Mizor (Chapter 10)
Template:Mizor nav The eye Mizor found in the spiders' cavern was a holy relic of some kind. Cain had been talking with the townspeople while Mizor was out slaughtering the minions of evil, and it seems that a long time ago, a priest named Khalim had opposed the rest of the high council of Zakarum on some religious matter. This was before the evil of organized religion had become as obvious as it was now, so when the council killed him, it didn't raise much of a stir. But parts of Khalim's body wouldn't burn on his pyre: his eye, his brain, and his heart. His favorite flail proved likewise indestructible. Naturally, this was a sign from the Light that Khalim was blessed, so the council hid these parts in secret locations, to disguise their own corruption and hypocrisy. Cain guessed that this was Khalim's eye, and was sure it could be used in some way to bring about Mephisto's downfall.
When he visited Hratli to get a psycho-midget's head off of his boot (the damn thing bit him and wouldn't let go even after he decapitated it), Hratli mentioned that he had a protective spell around the dockside, which kept the monsters and most of the jungle growth out. With slow persistence, the jungle was rooting into the spell and weakening it, but there was a way it might be reinforced. Before the religion of Zakarum was established in these lands, the religion of Skatsim held sway. The Skatsimi had powerful relics, one of which was a dagger called the Gidbinn, which could bolster protective enchantments, and with it, the spell on the docks could be strengthened. Which religion prized what toy made little difference to Mizor, but magic was magic, and the dockside spell did keep the mosquitoes out.
Back in the jungle, Mizor trudged through a great, bug and zombie-infested marsh, which contained nothing of interest. Plunging in deeper, everything suddenly went quiet... just before the jungle came alive with dozens of midgets! They were everywhere, running around like screaming little monkeys, blowing tiny darts from behind leaves, zipping in and out and suicidally diving into you with knives half the size of their bodies. There were bigger ones too -- no, that was one riding on another's shoulders, breathing fire and raising up its fallen kin. They hit hard, took quite a bit to kill, and were just everywhere... Mizor and Paige had to fight for every inch they gained. Paige mentioned something about sympathizing with Karen Black, but Mizor didn't know what she was talking about.
After too much of this, they found a tiny village, with tiny little huts, skulls impaled on tiny little spikes, and human bodies in a huge pot set to boil so long they'd gone green and moldy. Well, they may not have been there very long; the jungle was so moist and fetid, even Mizor was growing mold in places he couldn't keep clean. To one side a dagger was suspended above a little woven mat: was this the Gidbinn thing? When Mizor went to get it, it burst into flame, and a new wave of midgets attacked. One of them had a dagger, obviously of great power, which Mizor gave to Ormus. Wasn't it Hratli who'd made the enchantment? Anyway, Ormus was very pleased, gave Mizor a fairly nice ring, and composed a poem in his honor.
O beast, great and hairy,
Growing green with rack and toil,
Whose odor does remind one
Of meat begun to spoil;
Do not tire of screaming foes,
or threats slimy and fungal!
For what a bear does in the woods,
He may do in the jungle!
Even if he'd been a better speaker, Mizor would have been at a loss for words.
Under the midget village was a dungeon. It was deep, maze-like, full of traps, and populated by more midgets than you could shake a Gidbinn at. The Flayers (judging from the human remains, they seemed to like flaying things alive) also kept their dead with them. Like most dead these days, they were lively; livelier and faster than the living ones, and they exploded into nasty, bony shards when destroyed. At least they didn't have lungs, and so couldn't blow darts. The dungeons were also home to many ghosts; places where people die in agony often are. These things gave Mizor the first real problem he'd had for a long time, when they sapped his spiritual strength with their touch. Spirit is so necessary for a lycanthrope, and after his first hard fight, Mizor learned to make a great shockwave before engaging ghosts, to stun them and keep them from swarming him.
At the bottom of the dungeons was a golden chest guarded by a fearsome Flayer shaman. The chest containing many treasures, and a human heart, still beating. Mizor wondered if the eye could still see, and the brain still think. What a revolting condition to find yourself in; was this a sign of a blessing from the Light, or a curse? He packed it away and returned to the surface, fighting on deeper into the jungle until they reached the outermost walls of Kurast, which surrounded the lower city.