NT: Interlude: Meanwhile, With Amanda

Amanda had to admit, this had been the toughest job she'd ever pulled. That was saying a lot, too, as Amanda had pulled jobs that most would have balked at. She'd stolen the Olmec Statue of the Silver Monkey from the home of Moco, a bigshot in the Mexican Cartel Scene. Of course, this had been before Moco had gotten himself killed by a gun-toting Mariachi Guitarist a few years back. Moco had stolen the thing from Professor Steven Cale after the Latter had managed to excavate the Hidden Temple of the Olmecs back in ninety-one and had it guarded by fifty men with military grade guns. Just getting past the security had been a challenge in its own right, let alone covering her tracks and fencing the damn thing.

Of course, those had just been random Cartel Goons with powerful, albeit completely mundane, weapons. Klobb Submachine Guns and the odd KF-Seven Soviet Assault Rifle. The rest of the security had been Ultratech Stuff, cameras, and electronic locks were the sort of thing that Amanda could jury-rig or hotwire ways around. It hadn't been anything Amanda couldn't handle. This new job she was pulling, though, was something pretty different, if she was being honest with herself. Not mundane stuff in the least, honestly, Amanda had half a mind to call Methos and get him to back her up on this, but he was busy dealing with a curse laid on him by an Immortal he'd jilted back when he'd been working with the Four Horsemen.

That Immortal, Cassandra, had eventually become a pretty powerful sorceress, apparently, and had recently cursed Methos to attract Ghosts. Accordingly, Methos had headed out to California to see a Necromancer he'd known a few decades back, Sam O'Toole, to get rid of the possession. Without Methos around to mine for mystical knowledge, and with Penny Halliwell having passed last year, and Ulysses stuck in Japan and unable to lend any advice, Amanda had needed to go it alone. Mind you, she had contacts that had given her a pouch full of odd dust. Supposedly, the dust, a mix of iron flakes, rock salt, and blessed silver, would be enough to help deal with the Guardian, an undead Assassin named Voldo.

Of course, Amanda could have said no to the job. Honestly, she probably should have when she had heard what it was. However, while she had been mulling things over, the Woman with the odd accent who had hired her to do this had revealed herself to be a member of the Third Race under a glamour. She was a granddaughter of Oberon himself, no less, which meant that that ship had well and truly sailed. You didn't piss off one of the Fair Folk like that, after all. There were a lot of stories about what happened to folks who did that, and none of them ended well for the offender.

That had left Amanda struggling to find a way to break into a secure vault guarded by Voldo, who, as undead, never took breaks or changed guard shifts. To make matters worse, this Vault, the so-called Money Pit, was located on an Island off the Coast of Sicily, which meant that any way she wanted to go to get there, she ran the risk of being seen by whoever might be keeping watch from the Island. Fortunately, she'd managed to do her research. It turned out that the Island the Money Pit was located on had also played host to a U-Boat base back during the Second World War, one that had been used to smuggle certain artefacts from North Africa and the Middle East into Axis Territory back when Hitler had been demanding ancient occult artefacts be brought to him during the thirties, a process that he'd largely stopped after the loss of an entire expedition of U-Boats and Multiple Companies of elite troops during the Atlantis Fiasco that also saw Doctor Henry Jones Junior disappear as well.

Of course, the Allies had bombed the base, but it was just about possible that Amanda could sneak her way into one of the sea pens underwater. Doing so had been risky, of course. There were things in the ocean that you really didn't want to run into if you didn't have to. Anyone who'd lived for as long as Amanda had knew that much. Fortunately, Amanda didn't run into any of them and had been able to scuba her way into the U-Boat Pens from below. That had allowed her to sneak onto the Island undetected. She'd likewise managed to escape the caved-in U-Boat Pens by crawling through a collapsed section of wall that was just cracked enough to allow a thin woman such as herself to squeeze through. It helped that Amanda had long since practiced contortionism in order to aid her in her thievery.

She had waited until the cover of darkness to make her way to the Money Pit on the other side of the island, crouched in the half-wrecked out ruin of a flak bunker from the Nazi Occulpation to pass the time. The reasoning had been sound. Voldo didn't sleep, of course. Most undead didn't. However, that wasn't the reason why she waited until after dark. No, that was so that it would be easier for her to hide. Fortunately, Amanda's other mystical contacts had also hooked her up with a Bag of Holding, which was a sort of extradimensional bag that could hold a quarter of a ton, even though it was very clearly not big enough for that. What's more, it kept things in the state they were when they went into the bag. That had allowed Amanda to store a decent meal and have it still be nice and hot when she took it out of the Bag. Mind you, she'd paid three-quarters of a million US Dollars for the bag, but she more than expected to make that back on this job.

After all, the Sidhe Lady had said that so long as Amanda reserved the Rib Bone of Kronos for her, everything else in the Money Pit was fair game. Granted, Amanda wasn't sure what the Sidhe wanted the Rib Bone of a Dead Titan for, but she'd been reliably informed it was one of the few things that could kill Godlike Beings, so Amanda was fairly certain that there was some sort of Sidhe Grudge Match going on amongst the Third Race. Either way, it was above her pay grade.

As soon as Darkness had fallen, Amanda made her way toward the other side of the Island, where the Money Pit was supposed to be. She navigated by the stars, having long since learned how to do that, as well as with the help of a potion of Night Vision she had purchased from her Mystical Contacts. Eventually, she came to a rocky, cliff-like rise that overlooked the sea on the other side of the Island from where Amanda had arrived. Checking the cliff-face for a draft revealed a cunningly camouflaged entrance leading down into what seemed to be a hidden grotto. This was it, and Amanda descended the staircase carefully, making sure to keep an eye out for any signs of potential traps or alarms. This turned out to be a good plan because she came across one mere moments after starting her descent.

The first trap, Amanda realized, was present thanks to the corpses. A trio of dessicated bodies of Nazi Troops were scattered around the staircase of rough-hewn stone, small metal darts peppered through their tattered uniforms. Amanda, realizing that she was about to step into an area covered by a poison dart trap, immediately began looking for a pressure plate. She found one thanks to her eye for detail, honed through more than a millennium of being a thief. Avoiding the pressure plate and the secondary pressure plate behind it that would have shot her with more darts, Amanda made her way down the staircase once more.

Eventually, she came to an open area. A gallery overlooked a deep pit, where a platform of aged wood was suspended via rusty chains over the pit. To make it across to the other side of the Money Pit, Amanda would have to cross the rickety platform. To make matters worse, as she looked out over the pit, the mummy-wrapped form of the Undead Voldo came up out of the staircase on the other side, as if it knew that she had arrived. Briefly, Amanda wondered how that was possible before she looked to the left and right of the stairwell exit and found a pair of subtly etched runes that seemed to be making a barely audible humming noise that Amanda hadn't noticed until now.

"Runic alarms. Cute." Scowled Amanda.

The Undead Voldo, curiously, didn't make any moves past the platform, simply standing in the middle of the wood and metal contraption, fists sheathed in a pair of Marathi Sword Gauntlets, Pata, Amanda thought they were called. She'd never really been in the Maratha Empire for long enough to ask too many questions. Whenever she had been in India during that period, she tended to stay in places less aligned with the British. As a Frenchwoman, that had just been good sense, after all. What was more concerning was that Voldo seemed to be waiting for her to try and cross.

"Not gonna try and chase me down, huh?" Questioned Amanda.

Voldo said nothing, merely bending over backwards and thrusting his hips forward, making an odd, keening groan as he did so. Amanda's face scrunched up at that. It was almost sexual, in an absence, completely classless way. It seemed almost like a wordless sort of proposition to Amanda. Could the Undead even feel those feelings? Amanda didn't know, and quite frankly, she didn't want to know.

"You think I want to fuck you?" Queried Amanda, incredulously.

Voldo let out another keening wail and continued thrusting his hips into the air as a response. Amanda practically gagged at the thought of having sex with an undead being, much less an undead being that seemed to be fairly involved in the BDSM scene, judging from the mummy wrappings and bondage gear.

"Can we just fight instead?" Amanda asked pleadingly.

Voldo grunted, standing up before hunching forward, clanging the blades of his pata gauntlets off of each other. That was more like it, Amanda thought, as she made her way out onto the platform, chains rattling and centuries-old wood groaning as she did so. Voldo must have been confused by her lack of weapon however, because he cocked his head to the side. Amanda reached into her Bag of Holding to produce her weapons for the fight. First, the sword she had chosen for this little undertaking, a seventeenth-century English Broadsword she had taken off a Cavalier she had beheaded during a Duel in Ireland. Second, however, was the bag of Anti-Undead Dust she had obtained from her Mystical Contacts. That was to be her ace in the hole. Supposedly, it would paralyze any Undead long enough for her to finish the creature off.

As Voldo charged, Amanda put that into practice. Voldo lunged at her, aiming to literally cut her legs out from under her with the sort of speed that Amanda would have trouble dealing with usually, but she had seriously upped her game in terms of combat capability since the Luther Incident had opened her eyes about how unprepared for combat she was in general. Amanda just barely managed to parry with her broadsword, blades striking sparks off of each other as she did. Instead of riposting with her broadsword, however, Amanda dumped the powder out of the pouch it had come in as Voldo tried to withdraw.

The mixture of silver, iron, and salt was charged with positive energy, whatever that meant. Amanda was no sorcereress. However, as Voldo withdrew, he caught a faceful of the dust, and immediately hissed as he caught flame and seized up. The bandages on his face burned away, revealing parchment-like skin pulled tight over bone, all of which was beginning to crack and blacken. He stiffened up, just barely managing to get his Pata to parry Amanda's attempt to attack him. However, as the sparks flew off the clashing blades, Amanda knew that her ace in the hole hadn't been enough to win her this fight. Not by itself anyway.

"You're just too old an Undead Monstrosity for that to work, huh?" Questioned Amanda.

Voldo said nothing, focusing on trying to will his sluggish limbs to work even as his paperlike skin burned away, leaving blackened, skeletal, bone underneath. Amanda could only grin at that. Even if it hadn't won her the bout, the Anti-Undead dust had clearly given her an edge. She chuckled at Voldo's predicament as he attempted to bull forward and push her off the platform, only for her to pivot on her back foot and use the momentum to come around with a cut at the back of Voldo's left leg. Steel sliced into weakened undead tendons and severed vital connections, forcing Voldo down to one knee.

"You still don't like that, do you? Feeling sluggish, are we?" Queried Amanda tauntingly.

Voldo let out a keening wail that faded into a growl as he bent over backward damn near in half to lash out with his twin pata blades. Amanda, however, just danced out of the way of the flashing blades, coming back in moments later with a cut of her broadsword that took Voldo's right arm off at the elbow, carving through parchment-like skin and weakened undead sinew and bone. Voldo's right forearm went flying over the side of the platform, pata and all, as Amanda's grin widened. A diving thrust from Voldo was dodged aside from, as Amanda avoided the Undead Guardian's last, best effort to skewer her. As she did, however, the remaining Pata flashed to the side, cutting into Amanda's stomach and nicking her liver.

With a cry of pain, Amanda knew she'd been carless, holding her side and gritting her teeth, Amanda focused her willpower the way she had learned how to from Penny Halliwell and pushed past the pain. She had a minute, maybe a few seconds more, before her body gave out and she would have to regenerate, thanks to the ruptured liver. She would have to finish Voldo before then. Fortunately, the Voldo had landed heavily on the platform and struggled to rise with one arm and one leg. Amanda's blade flashed out and beheaded the Undead Assassin, killing him permanently.

As she staggered to the other side of the Gallery, making her way across the platform, however, Amanda's vision began to blur, and she knew she had little time to do much more than make it to the other side of the Gallery before collapsing. When she finally did, she staggered onto the opposite side of the Gallery from where she had entered, taking three steps onto the stone before slumping to her knees, broadsword falling to the stone from nerveless fingers. Moments later, Amanda was out cold, her Immortal Body regenerating from the killing blow she had been dealt by Voldo and forcing her into unconsciousness as it did so.

When Amanda regained consciousness, the moon had traveled across the sky, and Amanda estimated that she had been out for two hours. However, that should be that. Amanda should now have a clear shot to the Treasury of the Money Pit, excluding traps. She hauled herself up to her feet to continue on her way. Of course, she had to dodge another pair of traps on the way down to the lower level of the Money Pit. First was a Spear Trap that Amanda just barely avoided, snapping a textbook parry off and cutting the spear that shot out of the wall at her as she landed on the supplemental pressure plate out of the air. The second was one that she bypassed entirely, thanks to her capabilities with thieves' tools, a poison needle trap on the door into the lower level from the stairwell.

As she entered into the Lower Level of the Money Pit, she found herself in a partially flooded room with a large statue of a man on a throne dressed like an Italian Noble of the Renaissance off in the distance. From here, two doors led to two separate chambers, both were filled with treasure, and it was all that Amanda could do to prioritize taking the most valuable items, as not even her bag of holding had enough room for all the gemstones, gold coins, and silver plate that lie in the pair of rooms. There were also art objects, as well, priceless Ming Vases, Silk Tapestries embroidered with cloth of gold, statues of gold and silver, golden chalices inlayed with precious stones.

Fortunately, Amanda had long since mastered the art of appraising valuables, a skill that came in handy when you were a thief. Between the Emerald-Studded Gold Gallowmere Royal Chalices, the Gold and Sapphire Signet Ring from the reign of Emir Nod of Baghdad, the Ming Dynasty Vase, and the more mundane gold coins, Amanda would more than make back any money spent on preparations for this particular job. In fact, Amanda was willing to bet that she would make at least ten million US Dollars just from what she was able to take out of the Treasure Vaults alone.

The last two things she picked up were the Rib Bone of Kronos for her client and something else for herself. A bottle of Myposian Wine dated sixteen-fifteen, around a decade or so before the Island was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, and the Vineyard destroyed in the Conquest. The Wine seemed to be good as ever, as it was apparently preserved via magic, which Amanda figured was fairly par for the course for this place. Putting both the Rib Bone of Kronos and the Bottle of Myposian Wine in her Bag of Holding, Amanda made to leave.

Unfortunately, no sooner had she begun to ascend the stairs than a horrific rumbling noise occurred and shook the very foundations of the Money-Pit. Amanda frowned at that, looking around wildly and watching as dust shook loose from the stonework around her.

"What was that?" She asked.

Her only answer was a few moments of silence before a much louder rumbling noise occurred, complete with shaking that knocked Amanda off of her feet and sent her tumbling down to the stone steps. As she stood up and brushed the rock dust off of herself, Amanda looked around, alarmed.

"I have a bad feeling about this." She muttered.

Then she did what she always did when the situation got bad. She began to book it, running up the stairs for the exit. As she did so, the rumbling returned with a vengeance as the Money Pit, seemingly mystically sensing that it had been stolen from, began to collapse in on itself. Amanda barely managed to get up the stairs and onto the suspended platform before the first of the structural collapses happened, the stairwell she had just come up caving in on itself, with that side of the Gallery beginning to do the same as she made it onto the suspended platform. Fighting to keep her balance, Amanda crossed the platform only for the chains to finally snap just before she made it all the way across, forcing Amanda to jump the last few feet to the other side of the Gallery.

She hit the ledge at chest height, desperately clinging on, and for a few moments, Amanda scrabbled as her legs kicked empty air and she tried to haul herself up over the ledge as the other side of the Gallery collapsed completely. Then she was up over the ledge and running again for the next stairwell. She made it up the stairs as the walls and ceiling of this side of the Gallery began to collapse around her, taking the hewn stone steps two at a time and desperately dodging around and weaving past falling bits of masonry. She got clipped in the shoulder once by a jagged piece of stone, cutting into her shoulder. However, as an Immortal, that was of no consequence. Amanda kept on moving and just barely made it out of the Money Pit in time to avoid the whole thing collapsing entirely.

Amanda burst out of the tunnel entrance in the cliff face just as the whole thing collapsed behind her with a shower of rock dust as the literal last gasp of the Money Pit echoed out from the cliff face. She doubled over, then, huffing and puffing as she caught her breath. Once she had calmed herself down, she straightened up to see that the sun was beginning to crest above the horizon. Looking back at the Cliff Face, Amanda saw only a pile of rubble where there once was an entrance to the Money Pit.

"Stupid self-destruct. I could've come back for the rest of it." She grumbled.

It didn't matter, though. She had accomplished what she had been hired to do and gotten a pretty big payday out of the deal to boot. If only the mystical self-destruct hadn't triggered. That was such a waste, but then, Amanda supposed that if whoever had constructed this place would set an undead guardian to watch over it for centuries after they were dead and gone, then they definitely were also the kind of person to put in a self-destruct out of spite.

"Still, it's a damned shame. Such a waste of a good treasure chamber." Sighed Amanda.

There was nothing for it, though. Amanda would just have to press on without being able to return and continue looting. Not that she figured that such a trip would have been easy, mind you. She'd gotten lucky with the Scuba Gear once, already, after all. She had no clue if she would get lucky a second time, let alone a third. Speaking of which, Amanda reached into her Bag of Holding to pull out her scuba gear as she made her way down to the Island's Beach.

Once her shoulder stopped bleeding, she'd suit up and start her swim back to Sicily. After all, she may be Immortal, but that was no reason to tempt fate by putting blood in the water. Sharks could smell that sort of thing, you know. By the time her regeneration healed her shoulder up and she got into her scuba gear, Sunrise was fully underway.

Then Amanda took a deep breath and plunged back into the Mediterranean to begin swimming her way back to Sicily. . .

XXXX

AN: All right, so here we have the next interlude. As you can see, Amanda has been a busy little Immortal Thief. Mind you, she may just have gotten mixed up in something well above her pay grade. After all, when a Sidhe Lady wants a thing that can kill Gods, that generally doesn't bode well for any Humans who get mixed up in whatever scheme the Sidhe Lady has planned. Amanda may be a Quickened Immortal, but there are worse fates than death, after all. Especially with the Fae involved.

Other nineties stuff this chapter includes mentions of Voldo and the Money Pit from Soul Caliber, Bags of Holding from Second Edition Dungeons and Dragons, Mypos from Perfect Strangers, Gallowmere from Medieval, Emir Nod of Baghdad from the Thief and the Cobbler, Rib Bones of Kronos from Xena, Penny Halliwell from Charmed, Henry Jones Junior and Nazi Artifact Hunters from Indiana Jones, Oberon and the Third Race of the Sidhe from Gargoyles, Sam O'Toole the Necromancer from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Ultratech from Killer Instinct, Klobb Sumbachine Guns and KF-Seven Assault Rifles from Goldeneye for the Nintendo Sixty-Four, Moco is from El Mariachi, Professor Steven Cale is from Anaconda, and the Silver Monkey and the Hidden Temple of the Olmecs are from Legends of the Hidden Temple. Everything Else is from Highlander.

At any rate, the next chapter will have us back with Ulysses for his last days in South Town. Then he'll be hitting the road once again.

Stay tuned. . .