating its rough sides in flickering relief. She could not see where it began.

        "How did we..." she asked in painful confusion. "Are we dead?"

        Ash tilted his head to the side. "Dead? Oh, well, let me think." He flicked a loose pebble and sent it skittering across the floor. "I'm still breathing, you're still breathing. I'm not splattered all over the floor, you're not splattered all over the floor. Gee. I guess we're not dead!"

        Agrias considered that for a second, staring blankly at Ash in the dim light of the torch. It barely put out enough light to illuminate the two of them, let alone the dark nothingness into which they'd fallen.

        "How far..."

        "At least a mile, maybe more." Ash had somehow anticipated her question and cut it off before she could complete it. "I barely managed to slow us on the way down as it was, bouncing off the goddamn walls, and having your dead weight dragging me down didn't help."

        Again she stared at him with blank eyes. At last she understood, and she felt like the worst sinner alive.

        "Ash..."

        He grimaced. "There's no way we're getting back up without climbing gear. On the bright side, we're a helluva lot closer to that damned 'Gate'."

        "Ash..."

        "What?" he asked irritably.

        "You saved my life."

        He blinked in the torchlight, obviously caught off guard by the abrupt absence of malice in her voice, fearing some trick.

        "Well, yeah..." he agreed hesitantly.

        "I'm... sorry for hitting you." Agrias collected her thoughts, knowing that if they wanted to get out of this alive, she would have to keep her wits about her. "I was dreaming... fever dreams I guess, something to do with being knocked out by the... rock. It was an accident."

        Ash rubbed his bruised cheek with the flat of his hand and sniffed. "Well, it's no big deal," he amended with somewhat inadequate grace. "Anyways, we got worse things to worry about. Like how we're gonna' get out of this dank hell hole and get back to civilization."

        "Yes," Agrias agreed quickly. "Where's my sword? Did you see it when we fell?"

        Ash shook his head. "Sorry. I dropped the bag with the torches to grab you. I don't know what happened to your sword, I'm just glad it didn't stab me on the way down. I think the bag got hung up on one of the spikes in those walls."

        "Spikes?" Agrias was having trouble understanding again.

        "Yeah, nasty bastards." Ash spread his hands apart, obviously attempting to represent something quite long. "Probably about five or six feet long, set into the walls almost all the way down. Serrated edge and everything. Avoiding those things was a pain in the ass. Whoever made this trap was damn thorough."

        Agrias shook her head, amazed anew that they had managed to survive the fall. It was all due to Ash, she realized. His skills and quick thinking had been the only thing that had saved them both from a very quick and messy death.

        One thing was certain. She would never again think of him as a buffoon.

        "We have to get out of here," she said to silence her regrets, glancing around at the darkness in a vain search for some sort of recognizable landmark, any trace that someone might have come through this network of caves ahead of them. They had to get out of here, link up with Ramza and the others, before it was too late.

        "That I already figured out," Ash remarked with a half smirk. "The major question I'm dealing with now is how."

        Agrias glanced around in the darkness again, keeping her thoughts calm, controlled, purposeful. They would find a way out of here, just as long as they kept their heads. Just as long as they did not panic.

        "If someone went to this much trouble to create this trap, they had to know where it went," she reasoned aloud. "Also, those metal spikes can't be natural. The engineers who made this trap would have had to plant them. They wouldn't want to leave any traces on the surface, anything that might give away their trap, so they probably worked from the bottom up. That means that they had to have a way into here, to set those spikes. And that..."

        "Means there has to be a way out," Ash agreed with a grimace. "I hate to admit it, Agrias, but sometimes you're pretty smart. Okay. So how do we find it?"

        "We start searching," Agrias explained simply. "First thing we need to do is find a wall, find something to follow to keep our bearings."

        Ash glanced around, and then shrugged. "Well, you're the intelligent one. Lead the way. I'll be torch boy."

        Agrias wasted no time, deciding to head off to the right of the hole from which they'd fallen. She kept her eyes on the uneven rocky ground of the floor, not only to keep from tripping, but also to make certain they were traveling in a relatively straight line. She was weaponless, unable to summon her Holy Magic without a sword through which to channel it. She felt naked.

        As they picked their way through the darkness, she tried not to think that they only had one torch to give them light, already half-burned and fading fast. She tried not to think that even if they found the way out of this dank hole, the path back to the surface might takes hours, even days to traverse. She tried not to think that they didn't have the time, supplies, or weapons to protect them on such a long journey, and if they were to encounter monsters...

        The solution to these problems was simple enough. She tried not to think. When they came upon a wall less than a minute later, Agrias let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.

        "Well I'll be a Malboro's sofa cushion," Ash remarked in his typical dry style. "Lancers and ladies, we have wall. So now what?"

        "Now, we follow it and see where it leads." Agrias calmly explained the process to him as she began to do just that. "The door out must be somewhere around here. We just have to follow the wall all the way around the chamber, until we find it."

        "Brilliant," Ash exclaimed, and Agrias could sense that he actually meant what he said. "You come in pretty handy in a cave, toots."

        Agrias scowled. "Just because you saved my life doesn't mean you can call me toots. Understood?" She gave him a warning glance and was annoyed to find a lopsided grin on his face.

        "Just keepin' you on your toes, baby," he explained with an innocent shrug.

        Agrias' scowl deepened as she turned back to the wall, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a response. 'Baby' was little better than 'toots', and if was attempting to flirt with her, it was the worst attempt that she had ever encountered. Then again, he was probably one of the only men who'd ever had the desire to flirt with her in the first place, and that was something in and of itself. Committing herself to God and Country had not left much time for the lesser things in life. Disturbed by her inability to define her feelings about his attentions, Agrias continued her exploration of the cave as best she could, Ash right with her to give them light.

        They found the tunnel quickly enough, though the rapidly burning torch was more than a bit shorter when they did so. Agrias smiled, pleased to know that she'd guessed right. The passage was small, barely wide enough for the two of them to crawl through single file, but it had obviously been dug by human hands. They had found their way out. She started crawling in, but she felt Ash's hand grab her shoulder, and had to fight the urge to shrug him off.

        "You better let me go first."

        "I can handle myself," she warned him crossly.

        "Not without a weapon, you can't." He patted the large gun in the holster on his leg. "Facts are facts, Agrias. I got a weapon, and you don't. So I lead. You hold the torch."

        She blinked quickly. "You fire that thing in that small tunnel, and it's likely to collapse on the both of us!"

        He shrugged. "Quicker than getting your brain sucked out by a gut sucking monster." He was already pushing past her and crawling into the tunnel, pressing the torch into her hand as he drew his long gun from its holster. "And at least we get to take the bastard with us."

        "Ash, I'm warning you," Agrias said as she crawled in after him. She grimaced as the torch flame came uncomfortably close to the damp ceiling, fizzling angrily. "Don't you dare fire that weapon. The tunnel won't handle the strain."

        "Fine," he snapped. "If I see a big monster ahead of us, I'll just, like, ask it to go away." Ash was muttering from ahead of her, his words barely audible. "Sweet Saint Ajora, woman."

        "What was that?" Agrias called sharply from behind him.

        "Um," Ash covered quickly, "I said, swimmin'."

        He had likely remembered that she was directly behind him, with a flaming stick clasped in her right hand.

        "There's a lot of moisture in these tunnels, lot more than there was upstairs. There must be an underground stream nearby. We may end up going swimmin'."

        "I see," Agrias agreed humorlessly, reminding herself once again that he had saved her life. It would be downright antisocial to kill him. "Just keep your eyes on the tunnel, Ash."

        "Yes ma'am!" he called back as they advanced.

        The close, damp tunnel continued for an indeterminate time, twisting a bit from side to side, but coming no closer to an end. At the very least, it was tight, and she knew that they could navigate it without sight.

        "Ash, I'm putting out the torch," she called ahead.

        "You're doing what?" he asked in disbelief. "Agrias, we need the light..."

        "Not is this tight tunnel, we don't," she countered as she pressed the torch into the ceiling and rolled it quickly across the damp. The already sputtering flame did little to resist. "We can feel our way through this tunnel, and we're going to need the light from this torch when we get out of it. We have to conserve our resources."

        At that the torch was out, and they were buried in darkness. Agrias forced herself to keep her breaths calm and measured, pushing off the disturbing feeling that she would suffocate in the dark. Thank God she wasn't claustrophobic.

        "You're the boss." Ash didn't sound convinced, but it was obvious there was little he could do to change matters. She heard the sound of a shuffle from ahead. "Grab my hand."

        Agrias reached out into the darkness, careful to make certain it was indeed his hand she grabbed, and felt him press a small metal plate and rock into her open palm. "Flint and steel," he said as he jerked his hand away. "Just in case you have to light it back up real quick."

        "I know what flint and steel are," Agrias said crossly as she took the offered items and, after a second's consideration, tucked them into the collar of her armor, unable to think of anywhere else to put them. Unlike Ash's leather pants, her armor did not have pockets. "Just keep moving. Let me know when the tunnel widens out."

        The slight sound of moving gravel told her that he was on the move again, and so she began to move as well. They continued in this manner for an indeterminate time, which Agrias had no way of judging in the darkness, with no end to the tunnel in sight. Just when she was beginning to feel that the damp climb would never end, she suddenly bumped head first into Ash's posterior.

        "Ash, you idiot!" she protested angrily as she drew back her head in disgust, but a quick hiss from ahead silenced any further protest. For a second, there was only silence.

        "What?" she whispered finally, wondering if her whisper would even carry to him.

        "Agrias," Ash said, his voice frightened. "Light the torch."

        "Why?" she asked, still whispering. "Ash, what are you..."

        "Light the goddamn torch, woman!" he hissed violently, and she gritted her teeth and pulled the flint and steel from its place in the collar of her armor.

        "Oh god," Ash muttered. "Ohhhh god..." He quickly backed into her, and she let out an angry grunt as she simultaneously slid backward on her stomach and tried to light the torch.

        "Ash, quit moving!" she hissed angrily as she skidded to a stop and finally managed a spark. It brought a bit of life into the cloth-wrapped stick, and the spark soon burst into a flicker. She held the torch as close to Ash as she dared, trying to see into the darkness ahead.

        "Agrias," Ash warned her softly as she sucked in her breath in unwilling disbelief. "You better cover your ears."

        He leveled his shotgun at what lie ahead. Staring down at them from the darkness, glittering evilly in the slight illumination from the torch, eight pairs of narrow eyes were blinking at the unexpected light.

        Ramza dropped the short distance to the ground from the rock chimney to find himself standing on hard, white tile, covered in dust. Tiny bits of rock had fallen from the ceiling over many years and coated the floor in a fine, mostly transparent sheen. The prints that his boots had carved into the thin layer of dust were likely the first that this small underground room had seen in several millenia.

        He adjusted that thought a second later, as the light ahead of him moved and Cloud pressed his torch to another he'd found set into a bracket on the wall. So his footprints were the second this small underground room had seen in several millenia. It was still rather awe-inspiring.

        There was a grunt from behind him, and then a ragged looking Beowulf dropped from the rock chimney and landed heavily on the floor, barely keeping his balance.

        "I do not like rock chimneys," he declared with an air of finality that easily excluded further discussion on the subject.

        "It is near," Cloud murmured as he lit another torch set into the brackets along the wall, and then pulled it out to replace the already dwindling stick he held in his hand.

        Beowulf moved a bit forward, and Orlandu dropped from the rock chimney, looking none the worse for wear for the journey, as Ramza had expected. The only time Ramza had seen even a hair out of place on the General's head was after he had nearly been killed by the massive Zodiac summon spell that the Lucavi they'd fought in the Deep Dungeon had cast upon them before its death.

        "Can you tell where the 'Gate' is, Cloud?" Ramza asked as he and his men moved forward to stand next to the foreign soldier.

        Cloud nodded slowly. "It is this way," he said, beginning to walk slowly toward the topmost door of the chamber. In all there were three doors leading out of this tiled chamber, one leading to the right and one to the left, but Cloud seemed confident. Ramza wished that he could tell which way they were going, but he'd long ago lost any sort of direction sense, and telling north from south was impossible. For now, he'd reset his internal compass with this hallway being 'north' and base the rest of his directions on that. The last thing they needed was to encounter overwhelming resistance in this underground complex and be unable to find their way out.

        They walked slowly into the hallway, Cloud stopping momentarily to light an occasional torch on the wall. Ramza was glad to see that they could easily grab some extra torches on their way out, assuring that they'd have enough light for the return journey.

        He almost turned back to tell Agrias to grab a few of the torches that Cloud didn't light and put them in her travel bag, but he didn't. It had been less than an hour since her death, and he knew with grim certainty that he would still be turning back to talk to her for many days to come. He would miss her.

        The hallway made a right angle turn to the left, and Cloud followed it, leading them on without slowing. Despite the foreign soldier's seemingly psychic sense of direction, Ramza hoped that Cloud wasn't merely leading them around in some sort of mindless stupor. They had not yet encountered any monsters, but he knew it was only a matter of time...

        Cloud stopped, and Ramza immediately berated himself for having such a thought. The tunnel had just turned back to the right, and Cloud was merely staring ahead. Ramza jogged a few feet to see around the corner, Excalibur held ready in one hand, a well-used Rune Blade in the other.

        Once he saw what Cloud was staring at, he dropped the Rune Blade in order to grab Cloud's shoulder and jerk the motionless soldier back the way they'd come.

        "Orlandu!" he called out as he backpedaled, the foreign warrior stumbling in his grip. The search for balance seeming to jerk Cloud out of his shocked state. "We've got company!"

        Like something from a nightmare, a massive, fur-covered body came rocketing around the corner, four pairs of beady yellow eyes set one on top of the other, supported by eight massive furred legs which beat the ground in an almost hypnotic rhythm as it advanced. The thing skidded to a stop, evaluating the four people now staring at it, weapons drawn, from the end of the tunnel. Then it raised its forward pair of legs to the air in a gesture of unmistakable aggression, making a slew of angry clicks with its drool covered, razor sharp mandibles. It charged.

        Giant spiders. Ramza threw himself to the edge of the tunnel, as Cloud simultaneously did the same on the other edge, and together their swords sliced for the spider's most vulnerable parts, its second pair of legs. I hate giant spiders.

        The creature swiveled to bring its legs and teeth to bear on Ramza even as his sword sliced through its nearest leg. There was no metal that the great Excalibur could not cleave, and even this thing's fearsome armor was no match for the legendary sword. For its part, the spider barely seemed to notice the loss of the limb. After all, it still had seven more. Ramza tried to duck as the first of its massive forelegs came for his chest, but the spider moved with wicked speed to counter his dodge and jammed the sharpened end of its leg into his chest, lifting him off his feet and swatting him painfully against the wall of the tunnel. His thick Crystal Armor only barely stopped the attack from tearing into his chest.

        "Omnislash!" Cloud yelled angrily, and then the tunnel was alive with light as the foreign warrior's Materia Blade began to slice throughout the hallway with speed that put even the giant spider to shame. The spider's second pair of legs was the first to go. Then another leg after that, followed by several grievous wounds to its abdomen. The thing clicked in horrible pain and jerked away from the blond-haired warrior who was slicing it to pieces, allowing Ramza to drop heavily to the ground, still trying to catch his breath.

        The spider hissed as it skittered back the way it had come, somehow moving effortlessly despite the fact that it only had two of its initial sets of legs to support itself.

        "Ramza, get clear," Orlandu ordered calmly, and Ramza did not need a second warning. He cautiously moved back as Orlandu stepped past him and stared at the bloodied beast, which was crouched back in the corner of the hallway, clicking at them angrily. Beowulf was waiting patiently, sword drawn, but thus far his efforts had not been needed. The conflict had been engaged and over so fast that barely three seconds had passed in the time it had taken the spider to pin Ramza, and then get ripped up by Cloud's Limit attack.

        "Goodbye," Orlandu said softly as he slammed his sword into the ground. A massive streak of purple lightning crackled down the hallway with murderous intent and slammed directly into the face of the bloodied spider, which went completely tense as the lightning rippled over its furred body and tore into its flesh.

        "That should do it," Orlandu said with a smirk as the smoking corpse collapsed to the ground. He turned back to look at the rest of the party, even as one of the legs of the thing twitched involuntarily.

        "Let's hope there aren't any more of them..." he began, before Ramza shouted a warning and the spider jumped to its feet, its missing legs spouting back out onto the floor from the gaping stumps that he and Cloud had left. The wounds which covered its furred body slid shut as new fur grew out to cover that which had been burned off. This thing was not going to die so easily.

        It rushed forward with insane speed before Orlandu could do more than turn around, smashing its forelegs into the surprised General and throwing him several feet down the hallway, where he slammed into the floor with the loud sound of horribly amused armor. He rolled back to his feet upon landing and was charging back toward the spider scarcely a second after Ramza and Cloud again went after it with their swords.

        This time the spider was quicker, swiveling and twisting to keep its walking legs out of harm's way as its forelegs and teeth jabbed angrily at its attackers. Cloud cried out in sudden pain, and Ramza glanced at him even as he fended off an attack from the spider's drool covered jaws to find one of the monster's forelegs impaled in his chest. Through visibly gritted teeth, Cloud brought up his Materia blade and hit it with a Climhazzard. The spider shrieked as the pain in Cloud's body bolstered the attack and sliced its foreleg clean in half. Ramza angrily attacked its other foreleg as Cloud stumbled back and fell to the ground, the severed end of the spider's leg still impaled in his chest.

        There was a sound like snapping rope from behind them, and Ramza heard a shout from Beowulf. A thin, sticky twine wrapped around a small spool came out of nowhere, slamming into the creature's face and blasting apart, wrapping up the spider's remaining foreleg and mandibles in the space of a second. The thing stumbled back, clawing angrily at the twine. For a few seconds, it would be unable to act. That would be enough time for Ramza and Orlandu to finish it off.

        They leapt on the anguished monster as one, Excalibur and Ragnarok working in concert to slice the thing limb from limb as it futilely tried to free its mandibles and leg. It was messy work, but it was over quickly. Its head severed, parts of its legs and body strewn about the floor in a nightmarish maze of gore, the thing finally collapsed to the ground, its teeth still bound in Beowulf's sticky netting.

        "Check on Cloud," Ramza ordered Beowulf as he and Orlandu waited patiently, swords drawn, for the creature to spring back to life. The decapitated corpse did not move.

        "Oh dear," Beowulf muttered, and Ramza heard a low moan from Cloud. "This looks bad, Ramza. Some kind of poison. I can smell it seeping into the wound."

        "Orlandu, keep an eye on it," Ramza ordered, and the Thunder God nodded grimly, not needing to be told twice. Orlandu actually looked a bit miffed at being caught so completely off- guard by their opponent. Ramza walked over to kneel beside Cloud, sucking in his breath involuntarily as he evaluated the wound.

        Cloud's chest was covered in blood, and his eyes seemed even blanker than normal. The fur-covered leg of the spider was jutting out of his chest and the cratered armor through which it had punched, leaking rivulets of warm green ichor down through the fur. It was this that had mixed with the blood in Cloud's chest.

        "P... poison," Cloud sputtered, his eyes blinking quickly. "Just... my luck..."

        "Don't try to talk," Ramza ordered quickly. "We'll heal you. But we have to get this leg out of you first. Understand? We have to pull the leg out."

        Cloud nodded, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down once as he forced himself to swallow. "Do it," he ordered faintly.

        Ramza nodded to Beowulf, taking a firm grip on the lower half of the spider's severed leg as Beowulf did the same above, ignoring the prickly fur and slimy green blood.

        "Ready?" he asked, glancing at Cloud and Beowulf. Beowulf was ready. Cloud wasn't even looking at him. They had to act quickly if they wanted to save the foreigner's life.

        "On three. One. Two. Three!"

        He and Beowulf jerked angrily on the spider's severed leg, and it came free of Cloud's chest with a sickly sucking sound, pulling thick dripping trails of green and red gore in its wake. Cloud gurgled in horrible pain and writhed on the floor as Ramza quickly tossed the severed leg aside and tore into his pack for his X-Potions.

        "Hang in there, Cloud!" he ordered as he ripped the first bottle from the pack and uncapped it. "Just hang in there!" He poured the entire bottle quickly onto the other warrior's chest, and the liquid fizzled angrily, holy light rippling from the wound as the blessed liquid worked against the horribly traumatized skin and did its best to heal.

        "Ramza... ," Cloud managed, his chin covered in the blood which was dribbling from his mouth.

        "Don't talk!" Ramza ordered, quickly pressing an Antidote to the other's mouth and tilting his head back to force his mouth open. "Drink this!"

        Beowulf poured another X-Potion over Cloud's still bloody chest, and it fizzled and glowed as Ramza slowly forced the healing liquid past the constriction in Cloud's throat. He seemed to relax a bit as the Antidote was absorbed by the skin of his esophagus and began to flow into his system, but his eyes were still eerily blank.

        "It's not getting back up," Orlandu declared, as he backed toward the three of them, still keeping his eyes on the dead spider. "How is he?"

        Ramza breathed a sigh of relief as Cloud's blank eyes finally closed, and his shuddering body settled back against the tile floor. A third X-Potion seemed to close up his chest wound completely, though there was still his cratered armor to deal with. Cloud's breathing was irregular, if constant, and he seemed to be sleeping.

        "I think he'll pull through," Ramza said with relief. "That was close, though. Too damn close. What the hell was that thing?" He glanced at the still motionless monster, the light from the wall torches causing its green soaked fur to glimmer wetly.

        "I don't know," Orlandu admitted. "I've never seen its like, and I've seen my share of monsters. It evidently has an innate ability to Reraise."

        "Are you sure?" Ramza motioned to Beowulf to keep an eye on Cloud as the Antidote worked its way through his body. He rose and walked a few steps closer to the corpse. "It seemed to heal completely after you hit it with that Lightning Stab. A raise would have done little more than enabled it to crawl again."

        "It may regenerate as well," Orlandu said with a shrug. "Nasty combination either way. I think it would have been a great deal more trouble to take it if we didn't have Beowulf around."

        "Yeah," Ramza muttered, kicking a bloody chunk of the thing up against the wall. "Well, it's dead, and we're not. We'll just have to keep our guard up for any more of them." He walked back over to Beowulf. "He awake yet?"

        Beowulf shook his head. "No. And look at his chest."

        Alarmed, Ramza did as instructed. His eyes widened as he took in the space around the wound that the spider had inflicted. Already the healing skin was darkening, a ring of decay spreading slowly outward from the epicenter of the wound.

        "What the hell?" He fumbled in his pack for another Antidote. "What kind of poison was that thing packing?"

        "More than a simple Antidote can counteract, I fear." Beowulf did not look happy.

        "We'll give him another one," Ramza said stubbornly. "The first must have been defective. Cloud, wake up!"

        The warrior stirred at the sound of his name, and Ramza quickly squeezed his hand to try to bring him further awake. "Cloud? Can you hear me?"

        The foreign warrior groaned and nodded slightly.

        "Listen, the first Antidote I gave you didn't take hold. You're going to have to take another."

        "Won't work," Cloud whispered.

        "What?" Ramza paused in the process of uncapping the second antidote. "Cloud?"

        "It won't work," the other said, pushing himself into a rough sitting position, shaking his head grimly. "She told me. It's Slow Rot. Unholy magic, far more powerful than poison."

        "She told you?" Ramza asked, not understanding. "Who told you?"

        "She did," Cloud explained, as if that could easily put an end to the subject. "We have to go. There will be more on the way."

        "More?" Beowulf asked with a raised eyebrow.

        "More Pit Spiders," Cloud said, grunting as he tried to get to his feet.

        "You shouldn't move," Ramza cautioned, grabbing the other warrior's shoulder, but Cloud shrugged him off.

        "I'm dead, Ramza," he said through blank eyes. "There's nothing that can stop this poison. Nothing."

        Ramza blinked. "How can you know that?"

        "I know," Cloud said, shrugging simply. "Help me to my feet."

        Ramza exchanged a helpless glance with Beowulf, but neither could see a way to resolve the situation. Reluctantly, he recapped the Antidote and stuck it into his pack, reaching under Cloud's right arm to pull him up, as Beowulf did the same to his left.

        "It will work slowly," Cloud told them, taking a deep breath and trying to steady himself. "Since I took the wound in the chest, it will start by working on my lungs and heart, and then move outward to my arms and legs. The good news is that it won't ever impair my mobility due to its starting point. It'll simply kill me first by burning up my lungs."

        Ramza shook his head angrily. "Cloud, how can you know..."

        "I know." The finality in the other's voice left no room for argument. Never mind the fact that there was no way to explain that knowledge. Cloud knew what was happening. Something deep in his missing memories must be resurfacing.

        "How long have we got?" Ramza asked.

        Cloud looked down at the floor. "I think I can last maybe thirty minutes. At the most. I think."

        "Then we'll find that 'Gate' and get you home before that," Ramza answered stubbornly. "Can they heal this poison in the land you come from?" Already he was moving forward, pulling Cloud and Beowulf with him as they helped the injured warrior down the hall.

        "No need." Cloud was again staring ahead blankly. "This body's usefulness will soon be at an end."

        Ramza let that comment slide, as he had no chance of understanding it. What he did understand was that they had thirty minutes to find this 'Gate' and get Cloud through it. The foreign warrior seemed confident that it could get him home, and for the moment, that was all Ramza could do. He prayed it would be enough.

        "Ash, don't do anything stupid!"

        Ash Housewares ignored the words from the woman behind him, not caring in the least what she thought of his actions. He kept his shotgun leveled at the beast which crouched ahead of them, its legs pressed close against its body. Its mandibles clicked in hungry anticipation as it began to slither forward, sliding its furry legs back and forth in the close interior of the tunnel.

        "Agrias, back up!" he ordered, already crawling backward the way they'd come, as the monster continued to slither down the tunnel. Ash had never known that spiders could slither. You learn something new every day, he reflected angrily.

        He heard Agrias scrambling behind him, the light from her torch dangerously hot, but he was less worried about the heat than he was about the creature clicking angrily toward him.

        "We're running out of options here, woman!" he yelled. "This thing isn't gonna' stop!"

        "You can't shoot it!" Agrias yelled angrily. "Dammit Ash, listen to me! You'll collapse the tunnel!"

        Ash gritted his teeth, hating her words, but he knew that she was probably right. For once, he actually regretted carting around enough firepower to knock a hole in a castle wall.

        "So what the hell do you want me to do?" he called back, still crawling quickly into the tunnel. On the bright side, the spider seemed to be having as much trouble navigating the tunnel as they were, and at least it wasn't gaining on them.

        "Don't you have any other weapons?" she yelled desperately. "Surely you know how to use something other than that boomstick..."

        "Yeah, but I ain't got none of those weapons on me right now, sweetheart!" Ash cursed himself for leaving his trusty chainsaw behind to save on weight. "Beside, I know what this thing is! Pit Spider! It's like twenty times more poisonous than a Molbol, and makes Moss Fungus look like an appetizer. No way I'm letting this bastard bite me!"

        He was glad to know that much. It was the only thing that had saved him from blundering blindly into the monster. The moment his hand had pressed down on the puddle of warm, gooey gunk, Ash had recognized what it was. Spider drool. If he hadn't found that, thanks to Agrias' cursed decision to extinguish the torch, he would have wandered head first into the thing's waiting jaws. These spiders were blindingly fast, poisonous, and absorbed magic to regenerate themselves. They were not your run-of-the-mill monster.

        That's the thanks I get for saving someone's life...

        "Agrias, I don't care what you think might happen, I'm not letting this thing bite my head off," Ash roared down the tunnel. "And after it rips me apart, you're going next!"

        "Ash, if you shoot that thing, I'm going to ram this torch right up your..." she began, but he didn't hear the rest of her warning. Just like that, he had an idea.

        "Hold on!" he yelled, ceasing his retreat at the spider continued to slither forward hungrily. "I've got an idea!"

        "What are you doing?" Agrias called. "Ash? What are you doing?!"

        Dammit woman, quit bitching! I know what I'm doing! The spider hissed hungrily as it continued to slither toward him in a massive teeth and fur covered wave. At least, I hope I know what I'm doing...

        "Just trust me!" he yelled, holding his shotgun straight out to the approaching spider. He would just have to hope it was as stupid as he thought. "I've got an idea!"

        "Ash!" Agrias yelled, but the spider was already opening its mandibles. The thing threw itself forward, and Ash flinched, barely managing to squeeze the trigger on his shotgun before its drooling maw had covered the weapon all the way up to the stock.

        There was a muffled rumble. The spider gurgled angrily and collapsed like a deflated balloon.

        "Ash?" Agrias called fearfully from behind him. "Ash? Are you all right?!"

        What do you care, you nagging bitch? Ash thought back, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Grimacing, he slowly pulled his gore covered shotgun out of the motionless creature's mouth, grimacing at the green blood splattered across his hand and lower arm. He had just better pray that he didn't get any paper cuts.

        "I got it," he said triumphantly, backing a bit further down the tunnel.

        "How?" Agrias asked in disbelief. "Ash, what did you do?"

        He smirked into the darkness ahead, wishing that he could see her so she could see the satisfied expression on his face. "You said that firing my shotgun in this tunnel could collapse it. So I had to find a silencer."

        "A what?" Agrias asked, not understanding.

        Sweet St. Ajora, this woman is dense.

        "I rammed my shotgun down it's throat!" Ash was still coming down from the rush of adrenaline. "Its internal organs cushioned the force of the blast, so it wouldn't damage the tunnel. The inside of its body absorbed the force of the blast."

        There was silence from behind him, as Agrias obviously considered that.

        "You took a great risk."

        Ash rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I saved your cute little butt, and I've done crazier things in the past. It worked. We killed it. So quit complainin', kay?"

        There was no reply for a second. "Well, it did work," Agrias finally admitted, grudgingly. "So can we get past it? How big is that thing, anyway?"

        Ash glanced again at what he could see of its shattered corpse in the small amount of light which managed to make it past the bulk of his body, and into the tunnel ahead.

        "You don't wanna' know," he said, suppressing a shudder. "'Sides, its blood is poisonous too. I think we can get past it, but you gotta' be real careful not to get any cuts on you from the rocks. The moment that stuff gets inside your system, you're a goner."

        He suddenly became aware of a dull throbbing from his chest, and reached down involuntarily to touch it, remembering only at the last second to do so with his clean hand. He was immeasurably glad he did so. He only now realized that the slide down the tunnel had badly cut up his chest.

        "Perfect," he muttered, cursing his poor luck.

        "What?" Agrias asked.

        "I cut up my chest pretty good on the rocks," Ash grumbled. "You got anything to bandage it with?"

        No reply for a second. "How bad is it?"

        Ash shook his head angrily. "Bad enough that if I even get a few drops of that thing's blood on my chest, I'm gonna' be decaying faster than a zombified ghoul hit with Haste and a Petrify spell."

        "Can't have that," Agrias said dryly. "Well, let me try a Cure spell."

        "Are you crazy?" Ash began to inch away from the Pit Spider instinctively, fearing that Agrias would activate her magic without properly considering the consequences. "Didn't you hear what I said, Agrias? These things absorb magic! You cast any kind of spell anywhere in its vicinity, and it'll start to regenerate faster than you can say 'I'm a really stupid Holy Knight who likes to use Cure spells'."

        Agrias pondered that. "Fine. How far do we have to retreat from the body before I can use the spell safely?"

        Ash shrugged in the close confines of the tunnel. "You think I know? Could be five feet, could be forty. Either way, I don't want that thing coming after us again. This time it might be smart enough not to deep throat my shot