Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth

Chapters

The Jeweler Paladin and the Refugee Warrior
The Insane Priest and the Floramancer
The Favored Druid and the Vengeful Warlock
The Unusual Mage and the Investigation
The Defias Brotherhood
The Searing Blade
The Jailbreak
The Wolves of Silverpine, Part 1
The Wolves of Silverpine, Part 2
The Maw in the Deeps
The Sandfury Tribe
Side Chapter: Hearts of Stone
In the Hall of the Dark Iron, Part 1
In the Hall of the Dark Iron, Part 2
In the Hall of the Dark Iron, Part 3
The Great Masquerade
The Dark Horde
United Under the Mountain
The Molten Core, Part 1: Hounds of the Firelord
The Molten Core, Part 3: Majordomo's Rise
The Molten Core, Part 4: Lair of the Firelord
Warchief Dal'rend Blackhand
Blackwing Lair, Part 1: Halls of Strife
Blackwing Lair, Part 2: Crimson Laboratory
The War of the Shifting Sands
The Sunken Temple
Redemption
Rise of the Blood Loa, Part 1
Rise of the Blood Loa, Part 2
Ahn'Qiraj, Part 1: Battle at the Gates
Ahn'Qiraj, Part 2: Scarab Terrace
Ahn'Qiraj, Part 3: The Unscarred
Ahn'Qiraj, Part 4: The Infested Temple
Ahn'Qiraj, Part 5: The Twin Emperors
Ahn'Qiraj, Part 6: Chaos and Madness
The Invasion of Outland
Hellfire Peninsula
Coilfang Reservoir
Preparations
Shadowmoon Valley
The Trials of the Naaru
Trial of Strength: First Half
Trial of Strength: Second Half
Trial of Mercy
Botanical Satellite
Engineering Satellite
Trial of Tenacity
The Infinite Dragonflight
Siege on the Dark Portal
The Haunted Tower, Part 1: Galas and Operas
The Haunted Tower, Part 2: Guardian's Library
The Haunted Tower, Part 3: Netherspace
The Dragonkiller
The Feast of Corruption
Serpentshrine Cavern, Part 1: The Reservoir
Serpentshrine Cavern, Part 2: Grayheart Cavern
Serpentshrine Cavern, Part 3: The Coilfang Matron
The Eye of the Tempest, Part 1: The Phoenix Hall
The Eye of the Tempest, Part 2: Tempest Bridge
The Battle of Mount Hyjal, Part 1: March of the Scourge
The Battle of Mount Hyjal, Part 2: Death from Above
The Battle of Mount Hyjal, Part 3: Twilight of the Gods
The End of the Beginning, Part 1: Training Grounds
The End of the Beginning, Part 2: Halls of Anguish
The End of the Beginning, Part 3: Mortal Delights
The End of the Beginning, Part 4: Temple Summit
The Gods of Zul'Aman, Part 1
The Gods of Zul'Aman, Part 2
The Battle of the Sunwell, Part 1: End of the Bloodline
Battle of the Sunwell, Part 2: Invading the Plateau
Battle of the Sunwell, Part 3: Demon Lord Rising
Prologue: Project Zereth
The Weaponmaster Warrior and the Strange Shaman
The Molten Core, Part 2: Jailors of the Windseeker
Interlude: The Sexy Huntress and the Loyal Demon Hunter
The Cipher of Damnation

The Jeweler Paladin and the Refugee Warrior

Thanatas emerged from a rift close to the gates of a large city. Before the gates was a rugged red landscape of badlands. All around her were red mountains and red rock formations with hardly any vegetation anywhere except for the sparse white flowers growing here and there and roots that were not attached to any particular plant. Frankly, it would be a constant struggle to make a living in this region as a farmer.

The death knight proceeded toward the gates of the orc city of Orgrimmar. She was quickly stopped by the guards at the entrance. The green-skinned guards wore large red iron shoulderguards with spikes, a harness on their chests, brown leather gloves with red bands around the wrists, shorts of matching design to the gloves and steel-toed brown leather boots with red bands around the ankles. He carried a battle ax as a weapon.

“Who are you and what business do you have here?” one of the guards demanded. “Your skin looks too pale for you to be a living human. Are you one of those Forsaken who joined the Horde recently? Did that elf send you?”

“I have business with your warchief,” Thanatas answered. “This is a very important matter concerning the future of the Horde.”

The guards didn’t look very bright but decided to let the undead through. “Don’t cause any trouble here. We’ll be watching you,” the other guard warned.

The inside of the city looked like a bustling commercial district, despite the primitive appearance of the buildings. The roofs of the buildings were either made of red tile or hardened leather. The base of the structures were made of stone, wood and leather. There were also streets in the city that were dug and were paved with light gray stones. A bank lay in the center of the district and nearby was a building where goblins, a race of short, green-skinned, large-eared money grubbers with a passion for explosions, from the neutral Steamwheedle Cartel were buying, selling and trading wares.

Near the bank was a large tower with a bridge that led to the upper sections of the city. Thanatas climbed the tower and crossed the bridge, ignoring the stares from the orcs and the teal-skinned trolls, a race of lanky, tribalistic spiritualists with tusks of varying size at the ends of their mouths who worship the various wild gods of Azeroth, or loa as they call them. She took a right from the bridge and into a canyon, walking past a cavern entrance that was lined with bony spikes from some giant animal that died long ago.

Thanatas came up to a large building of stone, red tiling and bone spikes with an effigy nearby that held the armor and skull of a demon that she recognized. She entered the building and ignored the stares from the orcs and trolls around her and entered a large circular room where a troll who she was familiar with stood nearby. The troll had his face painted white and he carried a number of tiki charms on his back.

In the back of the room was the throne of the warchief. Sitting in it was a male orc with long black hair tied in two braids. He was wearing a set of black plate mail armor with yellow bordering. By his feet was a large hammer that was flat on both ends and had a wolf emblem on both sides of the weapon.

The undead moved to the center of the room and knelt before the warchief. Thrall took a moment to analyze the woman before him and a few more minutes to think about what the woman’s intentions might possibly be while coming up with a number of responses to each scenario. He finally spoke, “What brings you before me? I was informed that you have information that pertains to our future.”

“Warchief, my name is Thanatas and I come to offer my services as an advisor. I have knowledge of threats imminent and distant and I wish to assist the Horde with overcoming these threats.”

Thrall was unsure if he should trust the woman before him but his experiences with a mysterious prophet who warned them of a demonic invasion years ago prevented him from dismissing her outright. “That is a very vague claim. What knowledge do you have that would be useful to us?” Thrall asked.

“I know that the son of Blackhand, Dal’rend Blackhand is still very much alive and he will be plotting to overthrow you from his stronghold in Blackrock Mountain.”

Thrall slammed a fist on the armrest of his throne. “WHAT?! If this is true then we must send forces to deal with him immediately.”

“With all due respect, warchief, that is a very risky move as he has the backing of the Black Dragonflight. The chances of success are too low to risk so many lives,” Thanatas warned.

“Then what do you suggest?”

“Instead of quantity, I would suggest quality. Find some promising warriors of the Horde and test them to see if they can handle eliminating Dal’rend. We still have time before he becomes an actual threat. The Blackrock Clan that serves him still needs more time to prepare, time that we can use to our advantage.”

“Hmm…” Thrall shifted his gaze to the troll with the painted face. “What do you think, Vol’jin?”

“I think she be a cunning one. She definitely be hidin’ someting. But da spirits be tellin’ me dat she speaks true about da threat. If she be here ta help us, I’d say to extend a small degree of trust for now. But I be keepin’ an eye on dis one.”

Thanatas shrugged, “Fair enough. I do have my own agenda, and providing assistance to the Horde while making sure they overcome the coming ordeals is part of it.”

“We shall see if you are worth keeping around.” Thrall said.

Sophia emerged from a rift in the middle of a lush forest. She could see the white stone gates and blue-roofed towers of Stormwind ahead of her, built between two mountains which gave the city some decent natural fortifications.

She spent a few minutes admiring the landscape, which was long enough for her to sense a few minds with malicious intent approach her. She counted four of them and going by their thoughts, they were your run-of-the-mill bandits.

She rolled her eyes before she turned around to see the four bandits approaching her. Each was wearing brown leather armor and red bandanas over their faces.

“Hey there lady, how about you leave your money and valuables on the ground and we can reconsider rabbit stew tonight,” one of the bandits threatened. The others simply snickered.

Sophia didn’t have time to play around with a bunch of scumbags so using her incredible speed, she punched two bandits into two trees and kicked the other two into two more within a split second. She was glad nobody else saw that as she needed to keep a low profile for a while.

Sophia used her Shadow Walk ability to sneak past the guards at the front gate. They wore full body steel armor with the shoulderplates having a blue bordering and the helm had a blue crest. He wore a tabard over his chest plate that was blue with gold bordering with the inscription of a lion on the center. His shield followed the same pattern as the tabard.

Sophia heard from Thanatas about the high levels of government corruption within the kingdom right now and she wasn’t sure who she could trust yet. It was best to remain hidden until she had a plan.

She crossed a large white stone bridge that held large statues of five heroes who bravely crossed the Dark Portal to Draenor, the orc homeworld, toward the end of the Second War against the Orcish Horde years ago but were never heard from again.

Beyond the bridge, Sophia entered Stormwind’s Trade District which was vibrant with activity. Hundreds of people were seen walking the streets and visiting the many shops in the area which were built close together to allow few alleyways. All of the buildings in the area had blue tiled roofing, which served as a color coding for Stormwind’s districts. Purple roofs for the Mage Quarter and Park, red roofs for Old Town, Brown roofs for the Dwarven District, and yellow roofs for the Cathedral District.

Sophia’s speed and stealth allowed her to reach Stormwind Keep where the regent ruled from. She crossed several bridges over the city canals, which separated the districts, to reach it.

Walking inside the keep, she picked up on the thoughts of a number of haughty nobles that made Sophia wish that she could bleach her brain. As she neared the throne room, her mind picked up on a powerful malice coming from the room. She managed to peer into the room and saw a number of guards around the room at attention with three figures in the center. Sophia figured that court was still in session today. She analyzed the three. One was a ten year old boy who she guessed had to be the crown prince since he stood beside the other two. One appeared to be the regent, Bolvar Fordragon who was a red-haired man who wore ornate silver and gold armor which was characteristic of a paladin, a warrior who wields the power of the Holy Light into battle. However, his mind appeared to be muddled, as if he had little control over his own thoughts. The third was where she was sensing the malice, a woman with black hair and wearing a red robe and carrying a priest’s white staff with a slight cross at the top and a gem in the center.

The woman appeared to feel secure enough in her mind that her thoughts were an open book to Sophia. Those thoughts informed her of the woman’s intent to rule Stormwind along with her collaboration with someone she called her brother residing in a nearby mountain to the northeast. The thoughts just screamed evil to the bunny templar.

She exited the keep and found a safe place to psychically transmit to Twilight. “Come in, Twilight. We have a small problem.”

“What’s the matter?” Twilight asked.

“The regent of Stormwind is being mentally manipulated by one of his advisors. I won’t be able to fulfill the objective of earning the trust of the leadership while the advisor is a problem.”

“Understood. For now, switch objectives to observing the targets. Two of them are currently in an abbey in a valley just to the east of Stormwind. We can deal with the advisor later.”

Sophia made her way back to the gates of the city. On the way she was feeling a little proud of herself for developing the ability to create a psychic network so she could communicate to her allies regardless of location.

Within a small valley east of Stormwind, a small garrison of soldiers protected the only building in the valley. The abbey in the valley known as Northshire stood defiant despite being surrounded by local threats. The threats themselves were known to be small fry in the form of short rat men called kobolds who wore candles on their heads and practically idolized them along with a gang of bandits wearing red masks who declared themselves as members of some criminal organization called the Defias Brotherhood. The bandits were still untrained though.

Overall, the place was perfect for a new generation of adventurers to begin honing their skills before seeking challenges outside of the valley.

Assisting with the training of the new fighters who had just reached the age of majority was a human woman in her mid twenties. Her black hair, which was just past shoulder length, was styled so that it curled up at the end. She was currently dressed in the standard armor of a Stormwind guard but that was only when she was on the job as a trainer. Apparently, her ornate gold and silver plate mail armor studded with purple gems was seen as a distraction to the young recruits.

“Miss Cartier?” called out one of the guards. She turned around to face the voice to find that the garrison leader, Marshal McBride, was the one calling out to her.

“Please, just Bella will suffice,” she responded.

The marshal nodded and pulled out a sack of gold coins. “Thanks for your assistance in helping these youngsters get their adventures off on the right foot. This is all we can afford to pay you right now.”

Bella waved her hand dismissively, “Your payment is not necessary, sir. I am happy to assist these fine people. That money should be used for more important things.”

The marshal smiled and shook his head. “Even when the Silver Hand disbanded years ago, you still helped where you were able. A paladin of your talents shouldn’t be wasting it on teaching new aspirants, especially given that you’re nearly as young as these recruits.”

Bella giggled, “Oh stop, you flatterer. I can assure you that I still get my fill of adventure keeping the wildlife population under control. Though the increase in bandits does have me worried.”

“Yeah, rumor has it that the increase in bandits means that the Defias Brotherhood is about to make their move.”

“It really was cruel what the nobility did to those poor workers,” she said, remembering the gang for the Stonemasons Guild they used to be. “They put their blood, sweat and tears into rebuilding the city into the wonder it is today only to get swindled in the end. I can’t say that I sympathize with them though, their response was quite extreme as their riot cost the queen her life.”

The two had a moment of silence for Queen Tiffin.

“Anyway, they won’t be our problem around here since our mutual acquaintance is busy cutting down those bandits who have taken over the nearby vineyard,” Marshal McBride said. “A shame that we can’t just arrest the whole lot of them, but the Stockade is nearly filled to capacity and the Defias have a whole army prowling Elwynn and Westfall with a report of some activity in Duskwood as well.”

Bella nodded. “All the same, I do wish that Miss Jaqueline would lighten up. I’ve only known her for four days and I have not seen her smile once. I tried some light humor, and she simply grumbled and turned away.”

“Can’t blame her, I heard that she lost her parents and her older brother to the Undead Scourge five years ago. She has a little sister who is being raised by her aunt and uncle in Stormwind. A girl like that has to be carrying a lot of baggage.”

“The poor dear…” Bella shook her head. “Well, my work is finished for today, time for me to return to my room in Goldshire and get back to work on my latest commission.” Bella walked into the abbey and the room she placed her armor in before closing the door and changing into her personal armor.

Once finished changing, she made her way out of the abbey. However, Marshal McBride stopped her to ask her one more question. “I have to know, you came from the Cartier family, a family of some of the most talented jewelers in the world. Why would you choose to be a paladin instead of going into the family business? I’ve even heard that you crafted that armor yourself.”

“Well you see, darling, while my talents in jewelcrafting are at the same level as my sister, Tiffany, I found that my calling was traveling around and protecting others. One day I cut an immaculate gem and as I peered into it, I received a vision of a glorious destiny if I learned the ways of the paladin. It seems to be an unusual ability I was born with, though I’ve also learned that imperfections give flawed visions. As for my ability to craft armor, that came about as a result of a mix of disgust toward seeing damaged or subpar armor and a desire to help others along with years of practice crafting new armor for spellcasters, scouts and warriors and an eye for detail.”

“I have to say that you’re a woman of many talents, Bella. Thanks again for your help.”

“Anytime, darling!” Bella walked down the road to the gate leading out of the valley. Along the way, a woman with long blonde hair that went as far as her upper back walked up beside her. Bella suppressed a cringe when she looked at the shoddy workmanship of her companion’s plate mail. She offered to give the blonde warrior a much needed upgrade to what she was wearing, but was turned down because she wasn’t looking for anything fancy.

“I take it that the bandits have been wiped out?” Bella asked.

“Yeah, they weren’t even a challenge. Ah’ve seen baby dwarves handle knives better than those chumps.” Jaqueline paused for a moment. “So, we done here? Ah need somethin’ more challengin’ than the pickpockets and animals in this forest.”

“Almost darling, I still have to finish my commissions before we move on to another location. I should be done tonight and we can set off in the morning.”

“Finally, ah need ta improve mah skills a lot more if ah’m ta be ready to retake mah farm from them no good Scourge.”

“I’ve heard that a new paladin order emerged from those dreadful, overzealous Scarlet Crusaders. They might be able to help you reclaim your old home.”

“Ah don’t need no help from a bunch of psychos, Bella. Ah went ta those Scarlet crusaders one time lookin’ fer help. Ah barely escaped with mah life. What makes ya think that new organization will be any different when they come from them Scarlets?

“You can’t go around judging others because of their horrid origins Jaqueline, that wouldn’t be good for your mental health. Sometimes, you need to have a little faith that things will get better.”

Jaqueline sighed, “Ah’ll try Bella, but it ain’t easy for me to trust others. Right now, ah’m still on the fence about whether or not ah can trust ya. Ah’m only followin’ ya because ya promised to help me get stronger.”

“I understand darling, it would be remiss of me if I allowed you to return to the Plaguelands underskilled and under equipped. Though I do hope that you will reconsider my offer to craft you a much better suit of armor than…that,” Bella said as she channeled all of her disgust toward Jaqueline’s armor into that last word.

“Ah’ll think about it, too bad yer skills with forgin’ weapons ain’t nowhere near as good as the armor you craft.”

“I can’t be great at everything darling, I simply do the best I can. It’s all any of us can do.”

The conversation continued as they walked all the way to Goldshire.

Sophia had been listening in on Bella’s conversations from atop a tree. Her Shadow Walk ability kept her invisible to any prying eyes. Through a crystal on Sophia’s wrist, Twilight and Midnight observed the paladin and the warrior.

“It seems that more facets of their original personalities came through the reincarnation process than I thought,” Midnight said.

Twilight smiled as she saw the new forms of her old friends walking down the road. “Rarity’s as generous as she was in her old life. Applejack seems to have inherited the stubbornness of her old life.”

“Unlike Rarity’s old life though, this version seems to have expanded their repertoire from just clothing to armor of different types. Those skills could prove useful later.”

“What’s the status of the others?” Twilight asked.

Midnight looked through her reports. “Two of them seem to be giving abnormal readings. Of them, one seems to have been exposed to radioactive vapors but her physical health is still at optimal levels while the other I can’t get a clear read on. One is among the night elves of the world tree of Teldrassil off the northern coast of the western continent. No abnormalities. The status of the last one is unknown.”

“Unknown? What do you mean? And what’s this about radioactive vapors? I didn’t think this world was advanced enough to work with substances like that.”

“Just like with Elicoor, this world has places with advanced technology while the rest of the world is either medieval or savage in technological level. Gnomes are one such race capable of such ingenuity. As for the unknown, I’ve scanned all over the planet and cannot find any trace of the target. She may be off-world since the scans would have at least picked up on her corpse if she were dead.”

“I hope she’s still alive, wherever she is.”

Midnight nodded in sympathy, “Sophia, continue your observations on Bella and Jaqueline. If they get in over their heads with something, give them a little assistance.”

“Roger,” Sophia affirmed. Once she closed the link, Sophia began tailing the two humans by jumping from tree to tree, using her impressive stealth skills to avoid being noticed.

Author's Note

Here it is, the first of several character introductory chapters. I waited to release this one because the latest chapter I wrote in order to maintain my buffer was a long one. The main antagonists will also be given introductory chapters with the next chapter showing how they intend to stay incognito while they complete their mission. I'm afraid things will be going slow for a while before they start to ramp up.

The Insane Priest and the Floramancer

“H…th…ossi…?” a faint voice asked. “The gas…ould ha…a lepp…ome…least.”

“I don’...but I…our patient is…ing to…” another voice answered.

The patient tried opening her eyes only to close them again as the lighting in the room only worsened the headache she was feeling.

“What happened to me?” she thought to herself.

“You decided to follow the orders of our ‘brilliant’ leaders and opened up the radioactive gas tanks,” a mysterious voice explained. “And just like the ‘genius’ gnome that you are, you opened the wrong canister which contained a different type of gas which somehow protected you from leprosy by the other toxic gas that flooded the city.”

“Huh? Who said that?” the patient asked out loud. She opened her eyes again despite the headache and shot upward into a sitting position on her bed. She scanned the room around her and saw two gnomes by her bed, looking at her in confusion while looking at each other.

One of the gnomes, a female, spoke first. “What an odd reaction timing. We were discussing how you were spared the fate of leprosy by the radioactive gas you were exposed to.”

“Yeah, and what was in that weird canister I opened that you said wasn’t radioactive gas?”

The two continued giving the patient confused looks. The other gnome, a male, spoke, “What are you talking about? What weird canister?”

“Didn’t one of you say I opened the wrong canister which contained a different type of gas?”

The two gnomes wrote something down on the clipboards they were carrying. “You might want to get your neural cortex examined. We didn’t say anything about what you just described.”

The patient scratched her head, wondering who told her that stuff.

“It was me, you ditz! Whatever that stuff was, I somehow ended up being created from it. I guess I’m some sort of mental construct that was created from the gas you were exposed to. The gas knocked you out and I was able to save your sorry butt by walking us out of there.”

“How did you do that?”

“It looks like I can take control of your body, while you’re unconscious at least. So it looks like we get to spend the rest of our lives as roommates in this cramped cranium of yours.”

“So what do I call you, rude voice in my head? I’m Mena Overclock.”

“Name me something that won’t tempt me to throw myself into the mouth of a snow leopard. I don’t care otherwise.”

“Hmm…how about Meanie since you’re mean to me?” Mena offered.

“...I wonder what it’s like inside a leopard’s stomach…”

“Okay, okay, how about Surprise? It’s not like it matters since everyone around us is going to refer to either of us as Mena anyway.”

Mena could practically feel Surprise shrug. “Eh, whatever.”

“Are you alright Miss…Overclock?” One of the gnomes, a doctor most likely, suddenly asked while taking a look at his clipboard, bringing Mena out of her mental conversation.

“Oh, yeah, I’m peachy,” Mena said as she chuckled awkwardly. “So, where are we anyway?”

“After the city got flooded with the gas, the refugees fled to Ironforge, home of our dwarven allies. The ambulance strider pulling the wagon carrying you malfunctioned and led us all the way to Coldridge Valley. The facilities here aren’t nearly effective for handling patients, especially victims of radioactive gas inhalation, but miraculously you weren’t in any danger so you simply required bedrest.”

“So when can I get out of here?” Mena asked. “And what about my things? Did they get contaminated?”

“First, I’m afraid that we had to dispose of most of your belongings since they wouldn’t have survived a decontamination precedure. About all we could save were those books on the Light that you were studying. Second, we will see about allowing you out of bed tomorrow, it’s night time right now. Get a full night’s sleep and we will give you a final checkup.”

“Seriously?! How long have I been out?”

“A little over a day,” the female gnome replied. “And about Gnomeregan, we evacuated all we could but the rest have unfortunately turned into raving leper gnomes. Mekgineer Thermaplugg tricked High Tinker Mekkatorque into releasing the gas into the city to kill the troggs, which only irradiated them but didn’t kill them. Apparently Thermaplugg only wanted to make Mekkatorque look like a failure so he could assume the leadership position of Gnomeregan, which ultimately backfired since the gas got him too.”

“Ha! I knew that meanie was bad news! Though now I feel pretty stupid for following the order to release the gas.”

“Don’t worry about it. Even now, Mekkatorque is drawing out the plans to retake Gnomeregan. Just rest and regain your strength for tomorrow.”

Mena nodded and lied back down while covering herself with her blanket. The doctor turned the lights out in the room and walked out. Mena had no idea how tired she actually was since she quickly fell asleep a minute later.

Mena woke up the next morning and stretched her arms. She hopped out of bed without regard for the fact that she had spent over a day off of them. Her knees were surprisingly stable instead of wobbly but didn’t question that.

She took a look at herself in a nearby mirror and took care to keep her curly pink hair from getting in her eyes. She took care to straighten her white robe as well. Feeling ready, she took one last look at the mirror, doing her best to ignore the brief flash of an image of her with a darkened expression and her hair down and straight with some of it covering her left eye.

As she performed some morning exercises, Mena noticed one of the doctors along with an innkeeper huddled in a corner staring at her in terror.

“What’s going on?” Mena asked. “You two look like you saw a ghost or something.”

“W-we’re fine, d-don’t worry a-about us. J-just head out whenever you can,” the doctor said.

“Huh? But what about my checkup?”

“Just go, please. You have other things to do, right?”

Mena shrugged and walked out of the inn. Once outside in the snow-covered alpine wilderness, she looked around and saw the dwarven mountaineers in chain mail and green cloaks shooting at creatures that looked like primitive humanoid savages. Everyone referred to them as troggs.

Mena lent her assistance by smiting the creatures with holy spells and healing wounded mountaineers. She uttered a holy word to temporarily improve the stamina of the defenders as well.

She soon found a problem with her magic when she realized that she couldn’t remember the words of shadow that the books that she read once had taught her. No matter how much she racked her mind she couldn’t remember it. It was as if the knowledge of the spell had been erased from her mind.

“Or they could have been moved to the part of your brain that I reside in,” Surprise suddenly said.

Mena finished off the trogg she was working on and paused as she addressed her mental roommate. “Surprise? Are you saying that you have all the knowledge of my shadow spells? How am I supposed to properly defend myself if you have most of my good offensive spells?”

Surprise let out an empty laugh, “You still have access to your power words. You have the shield spell and the good healing spells anyway so I think it’s a fair division. Looks like I have no choice but to work with a fool like you.”

“Could you at least not insult me when you say that?”

“Show me that you can be competent and I’ll lighten up.”

Once Mena had her fill of practice, she decided to see what her counterpart could do. She used a mental technique to lower her mental defenses to allow her alter ego to take over temporarily. For the first time since she was hit by that strange gas, she was able to consciously watch what Surprise could do.

Surprise’s methods were brutal. She inflicted multiple troggs with the shadow word for pain. The spell caused the troggs to feel agonizing phantom pain that damaged their minds but not their bodies. The troggs charged at her but fled when they got close thanks to Surprise planting a psychic suggestion for them to flee. She then targeted the dimwitted creatures and crushed all of their minds at once, causing them to collapse on the snowy ground.

Surprise stole the last of the life force from the troggs and used it to replenish her stamina.

Seeing what Surprise could do with her magic was scary. That was when Mena realized something, “Wait a minute, you were the one who left that doctor and innkeeper huddled in the corner this morning, weren’t you?”

“I got bored waiting for you to wake up so I had some fun while you were snoozing. The doctor didn’t want me to get out of bed and called in the innkeeper to help since I wasn’t being compliant. A nightmarish vision was all I needed to shut those two up. After that I went outside for a stroll and returned to the inn. Ignore the pile of frost trolls in the distance by the way.”

“Still, that wasn’t nice what you did to the doctor and innkeeper, Surprise. They were just trying to help. You need to apologize to them.”

“And why should I?”

“Because I’ll keep singing the song that never ends, even in my dreams, if you don’t,” Mena threatened.

“You can’t control your dreams like that,” Surprise countered.

“Wanna try me?”

The two were silent for a minute before Surprise relented, “Fine, I’ll behave, for now.” Mena smiled from within her own mind.

After Surprise returned to the inn and apologized to the doctor and the innkeeper, the two of them headed into the tunnel which served as the only exit out of Coldridge Valley. As they traversed the tunnel, Surprise psychically destroyed a number of troggs that got in her way.

Once they exited the tunnel, Mena took over again and observed the landscape around her. The mountainous, snow-covered landscape, the forest beyond the roads, it was like leaving a valley for an even larger valley with all the mountains that surrounded the Dun Morogh region.

Mena was surprised to see a strange-looking figure on the side of the road. This person looked like a female human wearing a black, form-fitting, full body jumpsuit with only her head showing. She was sitting in a curled position with her knees covering her face. Mena noticed the person’s unusual purple hair color and she wasn’t sure if she was seeing things, but she thought that she could see some of her hair moving around in places like tentacles.

Mena had a sense for imminent danger and the closer she got to this person, the stronger the feeling became. When she got within a few feet of the figure, Mena felt a headache forming. The painful feeling felt like a warning to not get any closer to the figure and soon her sense of dread won out and she began to back away from the figure.

“I will admit that there is something up with her, but I’m actually surprised that a rebel like you, who was self taught in the ways of the priest since our people in general aren’t strong believers in the Light, would pull away from someone who looks like they need help.”

“I don’t understand either,” Mena admitted. “The closer I get to her, the more terrifying images fill my head.”

“Hmm,” Surprise thought. “I might have an idea, switch with me.” Mena did as told and the gnome’s expression shifted to a darker one. She then approached the figure again. While her mind was assaulted by the horrifying visage of the Dun Morogh region covered with snow and blood with corpses all over the place, animals, dwarves and gnomes, Surprise was able to shrug off the image and approach the figure.

“Hey you, what’s going on with the visions of murder around me?” Surprise demanded. “Is this your doing?”

Surprise could hear mumbling coming from the figure and she ventured a little closer to overhear what she was saying.

"̶͎̾̋͜T̶̞̊͊̎̉̔h̴͙̀̈́e̴̤̘̣̝͝͝ ̷̢̹̮̹̪̀v̴̨̧̡̝̎̈́́̾ͅȍ̴̱̝͑i̴̝͉̤͠ͅͅc̷̫̲̣̃̾͂̔̆ḛ̴̪͒̓̑ş̷̓.̵͈̖̣̜̳̄.̵̮̤̔̕.̸̰̇t̶̼͑̈h̶̭͇̑̆e̵͕̮̿͋̆͝y̵̢̺̩͂ ̶͓̩͚͚͒͑̎͒w̷̠̻̬̍͌͗̊o̶̭̖̞̹͒̀n̴̝͆'̸̛̙͕̬̪̘̎̇͗͋ṯ̴̜̰̓̓ ̷̼̫̜̝̿͘s̶͉̘̹͌h̷͍̻̬̄̈́͑̂ú̴̢̺͇̹̟͊͐̏͛t̴̩̟̑̾̅͑ ̸̡̰͍̔͊̃͠u̸͚͍̩̫̪͛̉p̴̨̥̝̒!̶̗̻̚ ̸̩̐̏̓͘T̷̢͂h̸͍̄̃ĕ̵̫͉̳̤̲̏̑͛y̸̟͔͔̤̑͂ ̶̢̼͍̗̎̃̊͘d̵͉̩̭͖̱̍͂̇̿ȩ̵͙̘̮͝͠ṃ̵̥͇̙̃a̶̡̘͍̋̒̈n̵̡͍̙̓̒̈́̀̕͜d̶̡̲͍̲̯͗́̂ ̶̰̩͆t̶͚͚̍͗͛h̷̨̢̻̀̌a̷͇̞̖̩̰̽͒̎͘͠t̸̥̥̩̮̙̾͛̂́̍ ̷̪̰̳̤̦̎͝I̴̲̣̣̣͑̑̈ ̷͓̜̱̈̉͂f̵͖̗̪̻̟͌́͗e̶̖͈̰̖̪̾̈́̍̊́a̷͍̓̀̐̂s̵̞͑t̵͓͖̲̂̍͝͝ ̷͎̲̒o̸͚̺̭̯̥̅̾̀͘͝ǹ̵̛̲̒͝ ̵̙̤̽̈͝ť̵͔̜̤̀͜͝h̶̜̔̓̽͠e̸̻͖̣͑̌͂̕ ̸̪̱́m̴͔̱̬̱̤̋̄͊ǒ̴̤͛̔̐̓r̶̛̰͙̪̞͒͘ş̷̛͇̹̘͎͂͛ȩ̸̡̘̠͓̂͐̽̈͋l̶͍͉̤̿ ̶̢̝͎̹̳̃͗̚ḇ̶̀̈̔̃̂e̴̯̥͙̪̿̂̈́͠f̴͎͇̱̕o̵͇̔́̆͘͠r̵̪̭̍̔͑̉̊e̷̢̡͚̰̒́̊͐̑ ̷̠͎̑̉̏͝m̸̺͚̒̆̚͝e̵̟̩͍̒͗.̶̛̳̤͊̓̿͌ ̵̻̓͆S̸̨͈͊̇̑̄̋ǒ̷͎̰̲̃ ̶̨̫͉̹̲̎̾́h̵͛͊̌ͅŭ̸̪̹̘̂n̵͖͠ģ̴͓̰̼̜̀̐̅͛ŗ̵͕̼̬̫̑ý̶̧͔͍̳̳͗̈́͐͂.̴̢̠̟̭̌͑̚̚.̶̡͇̫̮͕͆̾̉͋̀.̵̬̝̱͝"̴͉̫̣͘

Surprise frowned as she heard that. Hungry? Anyone could tell that she was given how she was positioned on the side of the road. From what she could tell from what the figure said, something was going on in her head and it was telling the figure to eat her.

“Hey Surprise, do you have any idea what she said? It sounded like gibberish to me.”

Surprise soon realized that the figure was speaking in an unknown language and yet her mind was somehow able to decipher it while Mena’s mind didn’t have the same capability. Whatever power the figure was subconsciously using, Surprise had a feeling that she had some sort of resistance to it. This warranted further experimentation.

“Hey, will you snap out of it already?” Surprise demanded as she grabbed the figure by the arm. The figure paused for a moment and then gasped loudly before jerking her arm away. Her eyes, purple with black sclera, widened as the familiar voices assaulted her mind again. She touched the gnome’s arm and the voices became silent once more. With a joyful smile, the figure picked Surprise up and wrapped her in her arms like a stuffed animal. “Hey! What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Hush little gnome, I’m enjoying the silence. Those voices have pestered me all my life and I was at my wits end on how to control them.”

“I don’t have to take this!” Surprise then switched control back to Mena who screamed in terror. The figure frowned as the voices returned. She placed a hand on Mena’s head and the gnome fell silent and limp for a moment before Surprise regained control. “What the!? Did you just force me and Mena to switch?”

“The other you is not who I want to speak to,” the figure responded. “The voices have revised their opinion of you and believe that you will be useful for my plans so I leave you with two options. Option one, you get to be my doll for me to cuddle with until I don’t need you anymore. Option two, you form a contract with me where I get to benefit from your resistance to the Void long enough for me to become strong enough to control the voices myself while you gain knowledge of the Void beyond what the most talented priests on Azeroth are capable of. Either way, you’re now stuck with me until I get what I need. There’s no escaping me now that you have acknowledged my existence. I now exist in your mind so I will be with you no matter where you go…literally.”

Surprise growled before sending a thought to Mena, “You and your generous impulses.”

“But how will I be able to keep my sanity with you two around me?” Mena asked.

“Your sanity is debatable at this point since you were crazy enough to open a canister of experimental gas. Besides, I should be able to keep her influence away from you since I’m resistant to her powers, apparently.” Surprise returned her attention to the figure. “Fine, so what does this contract entail?”

“Firstly, a little bit of background. My name is Violetta and I’m a being who is being driven mad because the black blood of a Void creature courses through me. You seem to be able to keep the madness at bay enough for me to think clearly. Since I have an affinity for the Void I need to strengthen myself by absorbing more Void in order to gain mastery over my affinity. This entails the hunting and consumption of creatures of the Void and my main prey are four targets hidden throughout Azeroth, buried beneath the land and tides hundreds of thousands of years ago.”

“Are you saying that you want me to lead you to these four monsters located Makers know where so you can hunt them? Why should I put myself in such danger?”

“You’re an adventurer, aren’t you? I’m sure these creatures have hidden treasure stashes and relics collected over the eons, not to mention the power I can bestow upon you for each of the four killed. Great reward comes with great risk after all. I suggest looking for friends who can help us on this quest.”

“Jokes on you lady, I have no friends and no one wants to be near me because of my eccentricity. Adding you to the mix is probably the best repellant of anything.”

Violetta merely chuckled at that, “The world is a huge place. There are people out there who will be your friend despite our arrangement. You just have to find them.” Violetta held out a hand. Surprise could tell that the surface of the monstrous being’s hand was roiling. Still, it wasn’t like she had any goals for herself and Mena was simply going to wander around Dun Morogh looking for something to do. The moment she grabbed the creature’s larger hand, she felt a stinging sensation on her palm, as if it had been pricked. She pulled her hand back and looked at it. Sure enough, there was a small wound on her palm and it was bleeding slightly. Her eyes widened as a black substance creeped its way into her wound.

Violetta smirked, "̴̠͓̹̍̃̚͝B̸̹͉̿ŷ̴̡̹͔̘̐̔͌ ̷̦̟̯̼̾b̵̳̼́́̽̃l̶̡͐̀̀o̸̢͍͓̯̾͠ͅǫ̵̨͓̤͒̎̂̏d̸͙͈̮̓̓̀͝,̷͍͔̟̫̗̎̕ ̸̯̬̞̤̉̇͐̚ͅt̷̛̛͔̠̙̆̂̇h̶͍̏̐͗̓ë̷̛͉͕̥́͆̍ ̶̯̘͓̔̐̈̋̕ç̸̪̹͍̻͋͌͠o̸̺̔ǹ̸̮̲̈̀̚͝t̴̲̥̥̼͇̀r̶̡̠̲̦̙͝ȃ̴̼̉͊c̶̳͖̩̣̽ţ̵͍̜͆̽̈́͝ ̶̭̬̤̟͛̓́̇͘i̸̼͂͐̔̚ŝ̷̰̯̱͝ ̷͚̻̫͗̈̆͛ś̵͗͊̔ͅe̵̡̡̞̙̹̓̒ã̵͙̣͗͐l̶̘̬͋͗é̶͖̓̏͝d̷̬͙͆̔͝͝!̸̰͊̕"̵͉̟̘̆͝

Surprise grasped at her hand for a few moments before turning to the creature. “So what now?”

“I know of a place we can go to first while we look for leads. First, we need to make our way to the city of the night elves and head south. The place we are looking for is on the west coast of a region called Ashenvale Forest. I know of a creature there that I can consume what will hold me over long enough for us to locate one of the four.”

“Alright, fine, let’s go to Ironforge and look for a mage who can make us a portal over there.”

With that, Violetta vanished but Surprise could still feel her presence within herself. Having had enough with diplomacy for a while, Surprise switched out with Mena who pouted as she felt like she was being dragged along on this journey.

Her mood remained that way all the way to Ironforge.

Mulgore, an expansive fertile valley in the heart of central Kalimdor, is home to many races of savage creatures, but one had moved into the valley years ago and built a city atop a number of tall plateaus: Thunder Bluff. The tauren, a race of bull men who bore a resemblance to Equestrian minotaurs, served the Horde with their great strength and spiritualism.

In southern Mulgore, a camp was constructed to serve as a training camp for young tauren who had come of age. One unfortunate tauren druid faced a tragic end last night when he was assaulted in his dreams by a pony man whose knowledge of floralmancy greatly surpassed his own. Groun Lifehorn, a young druid who was about to live the life of adventure, had his life cut short in his dreams by the figure who his comrades know as Greenpeace. With his soul crushed in his dreams by dark vines, Greenpeace took possession of the young tauren’s body like Steel Edge and Desert Wind claimed theirs. He still felt guilty doing that though.

He did have an issue with the fact that inhabiting the tauren had left him sobered up from his latest herbal buzz and he wasn’t getting another fix anytime soon since he was on a mission and he couldn’t afford going around behaving like an addict. Of course, this left Groun feeling on edge and his attunement to plants made the plants around him restless.

Growing up, Greenpeace was exceptionally talented as an earth pony. He passively sent out psychic waves which he called “vibes” which were picked up by plants. The plants behaved according to his moods and whenever he was depressed, plants withered, when happy, plants erupted from the soil, when angry, plants attacked. This was the main reason he was often high on herbs, feeling peaceful and calm made plants behave normally.

Unfortunately, running around high while being incognito was a bad idea so he would have to work hard to keep his emotions in check. Groun took up a meditative stance and centered his mind, trying to calm his tumultuous mind. He stayed like that for an hour until he felt ready to leave the tent he was sleeping in and greet the day.

He thought back to what he learned about tauren culture from his comrades. As much as Crystal and the others believed otherwise, he was paying attention to the lectures. From what he remembered, young tauren who came of age had to participate in a series of rites called the Rites of the Earthmother to show that the young tauren were truly mature adults.

Groun’s tasks began with a simple task of checking on the local chief’s mother who was tasked with carrying water back to Camp Narache. The mother had him deliver the water himself as a test of humility.

After that Groun was sent to take part in the Rite of Strength which entailed slaying the taurens’ enemies, particularly the nearby bristleback quillboar. The creatures were humanoid versions of boars crossed with porcupines as they appeared as boar people with quills on their backs. Quillboar also had the ability to call thick thorny roots from the ground as a means of fortifying their homes.

Groun turned this ability against the quillboar when he attempted to take control of his emotions. His anger caused the roots to thrash around in fury, crushing some quillboar while others were batted away, thrown into the air to land at terminal velocity, or impaled on the thorns. Most of the unfortunate quillboar were slaughtered in minutes while those who survived abandoned their homes to rally with more quillboar in The Barrens.

With the menace dealt with, Groun used what breathing techniques he knew to calm himself down. The roots soon settled once more.

Groun returned to Camp Narache to report that the menace had been removed and the camp was safe. The chief saw enough of what happened to know that Groun was a druid of exceptional talent so he wrote a message onto a totem and handed it to the druid, with instructions to take it to Baine Bloodhoof, son of the current chieftain of the Bloodhoof Tauren, Cairne Bloodhoof.

The druid took the totem and followed the road out of the camp and off the mesa. Groun was glad that the other two rites would not require him to use his powers so much since that earlier display might have given him more attention than he would have liked.

Author's Note

Here we introduce Mena Overclock, a gnome priest (I know that combination doesn't exist in Classic but screw Blizz) and Groun Lifehorn, a tauren druid possessed by a junkie with control issues with his powers. Only 3 more characters to introduce and we can finally get this show on the road.

Also in case this wasn't obvious, Mena is Pinkie's reincarnation. She may not be all bright and cheery right now but who would be when you're sharing a mindscape with two psychos. This is going to be a lot for her to get used to.

Also, I will be using glitch text whenever someone speaks in Shath'Yar, the eldritch language of the Void.

The Favored Druid and the Vengeful Warlock

“Now, I know you are all upset about the night elves running around killing your kind, but there is a reason for this.”

A group of large cats known to the night elves as nightsabers were sitting among a group of boars. Both species looked outraged as their own fell victim time and again to young night elves starting their adventures. The instructors were often telling them to cut down on the population of nightsabers and boars in their land and the animals were getting sick of it.

One night elf assumed the form of a nightsaber that was slightly larger than the ones in the area and gathered the uniting animals together to explain things to them.

This night elf was a druid named Flutashe Lunarwind.

One of the nightsabers growled at Flutashe. “You are all young and I will explain the best I can to all of you,” Flutashe began. “Our role is to maintain the balance of nature here, and the latest spring rains have caused a slight disturbance in that balance. First, I want you all to know that nobody was at fault here, but the rains have caused a boost in the local vegetation which meant more food for the boars. With more food, the boars increased their reproduction rate. Since the nightsabers prey on the boars, their food supply also boosted as a result and allowed them to increase their numbers.

“This caused a problem because the increased vegetation was not sustainable and would eventually revert to the same levels as before the rains. This would mean that there would be starvation among the boars and would ultimately affect the nightsabers.

“Knowing this, the night elves made the decision to reduce your populations as they believe that a swift death would be a more preferable way than slowly dying of starvation. Ignoring this would mean that the nightsabers would overhunt the boars until they were wiped out and would leave you to attack the night elves who would defend themselves and retaliate. With the boars gone, the night elves would have no choice but to wipe out your population too.”

The nightsabers and boars nodded their heads in understanding. Many night elves who knew Flutashe knew that she possessed a unique gift. Her connection with nature heavily favored the fauna aspect of being a druid while her connection to plants was about average.

It was in Shadowglen, a village in a valley in the northeastern section of Teldrassil, that Flutashe was directed to begin her journey. In her younger years, her gift was discovered by the deities and demigods of nature. Many night elves believed that Flutashe had potential that may one day rival Malfurion Stormrage, the most powerful druid in the world.

Knowing this, Flutashe’s training began with the tutelage of the demigod Cenarius, a being with the upper torso of a night elf and the lower body of a stag. Vines and leaves grew on his body and deer antlers grew from his head. His arms ended in talons of aged wood.

Initially, Flutashe was very shy and reserved. At first, she found Cenarius intimidating but as time went on his gentle nature combined with his fierce determination to protect the forests of Kalimdor inspired her to become more courageous. Through Cenarius, she learned that kindness would sometimes mean doing what must be done, even if it meant putting down maddened or corrupted creatures.

While Flutashe learned many things from the demigod, her training was cut short when a group of orcs invaded Ashenvale forest to harvest the trees. While Cenarius pushed them back for a time, the orcs counterattacked when their demonic energies were rekindled, ending in the demigod’s death.

Soon after that, an army of demons called the Burning Legion invaded their forests. After the final battle against the Legion at the summit of Mount Hyjal, one of the tallest mountains in the world where the great world tree Nordrassil grew, Malfurion found out about Flutashe and picked up where Cenarius left off with her training. She soon found herself being taught alongside a fellow student, a tauren named Hamuul Runetotem, who would go on to spread these teachings to his people.

One day Malfurion had to go into the Emerald Dream, the ethereal realm where all spirits of nature reside and the Green Dragonflight protects. Days passed and he never woke from the Dream. News spread that Malfurion had gone missing in the Dream so a new archdruid had to be appointed until Flutashe’s master was found. In the meantime, Archdruid Fandral Staghelm had been appointed as leader of the Cenarion Circle, an agency of druids that maintained neutrality between the Alliance and the Horde due to incorporating both night elves and tauren into their ranks, and co-leader of Darnassus, the capital city of the night elves, alongside High Priestess Tyrande Whisperwind.

Flutashe did consider joining the Cenarion Circle to aid in preserving the lands, but that plan changed one day during her meditation in Ashenvale when she received a surprise visit from none other than the soul of the forest herself, Aessina. The ancient wisp sensed the great destiny that awaited the young druid and set her on a journey that would lead her to that fate.

Her journey began in the humble valley of Shadowglen.

So here she was assisting the locals keeping the balance of nature while keeping aggravated animals from retaliating against those who were keeping their numbers down for their own sakes.

The animals looked at each other and nodded then looked back at Flutashe. Unlike other night elves who all had a connection to nature that slowly waned over the years as a result of Malfurion expending the power of Nordrassil to destroy the demon lord Archimonde, Flutashe had a unique gift for communicating with animals. She could understand them and she could get them to understand her. This was a gift she learned that she had since childhood.

Flutashe was surprised that one of the nightsabers offered the suggestion that a number of them venture out and live among the beasts beyond the valley. It was a risk to their lives since they would be competing against stronger beasts for food and territory, but a fighting chance would be better than waiting for their numbers to be culled every year like a bunch of pigs awaiting slaughter. The nightsaber reassured the boars that he meant no offense to what he said.

“Well, if you’re sure that you want to do this, I’ll let Conservator Ilthalaine know that some of you will be migrating out of the valley to control your population. But what about you, miss boar?” Flutashe asked. The boars were content to remain in the valley. They didn’t have the pride that the nightsabers had so they were perfectly fine with having their numbers reduced by the night elves. One nightsaber offered the suggestion of sharing some of the boars they kill with the night elves so they could have food. This way, the boar population would be under control and the nightsabers could avoid being hunted by the night elves.

“Alright, is everyone fine with this proposal?” the animals nodded. “Alright, I’ll speak with the conservator while you select volunteers to leave the valley.”

Leaving the animals behind, she approached the conservator who had witnessed the meeting and still couldn’t believe what happened. Instead, he shook his head and gave the druid his attention. Flutashe reverted to her night elf form as she approached.

As a night elf, Flutashe had an unusually bright shade of pink hair. Night elf hair colors ranged in shades of purple, blue, green or silver with a skin color in varying shades of purple. Her robes were tan colored and made of a soft leather lined with white fur. Her hair went down to her waist and was decorated with bright green leaves.

“Shaha lor’ma, Flutashe,” Ilthalaine thanked. “You are a true champion to animals everywhere. I could only imagine the tragedy that could have happened without your assistance. But tell me, what brings you here? A druid such as yourself and Shan’do Stormrage’s student no less would have no need of basic training like the young ones here do.”

“Well, truth be told, I was sent here by none other than Aessina herself to begin a journey, but I’m not sure where to go from here,” Flutashe admitted.

“Hmm, perhaps Aessina sensed the imminent problem and sent you to help, but I doubt that that was the only reason you’re here. Teldrassil is a flawed world tree because the Dragon Aspects refused to bless our tree.”

Flutashe nodded, “Right, Shan’do Stormrage said that nature would never bless a tree grown out of arrogance. He warned Fandral that this would happen but he went through with it anyway.”

“I’m sure Lord Staghelm will come up with something. He always has the best interests of our people in mind.”

Flutashe had her doubts about that statement. The fact that Fandral ignored the counsel of his teacher, his Shan’do, and continued to behave disconnected from his people in favor of his research into morrowgrain, showed that the archdruid didn’t have the least bit of concern for his people.

Still, the people held on to hope that Fandral would come around and become the leader the night elves needed. At least High Priestess Tyrande had been able to keep up with the governmental duties on her own.

“If you don’t mind me asking, Flutashe, have you heard any word about your sister?” Ilthalaine asked.

The druid paid attention to the ground for a few silent moments before she answered, “No, there still haven’t been any updates on her whereabouts ever since she followed the wardens who were chasing down The Betrayer. I hope she’s still okay.”

The conservator smiled faintly, “I wouldn’t worry too much about her. I’ve heard the stories about her, she’s one of the most talented fighters to ever graduate from the Sentinels academy.”

Flutashe knew how right he was about that. As twin sisters, both she and her sister entered the academy together. In that time, she often felt that she was in her sister’s shadow because of her breaking many academy records in their time there. Flutashe never stood out and was overall on average with the rest of her peers. This was before her path diverged from her sister and she took up learning the art of druidism from the most prominent figures of nature in night elf society.

Ever since her sister’s disappearance, Flutashe had dedicated all of her efforts in mastering the various forms most druids could shapeshift into. She practiced these forms by sparring with some of the most ferocious forest animals. Her bear form had an exceptionally thick hide that shrugged off sharp claws and teeth. Her cat form was swift and agile with sharp senses, a combination that allowed her to exploit the weaknesses of her opponents. However, her ability to channel moonlight from the goddess Elune was nothing spectacular, even when using the wildkin form, an avian beast who is a cross between a bear and a horned owl, which was more attuned to Elune’s light.

Flutashe shook away the thoughts of her sister for the time being. “Well, thank you for not forgetting her. I need to go back to Darnassus and figure out my next move in dealing with the tree’s corruption.”

“Ande’thoras-ethil, Flutashe,” Ilthalaine wished for her in farewell.

The druid left the valley with the volunteer nightsabers before she parted with them and traveled the road through the lush forest that grew atop the flawed world tree to the night elven city.

Along the way, she was ambushed by a few bear people called furbolgs who had gone mad from the tree’s corruption. Sensing the danger, Flutashe quickly transformed into her bear form. The three spear throwers among the attackers were unable to pierce the druid’s hide in her bear form and used her claws to brutally maim the four unfortunate melee attackers among the ambushers. For a bulky bear, Flutashe was very fast on her paws as she charged toward the spear throwers who were too slow to react before Flutashe ripped out the throat of one furbolg with her teeth and her claws tore deep gashes into the flesh of another. The last ambusher was most unfortunate as he ended up with more gashes on his body than necessary for one to bleed out. Fortunately he died quickly.

Flutashe reverted to her elven form and walked over to a nearby stream to wash off the blood on her hands and around her mouth. She hated committing such acts of brutality against those who didn’t deserve it but with no way to cleanse the tree’s corruption, there was no way to save the poor creatures other than putting them out of their misery.

Once she cleaned up she continued on the road to Darnassus. The rest of the trip went unhindered.

Flutashe crossed the threshold into the bustling city of the night elves where nature coexisted with commerce. The buildings were built of either weathered white stone or of wood generously given by nature. The roofs were painted in dark shades of purple or navy blue. The city was built around a small lake with a small island in the middle that housed a tree that was shaped like a bear. A bank was built into the base of the tree. The northern section held the Cenarion Enclave where the headquarters for the Cenarion Circle was located, as well as where Fandral Staghelm locked himself away to conduct his research into morrowgrain.

She had no idea why he had most of the organization dedicated to obtaining more of the herb nor what properties were so important that he would entrust anyone who visits him to help him get more of the stuff. She made a note to find her own sample of the herb later to study it herself.

To the south, she noted the Temple of the Moon where High Priestess Tyrande resided and ruled the theocracy of Darnassus.

To the west of the island with the bank was a tree that housed a portal that led to Rut’theran Village, which was where she was heading.

Flutashe had decided to take a ferry to Auberdine, a night elf town in the region of Darkshore, and study the corruption afflicting the animals of the region.

Those plans changed with the arrival of a gnome with curly hot pink hair in a white robe that Flutashe had often seen worn on priests. This came to the druid as odd as the last time she heard, the gnomes didn’t practice wielding the Light.

As the gnome emerged from the portal from Rut’theran Village, she looked around and caught sight of the druid. Rushing over faster than her tiny legs should have allowed, she stopped less than a foot from the night elf who was three times her size.

“HeyIneedaguidetohelpmegettosomeplacecalledBlackfathomDeepsmyfriendneedssomethingtherebutshedidn’ttellmewhatitwascanyouhelpme?”

While Flutashe had seen some scary things in her life, a crazed gnome who was speaking so fast that she couldn’t make out a word was giving her a bit of fright. The large smile on the gnome’s face wasn’t helping either.

Flutashe wanted some space from the gnome so she backed up a few feet. Mena was about to close the distance again until she felt a sensation in the back of her neck as if someone had slapped her there.

“Knock it off you brain dead goofball.” Surprise scolded. “We’re not going to get anywhere if you go around violating peoples’ personal space. You also don’t need to be coming across as a lunatic by ranting at a thousand words a minute either.”

Mena’s expression changed to that of a scolded child which surprised Flutashe once more. “Sorry about that,” the gnome apologized. “This is actually my first time being so far from my home in Gnomeregan that I got too excited.”

Flutashe was grateful that the gnome was speaking normally so she could take a deep breath and regain her composure. “Um, it’s alright, I suppose. My name is Flutashe Lunarwind. What brings you to Darnassus?”

“Nice to meet you, my name is Mena Overclock. I came here because I have some business in a place called Blackfathom Deeps. Have you heard of this place?”

“The partially submerged ruins of Lathar’Lazal? I know of them. They lie on the west coast of the Ashenvale region. An army of naga have taken up residence around the ruins and the temple has fallen upon dark times. I heard rumors that a cult has been making sacrificial offerings to something down there.”

“Yeah, that place. Can you please guide me down there? I don’t think I’m strong enough to go down there on my own.”

Flutashe raised an eyebrow in suspicion, “What could you possibly want in that goddess-forsaken place?”

“I’m not sure, a friend of mine wants something that lies at the very back of the place.”

Flutashe could sense that there was something off about the gnome priest. By the fact of her odd behavior alone would be reason not to trust her. For all she knew the gnome might be one of those cultists leading her to Blackfathom and into a trap. Every logical part of her screamed for her to just walk away from the priest and call the Sentinels to arrest her. On the other hand, Flutashe was still unsure why Aessina wanted her to go to Teldrassil as there had to be a better reason than to settle a dispute between some night elves and the local wildlife. Could this gnome be a part of the journey the mother wisp wanted her to take?

Mena stared at the druid pacing around in deep thought but didn’t disturb her.

“You better hope that your antics don’t drive her off, we’ll be up a creek without a paddle if she declines.” Surprise warned her counterpart. “Wouldn’t surprise me if she called the local guards to arrest us.”

In the end, her curiosity won against her better judgment. However, Flutashe wasn’t about to take any chances. She did detect corruption on the gnome and if there was something in Blackfathom that was going to be dangerous and the priest wanted it, she would want to see what it was and destroy it if she could.

The druid cast a spell to wrap vines around the gnome, binding her arms and legs and gagging her to make sure she couldn’t cast spells. The vines then wrapped her into a makeshift cocoon. Flutashe then shapeshifted into a doe and commanded the vines to wrap around her belly.

With the gnome secured on her back, the druid entered the portal to Rut’theran Village and headed to the dock to await the next ferry.

Tirisfal Glades, a region where once was a glorious kingdom known as Lordaeron that stood as a beacon for other kingdoms to rally to during the Second War against the Orcish Horde. At one time, human children raced through the forest without a care as there were always those who ensured the safety of those children. Farms were fertile and the kingdom traded with its fellow human kingdoms along with the dwarves of Ironforge and the elves of Quel’thalas.

Now it was a shadow of what it once was. Darkness consumed the kingdom and the dead rose to keep what was theirs in life. The actions of the Crown Prince of Lordaeron, Arthas Menethil, desecrated the land he once called home. Though the betrayer of humanity had been driven from the lands, the darkness remained.

Once members of the Scourge, the undead of Lordaeron were now free from the will of the Lich King, leader and controller of the undead Scourge. The former citizens of Lordaeron called themselves the Forsaken, claiming the ruins of their capital city as their home in death.

In a small valley in western Tirisfal, was a town with a large cemetery. An unmarked grave was located behind the mausoleum in the back of the town, away from the notice of any forsaken. The rotting body within that grave gained a new inhabitant that day as the soul of a certain mare took possession of it.

Unlike her associates on the other side of the world, Crystal Silicon didn’t need to evict a soul in order to gain a body to use on Azeroth. Of course, this also came with its own problems with the rotting flesh and doing what she could to keep the cadaver held together.

Thankfully she didn’t need any assistance to claw her way out of her grave. In the style of the undead, her hand soon breached the surface and with that arm to spread the hole she made, she managed to pull herself out of her grave.

Once she was all the way out of the grave, she dusted herself off and inspected her new body. Miraculously, the clothes somewhat survived the years of burial. The robes she wore were a tattered mess and felt like cheap linen. It really was a miracle that she wasn’t walking around as a naked corpse.

At any rate, it was time to endear herself to the locals. The first person she saw was an undead caretaker who was momentarily surprised since he didn’t expect anyone would be buried behind the mausoleum and away from the other plots.

“Strange, when we scouted this cemetery we took note of all the plots here,” the caretaker said.

“For whatever reason, my grave was unmarked. There might be more unmarked graves around here,” Crystal noted.

The caretaker groaned, “Great, now we have to dig up the whole area to see if there are any more unmarked graves. Or maybe not. If you promise to keep quiet about the unmarked graves you can take your pick of the quality stuff I found from the undead that couldn’t fight the Scourge’s influence.”

Crystal shrugged, she didn’t really care one way or another about the caretaker wanting to avoid work but she might as well go along with it since it meant free stuff.

After making the promise, the caretaker led her to his stash where she found some better robes and clothes to better cover herself with. She also found a decent staff and a cultist dagger.

“By the way, I never got your name,” the caretaker said.

Crystal had to think quickly to come up with a fake name and stick with it since having her name spread might reach the ears of Sphere. Since the grave was unmarked, she had no clue to the identity of the undead woman she now possessed. So on the fly, she blurted out a name, “Talia Conilis.”

Just like that, the name she would adopt during her time on Azeroth would be Talia Conilis.

“Very well Talia, exit the cemetery and enter the old chapel on the left. Shadow Priest Sarvis should have some work for you to do.”

Right. Work. Menial labor. As a former noble, it once upset her that she would have to take on tasks that she used to leave for servants, but she got over that in the years following the incident atop the Sphere tower. While her days as a noble were behind her, her passion still burned that one day she would take her revenge on Twilight, her errant program Midnight and everyone else who stood in her way that day.

Talia headed out of the cemetery and spoke with the shadow priest who gave her the task of dealing with some of the aimlessly wandering undead north of the village.

The undead used this as an opportunity to test how capable the body was at handling some of her magic. She used some low power dark magic to dismember the undead since they were pretty flimsy. She set some on fire and watched them turn into piles of ash.

Talia soon learned that her body had a very limited wellspring of mana that only allowed her to cast a few spells before becoming exhausted. Thankfully, the local warlock trainer taught her a few new tricks, such as how to convert her own life force into mana. It really hurt to do so but the trainer also taught her how to replenish her life force by stealing it from others. The source of life for an undead was the magic that reanimanted them and by ripping the life out of her victims, she could convert that life energy into magic to sustain herself.

The warlock trainer gave her a brief lesson on summoning demons to be her servants. Of course, as she was still trying to strengthen her body’s reserves, he could only teach her how to summon an imp, the most basic of all demons.

Using the ritual taught to her, Talia soon had an imp bound to her. The demon could tell right away that something was off about her soul, but stopped caring when it sensed the malice within it.

Sarvis soon sent Talia on another mission to deal with some zealous humans wearing red and white armor called the Scarlet Crusade who had made camp nearby. She took great pleasure in turning the campsite into a pile of bloody ashes which pleased her new servant and motivated him to keep up by sending fireballs at the humans.

One crusader dropped some documents when he was decapitated by a dark blade spell. She picked up the documents and delivered them to Executor Arren who was in charge of protecting the town. He then decided to send her and the documents to Brill, a town which acted as the base of operations for the Forsaken in Tirisfal.

Talia’s mood darkened as she made the long trek on foot to Brill. She was still not used to walking long distances. She could only hope to one day find a faster means of transportation in this bothersome world.

Author's Note

Only 1 more character to introduce and we can get started on the dungeon crawls.
For those who ask about the Darnassian language used in this chapter, here are some translations.

Shaha lor'ma = Thank you
Shan'do = Honored teacher (much like how a college student addresses a professor)
Ande'thoras-ethil = May your troubles be diminished. (A farewell)

The Unusual Mage and the Investigation

Back in Elwynn Forest, Sophia continued following Bella and Jaqueline from the treetops. A group of Defias bandits ambushed the duo on the way to Goldshire but the two of them handled the pickpockets without much effort.

The paladin and warrior arrived in Goldshire and made their way to the local inn to spend the night. Sophia transformed herself into her human form and followed the two inside. Thankfully she had enough coins that she looted from the bandits who attacked her earlier to spend a night. She was glad that she was able to get the room next to Bella and Jaqueline.

She kept track of the thoughts of the two to find out where they were going. While Bella’s mind was preoccupied with crafting some leather and chainmail armor, Jaqueline’s mind was restless with eagerness to get to Westfall and test her skills against stronger bandits.

Since she wasn’t going to get much else from their minds, Sophia decided to contact Twilight through the psychic network. “Hey Twilight, do you have a plan? I don’t think we’re going to be making a lot of progress on this while Stormwind is a puppet government controlled by an evil noble.”

“You’re right, that’s why I’ve sent Fayt to the Magical City of Dalaran to tip them off to a threat to the throne of Stormwind and the possibility that the regent might be under a mind control spell. They might not take it seriously, but as long as they send someone to investigate you can ultimately lead the investigation to the noble. Let’s just hope we can find some evidence to expose her.

“Why would you even have Dalaran send an investigator anyway?” Sophia asked.

“Twilight theorizes that the reason we can’t get a read on one of the targets is because a powerful magical field is blocking all scrying spells and two places on Azeroth are currently reading such energies," Midnight answered. "One is on an island that was part of the supercontinent ten thousand years ago and getting to that island would be very troublesome at this point in time. We are hoping that she is in Dalaran which is being protected by a similar field while the denizens there rebuild it after it got leveled by a powerful demon lord during the Third War.”

“Oh I get it, you’re hoping Dalaran will send the target to investigate the potential threat. But aren’t the chances just as high that they would send almost any one of them as well?”

“Not necessarily Sophia,” Thanatas interjected. “Cut the link to headquarters temporarily and I’ll explain why.” Once Sophia cut the link, Thanatas continued. “One thing to know about being a member of the Craft family is that you are aware of the fourth wall. While there are those outside of our family who can perceive the fourth wall, for us it’s simply a family trait.

“Now, if the target really is in Dalaran then if they are supposed to show up at this point then they will. This is because the plot of this universe is dependent on that person showing up to move forward else the story of this universe would begin to stagnate and that’s not what we want.”

“So basically, the chances of her coming here from Dalaran are nearly one hundred percent unless the plot isn’t ready for her yet?” Sophia concluded.

“Precisely. In time you will learn what is and isn’t supposed to happen. It will make your duties much easier.”

“Okay, thanks for the explanation.” Sophia then reopened the link to Sphere. “Sorry about that, secret family business. So if she does come, do you want me to try to observe her too?”

Twilight and Midnight decided to ignore the “secret family business stuff” and continue instructing Sophia, “See if you can get her to meet up with Bella and Jaqueline. If those three can form a bond with one another it will make things easier for us in the long term.”

“Understood.”

Alterac, a mountainous region in the center of the northern portion of the Eastern Kingdoms continent. Once home to the Kingdom of Alterac, one of the numerous human kingdoms during the height of the Kingdom of Lordaeron’s prosperity, now it is but ruins in the snowy mountains.

At the base of the Alterac Mountains, overlooking Lordamere Lake which sits on the border between the Alterac Mountains, Silverpine Forest and Tirisfal Glades was a magical dome that sat in the middle of a ruined town. The ruins were not abandoned, however, as many humans wearing purple uniforms and robes bearing the symbol of an eye and three arrows pointing downward on their chests were putting efforts into rebuilding the town outside the dome.

Their efforts were often hindered though as forsaken often attacked the unfortunate mages.

Within the magical dome the great magical city had been mostly rebuilt after it was demolished years ago. Within a small library atop one of the numerous tall spires around the violet city sat a high elf who was busy studying one of the magical tomes needed for her education before she graduated from being an apprentice to Archmage Rhonin to becoming an agent of the Kirin Tor, the elite of Dalaran.

Unlike their purple-skinned, nocturnal ancestors, high elves were shorter than the inherently tall night elves and their skin was almost white. The hair colors of high elves were more relatable to humans. Like the night elves, high elves had a magical source that fueled their immortality, a magical font called the Sunwell. Sadly, the font was destroyed when the Scourge desecrated it.

The young blonde high elf, who was given the name Stellaglim, or Stella by Rhonin, was a prodigy in magic. She received top marks in her classes on the various forms of arcane magic taught within the halls of Dalaran’s academy and was on her way to surpassing some of the more notable mages to walk the streets.

Stella could sense someone trying to get through her anti-teleportation wards and traced the magic to her master. She placed a bookmark in the book she was reading and lowered her wards, allowing the mage to teleport into her room.

Rhonin smiled with pride at his protege, “Your warding spells are as impressive as ever, Stella. At the rate you’re going you may yet have a spot on the Council of Six one day.”

Stella briefly recalled the Council of Six as the leaders of the magocracy of Dalaran who handle the highest levels of government within the city. To be considered for such a position one day was the dream of every mage in the city.

Stella giggled at that before returning to the main topic, “I don’t know about that, I simply strive to improve my magic like everyone else. So what brings you to my room master?”

“Straight to the point as always, huh? Well, I’m not sure what to make of this but it seems that we had a visitor from the Blue Dragonflight. The dragon introduced himself as Faytagos. He told me about some trouble brewing in the upper echelons of the government of Stormwind.

“I would have scoffed at that since we deal in magical issues, not mundane things like government corruption but he also mentioned that the current regent of Stormwind, Bolvar Fordragon, might be under a powerful mind control spell. He believes that it might have been cast on him by one of the nobles making a power play to control the kingdom.”

“Is that really enough of a cause for us to be involved?” Stella asked.

“Not really, I’m sure they will root out the cause eventually,” Rhonin dismissed. “Right now, we are still trying to rebuild and gather our strength after our city was destroyed in the war a few years ago. But I do believe that we need to start reconnecting with the world and show everyone that the Kirin Tor still lives. Which is why I wish for you to go to Stormwind and represent us as one of our agents. This assignment should be pretty easy. All you need to do is verify if the regent is under a mind control spell. Though I hope he isn’t as it means that the crown prince, Anduin Wrynn, is in danger.”

“Wait, assignment?” Stella asked. “I’m still an apprentice, master. I don’t have the clearance to act as an investigator for the Kirin Tor.”

Rhonin chuckled, “To be honest, there’s really not all that much left to teach you. You’ve already shown mastery in the schools of the arcane taught here. You’ve aced all your tests and you are already more skilled in combat magic than a majority of the mages in this city. Even Archmage Karlain is impressed and few things impress him. I’d say that you could become an archmage within a few years, provided you get some field experience under your belt.

“Which is another reason I want to assign you this mission. I do expect regular reports from you so I can monitor your progress. As for your clearance, you already have the permission from the leader of the Kirin Tor, myself, and the other members of the Council have cleared you for this mission as well. Do you have any other excuses?” Rhonin laughed for a few seconds while Stella blushed a little.

All out of excuses, Stella began making preparations for travel to Stormwind. She loaded her pack with reagents she might need for some of the spells she knew required them, she remembered her food and drink conjuration spells which while ephemeral would provide temporary relief from hunger or thirst until she could find real food, she put a bedroll into her pocket dimension in case she had to sleep outside and a map to help her find her way around.

Once her preparations were complete, Stella began invoking the long range teleportation spell. The invocation was lengthy and took a few seconds to cast, but it was still the most efficient spell available with Dalaran’s current magical knowledge. Once the invocation was finished, Stella was spatially displaced from the city and appeared at the anchor point in the city of Stormwind.

The city was warded to prevent teleportation into the city as a means to prevent enemies like the Horde from invading. At first it seemed unnecessary since the Horde was lacking in mages until the darkspear trolls learned ways to channel the arcane without any formal mage training. When the Forsaken joined the Horde the naysayers were quick to shut up and were suddenly glad that the wards were in place.

From what Stella remembered, the anchor point was located inside the mage tower in Stormwind’s Mage Quarter. The room she was in was isolated from the rest of the tower with a single portal acting as an exit and entrance. There were plans to hire mages later and turn the room into a portal hub.

Stella walked through the exit portal and followed the spiraling pathway out of the tower and to the ground level at the base of the tower. Her destination was Stormwind Keep where the regent and prince resided. The Keep was on the other side of the city.

Leaving the Mage Quarter, Stella crossed a few bridges over the canals of the city and walked the roads along said canals. She took in the sights of the buildings built so close together and the many businesses along the way.

She soon arrived at the keep and ascended the steps and entered the building. Upon reaching the throne room, Stella was surprised to find that the regent wasn’t there but Prince Anduin and a black haired woman in dark red robes were. From what she remembered about her from the Dalaran archives, the woman was a noble named Katrana Prestor. There had been some ill rumors about her but nothing incriminating had turned up.

The woman eyed the approaching Kirin Tor mage and put on a condescending expression in her body language, typical for a noble. “You are not on the schedule, what are you doing disturbing this court?” she demanded.

While she really did not like Katrana’s tone or her expression as they made her look like she was throwing the weight of her status at her for no reason, Stella had a mission to do so she sucked up her pride and bowed gracefully to her. “Your grace, I was sent here as a representative of the Kirin Tor in order to investigate a potential threat to the throne. An anonymous tip informed us that the regent may be under the effects of a mind control spell. Would you mind showing me to him so that I may confirm this and be on my way?”

Katrana gave the slightest of flinches when the mage mentioned a mind control spell. She did her best to not let that show though. “I am afraid the regent is preoccupied at the moment and cannot be disturbed. You will have to come back at a different time. You will also need to make an appointment next time you make an appearance at the court again.”

“Okay, when would be the earliest convenience?”

“I am afraid that the earliest that I can address your claim would be next month.”

“I see, very well, then I shall look at scheduling a date.” Stella turned around to walk away.

Katrana scowled, the elf’s determination to see the regent meant that she was going to be a problem in the future. It was best to try to nip this problem in the bud while she could. And she knew of someone who might. “If you wouldn’t mind listening to a request I have, I might be able to get you in to meet the regent sooner.”

Stella paused in her steps and turned her head back toward the noble. “What is your request, your excellency?”

“Recently our lands have come under attack by an army of bandits known as the Defias Brotherhood. They can be identified by their red bandanas. Reports indicate that the army appears to originate from the region of Westfall to the west of Elwynn Forest. The region is home to farmers and the filthy, impoverished wastes of space. It would appear that the leader of these bandits, Edwin Vancleef, has been stoking the flames of their hatred toward the government and inciting rebellion. The armies of Stormwind have been stretched thin so we can’t properly deal with the threat. Find out where he is, eliminate him and I’ll be able to get you an earlier date.”

Stella had the strangest feeling that the noble was trying to impede her investigation but she couldn’t call her out on that because she had a lot of authority in Stormwind and could make up an excuse to have her arrested if angered. She would have to find another way to meet with the regent.

Stella noticed that Anduin’s eyes were repeatedly darting toward a room to his left. Was he trying to tell her where the regent was? If Bolvar was nearby and couldn’t take a few minutes to confirm her investigation, then something was definitely suspicious here.

For now, she would play along. The Defias were becoming a problem for the kingdom and couldn’t be ignored. She would probably need to find some people to help her with this since storming a lair of bandits would be a bad idea to tackle alone.

After accepting Katrana’s request, Stella quickly yet calmly walked back down the hallway and out of the keep. She needed to get to Westfall to find the Defias hideout so she prepared a mid-range teleportation spell that would take her closer to Westfall. The spell was not very reliable since she had no idea where she was going but the safeties in her spell would prevent her from teleporting into objects.

She once proposed the idea of the spell to the spellweavers of Dalaran but was rejected because of the high risk and high mana cost and they didn’t trust the reliability of the safeties. Mostly it was because of the high precision required to arrive where you want to be. That didn’t stop Stella from using the spell herself though and it never failed her once. That did make her fellow mages question whether the elf was normal or not.

Stella’s teleportation placed her next to the bridge over a stream that divided Elwynn and Westfall. This proved to be a good news/bad news situation. The good news was that she was where she wanted to be. The bad news was that she chose the worst time to teleport there as a pack of hyena people called gnolls were gathered nearby and formed what appeared to be a raiding party.

And they were staring at her.

Acting on instinct she learned from those times she got ambushed by her peers, she unleashed a wave of frost which briefly trapped the gnolls’ feet in ice and teleported a short distance away from them. Those spells required no incantation so she could use them instantly.

From her new position, Stella channeled a shower of ice shards which pummeled the raiding party and impaled a few of them. One gnoll with a crossbow fired a bolt and grazed her arm, causing her to drop the spell. The gnolls soon broke free of their icy shackles and chased after the mage.

Stella was considering using another unusual spell she learned by accident when a blonde human in shoddy armor rushed past her holding a longsword in her hands. With one wide swing she sent some gnolls flying up and away from her while the pointed end cut deeply into the flesh of several more gnolls. The bleeding ones yipped in pain while the unharmed ones pointed their crossbows at the warrior. An aura of light surrounded her as the arrows flew at her and bounced off of her.

Stella heard footsteps behind her and Stella looked back to see a female human in ornate purple armor holding out a hand toward the other warrior. Stella quickly realized that the fancy-looking human was a paladin.

Stella then looked back at the gnolls just in time to see a few archers aim their crossbows at her. She had enough time to react before they fired by raising an arm which caused some of the road to rise up and block the shots. Stella quickly lowered the road back into place and took advantage of their surprise by quickly muttering an incantation. A moment later the gnolls soon found themselves running around chaotically as a pillar of fire set them ablaze. To the paladin and warrior’s surprise, while the flames charred the fur and flesh of the gnolls, the fires didn’t start a forest fire but saw the grass grow slightly taller along with a few wildflowers growing in the wake of the blaze.

Once the gnoll raiding party was reduced to piles of charred husks, the trio put their weapons away and approached the mage. “Dear, are you alright? Facing down a pack of gnolls like that could not have been easy,” the paladin said.

“Yeah, what were ya thinking, takin’ all those things on at once?” the warrior asked.

“I can assure you that was completely by accident,” Stella answered. “I teleported myself to the Elwynn/Westfall border and they were already gathered there looking like they were getting ready to attack the nearby garrison when they saw me.”

“So yer sayin’ that ya got some bad luck?”

Stella turned away slightly and blushed. “I guess you could say that.”

“So what brings you here?” the paladin asked. “I can tell from your robes that you hail from Dalaran. Oh! My apologies for the lack of introductions. My name is Bella Cartier and this err…daringly armored companion of mine is Jaqueline Pomerton.”

Stella gave a small smile, relieved that she didn’t have to think about the awkwardness of that teleport for long. “Nice to meet you Miss Cartier, Miss Pomerton. I am Stellaglim, but most people call me Stella.”

“A pleasure to meet you Stella, if you may call me Bella.”

“Howdy, just Jaqueline will do fer me,” Jaqueline said.

Overlooking the trio from the trees, Sophia smiled, glad that she didn’t have to do anything to bring the three of them together. She could save her energy for bigger tasks.

However, something about the elf seemed off to her. When she observed Bella and Jaqueline, they had some physical resemblance to their past lives such as Bella’s curled hair looking similar to the manestyle of her past self along with her fashionista skills and Jaqueline having long blonde hair along with the accent. Stella looked nothing like the pony she was supposed to be reincarnated from. She looked through the profiles of the targets earlier so she did have an idea of what to look for when it came to their behaviors. While Stella resembled nothing like her past self, she still had the tendency to use unusual spells.

This was a mystery to look into later.

Stella blinked. She suddenly remembered a case file in the Dalaran Archives from a few years ago that involved someone with the last name Pomerton. She couldn’t look through it since she didn’t have the access privileges though. “Wait, Pomerton? I think the Kirin Tor have a file on that family in the archives. I never got to look at it, but for there to be a file the case had to be magic related.”

Jaqueline frowned, “Right, a few years back a passin’ mage from that organization sensed somethin’ weird in me but were never able to get a clear read on what kinda magic it was. Sure wasn’t the Light, never been a paladin in ma family. No magic users of any kind, really.”

Stella raised an eyebrow in confusion, “Really? I know that the Pomertons were normally farmers and the first to volunteer for town militias in emergencies, but none of you have ever tried breaking from that tradition?”

“Some did, best they could become were warriors or rogues. Magic talent just seems to avoid the family like the plague. Whatever this thing in me is, you mages think its some sorta magic but ah can’t do a thing with it. This thing’s been nothin’ but trouble.”

Stella decided not to inquire any further about Jaqueline’s issue and moved on to other matters. “So why are you two here anyway? Are you heading to Westfall too?”

“We are,” Bella answered. “Jaqueline feels that she needs to improve her skills as a warrior by taking on the Defias Brotherhood. I need to make sure she doesn’t get herself killed in the process while helping the Kingdom of Stormwind to restore order to its lands.”

“I see, I was actually on my way to Westfall at the request of Lady Katrana Prestor to find a way to deal with the Defias.”

“Prestor!? That stuck up witch?” Jaqueline asked. “If ya ain’t part of her club of sycophants then ya best steer clear of her.”

“Believe me, I want to but she’s also in the way of my main mission to check the regent of Stormwind for signs of mind control spells.”

“Ah’d bet almost anything that he is bein’ controlled and Prestor is the one behind it. We should go back to Stormwind and beat some sense into her.”

“That would be a very bad idea Jaqueline,” Bella warned. “We have no proof to such accusations and walking up to her to accuse without proof will only end with us being arrested and thrown into the Stockades.”

“For now we need to focus on the Defias,” Stella said. “That's all we can do right now. Can I ask you two for your assistance?”

Bella smiled, “Of course darling, the more the merrier and the more effective we can be to take out these ruffians.” She takes out a map and unfolds it to look at it. “Once we cross the bridge into Westfall we follow the road south to Sentinel Hill where we can meet the militia in charge of this region.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Jaqueline said. “Let’s get outta this forest ‘fore we run into more of them gnolls.”

With that, the trio crossed the bridge into the farmlands of Westfall.

Sophia frowned as she eavesdropped on their conversation. She had heard something from them that might warrant investigating. She opened a link to Twilight and Midnight. “Did you get all of that?”

“Yes, our preliminary scans said that she was completely healthy,” Midnight responded. “We need to run more scans on her and determine the nature of this strange magic within her. For that we will need to switch from distant observation to interaction.”

“Great, I was getting tired of acting like a cop on a stakeout. Time for me to introduce myself.”

Author's Note

Finally we have Stellaglim, Starlight Glimmer's reincarnation. For point of reference, mage fire spells do not cause plants to grow. For the Warcraft fans reading this, such flames seem similar to something else on Azeroth. If you figure it out, you are starting to understand why she is an unusual mage.

Up next: The first dungeon.

The Defias Brotherhood

Westfall, a region on the west coast of the lands controlled by the Kingdom of Stormwind that harbors misfortune to all who live in that land. Unlike the green woodlands of Elwynn Forest, Westfall is a land that seemed to be caught in an eternal autumn which was due to drought and maltreatment of the land by the Defias Brotherhood. Year round, the trees barely produce leaves and the grass was always an unhealthy golden color. Hay bales lie abandoned next to fallow fields which the farmers barely tend to if only to feed themselves. Carrion birds and coyotes roam the fields unchecked looking for their next meal.

Roaming the lands were shoddy mechanical constructs called harvest golems wearing patched sacks of cloth that were built by who rumors suggest to be goblin engineers for the purpose of driving away the farmers. Goblin mercenaries were rumored to be working with the Defias.

Gnolls roamed the lands freely while rumors suggest that the hyena people had somehow formed an alliance with the Defias. Murlocs, a race of amphibious fish people who were pretty much tailless fish with arms and legs, had a presence along nearly the entire coastline while Kobolds held a mine somewhere in the northern parts of the region and were also rumored to have allied with the Defias.

Westfall was a mostly lawless land where the Defias could move about as they pleased. This was because Stormwind’s army was too thinly spread to provide any order to the land. Because of this, the beleaguered people of Westfall who have not joined the Defias have banded together to create their own militia to protect themselves from the bandit army that greatly outnumbered them.

Bella, Stella and Jaqueline entered the dying region from a bridge in the northeast part of the region and traveled west for a couple hundred meters, passing an abandoned farm that had bandits with their signature red bandanas over their faces along with a few harvest golems roaming the area. Neither took notice of the trio.

As they traveled the poorly maintained roads, the trio saw a couple who appeared to be farmers. One was a long red-haired man with his hair done in braids. He wore a white shirt and blue overalls and carried a pitchfork. Next to the man was who could be assumed to be his wife. Her hair was short strawberry blonde and wore a green dress.

The man addressed the trio, “Howdy, you three here to help with the Brotherhood as well?”

“Yes we are, sir,” Bella answered. “Who might you be?”

“I’m Theodore Furlbrow, used to be a farmer till them Defias drove us out. This is my wife, Verna.”

“Excuse me sir,” Stella spoke. “But what did you mean by ‘as well’?”

“Well ya see, you three ain’t the only adventurers here fightin’ the Brotherhood. Lots’a youngins wantin’ to make a name for themselves are attackin’ places where the bandits are hangin’ out. If ya wanna help out, head south to Sentinel Hill and look for Gryan Stoutmantle. He leads The People’s Militia against the Brotherhood. Good thing them adventurers are helpin’ out or the Brotherhood would have led a coordinated attack on Sentinel Hill a long time ago.”

Somehow, Stella doubted that the efforts of a handful of novice adventurers were enough to keep the Defias away from Sentinel Hill. There must have been a different reason for their inaction.

“Hey!” shouted a distant male voice that was growing closer. “Where do you two think you’re going? The toll for getting out of Westfall is all of your valuables.”

A trio of Defias bandits ran toward the Furlbrows. One had a pair of daggers in their hands while another had a crude warhammer in his hands that looked like a large oval stone tied to a stick. The third was a female who wore robes and had a large stick on her back, leading the group to believe she was a mage.

Jaqueline unsheathed her swords while Bella pulled her ornate warhammer from her back. Stella prepared a few spells for once the bandits got into range.

They never did.

Just before they got in range, all three of them were stabbed in the back simultaneously by short blades that exited from the bandits’ chests.

The trio collapsed at once to reveal someone behind them. This one wore blue leather armor that covered all of her body and a blue hooded mask that showed only her eyes. The physical shape of the person clearly showed that she was clearly female.

“Hey there, you three here to get in on the fun too?” The masked figure asked.

The trio put away their weapons while Bella sighed in disappointment. “While I wouldn’t call slaughtering my fellow man ‘fun’, we do need to end this conflict before these brigands cause untold damage to the Kingdom of Stormwind.”

The figure nodded, “Glad to see someone around here puts virtue before pleasure, most of the adventurers around here seem to be going around relentlessly butchering bandits and animals alike, looting the bandits for their coin and valuables and harvesting animal parts for meat like a bunch of savages.”

“Didn’t ya just call such acts ‘fun’ earlier?” Jaqueline asked.

“Wasn’t sure what to think of you three at first. For one, you, miss novice armor, look like you would fit in with the adventurers around here. I’m Sophia by the way.”

Sophia didn’t tell them that she used her high speed to observe the adventurers in the region and saw their deplorable behavior of killing, looting and leaving corpses to rot in the sun. It was more appropriate behavior for soldiers fighting a war with the added behavior of looting like a bunch of scavengers.

Jaqueline frowned deeply at having her appearance compared to such people. “Ah’ll have you know that this armor is the last thing ah have to remember mah family by. My ma used this armor when she fought in the Second War against them no good orcs and their ogre and troll allies.”

“That’s why you still wear that!?” Bella gasped in surprise. “Darling, why didn’t you say so?”

“Ah ain’t replacin’ it,” Jaqueline growled.

“Perish the thought dear, but you must let me at least reforge it. I know that I am not your mother, but I doubt that she would be happy watching her daughter run around in armor that looks to be on the verge of breaking. Listen, I have a large stock of metal bars smelted from ore deposits that I have extracted during my travels in the Stormwind bank. When we are finished here, please allow me to remake it into something that will give your parents peace of mind as they watch over you.”

Jaqueline was taken aback by Bella’s pleading. She never thought about how her actions would be seen by her parents as they watched her from heaven, at least she hoped they were given how the Scourge liked to reanimate people’s bodies and anchor their souls to their own corpses to force them to watch in horror as they personally murder their loved ones.

Begrudgingly, Jaqueline had to admit that her paladin companion had a point. As much as she missed her ma, she would tan her hide if she ended up joining her too soon. She then sighed in defeat, “Fine, just don’t make it all fancy like yours. Ah ain’t doin’ this fer looks.”

Sophia smirked in amusement as everyone around her blushed when they heard Bella squeal in delight. “You shall not be disappointed, darling,” Bella stated enthusiastically.

With that done, the Furlbrows headed across the bridge out of Westfall with as much haste as they could muster to avoid another Defias ambush.

The quartet, with Sophia having forcibly barged her way into the group, proceeded south along the eroded roads until they came across a village with a lone stone tower overlooking it from a tall hill. The hill with the tower was the reason the village was called Sentinel Hill.

Bella knew that if Gryan Stoutmantle were anywhere in town, it would be around Sentinel Tower. The quartet proceeded up the hill and around to the entrance of the tower where they saw a man in white armor carrying a white stone mace. Bella could tell right away that the man was a paladin and was most likely Stoutmantle so the group approached him.

“Pardon me sir, you are Gryan Stoutmantle, correct?” Bella asked.

“Aye, you must be Bella Cartier. I’ve heard a lot about you and it fills me with confidence that we will be able to bring an end to this Defias menace.”

“Do we know where the hideout is?” Stella asked.

Gryan looked at Stella in surprise. “A Kirin Tor agent!? I figured that the organization was still around but I thought cases like this were not part of their jurisdiction?”

“Let’s just say there have been…circumstances. Suffice it to say, I am here to help bring an end to this threat.”

“Glad to hear it, here’s what I’ve recently found out. Apparently, this Brotherhood used to be the Stonemasons who rebuilt the city of Stormwind after it was razed in the First War against the Orcish Horde. Apparently they became enraged when the nobles refused to pay them. Since then they’ve hired goblins to construct those horrid machines roaming the farms, kobolds to strip the mines of Westfall and Elwynn, gnolls to harass and ambush travelers and murlocs to plunder every ship that gets close to these lands. The materials the kobolds have been stealing have been secretly transported to their hideout.

“Mathias Shaw, head of the Stormwind Intelligence Agency, SI:7, pointed out that the leader of Defias Brotherhood is none other than the Stonemasons guild master, Edwin Vancleef. I just sent a few of our adventurers out with a turncoat from the Defias to point out the location of the hideout. They should be back soon.”

“Strange, Lady Katrana Prestor already informed me that the leader of the Brotherhood was Vancleef,” Stella pondered aloud. “I would have thought that to be common knowledge if she knew.”

“If it is then I’m probably the last to know about it,” Stoutmantle sighed. “Given how this region is disconnected from Stormwind in all but name it wouldn’t surprise me. The People’s Militia is all that stands as a source of order in Westfall.”

Just then a young human male adventurer approached Stoutmantle and took a moment to catch his breath before speaking. “Stoutmantle, the informant led us into the Defias-infested town of Moonbrook and pointed us to a large barn near the town square. He said that’s where Vancleef is hiding.”

Stoutmantle gave a small smile and a nod to the adventurer. “Good, Vancleef is as good as ours now. I just need some brave souls to go in there and eliminate him.” He then looked at the quartet, sizing them up. “You four look pretty tough, think you’re up for the task? As much as I am against assassinations, Vancleef represents a very real threat to the kingdom and must be eliminated.”

Bella nodded grimly, “You can count on us, I dearly wish that we could have handled this another way, but it seems the time for diplomacy has passed.”

With that, the group proceeded back to the road and headed south, taking note to turn right at the fork that would lead them to Moonbrook.

As they walked, Sophia felt a ping in her mind, informing her that someone, whom she quickly identified as Thanatas, wanted to speak with her through her network. “What is it?”

“I see you’re about to have your first dungeon experience on Azeroth,” Thanatas said. “I know you have had some experiences like that back on Elicoor a few years back so I will let you in on a few key differences. The enemies are a little tougher than the riff raff your new friends are used to fighting but as long as they work together they should manage. Dungeon bosses like Vancleef will be quite the handful.

“Also, adventurers exploring a dungeon typically take a one, one, three composition format. One who is willing to take the brunt of enemy aggression, one who keeps the appointed meat shield from succumbing to their wounds along with keeping the other careless idiots alive and three careless idiots whose job is to help bring down the tough enemies.

“Unfortunately, since the paladin is forced onto healing duty, the warrior lacks a shield to block attacks and you have opted to play pseudo rogue, you four will be forced to tackle the Deadmines without a tanking class.”

“I see, thanks for the rundown,” Sophia said. “I’m pretty sure I could handle anything in there but I’ll make sure not to show off too much since it’s far from time to lay those cards on the table yet.”

By the time the psychic transmission ended, the four were already on the outskirts of Moonbrook. As they entered the limits, they were quickly accosted by a number of Defias bandits. As they charged toward them, Stella cast a spell on all of them to make them randomly teleport around the area. Some ended up crashing hard into walls, some ended up stuck in walls, some ended up inside buildings and failed to stop their sprint in time to avoid tripping over clutter and crashing face first into walls. One of the most unfortunate bandits ended up getting teleported with his head up the plot of a stabled horse which spooked the animal into galloping all over the town slamming the body of the bandit into every wall the horse approached.

The rest of Stella’s companions turned their incredulous gazes to her. “Did ya have ta do that to that poor horse?”

“I had no idea what was going to happen,” Stella defended. “That spell was a random group teleportation spell with the safeties removed. I expected them to crash into walls and a few to get stuck in the walls. The incident with the horse was a complete accident.”

Back at Sphere, two alicorn mares stared at the main screen in their observation room wide-eyed and slack-jawed before they simultaneously facepalmed. “Leave it to Starlight to do something like that with her magic…” Twilight groaned.

The group put what happened out of their minds and proceeded to Moonbrook’s town center. The rest of the bandits in the town stayed hidden since they were afraid of ending up like the guy who got his head stuck up the horse.

Looking around, the town was in shambles. All of the buildings were in a state of disrepair. The local blacksmithing shop, a building that was designed throughout the Eastern Kingdoms to have giant bellows outside the building and machines to keep them pumping air into the forge, ran cold for years. The houses of stone and straw roofs were run down like the two story wooden inn. The town hall on the north end of the town was in no better shape either and the stables were barely standing. The fountain at the center of the town ran dry long enough for cobwebs to cover it.

In the town center stood a wooden barn that was locked but the group found a side entrance on the right side of the structure and no door to seal it.

Once they entered the barn, the thugs cried out in alarm while one of them ran off deeper into the barn. The rest tried attacking them with their daggers and swords but were cut down when Jaqueline rushed them with her twin shortswords.

With the barn defenders out of the way, the group chased after the runner. They walked up some stairs up to the second floor of the barn before heading through an entrance and over a bridge of two planks. They then entered a cavern where they had to descend several meters down a spiraling ramp. That was when they realized what they had walked into.

Before them was a complex series of mining tunnels that was being actively mined by the Defias with some of their fighters acting as taskmasters. Bella slammed her hammer into the chest of one of the Defias taskmasters and sent him flying into a wall. Jaqueline charged between several mages in the area and slammed the hilts of their swords into their throats to interrupt their spellcasting before she cut them down with a series of heavy slashes.

One mage managed to block Jaqueline’s attack with her staff and managed to cast a quick fireball that slammed the warrior in the chest. Jaqueline fought through the pain and slashed at the mage who was still blocking with her staff until her staff broke and was left open to a grievous diagonal slash. Bella quickly healed Jaqueline’s injury with the power of the Holy Light.

Sophia’s speed proved too much for the taskmasters as she rushed behind them before they could react and stabbed them in the back with her wrist blades.

Stella dealt with the miners who stopped working to attack the group. She lured them into a narrow tunnel and unleashed a pillar of flames with her Flamestrike spell which incinerated the miners.

Once the immediate area was cleared, the group took a moment to relax and discuss their next move.

“As much as ah would like to scour these tunnels of bandits we can’t keep doin’ this forever,” Jaqueline said. “We need to know which tunnel will take us to Vancleef.”

“I can try and send some miniature arcane servants to scout the tunnels but the Defias might catch on and destroy them before I can get a proper picture of the tunnel network,” Stella offered.

“This is going to be a tiring endeavor if we get lost in these tunnels and it’s likely that the Defias know how to navigate the tunnel network,” Bella said.

Not wanting to waste time, Sophia scouted the tunnels at near instantaneous speed. Most of the tunnels were dead ends and one led to what seemed to be a cursed cavern full of undead miners. One tunnel heading west proved to be the most promising as it led much deeper into the mines than the other tunnels The mining machinery in this passage still felt warm from use. The passage seemed to be their best option so she returned to the group.

“I scouted the mining tunnels before I met you guys and found a passage to the right that might lead deeper into the mines,” Sophia half lied. She wasn’t about to give away information about her abilities.

Stella raised an eyebrow at the “rogue”, “You scouted these tunnels and didn’t tell Stoutmantle about them?”

“I was on my way to tell him when I found you guys,”

Stella deadpanned at Sophia for a moment longer but sighed and decided to drop it. She considered using a spell that showed her position in the last few minutes to call her out on any potential lies but she didn’t need to be wasting magic on this matter.

The group proceeded down the tunnel Sophia found, cutting down any Defias along the way. They saw an opening in a small chasm beneath the bridge and proceeded to jump down to the bottom which was only a few feet drop. They then proceeded through a metallic threshold lit by an overhead lanturn and had some broken minecart rails going into it.

The next room had more miners and a few Defias mages. As the group charged in, the mages in the room took notice and started channeling Flamestrike spells. Stella knew that so many Flamestrikes going off at once was going to be very bad for them so she struck all of them at once with a Counterspell to interrupt their casts.

Jaqueline ran in and cut down the mages while they were still caught off guard by Stella’s spell while Bella and Sophia dealt with the miners. Bella’s holy magic smote the miners one at a time while Sophia leapt from miner to miner and stabbing them in the throat, chest or gut while stabbing them in the wrist whenever they tried to strike her with their mining picks.

The group crossed another threshold into another room filled with miners and a few mages and an overseer carrying a sword and shield. Bella personally kept the overseer busy while Jaqueline and Stella dealt with the miners and Sophia quickly ended the mages.

They soon came to a large room with a large door in the back guarded by a large being that was clearly not human. He was large, muscular, fat, had crude drawings on his arms and was wearing nothing but a pair of bracers and a loincloth. He had two large teeth at the ends of his mouth sticking upward, giving him an underbite and he had a small horn on his head. His weapon of choice was a crude stone hammer.

“His name is Rhahk’Zor,” Thanatas said through the link. “This ogre acts as Vancleef’s mining foreman, but he’s as simple as his attacks. He’s still a brute though.

“So our first real obstacle in this place is this ogre?” Bella asked rhetorically. “It’s a shame we don’t have anyone to take his attacks. We will need to be careful of his hammer.”

The ogre heard Bella talk and turned his head to the group before rushing toward them with his hammer above his head. “Vancleef pay big for you heads!” As he shouted that two more Defias in the room moved in to help their foreman.

Sophia quickly dispatched the assistants while Jaqueline blocked a swing from Rhahk’Zor’s hammer with both of her swords. The ogre broke the warrior’s guard by slamming her with his large body and sent her flying back a few feet. Stella launched bolts of fire, frost and arcane at the ogre but he tanked the blasts and charged for her. Stella used her Blink, a short range teleport spell, to get out of the way of the ogre’s charge. He couldn’t stop his momentum and slammed into a wall, causing minor tremors throughout the area.

Bella caused a giant radiant sword to emerge from the ground and slashed the ogre’s back which caused him to turn around and glare at the paladin. “Me mad now!”

As the ogre charged at Bella, Jaqueline jumped onto his back and ran her swords into his shoulders, causing him to howl in pain. Stella generated icicles by freezing the air around her and hurling them at the ogre, piercing his thick flesh. Rhahk’Zor roared in fury, which was the last thing he did before a blade from Sophia pierced his throat and ran out the back of his neck.

The ogre coughed up blood a few times before he collapsed. The lights in his eyes soon faded.

With the ogre dead, the group looked around the room until Bella found a lever next to the door that led further into the mines.

The next section involved more miners, overseers and mages who were quickly dealt with. A passage on the left from the door turned out to be a flooded dead end while the right path led to a large door that the group worked together to open.

Inside was a lumberyard. Large logs lay all over the room being worked on by goblins. The goblins noticed the door open and charged at them all at once with their axes raised.

Not wanting to take them all on at once, Stella had the group back away from the door before she cast a spell on the doorway. A sparkling green mist manifested in the doorway and spread inside the lumberyard. The goblins had no idea what the mist was and assumed it was a smokescreen. They were wrong. The moment the goblins started breathing in the mist, they were suddenly assaulted by overwhelming urges to sleep. The goblins fought the feeling for a few seconds but quickly gave in to the call of dreamland and fell asleep.

A few seconds later, the goblins got a very rude wake up call when they ended up catching fire from Stella’s magic. The fires never touched the wood in the room before they were blackened. With the workers taken out, all that was left was one goblin operating a large mechanical construct.

The steel machine was shaped like a humanoid but displayed the crude design expected of goblins. The cockpit on top was atop a furnace that was shaped like a terrifying face with spikes made to look like troll tusks. The left arm ended in three razor sharp claws designed to carry logs or tear into flesh in a combat situation. The right arm ended in a saw blade made to efficiently cut down trees and people alike. The engine on its back chugged and emitted black smoke.

“That is Sneed, Vancleef’s lumbermaster,” Thanatas announced to Sophia through the link. “Goblin shredders like that thing he’s piloting are efficient killing machines. The thing about goblin technology though is that they are built without proper protections in mind so damaging the engine will cause it to explode. Make sure the pilot is dead before moving on.”

Sneed drove his shredder into the open area of the room and noticed that his workers were missing. Looking around he noticed the intruders and the blackened corpses of his workers. In a fit of rage he drove his shredder toward the group and had his saw blade spinning at full speed.

Knowing that their armor wouldn’t protect them from the machine’s blades, the group took to dodging the construct’s swings.

Jaqueline got around the shredder and began taunting the pilot. “Hey goblin, what’re ya doin’ driving that gnomish piece of junk?”

That got Sneed’s attention which made him turn the upper torso of the shredder toward the warrior. “Are you blind!? This is clearly the pinnacle of goblin technology here!”

Jaqueline smirked. “Doubt it, goblins couldn’t build anythin’ like that so it has ta be gnomish.”

Now Sneed was seeing red. Anyone who knew about the ongoing rivalry between gnomes and goblins would know how much pride both races had in their technology. To mix either tech would be seen as an attack on their pride. Because of this, the warrior had the pilot’s full attention and he ignored the others.

While Jaqueline was avoiding Sneed’s attacks, Stella bombarded the engine on the shredder’s back with fire spells and overwhelmed the cooling systems. Sneed was too blinded by tunnel vision to notice the attacks and failed to notice the shredder was overheating until the alarms went off. Before he could react the shredder activated the pilot ejector seat, catapulting Sneed out of his shredder. Sophia saw this and jumped on the shredder, jumped to Sneed in midair and hurled him into the spinning sawblades of his own shredder before she raced back to Stella and Bella. Jaqueline had a bad feeling that the shredder was about to explode but Stella teleported her back to them while Bella raised a barrier of light that protected them from the violent blast barely a second later. Thankfully the blast incinerated Sneed’s remains so they didn’t have to watch the room get showered in too much gore.

The group proceeded deeper into the mine. After opening the door into the next passage they found more goblin workers and more Defias mages, taskmasters and miners. As they moved deeper into the mine, the enemies became easier to deal with given how much experience they were gaining in dealing with them. They turned around a bend and found the door to the next major part of their operations.

Opening that door ended up with their faces getting buffeted by an intense wave of heat. Beyond the door they saw what appeared to be vessels containing molten metal being held up by chains and pouring into a larger vessel suspended beneath them.

“The Defias were able to construct their own foundry within these mines?!” Bella asked in surprise.

“No doubt this is the work of their goblin allies,” Stella mused. “But what would the Defias want with so much metal?”

Entering the sweltering room the group soon encountered more goblins except these were carrying sticks with flaming molten metal and were all staring at the group as if they were expecting them. There were other goblins in the room who were carrying blunderbusses and had remote controls strapped to their waists.

Stella disarmed the goblins with the molten sticks by hitting the sticks with bolts of frost magic that caused the molten metal to harden into a brittle form. The goblins tried to retreat to get more sticks with molten metal but Sophia caught up with some of them and tossed them into the molten vat. Bella cringed as she saw that. “I really wish that I didn’t have to see that,” she said.

From the entrance the group stood on a catwalk that ramped downwards to the foundry floor. The group dealt with every goblin that got in their way, including a particularly large goblin that was slightly larger than a dwarf. Thanatas briefly told Sophia through the link that the goblin was the head smelter, Gilnid. However, there was nothing special that separated him from the other goblins in the foundry and was dealt with swiftly.

The group opened the door at the end of the foundry and entered another short tunnel filled with more miners and overseers.

The end of the passage was locked by a heavy door with a cannon aimed at it. Sophia considered slashing it open but that would end up with her receiving a lot of questions that she wasn’t ready to answer yet. Thankfully Jaqueline found a barrel of gunpowder in a small alcove and carried it to the door. She then loaded the gunpowder into the cannon along with a nearby cannonball and moved to a safe distance before Stella hit the fuse of the cannon with a small fire spell, causing the fuse to light and the cannon to fire a second later, shattering the heavy door to pieces.

The roaring sound of the cannon and the explosive impact was heard by everyone in the mines. A moment later they heard a deep voice yell out, “You there, check out that noise.” The group was soon beset upon by Defias who were dressed differently from the taskmasters and mages from before. Unlike the black and yellow leather armor of the overseers, the men wore white shirts and red pants with black boots while unlike the mages from before, who wore robes of brown, yellow and red, the new mages wore purple shirts and blue pants. The mages began casting frost spells, as Stella sensed from the nature of the magic channeled.

The white-shirted Defias drew cutlasses and began slashing at Jaqueline who was blocking their attacks with her swords. Stella counterspelled the mages and forced them to charge in with their staves raised. Bella met the mages from their side of the door and swung her hammer in a wide arc that sent the female Defias flying off what appeared to be a pier and into the water. Bella had a feeling that she might have shattered a rib or two of theirs but couldn’t afford to worry about them right now. Sophia took one of the males who was attacking Jaqueline and blocked his attack with one of her swords before stabbing him in the gut with the other. Jaqueline finished off the remaining enemy.

“We’re under attack! Avast ye swabs, repel the invaders!” bellowed the deep voice.

Jaqueline noticed that her swords were looking worn at this point. She had a feeling that they were getting close to breaking as well. Then she noticed the cutlasses on the floor dropped by the two Defias swordsmen and picked them up. They appeared sharper than her own swords which she didn’t have as much personal attachment to as her armor. She left her old swords on the bodies of the fallen and took a few practice swings to get a feel for the new weapons. When she felt like she had a good understanding of their weight she sheathed the blades in some straps on her belt.

With that out of the way the group took a look at what the next room was. It was larger than any room seen in the mine by far. The path was nothing but a pier over a body of water which gave everyone the feeling that they just entered a cove. A massive gate stood at the far end of the cove and some shipbuilding equipment was seen around the area. But all of this paled in comparison to the sight of the massive battleship before them.

The change in clothes of the Defias made sense now, they were dressed as pirates. The ship before them was a pirate battleship armed with many massive cannons, likely built by goblins. If they had the ammunition to match, the battleship would have enough firepower to level Stormwind.

Bella gasped, “I remember that ship design, it’s the same as the orcish juggernauts that were used during the Second War. They were terrifying weapons on the seas and the coastal towns had to be especially alert for any sign of these ships. Just one alone could have leveled cities.”

“Yer jokin’! They built one’a these things here in secret!?” Jaqueline half shouted. “Well, didn’t the Alliance have somethin’ to sink these things back then?”

“Used to, I’m afraid. The heavy battleships deployed during the Second War to counter the orc juggernauts were owned by the nation of Kul Tiras. After the death of Lord Admiral Daelin Proudmoore at the hands of his own daughter, Kul Tiras fully withdrew from the Alliance and took their fleets with them.”

“Well, surely we still have somethin’,” Jaqueline hoped. That hope was dashed with a shake of Bella’s head.

“Stormwind’s armies are spread thin along with the navy. There are barely enough ships in the harbor to hold off a naval attack but it won’t be enough to stop a juggernaut.”

“Which means that we need to wipe out the crew before the ship sails,” Stella declared. The others nodded in determination.

The group raced along the pier taking down pirates and mages alike along with parrots. They crossed the pier and soon found the gangplank to the ship. Sophia sensed the minds of two Defias hiding in the shadows at the base of the gangplank guarding a chest while everyone else noted the black-furred tauren standing atop the gangplank who was the one barking orders earlier.

“That’s Mr. Smite, he’s the ship’s first mate and he’s a master of three different weapon styles,” Thanatas explained.

“I’ll take out the two at the bottom of the plank, the rest of you can handle the tauren,” Sophia whispered. Everyone nodded in agreement before they executed the plan. Sophia ambushed one of the hidden Defias rogues and stabbed him in the back, which got the attention of the other rogue and the tauren. Sophia attacked the other rogue while the tauren ran down the gangplank. Before he reached the bottom, his face took the impact of a hammer made of light. He quickly turned his attention to Bella and the others.

Mr. Smite carried a cutlass in his right hand and blocked attacks from Jaqueline’s swords with ease. He was able to deflect Stella’s bolt spells and sent them at Bella who was forced to deflect them away. Stella teleported behind Smite and fired more bolts from an angle he couldn’t defend from. Instead he sidestepped the spells and let them fly toward Jaqueline who timed her sword swings to deflect the spells to Smite’s new position, striking his body repeatedly with fire and frost.

The tauren didn’t like that so he unleashed a powerful shockwave by stomping his hoof which knocked the trio back. Sophia toyed around with the living rogue so she didn’t have to get involved with the main fight. Mr. Smite ran to the chest near the gangplank and used the key he carried on him to open the chest. “You landlubbers are tougher than I thought. I’ll have to improvise!” He placed his sword inside and pulled out two axes before relocking his chest.

Smite ran to Jaqueline and swung his axes rapidly, keeping the warrior focused on defense. He noticed Stella casting another spell and kicked Jaqueline into the mage. The warrior’s armor suffered a huge dent from the attack. Smite deflected a Light hammer from Bella but was hit in the face by a Fireball from Stella when his attention was taken away from the mage. By the time he turned to face her, he felt a sharp pain on his right side. He looked down to find a fresh wound there, courtesy of the warrior.

Smite had enough and stomped again, knocking the three to the ground again before retreating to his chest. “D’ah! Now you’re making me angry!” He opened the chest again, placing his axes back in favor of his large hammer.

This time Smite targeted Bella and the two clashed hammers. The paladin disrupted the tauren’s momentum by raising a sword of light from the floor, forcing the tauren back. With Smite staggered, Stella froze his hooves in place with some frost magic before bombarding him from the back with a series of icicles.

In his frustration, Smite finally decided that working with Vancleef wasn’t worth the abuse he was getting. He didn’t get paid enough for this. He used his hammer to smash the ice under his hooves before knocking everyone down with one last stomp before diving into the water. The group waited in anticipation for another attack but none came. Several minutes passed and there was no sign of the tauren surfacing. Sensing the mind of the tauren leaving the area, Sophia finished off her enemy.

Cautiously, the group decided to move on. They boarded the juggernaut and started killing more pirates and pirate mages as well as more goblins as they sought a way to the top of the ship. They found the path by climbing up the scaffolding. Atop the ship stood a slightly large goblin about the size of Gilnid. He wore a pirate’s tricorne hat and a red shirt and carried a harpoon. He was accompanied by a pirate, a mage and a parrot. Sophia dispatched the entourage while Bella, Stella and Jaqueline triple teamed who seemed to be the captain of the vessel.

With the goblin dead, the only place left to check was the cabin near the stern. Sophia melded with the shadows and moved to see if the cabin was occupied. Sure enough, their target was inside along with a few of his elite. She also sensed another mind but the reading gave her the impression that it was a child. A hostage?

“You’re probably sensing Vancleef’s daughter,” Thanatas said. “This is really going to ruin her happy little world when you guys kill her daddy.”

“Is this meant to guilt trip me?” Sophia deadpanned.

“A little. While you could just spare him and scrap the boat, he will just rebuild it or find some other way to be a problem for Stormwind. To be frank, he’s basically a whiny little bitch who never learned the magic of legally binding contracts that would have given him the legal right to sue the nobles when they weaseled out of the deal. On the other hand, the king or regent would be the arbiter in the matter and since one is missing and the other is a puppet to an evil witch, Vancleef and his whole guild are pretty much royally screwed.

“Also, seeing little miss imminent childhood trauma eventually go vigilante and succeed her daddy a few years later sounds a lot cooler than whatever her future could have been and she will be a much smarter fighter than her father ever was.”

Sophia mentally sighed, “And all for the price of one little girl’s happiness. Sometimes you really take the fun out of these assignments.”

Sophia resolved to do what needed to be done and returned to her allies to tell them that Vancleef was inside the cabin. They nodded and moved in front of the cabin. They took out their weapons and took up fighting stances. “Vancleef, we are here to bring an end to your vile schemes of destroying the kingdom and threatening innocents. Come out and face justice!” Bella cried out.

Edwin Vancleef exited the cabin with two of his elite guards. The man had long black hair and wore thick black leather armor with yellow filigree along with the trademark red bandana over his face. He unsheathed a pair of swords strapped to his waist and took up a combat stance. His guards did the same. “None may challenge the Brotherhood!” Vancleef said.

The battle began and Sophia pulled one guard away while Bella held the other. Jaqueline was left to handle Vancleef while Stella supported whoever needed the most help.

Vancleef was relentless with his strikes but Jaqueline’s training allowed her to anticipate each of the kingpin’s attacks and react accordingly. The two guards fought their opponents with a dagger in their right hands, making sure their attacks were swift. However, Sophia was faster and her strikes with her blades quickly overpowered the guard before both of the templar’s wrist blades impaled the guard through the chest. Bella was able to keep up with the strikes of her foe with her hammer by blocking them with the shaft. Eventually the guard overextended himself and gave Bella an opening where she slammed a small hammer of Light into his face before slamming her real hammer into his left arm, fracturing it and sending him flying off the boat.

Vancleef growled as he saw his comrades fall. “Lapdogs, all of you!” he complained.

“It don’t matter who we’re doin’ this for,” Jaqueline countered. “Yer a threat to the innocent people of Stormwind, not just the nobles.”

“Fools! Our cause is righteous!”

“There is nothing righteous about taking innocent lives,” Bella countered. “You and your guild lost any right to such claims when they rioted the streets, murdered Queen Tiffin and brought this land to ruin all for the sake of petty revenge. Yes, it was unfair that the nobles had you and your guild do all that work only to deny you rightful compensation in the end, but this isn’t justice, it’s nothing more than revenge. You have allowed your passions to turn to bloodlust and become no better than the orcs who razed this kingdom in the first place.”

Seeing their leader in danger, two more guards jumped out of the shadows only to be quickly cut down by Sophia. Jaqueline soon got the hang of Vancleef’s movement patterns and began to counter his attacks. Slashed from the warrior’s counterattacks cut into the kingpin’s armor and leaving cuts on his body.

“The Brotherhood shall prevail!” In a desperate move, Vancleef used a rogue technique designed to bypass armor and gave Jaqueline a pair of deep cuts on her chest while her armor shattered, leaving her in only her shirt and shorts. Bella saw this and quickly used her light magic to heal the warrior’s injuries.

Jaqueline became enraged by what Vancleef did to her mother’s armor and began slashing at the kingpin with all her might. He tried to block one strike with one of his swords but the warrior’s furious attack shattered the blade and she did the same to Vancleef’s other blade. With the kingpin disarmed, Jaqueline proceeded to decapitate the kingpin with both blades, ending the fight and their adventures in the mines.

The warrior began panting heavily as her energy was now spent. The others waited a minute while Jaqueline regained her wits. Bella was the first to speak. “Will you be alright, darling? I know that armor was very precious to you.”

Jaqueline had a wry look on her face as she looked at her armor. “Ah will be eventually, but ah need time ta cool mah head.”

“I can store the fragments in a pocket dimension for safekeeping if you want,” Stella offered.

Jaqueline gave a slight nod. “Thanks, even if it’s of no use anymore, ah’d still like the pieces as somethin’ to remember mah ma.” Everyone worked to gather the fragments of the warrior’s armor from the deck before Stella opened a magical wormhole, compressed the fragments into a single bubble and stored it inside.

With that done, Bella took the signet ring of the Stonemasons guild master off Vancleef’s finger as proof of their victory and what appeared to be a letter before leaving the ship in search for an exit. With news of Vancleef’s demise spreading, none of the remaining Defias in the mine dared fight the group and gave them a wide berth.

As they left the cove, Sophia’s ears picked up on someone crying and wailing “Daddy!” While the others would see this as a cause for celebration, Sophia would remember the bitterness that came with this victory and know of the vengeance to come one day.

Author's Note

The first dungeon of the story and it ends up with a sad ending. The things I have to do to set things up for later events...

Anyway, Stormwind is safer and Stella's investigation continues. Will we find where their investigation will take them next in the next chapter? Nope, because it's the Horde group's turn to get some love next chapter.

Note: I will not be doing every dungeon in the game.

Up next: Lokosh and friends take on their first dungeon.

The Searing Blade

While Sophia was having her adventure in the Defias hideout, or the Deadmines as the locals called it, Thanatas was also working her way into the Horde’s good graces.

Right now she was standing to the side of Thrall’s throne room minding her own business. She noticed that the warchief had a conflicted look on his face and figured that he was wrestling with himself on whether to say something or not. He took a moment to calm himself and work up the nerve to finally speak up. He then looked in Thanatas’ direction.

“Thanatas, I would like for you to confirm something for me: What do you know of our most immediate threat?”

The death knight moved closer to Thrall and stopped ten feet before him. Vol’jin silently observed her.

“Are you referring to the Shadow Council? Or more specifically the Burning Blade?” Thanatas asked.

From what Thanatas remembered, the Shadow Council were the representatives of the demonic Burning Legion to the orcish race, composed of orcs who willingly joined the demons for power. They were the ones responsible for turning the old orc clans into a Horde to be used by the Legion to weaken Azeroth for a demonic invasion. The original leader of the Shadow Council was a power obsessed orc warlock named Gul’dan who was killed by wild demons in his quest for power during the Second War.

Thrall nodded to Thanatas’ request for clarification, “What do you know of them?”

“Speaking of the ones who currently reside in Orgrimmar, there is a sister cult to the Burning Blade in the caverns beneath the city. They call themselves the Searing Blade. I know that you want to trick a warlock of the Shadow Council, Neeru Fireblade, into giving away important information while lulling him into a false sense of security by feigning ignorance of his intentions.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know who the real leaders of this Searing Blade are, would you?”

Thanatas nodded, “While Neeru had been sending adventurers to their deaths to deal with a felguard demon named Taragaman the Hungerer, the real leaders are further in the back of the cavern. One is an orc warlock named Jergosh the Invoker while the other is a satyr named Bazzalan.”

Thrall couldn’t help but be surprised that the one before him simply knew information that he went to great lengths to obtain. “How have you come across such information?” he asked.

“I have my sources,” the death knight dismissed. “You can choose to listen to my advice or ignore it. Just be aware of possible consequences that come with either decision.”

Thrall frowned, “You are not making yourself easier to trust with your vague answers.”

Thanatas sighed and rolled her eyes, “Look, I can’t give away my sources but I have no intention of causing harm to the Horde. But I know that the Horde values actions more than words so you can give me a chance to prove my usefulness to the Horde or we can talk in circles all day and waste both of our time.”

Vol’jin narrowed his eyes at the death knight, “And how do we know ya ain’t tryin’ ta get us to trust ya just so you can simply stab us in the back later?”

The death knight shrugged, “Up to you whether you want to trust me or not, my information can save a lot of orcs from needless deaths.”

Thrall closed his eyes in thought for a few moments as he contemplated the undead’s words. As much as he hated to admit it, she did have a point. As an outsider, she had to prove her worth to the Horde but her silver tongue made him cautious. He couldn’t let such weakness show on his face though so he had to take a chance on her being sincere about her intentions.

“Very well, you can start by dealing with the issue of the cultists in Ragefire Chasm. Make sure all of the leaders of the Searing Blade are dead and bring me proof of their demise.”

“Finally,” Thanatas thought to herself. Now that she finally got her foot in the door she could work on solidifying her place in the Horde. She didn’t let her emotions show as she knelt down to Thrall. “As you wish, warchief.”

As she walked out of the throne room and out of earshot, Vol’jin approached his old friend with concern in his eyes. “Are ya sure it’s alright ta be trustin’ her with dis task. I sense a lotta dark mojo comin’ from her.”

“I’m aware that I’m taking a huge risk just by keeping her around, but she does have a point. We aren’t going to get anywhere by keeping her confined to this room. Aside from the fact that we already had this argument with the Earthen Ring in regards to the Forsaken, we need to know if she can keep her word about becoming a benefit to us.”

“I know old friend, doesn’t make me less nervous dat we invite a lotta dark mojo to da Horde as of late. Between da Forsaken, da warlocks an’ now her, I cannot help but worry about what lies ahead for us.”

Thanatas walked out of the throne room and out of the building before backtracking her previous route and entered the cave she passed earlier.

Lokosh and Farra’jin, the orc warrior and troll shaman who had their bodies stolen by Equestrian Liberation Front agents, Steel Edge and Desert Wind, had a long day of adventuring through the badlands of Durotar. After they left the Valley of Trials, the orc warrior had the troll shaman scoured the lands for veins of copper. That took several hours. When he had enough they went to the town of Razor Hill in the center of Durotar. He used the blacksmithing shop there to craft himself a set of copper armor as well as a copper ax and shield. He crafted a copper mace and shield for Farra’jin as well.

After that, the duo proceeded to assist the inhabitants of the region. They helped the trolls of Sen’jin Village to deal with some threats on the Echo Isles though they couldn’t find the elusive and traitorous witch doctor Zalazane. They then returned to Razor Hill and helped the Horde there in dealing with threats such as a band of renegade humans from Kul Tiras, quillboars, and cultists from the Burning Blade.

At one point Farra’jin was sent to the Barrens, a vast savannah region west of Durotar, where a shaman trainer made him light a torch which was a timely chore in itself as he had to gather tar from some local quillboars and a reagent pouch from a Burning Blade cultist in Durotar. He then had to face a fire elemental who also saw through his disguise before he could light the torch and take it back to the trainer so he could earn his fire totem.

Meanwhile, while Farra’jin was running all over the place, Lokosh honed his skills by killing harpies, scantily clad humanoid bird people who were all female and had wing arms and talons for feet, in a canyon. He also assisted a lone shaman camped in the middle of nowhere with obtaining collars used by the Burning Blade for their dark rituals. However, the shaman was unable to determine the origin of the collars and directed the warrior to a warlock named Neeru Fireblade.

As Lokosh was on his way to Orgrimmar, he received a psychic transmission from his shaman associate. “Finally, this shaman had me running all over Durotar for a totem that channels the power of fire elementals. That fire elemental I fought seemed quite displeased with my current arrangements.”

“There’s not much we can do about that,” Lokosh said. “The elementals usually keep to themselves anyway so I doubt that they will go blabbering to any shamans as long as we don’t appear suspicious to the shamans themselves. And even if they do find out it’s not like they have any connections to Sphere. Anyway, meet me at the gates of Orgrimmar. It’s about time we explored other places looking for something to do while we figure out where the Fragments are.”

“On my way,” Farra’jin acknowledged.

Lokosh waited near a pig farm that sat just outside the gates of the orc city waiting for his troll companion for half an hour before he received another psychic transmission from another associate.

“Hey Steel, you and Desert still in Durotar?” asked Greenpeace.

“Yeah, what’s up?” Lokosh acknowledged.

“I finished a bunch of rites that the tauren had me do in order to be allowed to leave Mulgore. It was not fun doing that stuff while sober.”

“You didn’t have any episodes with rampaging vines did you?” Lokosh asked.

“So far I’ve managed it, but this is not easy when I don’t have something to calm my nerves.”

“You should have found some place to practice while sober, just don’t blow our cover,” Lokosh warned.

“Right, anyway I paid a mage for a portal to Orgrimmar so I’ll meet you and Desert soon,” Greenpeace informed.

Lokosh waited a few more minutes for his companions. He soon spots a tauren exiting the gates of the city who looked around and walked over to him, assuming that Lokosh was who he was looking for since he was the only orc in the immediate area who wasn’t a guard.

“Lokosh, I presume?” the tauren asked.

Lokosh nodded to the tauren and greeted him in a fashion to not arouse suspicion from the nearby guard, “Throm-ka Groun, Farra’jin should be along any minute now.”

As if on cue, the troll in question ran toward the gate where the other two were waiting. “‘Ey dere Lokosh and Groun. We finally be together again. So what’s da plan?”

Lokosh took out what looked like several collars with dark gems embedded in them. “Once we take these to someone named Neeru Fireblade, we move on.”

Nodding in agreement, the trio entered the city and proceeded down the crudely paved road into an area that seemed more shaded than the rest of the city. This was because it was a narrow canyon that used a series of overhead leather sheets tied to large bones. The thick sheets blocked out most of the sunlight in the section that the orcs came to call The Drag.

Near another gate that led to the back of the city was a cave marked by an arch made of several large bones. Lokosh was informed that Neeru was within the cave so they proceeded inside.

The inside of the cave was where one would find the darkest elements of Orgrimmar. The area known as the Cleft of Shadow was where the more shady residents of Orgrimmar practiced their craft, from the stealthy rogues to the demonic practices of warlocks. While warlocks were still shunned by society as a whole, Thrall and Vol’jin couldn’t deny their effectiveness on the battlefield so they allowed the dark casters into the city if only so they could gain some insight into the plans of the Shadow Council.

The trio looked around the dark section of the city and saw numerous huts of leather and bone where warlocks taught their kin how to summon lesser demons like crafty imps, bulky masses of void called voidwalkers, promiscuous demons with pink skin, black demonic wings and slender legs that ended in hooves known as sayaad or more commonly known as succubi, and magic devouring felhounds. At the far end of the cavern from where the trio was were orc and troll assassins who served the warchief. Some of the rogues were sharpening their daggers or brewing poisons to coat their weapons with.

The trio stood at the top of a ramp leading down into the main area. Following the ramp down they took a left and walked past a hut with a troll who was selling mushrooms. They soon stood before a passage that would lead into a fiery cavern that the locals called Ragefire Chasm which contained threats that were contained but not dealt with. The hut that stood in front of the cavern was Lokosh’s destination.

Neeru was an orc who wore black, red and gold robes with a navy blue and gold hood and bracers of the previously mentioned colors combined. His staff had an onyx gem at the head. He also had a long beard that was braided and nearly touched the ground.

“Wait here,” Lokosh ordered before he walked into Neeru’s hut. He then presented the collars to the warlock. “Throm-ka Neeru, I was sent by Margoz to give you these for study.”

“Very well, let me take a closer look…” Neeru responded. He looked carefully at the collars, paying extra attention to the dark gems embedded within them. “Interesting, very interesting. You found these in Durotar, correct?”

Lokosh nodded, “There were a number of cultists wearing these around their necks at Skull Rock just east of the city.”

Neeru looked at the collars once more then at Lokosh. It was then that the gears began turning in his head. “This one may give us trouble later. Best let the Searing Blade handle him, it’s about time those fools had a proper test of their capabilities.” He paused for a moment before he spoke. “Since the last great war when the Burning Legion was defeated, I have searched for sources of demonic corruption in orc society. The collars you brought me confirm my fears. It belongs to the Burning Blade, a cult that rallies around an item of demonic power.

“However, there is a more pressing matter to take care of. My sources have informed me of another cult called the Searing Blade in Ragefire Chasm behind you. The cult has been secretly subverting innocent citizens of Orgrimmar for some time. They are led by a felguard demon named Taragaman the Hungerer. In order to ensure that Orgrimmar is safe from threats from within the city we need to have this cult eliminated. I ask you to go into Ragefire Chasm and eliminate their leader and bring me his heart. Without their leader, the Searing Blade will be easy prey for the grunts.”

Lokosh stared at the warlock for a moment. He had to wonder why Thrall hadn’t sent troops into Ragefire to deal with this threat yet, especially a threat from within the city. If Neeru’s words were the reason why that had not happened yet, then he suspected that something was amiss with the warlock. Some part of him suspected a trap. Of course, this could also help him get his new body into proper shape for the days ahead if he survived the ordeal. Plus now he had Farra’jin and Groun to help so his odds weren’t too bad.

“Very well, me and my allies will take care of this matter,” Lokosh said.

Without waiting for a response, Lokosh exited the hut. He called Farra’jin and Groun to his side and faced the entrance to the chasm, looking like a fiery maw that would lead into certain danger.

Farra’jin looked at his companion incredulously, “We seriously goin’ in dere? Ya know dat tings won’t end well for us if we die here, right?”

Lokosh knew that the troll was subtly referring to the mission, and he knew that what he was doing might be a fool’s errand, but he also knew that he needed to take some risks to improve their mission's chance of success in the long run. He stepped closer to the maw of the chasm and pulled out his ax and shield. “Groun, keep me alive with that plant magic of yours, Farra’jin, show me what the power of the elements can do to whatever is in this cave.”

Farra’jin gulped and followed the warrior inside while Groun held a neutral expression as he followed suit.

The inside of Ragefire Chasm was a furnace with magma flowing through the caverns. The floor itself felt like it would scorch one’s feet without proper protection.

The volcanic cavern was home to a species of large worms that thrived in the high temperatures. The worms were also territorial like most Azerothian species so they hissed threateningly at the trio which promised aggression if they moved any closer. The worms rose up to Farra’jin’s thighs.

Wandering among the worms was a large earth elemental made of the same volcanic rock that composed the cave. Like other earth elementals, this one was a pile of rocks being held together by a mysterious force that allowed it to take a somewhat humanoid form.

Lokosh hit his ax against his shield in challenge which caused several worms to slither toward the warrior. Farra’jin deployed his fire totem which sent bolts of elemental fire at the worms and his earth totem which offered some protection for the warrior. The fire wasn’t doing much against the worms though since they had adapted to withstand heat. Farra’jin’s lightning bolts were a lot more effective against the worms.

The worms occasionally spat a green goo at Lokosh which he dodged as prior experience with Zerg drove the lesson home that green goo was often acidic and seeing as some of the rock on the floor where the goo landed was burning away, he was glad that he wouldn’t be needing to replace his armor so soon.

Dealing with the earth elemental was a different matter than the worms as their bodies were solid rock. Groun got an idea however and grabbed one of the dead worms off the ground and pointed its head at the elemental before he wrung out the creature’s body, causing it to spray the last of its acidic goo. Lokosh saw what the tauren was planning and moved out of the way for the acid to corrode the elemental. The corrosion ate away at enough of the rock that Farra’jin saw what seemed to be a glowing core of light inside the large boulder that was its main body. The shaman struck the core with a lightning bolt and the core’s light surged through the elemental until it disappeared. The rock body fell apart afterward.

“Clever thinking, Groun,” Lokosh complimented.

“Thanks, I had to learn how to do that with snakes when I was surviving in the southern jungle to keep a supply of antidote whenever snakes bit me in my sleep,” Groun said.

The trio continued down the path deeper into the cavern, fighting off more worms. As they got further, they encountered what looked like a tribe of short primitive looking creatures with red hair and black skin. Lokosh decided to consult someone who might know through the link, “Hey Windwhisper, what am I looking at?”

The mare in question took a moment before answering back, “The mountain winds tell me they are an abhorrent mutation of the dwarf race called troggs. They are savage but also spiritualistic. Beware of those who can use the elements.”

“Thanks,” Lokosh said before he started using his ax and shield to taunt the troggs toward him. With the troggs grouped together as they were, Lokosh ended up drawing several at a time toward him. Farra’jin’s totems offered some protection for the warrior but the troggs were either flailing at him with their fists relentlessly or throwing lightning bolts at him which left him badly electrocuted since his armor was made of copper, a highly conductive metal. Groun had to call upon the power of nature to heal Lokosh often because of this.

It took some effort but the trio managed to clear the section of the cave of troggs. Farra’jin and Groun were exhausted and Lokosh’s shield was dented. They hadn’t even gotten to the cultists yet and they already needed a break.

Farra’jin pulled out a bottle of water from his backpack and drank his fill of the life-saving fluid. Groun did the same with his own supply of water. Lokosh had, admittedly, forgotten to stock up on that necessity but the others were generous enough to share.

Their break didn’t last long as a roar echoed through the cavern. The group took up a defensive stance to prepare for what was coming but they were not prepared to see a slightly larger trogg enter the area flanked by two more troggs. The larger trogg pointed a finger at the group and roared, signaling his allies to attack.

Lokosh managed to hold off the strikes of one of the smaller and the larger trogg but he was getting zapped from afar by a trogg shaman. Farra’jin attacked the shaman and gained his attention. Groun had to focus to keep both of his allies alive. Farra’jin managed to kill his target before focusing on the larger one which they figured might be the leader of the troggs in the cavern. The flailing attacks of the two troggs began to overwhelm Lokosh’s defense and in a desperate move he charged forward, knocking the leader off his feet before quickly cutting down the other trogg.

However, the knockback only made the leader angry. His fists started hitting his shield harder than before. It was only a matter of time before his shield broke.

The sound of something hard slamming on stone was heard nearby and before the trio could try to learn what happened, a giant bone spike erupted from the ground and impaled the large trogg from bottom to top. It was a gruesome display as the trogg’s blood flowed down the spike but the trio was thankful that the creature was dead.

They then heard the sound of metal walking on stone coming from the path behind them. Their eyes widened in horror as they realized who they had the displeasure of running into. The report given to them by Crystal Silicon informed them of how terrifying the person they were looking at truly was. Just like in the reports, her skin was pale as death and her hair white as snow. Her eyes glowed an eerie blue and the armor she wore completed her terrifying visage.

Thanatas stared at the three adventurers and immediately noticed something off about them. Her ability to see the souls of others led her to find that the three were not only possessed by Equestrian souls but the original souls had been evicted, if not destroyed.

“Hey Twilight, can you look up three names: Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun Lifehorn?” Thanatas asked through her cousin’s psychic network..

It took a few moments for Twilight to get back to her with the results of her query. “The three in question are young adventurers who should have reached the age of majority a few days ago. They are classified as non-player characters or NPCs.”

“I see, now can you run through Equestria’s other databases and try to find out what you can on three individuals. I need to confirm something. Their names are Steel Edge, Desert Wind and Greenpeace.”

A few more moments passed and the death knight and the trio were still eyeing each other in silence. That was until Thanatas broke the silence with a cheerful smile, “Greetings adventurers, I see that you are having a fun time here. Mind if I tag along for this adventure? I have some things I need to do here and I wouldn’t mind some assistance.”

The trio looked at each other for a few awkward moments as they psychically communicated between themselves. “Do you believe she suspects who we are?” Farra’jin asked.

“I’m not sure, but seeing as she is quite knowledgeable about souls and necromancy, I wouldn’t put it past her that she already suspects something,” Lokosh said.

“This is not good bros, if she knows then she could easily blow our covers,” Groun said, failing to hide his worry. “You think we can take her? It is three on one.”

“Not a chance,” Lokosh denied. “You remember the report Crystal filed on her. She is a monster on the battlefield. It wouldn’t take much effort for her to cut our heads off and these bodies are still too untrained to be any challenge to her.”

“So what do we do?” Farra’jin asked. “Are we really at her mercy?”

Lokosh signed in defeat, “I’m afraid so.” He then faced the death knight again. “Thanks, we could really use the help getting to the back of this cavern.”

“Think nothing of it,” Thanatas said smilingly.

The group, now including a death knight, proceeded deeper into Ragefire Chasm. They quickly found themselves climbing a ramp that was infested with worms and more volcanic earth elementals.

Thanatas preferred to let the trio continue doing most of the fighting so they could improve their skills. In the meantime, she listened to the results of her query.

“This is certainly interesting, the three named ponies were reported missing decades ago. Steel Edge was a skilled weaponsmith who crafted impressive weapons using old blacksmithing techniques and modern phasesmithing. He racked up a massive debt in order to build a smithing shop in Canterlot and ended up taking up mercenary work on the side. Lack of patronage led to his smithing business failing since demand for weapons in times of peace was at a typical low. He was bailed out of his debt by none other than Crystal Silicon. Shortly after that he disappeared without a trace.

“Desert Wind was a skilled business entrepreneur who owned a chain of small businesses with his corporate headquarters in Manehattan. He was also seen as eccentric to his workers and officers because he often wore raggedy hand-me-downs. However, he also ran another business on the side, an illegal one. He was also the Equestrian representative of an infamous Zebrican drug cartel. He eventually got caught and was arrested, leaving one of his officers as the new CEO. However, he was bailed out of prison by a certain noble and was never heard from again.

“Greenpeace was one of the most magically gifted earth ponies in the history of Equus. They say that plants around him behaved like they were his pets. The most innocuous of plants could become a ferocious monster at his command. However, the problem with his powers was that his state of mind determined the behavior of the plants and could easily kill people if he lost control of his emotions. Because of this, he relied on Zebrican drugs to keep himself in a mellow state of mind so the plants around him would remain calm. Of course, the drugs were illegal and expensive so this left him in a desperate situation to where he fled into the jungle south of Equestria to live there away from civilization. He was never heard from again afterward.”

“Thanks for the information,” Thanatas said. “Now I’m fairly certain that these three are members of the Equestrian Liberation Front. Steel and Desert had a common acquaintance in Crystal Silicon and it’s not much of a stretch to say she met Greenpeace too.”

“Then our previous suspicions were correct. But what are they after? If they wanted to target my old friends then it would make more sense for them to steal the bodies of races that belong to the Alliance.”

“Maybe they aren’t targeting your friends. Maybe they’re after something else in this world.”

“In that case, it would seem that while we know that they’re here we have no idea what their objective is,” Midnight noted. “Dealing with them now would only cause them to go into hiding again and we would have to deal with a recurring villain for years to come, not to mention that we still have no clue who the leader is.”

“So what’s the call?” Thanatas asked.

“If they’re coming into this incognito, then their plans must be in a delicate phase that requires subtlety,” Twilight deduced. “We will allow them to progress with their plans while taking note of their behavior. We will take action against them once their plan progresses enough that their leader is comfortable enough to come out of hiding. Until then, observe them like Sophia is observing my friends but make sure you keep their hopes of completing their mission alive. We can’t afford to scare them off.”

“Understood.” Thanatas ended the transmission.

The group arrived at the top of the ramp to find an area inhabited by a number of earth elementals with a few worms. By this point Thanatas felt that the normal denizens of the cavern had delayed her mission long enough so she pulled out her sword and unleashed a wave of frost that briefly encased the elementals and worms in the area in ice. She followed up by plunging her sword into the volcanic rock floor to create a tremor that shattered the elementals and worms.

“Alright, now we can finally get to the cultists,” Thanatas said smilingly.

Just ahead of that room the group entered another chamber. This one contained a lake of magma with a series of platforms bridged together with a network of stone bridges. It was an odd sight if the bridges were formed naturally so the group had to assume that shamans built the bridges from the molten rock.

The chamber was inhabited by a large number of orc cultists and the trio noticed a large figure in the center. The figure had dark gray skin with spikes on his back and had armor over his legs and arms and wore a helm. He had no chest armor though. He carried what looked like a giant broadsword with ease.

“A felguard huh? Must be Taragaman. This should be an interesting challenge for these three,” Thanatas thought to herself.

Lokosh charged in and grabbed the attention of a group of cultists. Some carried shields and axes while others carried daggers. The warrior had an easier time blocking the attacks of the cultists than he did with the troggs and gave Farra’jin and Groun more comfort that the attacks weren’t going to leave them greatly exhausted like earlier. The shaman’s fire totem was inflicting scorch marks on the orcs which distracted them and left Lokosh with an opening to decapitate any distracted cultist with his ax.

Cultists from nearby platforms heard the commotion and came to investigate, bringing with them some warlocks who commanded voidwalkers. Seeing as the trio was about to be greatly outnumbered, Thanatas dispatched one of the incoming groups of cultists with her sword and overwhelming strength, leaving the trio to deal with the second group.

The trio took a moment to recover their strength before they faced down the demon in the center of the chamber. Once prepared, Lokosh charged at the demon waiting for them. The warrior’s ax barely scratched the felguard’s armor for his first strike while the counterattack from the demon’s blade nearly sent Lokosh flying into the lava. Groun was able to call on roots to keep the warrior from flying away. Because of the demon’s strength, Lokosh was forced to dodge Taragaman’s attacks instead of blocking them. Each swing the warrior either rolled away from or redirected it with his shield. Meanwhile, Farra’jin was unleashing fire and lightning trying to chip away at the demon’s defenses.

Taragaman countered their efforts by stomping the floor and unleashing a wave of fire that badly scorched the trio. Groun did his best to heal the burns on his companions but his efforts took time and some of the tauren’s stamina.

As the fight continued, Lokosh’s ax left scratches on the demon’s flesh and Farra’jin’s lightning was beginning to give the demon convulsions but the demon continued to fight. The three were slowly becoming exhausted from their fight which was beginning to turn into a battle of attrition. That was until Lokosh led Taragaman to the edge of the platform. The demon saw this as an opportunity to punch the orc into the magma below but as he swung his fist to do so, the orc rolled out of the way, causing him to overextend and become unbalanced. Groun capitalized on this and charged toward the demon before headbutting him over the edge.

The felguard fell into the lava and started flailing as his flesh burned. Thanatas’ eyes widened as she knew that she needed proof of his demise. Using an ability she hadn’t used in a long time, she ran her hand along her sword which transformed the blue runes etched into it into red runes. This caused her body to burst into flames before she jumped into the magma where the demon fell, grabbed him by a spike on his back with one hand then shoved her other hand into the demon’s chest. A few moments later she ripped out the demon’s heart. She let the now dead demon sink into the magma before climbing back onto the platform and cutting off the transformation.

“Why did you do that?” Lokosh asked.

“Because I needed proof of his demise,” Thanatas answered. “Anyway, you three did what Neeru asked of you so you are free to leave and inform him of his death. If Neeru asks for proof, tell him that his heart is being delivered to Thrall’s chamber and he can see it there.”

As curious as he was to see what was further in the chasm, Lokosh knew that his allies were on their last legs and needed to rest. He also didn’t want to be near the monster who savagely thwarted Crystal’s plans a moment longer than necessary. So he bowed to the undead in gratitude before leading Farra’jin and Groun back to the entrance.

Once she no longer saw the trio, Thanatas proceeded deeper into the cavern by herself. Since she was now free to do things her way, she used her necromancy to raise the corpses of the fallen cultists and unleashed them against other groups of cultists. Within a minute the entire chamber was filled with the sounds of battle between the living demon worshippers and the dead demon worshippers. The clanging of steel against steel sang a song that echoed through the caverns while bolts of shadow flew all over the place. Every cultist that fell rose up again in Thanatas’ service.

In the chaos, Thanatas moved to the back of the cavern where she spotted one of her remaining targets, the orc warlock who led the Searing Blade cult, Jergosh the Invoker. The warlock wasn’t much tougher than his fellow cultists and while he was holding off the dead, the same couldn’t be said for his allies as they fell one by one until only he remained.

When Jergosh spotted Thanatas, he launched bolt after bolt of shadow magic at her which she deflected with her sword. He tried to set her on fire and curse her but his magic was negated by the runes on her sword. He soon began to panic as it appeared that he ran out of tricks which was the death knight’s cue to run in and put the orc out of his misery.

The orc’s death cries caused the satyr Thanatas was looking for to look down from the ledge he was on to see what was going on which proved to be his final mistake as the death knight unleashed a line of necromantic magic which wrapped around Bazzalan and yanked him off the ledge where he fell toward her and landed with his gut impaled by her sword. The satyr coughed up blood which sprayed on Thanatas’ face before she finished the former elf by removing her sword from his body and decapitating him.

With the leaders dead, Thanatas proceeded to claim her trophies. She cut Jergosh’s head off and claimed Bazzalan’s head as well. With Taragaman’s heart from earlier, she had completed her task. Not wanting to leave evidence of her abilities behind, she undid the reanimation of the corpse army, leaving them to collapse or fall into the magma as if their strings had been cut.

With the caverns clear, she decided to use her favorite transportation method, which involved enclosing herself in a cage of bone which sank into the ground and into a realm of shadows, to leave the cavern.

Author's Note

Yep, they're caught. Lucky for our trio that Sphere is more interested in capturing their leader and if allowing them to complete their mission would ultimately bring their leader out of hiding then it looks like they're getting some powerful help.

Next time: Stella and friends go to jail.

The Jailbreak

Sophia had a bitter taste in her mouth as a result of what happened in the Deadmines. It was bad enough to kill a little girl’s father, Edwin Vancleef, it was far worse to kill the father in front of the daughter. It was also irresponsible to leave the daughter to fend for herself with her father dead. Unfortunately, she had to be the irresponsible one this time because according to Thanatas, this was supposed to be the moment to motivate her into becoming one of the most talented rogues on Azeroth.

With Vancleef dead, the rest of the Defias were quick to retreat. Getting off the juggernaut was easy, though instead of backtracking through the mines again, Bella discovered another tunnel in the back of the cove. Following the path up to the tunnel, the passage narrowed and dropped sharply in places but it wasn’t long before they reached the end and were greeted by daylight once more. After what felt like days underground despite it being hours, the group was able to breathe fresh air once more.

The salty sea breeze told the group that they were near the west coast of Westfall. Stella took out her map and used an enhancement spell on it to enlarge the Westfall region. She spotted Moonbrook on the map and after some calculating, determined their current location. “Looks like we came out near the Dagger Hills southwest of Moonbrook. Sentinel Hill is a long walk from here.”

“If you wouldn’t mind darling, would you be so kind as to create a portal to Sentinel Hill?” Bella asked.

“We can’t just be relyin’ on Stella’s magic to get us all over the place, Bella,” Jaqueline argued.

“The sun is beginning to set and traveling at night is never recommended unless absolutely necessary. Also, we lack the necessary supplies to set up camp and as dry as this region is, starting a wildfire would be very easy,” Bella countered. “Once we deliver news of Vancleef’s demise to Stoutmantle, we shall return to Stormwind to rest while we plan our next move.”

With no further arguments, Stella opened a portal to Sentinel Hill for everyone. Once there, Bella presented the guild master’s ring of the Stonemason’s Guild to Stoutmantle which surprised the paladin. “You brought me Vancleef’s signet ring? I would have thought that you would bring more definitive proof like his head or something.”

Bella cringed in disgust, “Of course not, we’re not barbarians!”

Stoutmantle gave a small smile and a nod, “Probably for the best. It pains me to condemn such a man to his death but countless innocents would have suffered if he were allowed to continue. Anyway, The People’s Militia thanks you. We can handle any stragglers who don’t feel like dropping their bandanas. Get some sleep, you’ve earned it.”

“We shall do just that,” Bella then turned to her mage companion. “Stella?”

Stella created a portal to the Mage Quarter in Stormwind. Once everyone was through, Stella closed the portal and traveled to the Trade District to rent a few rooms for a few days while they worked out their next plans.

Bella, Stella and Jaqueline were confused because Sophia continued tagging along despite the matter of the Deadmines being concluded.

“Is there a reason you’re still followin’ us?” Jaqueline asked.

“Hmm?” Sophia hummed. “I’m tagging along because I have a feeling that you three are going to get into a lot of interesting adventures soon and I want to get in on that.”

“If by ‘interesting adventures’ you mean me spending the next few days crafting Jaqueline a new set of armor since her old one is ruined, then by all means,” Bella offered.

“That’s fine, I’m going to check out this letter I found on Vancleef’s person. Looks to be addressed to someone named Baros Alexston.” Sophia looked at Jaqueline and Stella. “What are you two going to do?”

“Ah’m gonna visit the Dwarven District, see if they can’t craft me some better weapons,” Jaqueline said. “Ah’ll see if SI:7 lends their training dummies to the public. Ah’d be a fool ta leave the city without some protection.”

“I think I’ll tag along with you in following the lead on the letter,” Stella offered. “I don’t have much else to do and I can’t complete my mission while Prestor is stonewalling me.”

“She did say that she would help you gain an audience with the regent, did she not?” Bella asked.

“She said she would be able to get me in to see him at an earlier date but she didn’t say that she would do it. I highly doubt that she will though, especially if she really is manipulating the regent.”

“So what will ya do?” Jaqueline asked. “If ya can’t prove she’s guilty she will keep you away from Bolvar until you give up. With King Varian missin’, you can’t override her authority neither.”

“I don’t know, maybe the letter might lead me in the right direction and I don’t have any other leads to follow right now.”

“Very well, good luck to you both,” Bella bid. “If you need my help for something, don’t hesitate to ask.”

The quartet spent the next few days in Stormwind. While Bella spent many hours working the metals she collected into Jaqueline’s new armor, the warrior paid a dwarven blacksmith to forge her a new pair of swords.

During this time, Sophia and Stella asked around the city for the whereabouts of Baros Alexston. Thankfully the man was in a respectable profession as a city architect so the citizens were able to point them in the right direction.

Alexston’s business was located in the Cathedral Square near where the Church of the Holy Light was located. It wasn’t hard to find the man’s business after that and they soon found themselves in his office.

“Yes? Is there something I can help you with?” Baros Alexston asked.

Sophia presented the sealed letter to the architect. “This was found on Edwin Vancleef’s body.”

“Edwin Vancleef, you say?” Alexston repeated. “I would as much expect a letter from my dead grandmother.” He sighed. “So you killed him then?” He paused for a moment. “Very well, let’s see what he finds the need to write to me about after all these years.” He broke the seal on the letter and opened it to read it. After a couple of minutes he placed the letter on his desk and shook his head in disappointment. “Edwin…I see the years haven’t changed you a bit, an idealist as ever, and a romantic. He didn’t care who he hurt. Revenge had consumed him, not that I could blame him.

“Me and Edwin used to be part of the Stonemason’s guild. Our main project was rebuilding Stormwind after the First War. When we finished, the nobles swindled us and offered the senior members governmental jobs instead. Vancleef refused out of loyalty to the guild and led a riot in the streets, swearing revenge.

“If anyone knows about Vancleef’s plans, it would be Bazil Thredd and he’s locked up in the Stockade right now. Before you go visiting him though, perhaps you might be able to help me with something. Every now and then I visited Thredd in the Stockade. He told me about a mysterious visitor who went by Maelik. I don’t know much about him and neither did Thredd, but perhaps Master Mathias Shaw of SI:7 might know.”

Alexston wrote a letter and a description of the visitor for the duo to take to Shaw at the SI:7 headquarters in Old Town. They found the spymaster on the second floor of the headquarters. They handed the letter to Shaw to look at before he raised an eyebrow at them.

“I do know who this man is, but his name is not Maelik,” Shaw said. “Nowadays he goes by Marzon but I doubt that's his true name either. Regardless, he’s an assassin and he’s under the employ of Lord Gregor Lescovar. He’s shady even by the corrupt standards of the nobility.”

“Baros Alexston said he got this information from Bazil Thredd,” Stella said.

Shaw shook his head, “Even if Thredd were to testify, Lescovar is a noble and is well connected. He’s effectively above the law.”

“So what if Lescovar was killed by Marzon while someone eliminated Marzon?” Sophia offered hypothetically.

“As long as nobody suspects that such an attack was staged, the killer of the assassin would be seen as a hero.”

“Would that hero be granted an audience with the regent?” Stella asked.

“I’m afraid that would be up to Lady Prestor. Even if such a scenario happened, Lady Prestor could end up being the one to reward the hero. And then it would be a token reward at best.” He paused and narrowed his eyes at the two. “Now answer me this, why do you want to see Bolvar?”

“Because I’m on assignment from Dalaran to inspect him for signs of magical mental manipulation,” Stella explained. “Unfortunately, Lady Prestor is being uncooperative with me in that matter.”

“In that case, allow me to help you skip the legal proceedings and inform you that he is being controlled by Lady Prestor. Though even knowing this we can’t take action against her because she has Crown Prince Anduin hostage. She has her own agents ready to assassinate him if she detects the slightest hint of treachery and she’s very paranoid.”

“So what can we do?”

“There’s not much we can do unless we find out where King Varian is. He attended a summit at Theramore but disappeared on the way. The only one who might know what happened might be Bazil Thredd.”

“Looks like we need to pump Thredd for information if we want to get anywhere with this investigation,” Stella thought out loud.

“So we have something of a plan on that end. As for the Lescovar problem, I can make it look like they turned on each other and make sure both of them die together,” Sophia offered.

“If you can do that, I’ll be very impressed. I’ll even owe you for saving me the resources,” Shaw said.

“Put in a good word for me with King Varian if he returns and I’ll call us square.”

“Heh, looking for the king’s favor huh? So who are you anyway?”

“Let me save you the trouble of research and tell you that you won’t find my name on any records in the royal archives. My name is Sophia Craft and I am a very skilled assassin.” She paused for a moment and returned to the previous subject. “So when are the two expected to meet?”

“One of my agents found out that they will be meeting in the keep’s courtyard in a few days. That will be your window.”

Sophia nodded and left the headquarters with Stella following. With nothing else to do but wait, they decided to check out what goods and services Stormwind had to offer.

The next few days were spent exploring Stormwind City. Bella looked through the various clothing stores that involved either fabric clothing, leather armor, scale armor or plate armor, looking for inspiration, all the while working on forging Jaqueline’s new armor.

The warrior in question paid a significant amount of gold coins to commission a dwarven blacksmith to forge her a pair of mithril longswords. Bella insisted that Jaqueline used the mithril bars from her bank’s safety deposit box to have the weapons crafted to reduce the cost. During the time that the swords were being forged, Jaqueline practiced her technique on the training dummies near the SI:7 headquarters using the swords she stole from the Defias.

Stella and Sophia explored the Mage Quarter checking out the apothecary and other stores that sold magical wares. Stella figured that if she was going to be putting herself in harm’s way for a while, she might as well make sure the enchantments on her robes and staff hadn’t worn off. She also made sure to learn some enchanting techniques for her…friends? She wasn’t sure how they thought of her. Still, it didn’t hurt to make sure that her allies had the best chances of survival by making sure their items were enchanted.

Once the time of the forewarned meeting had come, Sophia snuck her way into Stormwind Keep again under the cover of night and waited in the garden near the throne room where Katrana Prestor stood as smug as ever.

Sophia waited two hours invisible to everyone thanks to her Shadow Walk ability before an elderly-looking man in black and light red robes exited the library. He ordered the guards in the area to leave him while he “meditated”. Once the guards were out of sight, an assassin in black leather crept out of a bush near the man’s position. The elder addressed the assassin, his hands behind his back. “There you are. What news from Westfall?” Lescovar asked.

“The plan has gone awry, we discovered Vancleef’s body atop the juggernaut. Some adventurers invaded the Deadmines and assassinated him along with some of his top lieutenants.” Marzon informed.

“I see, then that means that fool in the Stockade is no longer of any use to us. I will order his execution once I get back to my manor. We’ll have to find some other idealistic fool to carry on with the plan. Only contact me again when you’ve found someone we can manipulate.”

“Very well, I will return to Westfall and wait for further developments.” Marzon turned to leave.

“Very good, and one more thing,” Lescovar said. Marzon turned to the noble again just in time to feel a sharp pain in his gut. He looked down to find the noble had stabbed him with a dagger. The assassin’s instincts kicked in and immediately realized that his benefactor had betrayed him. He quickly unsheathed his swords and ran the noble through with them. Lescovar coughed up blood and quickly collapsed but not before using the last of his strength to widen the wound with his dagger. The assassin coughed up blood which splattered all over his black bandana.

With the noble dead, Marzon tried to make his escape but with his gaping wound he was losing blood too fast. By the time the guards returned, they saw the escaping rogue and made the assumption that the assassin had killed the noble. Marzon lacked the strength to fight back and was helpless before the onslaught of the guards.

“Inform Highlord Bolvar of what transpired!” one guard ordered.

Sophia stood atop the roof surrounding the garden with a satisfied look on her face. “That was a fun puppet show. All it really took was controlling the old man’s mind into attacking his associate and watching the fireworks.”

With the deed done, Sophia returned to the inn.

The next morning, Bella was handing Jaqueline her new armor. It was mostly green since it was made of thorium, a strong metal that was found in the more dangerous regions of Azeroth. The armor was bordered with gold with red apples painted on the shoulders, gauntlets, boots, helm and the belt.

“I figured that as a Pomerton, you would like armor that would symbolize your place in such a family,” Bella explained.

Jaqueline was taken aback as she saw the armor. She ended up inhaling and smelled apples that reminded her of home. “You made it smell like apples too?” Jaqueline asked.

Bella nodded, “The smell is only temporary, I’m afraid. I sprayed the scent on it to ease you into this new suit so you would have an easier time accepting to wear it.”

Jaqueline rubbed the back of her neck and chuckled awkwardly, “Wow Bella, you didn’t have ta go through all that fer me. Ah woulda worn it with or without the scent.” Jaqueline went into a private room to change into her new armor. She came out fifteen minutes later with the armor on and her new mithril swords sheathed.

Bella then handed Jaqueline one last item. It was a fairly large round shield with matching gold border and green center with three red apples in the center.

“Shucks Bella, where’d you get the idea to design this thing?” Jaqueline asked.

“It just came to me for some odd reason,” Bella replied.

Stella then approached the door out of the room, failing to hide her impatience. “Are you two finished? We need to head to the Stockade and get some information out of Bazil Thredd.”

The four nodded in affirmation then exited from the inn in the Trade District and headed west to the canals and across a bridge where they followed the canal north to a large tower, the depths of which was where the Stormwind prison known as the Stockade was located. The four could tell something was wrong as they approached, there were a lot more guards than usual guarding the Stockade and many of them were in a combat stance facing the inside of the prison.

The group approached the first set of guards who blocked their way. The guards wouldn’t move so Bella approached first. “Greetings soldiers of Stormwind, may I ask what is going on?”

“There’s been an incident in the Stockade ma’am, we can’t allow civilians inside. Unless you want to help deal with a bunch of escaped Defias prisoners, I suggest you take your leave.”

It was then Stella’s turn to speak with the guards as she approached. “I’m special agent Stellaglim of the Kirin Tor. I need to interrogate one of your prisoners, one named Bazil Thredd. I believe he may have info that will help me with my investigation.”

The guards looked at the mage incredulously, “You’ve gotta be joking ma’am, Thredd’s the one leading this prison riot! I’ll get the warden.” He then yelled into the building, “Warden sir, we have a Kirin Tor investigator here who needs to speak to our main problem!”

Not even a minute passed before an angry looking man exited the tower and gave a disapproving look at the group before he sighed. “As if I didn’t have enough problems, now I have to entertain someone from Dalaran and her escort,” he grumbled. Jaqueline was about to say something but a touch on the shoulder from Bella along with a shake of her head discouraged that. “I’m Warden Thelwater, warden of the Stockade. You lot look tough so if you help us quell the riot, I can make sure your audience with Thredd goes undisturbed. Bring me his head when you’re done.”

“His head!?” Bella gasped. “You can’t be serious! What do you take us for? Orcs? We’re adventurers, not barbarians!”

“Alright, alright, look, just bring me something from his person to prove that he’s dead, okay?” The group nodded in acceptance of the terms before Thelwater ordered his guards to let them through.

The inside of the tower had a few crates of supplies and weapon and armor racks strewn around the area with wooden spikes narrowing passage to a wide staircase leading into the basement where the prison was located. The guards kept a vigilant eye on the staircase to keep any prisoners contained below. Four stone pillars acted as supports to keep the floor from collapsing. At Thelwater’s command, the guards parted to let the group through so they could descend down the staircase and into the prison.

The prison was dank and run down. Cobwebs ran along the ceiling to show that the Stockade was not properly maintained. The sound of cell doors opening on squeaky hinges could be heard in the distance.

Straight ahead were a number of humans wearing leather pants and white shirts carrying improvised prison shanks, wooden planks with a nail in it and large wooden mallets.

The Defias were more densely populated in the prison than they were in the Deadmines which meant that they would be facing numerous thugs at a time. Thankfully with Jaqueline’s new armor and weapons, she was better equipped to handle the crude weapons of the prison escapees. Her hard shield shattered shanks and turned the makeshift nail bats to splinters and nails. Stella set the vulnerable Defias on fire while freezing others before shattering them with icicles. With the narrow corridor they were walking through, Bella was content to stay behind Jaqueline and act as healing support.

At the end of the main corridor stood a room that contained two prisoners and an ashen-skinned orc with red markings and wearing a harness, loincloth and a leather shoulder armor on his right shoulder. He also wielded a pair of shortswords.

“Targorr the Dread, executioner of the Blackrock Clan of orcs who operate in Redridge Mountains, Burning Steppes and are headquartered in Blackrock Spire inside Blackrock Mountain,” Thanatas explained through the link.

“I would have thought the Alliance would have this guy killed on sight, not left to rot in a prison,” Sophia guessed.

“Blame Prestor for waylaying the bureaucracy. Seems she wants to keep the orc alive for some reason. Seems suspicious, huh?” Thanatas teased.

“Instead of teasing me about mysteries you already know the answer to, how about doing something useful like finding out where Crystal Silicon is. If three of her allies are here on some mission, she can’t be far away.”

“I have a pretty good idea where she would be if she followed the pattern of her cohorts. Just need to sneak away from the warchief and his advisor so I can find a portal to the Undercity.”

Jaqueline charged in to face Targorr and his Defias allies. While all of their attention was on the warrior, Sophia snuck in and stabbed both thugs in the back to leave the orc alone with the group. Targorr’s attacks were fast and fierce and he tried slashing at Jaqueline from many angles but the warrior’s shield blocked most of the strikes while she blocked others with one of her swords. Stella bombarded the orc with waves of arcane bolts which pushed him back as he lacked resistance to magical attacks, let alone a flying hammer of light from Bella aimed at his head.

Targorr tried attacking Stella but Jaqueline clanged her shield and sword together near his head which dazed and unbalanced the orc, leaving him vulnerable to a sword through the chest, a sword of light from below and a bombardment of fire, frost and arcane magic for good measure.
Targorr coughed blood as he fell to his hands and knees and soon fell to the floor, unmoving.

“Any idea why Stormwind captured this guy in the first place?” Sophia asked.

“From what I heard, he was captured by the Stormwind army and would have been executed on the spot had Lady Prestor not intervened,” Bella said.

“Sounds ta me like she’s protectin’ the orcs, question is why?” Jaqueline added.

Deciding to continue the conversation later, the four left the room and proceeded into the western cell block, dealing with more of the same Defias prisoners like before. They took care to make sure each cell was cleared, thankful the corridor only had four cells.

They soon reached the end of the cell block and cleared out three more rooms. All but one of them contained more Defias where the exception held a man with black hair and wore a dull red vest and green pants and a black shirt.

“It’s a shame that you have to kill this guy,” Thanatas said. “His name is Dextren Ward and he’s here because he got caught selling corpses to a necromancer in Duskwood. I bet he charged a fair price too. Oh well…”

Like before, Sophia made sure any of Dextren’s Defias guards were dealt with while she left her friends to deal with the corpse seller. Dextren’s hits were slightly heavy with him wielding a halberd.

As he tried fighting through Jaqueline’s defenses, Dextren tried throwing them off balance by unleashing a terrifying shout which stunned the trio momentarily. He then tried dealing a grievous blow to the warrior but Sophia, who was unaffected by the shout, kicked the man into a wall. The time it took Dextren to recover was enough for the other three to resume their attacks.

Dextren soon found himself overwhelmed by the spells and blade of the warrior, mage and paladin. Jaqueline eventually broke his guard and stabbed the corpse seller in the chest, leaving him to bleed out on the prison floor.

With the west block secured, the group returned to the central corridor and prepared to engage the east block where Bazil Thredd was most likely to be. As they prepared, a number of prison guards moved in and secured the central and west blocks of the prison.

“At least once this is over, I’ll have plenty of room for more prisoners…after I get some funding to get these cells repaired,” Thelwater said as he approached, bitterly grumbling about the last part.

The group left the guards to their procedures and proceeded into the east block, dealing with more Defias prisoners. Among them was a dark iron dwarf, a type of dwarf with ashen skin and burning red eyes. The dwarf proved to be a hassle to kill, not because of his attacks but the fact that he was skilled in protecting himself with a shield. Defeating the dwarf was more taxing to the group’s stamina because of his shield’s durability. Once the trio surrounded him on three sides, he didn’t last much longer after that.

The quartet soon reached the end of the east block and the end of their trek through the prison. Standing in the center of the area was an ogre with two heads. One head had two eyes and a horn while the other had one eye and a broken horn. The ogre only wore a blue loincloth and blue bracers with blue markings on his arms. In his right arm was a bloody cleaver.

“Me gonna fry you and cut you up!” the ogre cried before electricity began dancing along his fingers. Before he could unleash a bolt, however, Stella struck the ogre with a Counterspell to interrupt his cast. He then roared in fury before he called out, “Don’t just stand dere puny humies, kill dem!”

The Defias in the room barely moved two steps before Sophia decapitated them with her blades.

Meanwhile, the others dealt with the ogre. He succeeded in throwing a bolt of lightning at Jaqueline which was blocked by her shield. Soon he found himself surrounded by the three as they began to assault him with magic. Seeing that Stella was the only one without a shield, he tried to cleave her with his cleaver only for Bella to throw her shield which bounced off both of the ogre’s heads, completely dazing him. Jaqueline moved between him and Stella and bashed the head with two eyes with her shield while the other head was blasted by a Frostbolt.

The ogre couldn’t figure out who the bigger threat was and that led to hesitation which was all Jaqueline needed to reduce the head count on the two-headed ogre’s shoulders to zero.

Once the ogre fell, a Defias in black leather armor and red leather pants entered the room with his swords sheathed. His hands were in the air. “Alright, I surrender. I know I’m not walking out of here alive, especially with Thelwater nearby.”

Jaqueline and Bella kept their weapons trained on the Defias who they figured was Bazil Thredd. Stella was the one to approach him. “I want you to tell me what you know about Lady Katrana Prestor,” she demanded.

“Sure, and if this information can lead to that bitch’s death, it’ll be worth dying for. I kept track of Vancleef’s dealings while he was off playing revolutionary. Prestor had been a secret benefactor behind the Defias Brotherhood. She hired us to intercept King Wrynn’s vessel on the way to Theramore. Not sure what she was planning to do to the king, but whatever it was got interrupted when a bunch of naga came in and attacked the boys and forced Katrana to flee somewhere. One of my boys reported that the king escaped into the sea to flee from the naga. Don’t know what happened to him after that.”

“You call her a benefactor, does this mean that she knew about the orc juggernaut Vancleef was building?”

“If you knew that then you are probably one of the people who killed him,” Thredd sighed. “I knew we were mere puppets dancing to Prestor’s tune but Vancleef was too focused on revenge to see that. It wouldn’t surprise me if she was behind every decision the Defias made.”

“If you have any kind of lead for us to follow…anything…please tell us so we can finally bring her to justice.”

“Well, this is a long shot but you might want to take your investigation into the Burning Steppes, north of Redridge. Prestor seems suspiciously adamant about not allowing the army to engage the Blackrock Clan or the Dark Iron Clan. Seems to me like she’s protecting Blackrock Mountain from any assaults from Stormwind. I have no idea why but that’s for you to find out. As for me…” Thredd drew both of his swords but held them in a suspiciously underhanded position with the blades facing down. Bella and Jaqueline tensed as they prepared for a fight while Sophia closed her eyes in sadness, knowing what he was about to do.

“I go out on my own terms!” He yelled as he ran his swords through his stomach, coughing up blood and collapsing on the floor. The specter of death claimed him in seconds with his body in a pool of his own blood.

Thelwater entered the room and saw the body of Bazil Thredd. He sighed and shook his head. “You put me through a lot of trouble only for you to go out like this.” He punched a wall with his iron-gloved hand. “Dammit!” The warden screamed in frustration as this was not the satisfying ending that he wanted after all the good men who gave their lives to stop the riot. His eyes softened slightly but still gave a slight glare to the group out of misdirected anger. “You four got your information, now get out of my prison!”

The group didn’t need to be told twice and quietly left the Stockade from where they entered from. That night was going to be a restless one. It was stunning how one so evil and manipulative could lead Stormwind around like a dog on a collar and get away with it. The one hope they now had of putting a stop to the evil witch was to follow the lead Thredd gave them.

With the Blackrock army holding Burning Steppes and encroaching on Redridge, the group was going to have a tough time making their way to Blackrock Mountain.

However, that was for tomorrow and they needed their rest for the harsh and perilous journey they would soon take.

Author's Note

Shortest dungeon in the game, arguably. Our apple themed warrior got some upgrades she sorely needed and our heroes are headed to one of the biggest hotspots of villainy in this arc.

Did anyone think that Stella and friends were going to get thrown in the slammer based on the lack of context I left last chapter?

Next time: A two-parter. The Equestrian Liberation Front vs. werewolves.

It's a two-parter because I spent too long writing to get the horde group to where I wanted them and the next dungeon is a bit of a long one and I really didn't want to write a 10k+ word chapter. If you want me to post both parts at once, it will take longer since I will write two more chapters in exchange before I post.

The Wolves of Silverpine, Part 1

With the last of the cultists cleared out of Ragefire Chasm, Thanatas returned to the warchief to present him the spoils of her victory. While she knew that traveling through the shadow realm from the chasm was going to frighten a few Horde civilians wherever she popped out from, she knew the layout of Orgrimmar enough to know a few places where no citizens would go. It just so happened that one of those places was an alley between a cliff face and the throne room.

As she hoped, she emerged into the material world and no citizens were nearby to see that. Once the cage of bone that surrounded her had released her and receded into the ground, she proceeded into the throne room where Thrall and Vol’jin were waiting. There also appeared to be an undead diplomat from the Forsaken speaking to him. The death knight decided to be polite and wait off to the side for the meeting to conclude.

Vol’jin decided to not keep Thanatas waiting and approached her, his wary look the same as ever. “I take it you return with news from Ragefire?”

Thanatas nodded, “The cult has been purged from the caverns. I brought trophies of my conquest. There were also three adventurers who I provided some aid, though I mainly made sure they didn’t end up dead while they faced their own challenges. Neeru only asked them to kill the felguard and they did. By then though they were pretty battered and exhausted so I couldn’t have them pursue Jergosh and Bazzalan. I took care of them myself.”

Thanatas kept mostly honest with her report but omitted parts that the leaders didn’t need to know about, such as the reanimation of the cultist corpses.

Vol’jin remained silent throughout the report. When she finished, he continued his stare for a moment longer before speaking, “Very well, I know you be hidin’ someting, but I’ll let it lie for now. Your secrets had best not bring harm to da Horde…” The shadow hunter had more to say but he left the threat open for her imagination.

Once Thrall had finished his meeting with the Forsaken delegate, he motioned for Thanatas to approach. “You bring proof of the demise of the leaders of the Searing Blade?” he asked.

Thanatas presented the three trophies: Taragaman’s heart, Jergosh’s head and Bazzalan’s head. The warchief’s lips rose slightly to show his pleasure for her deed. “Good, that’s one less threat to worry about. Perhaps you may help me with another matter.” He then gestured for the Forsaken diplomat next to him to explain.

“Err-yes, I am an emissary for the Dark Lady, Sylvanas if you have not heard of her,” the diplomat began. “She wishes to reclaim the lands of Lordaeron for its risen citizens, starting with Silverpine Forest. We have secured a foothold in the forest but claiming the land has proven problematic. Our patrols have been beset upon by wild beasts who attack with relentless ferocity. They appear like wolves but they walk upright like people.”

Thanatas remembered the creatures. She knew that Silverpine Forest was infested with the feral variant of a race of wolf people called worgen.

Unlike werewolves from other universes who transform into their wolf form at night, often on a full moon, worgen were not normally bound to the rules of werewolves unless it was through a spell. Those who could control the curse could shift between the forms at will like a partial druid. They were not subject to the weaknesses of werewolves either, but they could be dealt with the same way as any other person.

A worgen was a living representation of blind, unrestrained fury. They could also spread the curse to others by biting them, the subject drinking the blood of one or through a night elf artifact called the Scythe of Elune. However, the curse had never been transmitted beyond humans or night elves through those means. However, those who knew the spell could pass the curse to anyone.

“So what would you have me do?” Thanatas asked.

“Lady Sylvanas requests aid to investigate the source of the creatures and eliminate it,” the diplomat explained.

“I can handle that. Can you wait a day though? I have a trio of adventurers who just finished an adventure that I’d like to drag along but they’re exhausted from fighting cultists today. In the meantime, would it be possible to arrange a meeting with Sylvanas? Since I’m providing my assistance to the Horde, I need to introduce myself to the leaders.”

Thrall and Vol’jin couldn’t fault that logic, though Sylvanas was still the least trusted member of the Horde. They had heard the reports about their new “ally” and the depraved acts of the apothecaries she pooled much of her resources toward. The fact that she kept a demon as her second in command didn’t help either.

The diplomat thought about Thanatas’ request for a few moments, considering if she could be trusted to be near the Dark Lady. The undead diplomat shook his head and spoke, I will speak with her about this and get back to you tomorrow.” The diplomat channeled some arcane magic for a few seconds before he disappeared, revealing his skills as a mage.

With nothing else to do, she decided to pay the trio a visit. She knew they would be staying at the inn in the Valley of Strength near the city entrance. When she got there, she entered the building and looked around, spotting her targets on an upper level. The trio panicked when they saw her.

With a smirk and a tone that brought a shiver down their spines, Thanatas called out to the trio, “I need you three to follow me to somewhere private. We need to have a talk.”

Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun obediently followed, knowing what the consequences would be otherwise. They followed the death knight to a secluded alley in The Drag. She then plunged her sword into the ground which produced a privacy bubble around them, intent on keeping out any spying or eavesdropping attempts from anyone nearby.

Once satisfied with her wards, she turned to the nervous trio. “So let’s cut to the chase, I know you three are members of the ELF. As you suspect, yes, I can see the discrepancy between your souls and your body.” She then added some lies to her next part. “I asked my cousin Sophia to hack into the Equestrian databases to find out more about you three and I found that you had a common association with Crystal Silicon. Right now, only me and Sophia know your true identities.”

Lokosh was the first to gather the nerve to reply to the undead. “Like we would believe that you hadn’t already told Twilight Sparkle about us.”

“If I had, you would have Sphere security hunting you three down by now.”

“I know what dis is,” Farra’jin realized. “You intend to blackmail us, aren’t you?”

Thanatas adopted a cheerful expression, declaring her pride for the troll. “Very good, I can see how one as smart as you was able to found a billion bit store chain with a drug trafficking job on the side.”

“What do you want from us, you witch?” Groun demanded.

“All I want you to do is follow my orders. As long as you do, you may just find what you came to find in this world. I honestly don’t know what you’re after but I don’t really care.”

The three looked at each other in confusion then shared it with Thanatas. “Just what is your angle here?” Lokosh asked.

“I’m not so naive to think that capturing a few lieutenants is going to have any real impact on your agenda. Your leader will only come out when they feel most comfortable and if that means helping you with your mission then so be it. I can either improve the success chances of your mission or I can sabotage you and possibly set you guys back another generation or two which may be more than enough time for Sphere to find your headquarters.”

There was no hiding their anxiety. Lokosh knew that she had them in the palm of her hand. The enemy death knight before them had forced her way into leading their secret mission.

Thanatas didn’t bother to wait for a response from the trio. She picked up her sword and undid the wards, returning her blade onto her back. “Get some rest, we head for the Undercity tomorrow before we investigate the worgen menace in Silverpine.”

With that, Thanatas left them be for the time being while the others returned to the inn. The three barely slept that night.

Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun were summoned to Thrall’s chamber the next day. The three were not happy with their new arrangements but were still willing to endure it for the sake of their mission.

Once they entered the throne room, they saw Thanatas and a forsaken next to the warchief. Once everyone was in attendance, Thrall began. “Before I give the three of you your orders, I would like to thank you for your service to the Horde in cleansing Ragefire Chasm of the Searing Blade. You are a testament to the might of the Horde and it is my wish that you continue to act in service to the Horde.

“You have already been told where you will be going so I will give the details of your mission. The forsaken have requested aid in securing Silverpine Forest, a region to the southwest of Tirisfal Glades. The woods have run rampant of feral wolf men that Thanatas has informed me are called worgen. You are to investigate the worgen menace and eliminate it at the source so Sylvanas’ deathstalkers can claim the region. Is that clear?” The three nodded in acceptance. “Good, the forsaken diplomat will now open a portal to the undercity. Step through and do not fail me.”

Once Thrall was finished, the diplomat opened the portal and Thanatas and the trio stepped through.

The moment Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun stepped through the portal, their nostrils were invaded by the most vile scents they had ever smelled. The stench of death was everywhere along with the stench of foul chemicals. Plugging their noses and looking around, the trio saw that the part of the Undercity they were in looked as grim as it was lively. Black stone composed the underground city decorated in the relief of skulls. Everywhere they looked was images of skulls and bones in the stone and in different sizes from small to giant. A nearby canal that ran around the circular city was filled with a glowing green fluid that aided the many hanging oil lanterns in lighting up the otherwise dark city.

Undead humans roamed the city with their rotten bodies and bones on display. Their eyes would either glow yellow or would be black and hollow.

Looking at the city, the trio knew one thing, the Undercity was overwhelmingly horrifying, even for Nightmare Night.

Once Thanatas had decided the trio had their moment of tourism, she directed them to follow her. From where they were, they were in the Magic Quarter in the northeast section of the city. Their destination was on the other side of the city to the southwest.

Reaching the green river, the four traveled counterclockwise along it until they reached the other side of the city, a section known as the Apothecarium. The trio did their best not to look at the massive worm-like creature that was held by bolts and pipes continuously spewing green goo in the eight o’ clock part of the city.

Right then, the trio had too much of the vile city and one by one, they each contributed their own previous meals to the river of green.

Having enough, Farra’jin called on an air spirit to give the three clean air to breathe which earned him a slap in the back of the head from Lokosh for not thinking of doing that sooner. Thanatas rolled her eyes and waited for the trio to finish their business. “Are you three done yet? You really should have trained your sensory endurance.”

The three followed Thanatas into a tunnel that was guarded by forsaken in red hoods carrying well-crafted swords and shields with the Forsaken emblem on them. As they progressed through the tunnel, the stench of death began to fade.

They soon reached the end and entered a circular room with a raised platform in the center that they had to go around and climb some stairs to reach the top of.

Standing on the platform were two individuals. One was a tall demonic fiend with bat-like wings as large as his body. His ears were pointed and he had two long black horns protruding from his forehead. His hands ended in sharp claws and his feet ended in cloven hooves. His segmented armor was ornate with shades of purple and black with dark brass. Thanatas recognized him as Sylvanas’ majordomo, Varimathras, of a race called the Nathrezim, also known as a Dreadlord.

The other figure was the Banshee Queen herself, Sylvanas. Her appearance was that of an elf with bluish-gray skin and glowing scarlet eyes. She had dull blonde hair that extended just past her neck with eyebrows that extend past her ears in length, a common characteristic of an elf. Her ornate leather armor was maroon with dull silver filigree. Her matching shoulder armor had skulls on it and she had a dull red cape that was tattered at the end.

Sylvanas scanned the group approaching her. She didn’t think much of anything of the orc, tauren or troll, but the pale human leading them, most likely undead by her figuring, was what caught her by surprise. As an elf, she was capable of sensing the magical power within others and she sensed enough to make her want to tread lightly around her, lest she crush her with that power.

“I take it that you are the ones sent by Thrall to help deal with the mongrels infesting Silverpine?” Sylvanas asked.

Thanatas nodded, “Indeed, I am Thanatas Craft and these three are the ones I am training to become agents of the Horde who will protect our interests and deal with major threats so that we can direct the armies to more important matters.” The three wanted to object to the death knight’s claims but a terrifying aura was directed at them that dared them to speak up at their own risk. “I figured the worgen threat would be a decent step forward for them so that’s why we’re here.”

The Banshee Queen narrowed her eyes at the death knight, “What do you hope to gain from training these weaklings?”

“Just as you have your secrets, I have mine,” Thanatas cheerfully said. “Just a fair warning, don’t try to dig into my secrets unless you want me to air yours out to the rest of the Horde.”

With that threat made, she started directing the others back toward the tunnel. “I’m glad we had this talk.”

“Should we send someone to keep an eye on her, my lady?” Varimathras asked.

The Dark Lady thought about that for a moment before growling. “I doubt they would be able to. As much as I hate to admit it, I am at a loss on what to do about her. I could feel her power and I could tell that if she and the Lich King fought, the victor would be unclear. For the time being, we shall have to wait and see where her loyalties truly lie.”

“As you wish, my lady.” Varimathras said.

About halfway through the tunnel, Lokosh complained, “Great, back into the rancid cesspool…”

“I could always take us to the edge of Silverpine my way, though I’ve been told that the experience is…traumatizing,” Thanatas offered.

“Anything would be better than smelling that foulness again.” Farra’jin and Groun nodded as they shared Lokosh’s sentiment.

Shrugging, Thanatas enclosed herself and the trio in a cage of bone which sank into the ground and into the shadow realm. The three were subjected to what felt like an eternity of having their senses deactivated. They couldn’t see, hear or feel anything. They had no idea how long they had experienced that since they also lost their sense of time.

At long last, their senses returned and the cage of bone receded, allowing the trio to find themselves outside the city on a road at the edge of a dead-looking forest. The pine trees were an unhealthy dull green. A layer of mist obscured the forest floor.

The trio were on the ground taking deep gulps of air with their minds in full panic mode. “I was wrong!” Lokosh yelled, “I’d rather be smelling the cesspool than take that trip again!”

Thanatas laughed at their plight, “I warned you. And that was only two seconds.” She took a deep breath and took in the gloomy landscape around her. Once she let it out, she looked at the group again with a smile on her face. “Now, let’s recruit our next teammate. Call them here.”

The three’s eyes widened in surprise but tried to quickly school their expression to avoid the death knight’s notice. Lokosh sweated a little but did his best to look confused. “What are you talking about? Only the three of us were assigned to this mission.”

Thanatas frowned at that statement and gave Lokosh a look akin to a mother being disappointed in their child. “Do you really think I’m stupid? I know how important this mission is to you and your organization. Something like this will likely have fielded all of the lieutenants, especially Crystal Silicon. If you think you can hide the identities of the others, then let me let you in on the mistake you made: All three of you met Crystal Silicon before you disappeared. All I have to do is have Sophia look through the Equestrian databases and look for people who associated with Crystal and disappeared. It’ll give me a rough idea about how many are participating in your mission.”

Lokosh and Farra’jin were sweating while Groun’s anxiety was starting to show and the nearby trees were starting to sway. Of course, the trees were also sickly or dying and were unable to behave normally to Groun’s will. Lokosh noticed this and placed a hand on the tauren’s shoulder. A defeated sigh from the orc told Groun all he needed to know and he took a calming breath to relax himself.

Using their telepathic link, Lokosh contacted Crystal. “Crystal, you there?”

A few moments passed before Crystal responded, “What is it, Steel? I just finished setting fire to the watchtowers held by some fanatical idiots in red.”

“The mission’s hit a snag, we underestimated the sensory abilities of the undead from your report.”

“You’ve been compromised?! Do we need to fall back to the hideout and regroup?”

“Wouldn’t do us much good. She can sense the identities of our very souls. And if the rabbit’s psychic powers are as strong as you said in your report, stealth was never an option, especially since they seem to be gaining the favor of the Horde leadership. The rabbit may be doing the same with the Alliance. The only reason we have a chance to avoid total mission failure is because the undead is blackmailing us.”

“Can we avoid all of us being found out…oh who am I fooling, all it would take would be my traitorous program finding out who I associated with and Sphere will have identified all of the lieutenants. Sphere probably already knows about us and is likely using us to lure out our leader.” Crystal paused for a minute to consider her options before clicking her tongue. “Damn, they’ve trapped us. If we abandon the mission now, Sphere will place this world under heavy security. Without a way to sneak in, obtaining the fragments will be nearly impossible. The entire plan is in jeopardy and our only way out if this mess is cooperating with her.”

“She’s requesting your presence at the border to Silverpine Forest,” Groun said.

“Tch, doesn’t look like I have a choice. If the others have listened in then that at least saves me from explaining again.”

“Huh? Sorry, I wasn’t listening. What were you idiots talking about?” Gemini joked. Everyone simply ignored her.

A few hours passed since Crystal, also known as the forsaken warlock Talia Conilis, was contacted. She had to trek from the northeast corner of Tirisfal to the southwest and that was a small journey given that Tirisfal Glades was a particularly large region. But at last, she found her associates sitting on the road playing cards with one of the figures she particularly loathed after their previous encounter.

Thanatas looked at the warlock coming toward them and smiled as she sensed the familiar soul within the undead. “Well, well, looks like you really did die when you blew up.”

“Stow it, you unclean fiend!” Talia snapped. “What do you want?”

“Is that any way to talk to the leader of your new adventuring party?” Thanatas teased. She then got up off the road while the other three followed. “I’m sure Lokosh gave you the details on the way here through some psychic network you all most likely possess since you would be more foolish than I thought to possess all these different races and not have a means of getting in contact with each other so I don’t need to repeat what the mission is for this forest. Let’s get going.”

The group of five finally entered the misty forest. As they traveled, they took in the sights. Among them, a small orchard full of sickly trees bearing over ripened fruit with a number of regular wolves wandering around it, a pumpkin patch full of over ripened pumpkins and undead gnolls with a few ghouls, mindless rotting corpses, wandering around, and a farm where the wheat was harvested just before it was abandoned and the harvest let to rot and had a number of the white-furred wolf men called worgen roamed. To their left was a huge lake with a keep large enough to be a small town in the middle of the lake.

After crossing a bridge over a small creek, Thanatas led the group on a path to the right of the main road which led to the forsaken outpost of The Sepulcher which was mostly a cemetery with a crypt guarded by deathstalkers and a post with a number of hanging rings to serve as roosting points for the giant bats tamed by the forsaken to serve as flying transports.

The group was approached by two individuals. One was a deathstalker who seemed better armed than the others which made them guess he was the leader of the outpost. The other was a forsaken mage wearing purple robes and a purple pointed hat.

“You must be the ones Lady Sylvanas said would be coming. I am High Executor Hadrec and this is Dalar Dawnweaver. He has the info on who you are to kill so we can bring an end to these mongrels.”

“The one you are after is a former Dalaran archmage named Arugal,” Dalar began. “The charlatan is the one responsible for unleashing the worgen curse all over the region. Thankfully the curse cannot be naturally transferred to a forsaken and Arugal usually stays in his keep or we would be dealing with another epidemic like the plague. The remaining humans in this region, outside of the Greymane Wall, have been transformed into worgen and mindlessly serve that miserable excuse for a mage.”

“It sounds like you have a personal history with him,” Talia inquired.

“If I were still alive I’d be laughing my head off at that joke. No, he wishes that he was worthy of my attention. The fact is that he is lackluster as a mage and relies on magical artifacts to bolster his power. He tried to save the kingdom of Gilneas by using Ur’s research into the worgen. That backfired spectacularly and ended up with some of the soldiers transforming.

“Arugal went mad with guilt and sequestered himself in what is now known as Shadowfang Keep which overlooks Pyrewood Village to the south. Don’t be fooled by the humans wandering there, they are still his servants. Somehow he made the curse such that those humans transform into worgen at night and back in the day.”

“Now you know where to go,” Hadrec said. “With any luck the worgen will disperse once their master is dead and we can focus on other threats like Thule Ravenclaw and his undead gnolls and the Dalaran mages in Ambermill. Those can be handled by other adventurous fools. Right now, Arugal is the main threat to our taking of this forest in the name of the Forsaken.

“One last thing, be wary of any dark-furred worgen wandering the woods. They are much stronger than the pups outside the keep. Most of them are protecting their master but every now and then one of them ends up ambushing and mangling witless travelers.”

With that information received, the group stocked up on what they could get from what the outpost offered as they prepared to face their future ferocious, furry foes.

Author's Note

Like I said before, I split this chapter into two parts because I never liked writing 10k+ word chapters and I wasn't too fond of reading them either, even though I do. The dungeon in the next chapter is a long one.

For those who might question the point of Thanatas' lie, she wanted to give them a little hope that their real enemies hadn't found them and she was just using them for her own purposes so as not to scare them off (Your average pony still frightens so easily). Crystal is smarter than that but hearing their situation from her drove the point home that they needed to cooperate with their enemies to salvage the mission.

Up next: A keep full of ghosts, wolves and werewolves...err, worgen.

Anyway, here's a picture of a worgen.

The Wolves of Silverpine, Part 2

Following their briefing and preparations, the group of Thanatas, Lokosh, Farra’jin, Groun and Talia began to leave The Sepulcher for the southern parts of Silverpine forest, heading to the keep where the master of the worgen resided.

Their exit was momentarily paused when the group was approached by a darkspear troll with green hair. He was wearing a brown shirt and brown gloves with black leather vest and pants and ankle wraps instead of shoes since all trolls go barefoot.

“Ey mon, one’eya be a shaman, ya?” the troll asked.

Farra’jin turned to face the troll to respond, “Ya mon, why ya be askin’?”

“Ha ha! I knew it! I can tell from your eyes dat you seem seasoned enough dat you be ready to take on de trials for ya water totem. Seek out da tauren Islen Waterseer at her hut overlooking da sea along da coast of da Barrens and south of da goblin town of Ratchet when ya can.” The troll turned and walked away.

Farra’jin was dreading what he was going to do later. He had to travel between the Barrens and Durotar for his fire totem. He had a sinking feeling that this Islen Waterseer was going to send him across much further distances before the ordeal was over. He was no stranger to going across Equestria on business trips, it was another thing to do so when there was little profit from it in the end.

With that diversion over, the group resumed their journey south. Along the way, the group was attacked by a few mindless undead and some worgen. Talia reduced the undead to ashes with fire spells while Farra’jin electrocuted the worgen. Lokosh finished off any who got too close. More undead tried to flank them from the other side of the road but Groun managed to call on what healthy roots were left in the area to hold them down long enough for Talia to incinerate them.

Further south, the group spotted what looked like a small town to their left that was being patrolled by living humans in purple robes. Thanatas recalled that the Kirin Tor mages had an interest in the abandoned town because it was sitting on a dormant ley line and they were trying to reactivate it. She could only guess why and it might have had to do with powering up the city of Dalaran which was not far from the town. However, the activities of the mages were of no interest to her.

At the next fork in the road, they took a right and headed toward a village that they were warned was inhabited by cursed humans who transformed into worgen at night.

As they made that turn however, Thanatas was tackled from behind by a large form. The other members of the group witnessed a black-furred worgen rush at the undead from behind at a speed faster than they had seen any other worgen move so far.

The worgen would have begun to claw at the death knight but his instincts kicked in and he jumped off of her, only getting a few scratches when Thanatas deployed her wings in her attempt to impale him. As the undead was getting back up, the worgen looked at the other members of the group and howled in challenge before rushing for Farra’jin.

Lokosh intercepted the charge but was overpowered and knocked back. Talia called her voidwalker which punched the beast in the face only for him to retaliate by slashing the demon with his claws. He followed up by pointing his palm at Talia before his palm glowed black and Talia as well for a moment. The warlock felt something odd within herself before she realized that the beast had placed a curse on her. Assessing herself, she figured that it wasn’t the worgen curse.

Groun caused roots to burst from the ground beneath the worgen which bound the beast’s arms and legs. While the worgen was struggling in his binds, Lokosh delivered a series of furious slashes with his ax before smashing his face with his shield, knocking a few teeth out for his efforts.

Talia bombarded the beast with shadow magic but had to stop her attack as a wave of intense pain struck her suddenly. She recognized the source of the pain as having the same magical signature as the magic the worgen struck her with earlier. She could have broken the curse with her equestrian magic but she couldn’t access it with the Azerothian body she was currently inhabiting. She turned to Groun, “Groun, can you try to cleanse my spirit of this curse?”

“No can do, it’s taking all my concentration to keep this guy restrained,” Groun answered.

Growling in frustration, Talia set the worgen on fire, weakening the bindings while Farra’jin followed the warlock’s example and inflicted a burn on the beast with his Flame Shock. The worgen yelped in pain before Lokosh rammed into him with his shield, knocking him back. Groun called more vines to wrap around the beast which added kindling to the fire and spread the fire along every inch of his body. After a few moments the worgen finally succumbed to his injuries and collapsed on the ground.

Farra’jin worked on putting out the smoldering remains with water spirits before Talia received another painful reminder that she had a curse on her. One glare at the tauren and an awkward laugh from said tauren later, and he managed to cleanse the warlock’s spirit of the curse with a natural remedy.

Their moment of relief was interrupted by the clapping of metal on metal nearby. The group looked to see Thanatas applauding them for their endeavor. “Well done you four. Excellent teamwork. At first I was somewhat worried that you might not be ready to face the horrors of Shadowfang Keep, but defeating a Son of Arugal, one of the most powerful strains of worgen in this forest, tells me that you might have a chance.”

“I can’t tell whether you’re being sincere or sarcastic,” Talia noted.

“Call it what you want, now let’s get up to the keep and deal with the mad wizard.”

The group approached Pyrewood Village but turned when the road forked right. They entered a small mountain pass which curved left and ended before a lowered drawbridge with the entrance to the keep on the other side.

Shadowfang Keep was built on the side of a mountain with the road and the keep entrance separated by a small chasm making the drawbridge the only means into the keep. Any invader would wonder why the drawbridge was not raised to discourage intruders while some theorized that the mechanism was broken or the lord of the keep wanted it lowered to allow his lupine children to run free.

Regardless, the five crossed the bridge and entered the keep.

Once inside, they quickly found that the entrance to the courtyard was blocked by a portcullis. The entryway had a set of stairs that led to the portcullis with a few broken or rotten barrels lying around.

On the other side of the portcullis was a cornered forsaken who appeared to be dressed as a deathstalker. He was surrounded by a number of wolves and worgen and looked prepared to have a last stand with the beasts.

That was until a man teleported in. The man wore black robes with spiked dark gray shoulderguards that had an eerie green glow to them. His face was covered by a black mask and he wore a silver and yellow headpiece with a purple gem in the center. His staff was black with a magically bound green flame on top of it with a black spiked ring rotating around the flame.

The man cast a glare at the forsaken. “I have changed my mind, loyal servants, you do not need to bring the prisoner all the way to my study, I will deal with him here and now. Vincent! You and your pathetic ilk will find no more success in routing my sons and I than those beggardly remnants of the Kirin Tor. Your moldering remains will serve as a testament to what happens to those foolish enough to trespass in my domain!” He then set the forsaken on fire with a spell and watched as whatever Vincent called a life flickered out and was left as a motionless smoldering corpse. Satisfied with his work, the wizard teleported away, likely to his study.

Somehow the group’s presence went unnoticed and everyone but the death knight breathed a sigh of relief.

“Was that him?” Lokosh asked.

Thanatas nodded, “Yep, that was Arugal alright. And we have to get through his army of worgen and wolves to get to him.”

Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun gulped before looking around the entrance again. They found that the only way forward appeared to be through a room to the right side of the entrance. A worgen and a silver-furred wolf walked down the staircase just inside the room and spotted the intruders. Acting quickly, Groun caused roots to burst from the stone floor to grab the wolf by the throat while Lokosh engaged the worgen. Talia and her imp bombarded the worgen with shadow and fire spells respectively while Farra’jin electrocuted the worgen. Surprisingly, it didn’t take much to bring down both beasts.

“Wow mon, compared to dat Son of Arugal, dese ones were noting,” Farra’jin commented.

“That’s because Arugal keeps his most powerful pets closer to him while the small fry guard the entrance,” Thanatas informed. “Also, fair warning, this keep is haunted. I could sense the lingering necromantic energies from the mountain pass. There are likely a bunch of ghosts wandering around.”

“Ghosts?!” Lokosh said in surprise. “That’s not good, my ax and shield may not be able to touch the fleshless spirits.”

“Which reminds me…” Thanatas then pulled out her sword and pointed it upward before a black bolt of lightning struck the ground and opened a small black hole through which a skeletal warrior rose. The ax and shield it carried seemed to glow with magic. Lokosh could tell from a glance that the weapon and shield were of good quality. His experience as a blacksmith told him that the objects were made of mithril.

With a wave of her sword, Thanatas commanded the skeleton to drop its weapon and shield onto the floor before it disappeared into the floor again, leaving the objects behind. She addressed the group with a serious look on her face. “Consider this a freebie. I’m only giving you this because you needed something to help with the ghosts around here. It will be up to you to find better equipment for your future adventures. I suggest you heed my advice on this if you all want to live long enough to find what you’re looking for.”

Lokosh and the others nodded respectfully at the death knight as the orc discarded his copper weapons to pick up the mithril ones. The new armaments felt a little heavier which was to be expected for the material. The warrior gave his new weapon a few test swings to get the hang of wielding it. His experience with weapons helped him adapt quickly. Satisfied with the feel, Lokosh advanced up the staircase with the others close behind.

Looking around the area, it appeared to be some sort of livery given all the piles of straw on the floor which likely served as makeshift beds for the wolves. More wolves and worgen came down the staircase on the other side of the room. Lokosh saw this as a chance to try out his new ax. With each swing, he cut deep into the wolves’ flesh. Talia used her voidwalker to draw some enemy aggression off Lokosh while she unleashed curses and dark magic on the beasts. She avoided using fire magic because the last thing they needed was the area being set on fire. Farra’jin focused on using elemental water to heal the bite and claw marks the group sustained while Groun channeled his power into the wooden floor which caused it to grow sharp thorns beneath the paws of the beasts, causing them to yelp and bleed.

Once the beasts were dispatched, the group proceeded up the stairs into a small hallway. There was a door at the end which Farra’jin looked through. “Looks like da courtyard be beyond dis door,” he said. Try as he might though, the door was locked and didn’t seem to budge when he slammed into it.

“Before we start breaking doors like barbarians, let’s see if there’s a means to get the door open,” Talia said with a groan.

The group approached an opening in the hallways they ignored before and dealt with more wolves and worgen in the room beyond. The room had several support pillars with more abandoned crates and barrels around them. A stairway to their right led to a lower level in the room that seemed to act as a small prison with three cells. The group was careful enough to look down at the prison to find it guarded by more wolves and a maroon-colored worgen.

“That’s Rethilgore, one of the few worgen in Arugal’s army that the mad wizard even bothered to remember the name,” Thanatas informed. “He’s tougher than the minions around him but he’s not as strong as the Sons.”

Lokosh nodded and with a determined look in his eyes, walked down the stairs to the prison and shouted at the worgen in challenge. Rethilgore rushed for the orc in addition to the three wolves around him. Thanatas jumped from the second level and dropped her sword through one of the wolves, catching the other two by surprise long enough for the death knight to pull the sword out of the carcass and slice the head off another. The third wolf pounced for the undead but was caught in midair by the throat in Thanatas’ necromantic magic. Rethilgore was being kept busy by Lokosh so the wolf was on its own. Using her magic, Thanatas conjured a second blade in the likeness of her own which floated in mid air before shooting through the beast’s skull, vanishing the moment it stopped. Blood sprayed freely from the wolf’s skull.

Meanwhile, Lokosh was enjoying having a decent weapon and shield in his hands again while Rethilgore attempted to slash at his shield. With the supporters dead, the other three moved to the lower floor of the prison to attack the worgen from behind. Talia winced when Rethilgore pointed a hand at her and she felt her life force being ripped from her. Having enough of being a victim of worgen magic, she opened an empty prison cell and ordered her imp to quickly fill the cell with straw. The imp obeyed with all the ability it could muster.

Seeing what her associate was planning, Groun caused a long vine to grow from the wooden floor and wrap around Rethilgore before it hurled him into the cell. Talia closed the cell before Farra’jin ignited the straw in the cell, burning the beast alive as it yelped and cried in agony. Once Rethilgore was no longer moving, Farra’jin called on water spirits to put out the flames.

“Died in a fire huh? A shame you couldn’t do much worse to him,” spoke a voice from one of the other cells, a forsaken deathstalker.

“More Horde scum? Why did I bother taking this assignment to spy on that maniac!?” cried a voice from the remaining cell, a human in robes with long gray hair. “Look, if any of you have some common decency, can you please let me leave this place in peace?”

As tempting as it was to just kill the offending human and be done with him, it might be counterproductive for Thanatas’ long term plans to do so. She was also thankful that the others had no interest in the hostilities between the Horde and Alliance. The four moved away from the stairs to free and allow the mage to climb the stairs and move toward the entrance.

“Why would you let the human go free?” the deathstalker demanded. “He was of no use to us alive.”

“Because there is currently no war between the two factions and I have no interest in perpetuating the racial hatreds,” Thanatas answered before her gaze toward the deathstalker turned menacing. “And if you breathe a word of this to anyone, your life is forfeit.” She then pulled a lever which opened the deathstalker’s cell door, allowing the forsaken to walk out. The death knight placed a hand on his shoulder which briefly emitted a black aura for a split second. The curse she just put on him would rip the life out of him if he tried to report anything she wouldn’t want reported. “Now would you be so kind as to open the door to the courtyard before you leave?”

The deathstalker grumbled as he walked up the stairs and toward the locked door. “You must be fools to brave the horrors beyond this door.” He took out his lockpicking tools and proceeded to pick the lock on the door. After a few moments his efforts yielded success and the door opened. “There, now I need to report to Hadrec. I wish you luck with Arugal.” He ran off toward the entrance.

As the group stepped out into the courtyard, things got hectic. More worgen along with a black breed of wolf took notice of the group and prepared to attack. Adding to that was a number of wandering transparent humans dressed in regular clothes who looked like they were willing to fight. Lokosh figured that they were the ghosts Thanatas warned them about.

Thanatas did not like the odds right now. The courtyard was teeming with beasts and ghosts and if they all came at once, her four companions’ chances of survival looked bad. The four shared the same concerns.

Just like she feared, they all came after the group at once. With the odds unfair as they were, Thanatas evened the odds by forcing her will upon the ghosts which led to them attacking the worgen and wolves instead. The ghosts quickly cursed the worgen which caused haunting apparitions to manifest and attack the beasts, turning the courtyard into a chaotic battlefield. The worgen cast a protective shield which protected them from spells but the cursed worgen were still assaulted repeatedly by apparitions.

Taking advantage of the chaos, Talia caused fire to rain all over the courtyard and set the wolves on fire while Lokosh cut down the distracted worgen. Talia’s fire soon immolated the worgen once their protective enchantments faded. The courtyard became even more chaotic when one panicked wolf fled into a nearby stable which set the straw inside ablaze and caused a trio of demonic horses to charge out of there and indiscriminately trample everyone in their way, which ended up being the wolves and worgen while the group was still on the stairs to the courtyard. The worgen clawed at the horses until they stopped moving but couldn’t celebrate their victories as the ghosts began grabbing them by the neck and twisting their heads until their necks broke.

Once the beasts were all dead, Thanatas raised her sword and claimed the lost souls until she was ready to send them to the afterlife, or the Shadowlands as it is known in this part of the Eternal Sphere.

The group crossed the courtyard and found two places to explore: a ramp heading to another part of the keep or into an entrance which appeared to lead into a small room, likely a storage room, and beyond. Thanatas made the decision for the group as she needed to make sure the others faced the major threats in the keep.

Inside the storeroom were more ghosts, this time wielding spectral cleavers. Thanatas didn’t bother controlling the ghosts this time and let the others handle the more manageable enemies. Thanks to the enchanted weapons, Lokosh was able to harm the ghosts like they were regular humans. Magical attacks from Talia and her imp along with Farra’jin and his fire totem were able to inflict harm on the ghosts until their essence fell to the floor. The death knight collected the essences into her sword.

The next room was a disturbing sight for the Equestrians. They entered what appeared to be a kitchen with bloody raw meat all over the place. Some pieces were hung from bloody meat hooks hanging from the ceiling while more raw meat was sitting on tables rotting away. One of the hooks had a deer head hanging from it.

Thankfully there were also less disturbing sights in the kitchen as the group spotted a pair of large beer kegs and two cooking cauldrons on the other side of the room. The fires under the cauldrons were still lit for some reason.

The most important sight in the room, however, was the red-furred worgen standing in the middle of the room looking at the intruders and preparing to pounce.

“Ah, Razorclaw the Butcher, probably a chef of some sort before he was cursed,” Thanatas noted.

It turned out that the worgen was no tougher than Rethilgore. Lokosh ended up pushing the worgen back to one of the cauldrons filled with boiling water before Groun grabbed him from behind where he demonstrated his tauren strength and tossed the worgen into the boiling water while Talia’s voidwalker grabbed the cauldron’s lid and bashed his head numerous times with it. Farra’jin collapsed the stove on the cauldron to seal the worgen in to suffer a gruesome fate.

As expected of any place with a kitchen, the next room appeared to be a dining room, or a dining hall given how spacious it was. The room was filled with worgen gorging themselves on whatever was made in the kitchen along with more ghostly servants. One ghost stood at the head of the dining room, a balding man with gray hair and mustache wearing a white button-up shirt, red vest, black belt, green pants and black boots. He carried a red scepter that matched the color of his vest.

“The man at the head of the dining room is Baron Silverlaine, former owner of the keep,” Thanatas informed. “He’s not much tougher than the other ghosts.”

“Especially since he won’t get the luxury of time to gather the spirits of the fallen worgen to aid him,” Thanatas thought to herself, remembering his future version.

Once the worgen and ghosts in the room noticed their presence, all of them rushed toward them. While the ghosts were able to chase the group into the kitchen, the worgen were too reckless in their charge and piled on each other to get through the small doorway, blocking it with their bodies and getting stuck.

With only the ghosts to deal with, Farra’jin dropped his fire totem and set it to unleash a powerful wave of fire while the group moved behind Lokosh to provide some shelter from the imminent fire. When the totem erupted, the ghosts were blown away from the totem and Lokosh took some of the fire, singeing his legs which were quickly healed by Groun’s herbal remedy.

With the ghosts disoriented, Lokosh, Farra’jin and Talia proceeded to use their spells and skills to pick off the ghosts one by one. Once the ghosts were thinned out, Talia and Farra’jin proceeded to set the trapped worgen on fire. The beasts backed away and ran around the dining hall chaotically while setting everything wooden on fire.

That was when Baron Silverlaine had enough of the worgen causing a mess and unleashed a wave of shadow energy which put out the fire. The group finished off the ghosts and entered the dining room where they proceeded to finish off any surviving worgen. “Leave this place at once!” Silverlaine shouted before he ran toward the group waving his scepter in the air. Lokosh met the baron’s attack with his shield before he counterattacked with his ax, cutting into the baron’s phantasmal shirt.

The baron inflicted a curse on Lokosh that caused shadows to wrap around him and inflict agonizing pressure on him before he tried doing the same to the others, including Thanatas who blocked the spell with her sword. She gave a deadpan stare at the ghost, “Don’t make me get directly involved, baron. You haven’t felt true suffering until you’ve felt my wrath,” she threatened.

Groun proceeded to cleanse the spirits of his allies of their curses while Farra’jin and Talia unleashed their magics on the noble ghost, overpowering him along with Lokosh’s mithril axe cutting into the ghost’s phantasmal flesh.

Moments later, the ghost’s body broke down into his spectral essence. Cursed as it was, Thanatas lifted the curse on the baron’s essence and absorbed it into her sword.

“How much more to this place is there?” Lokosh asked.

“I’d say we’re close to halfway. Up the stairs and through the hallway to the left we will find the next target,” Thanatas answered.

As they climbed up the stairs to the sides of the head table, Thanatas sensed a darkness much more powerful than anything they had encountered so far, possibly more powerful than Arugal. She had a bad feeling about this.

The group proceeded down the hall on the second floor, dealing with black-furred worgen that were smaller than Sons of Arugal but were stronger than what they faced in the keep so far. Thankfully, the group was getting better at dealing with worgen. Of course, this variety was immune to Talia’s shadow magic. Their howls resonated throughout the hallway and left the group in a daze. Lokosh kept his strength up but Talia and Farra’jin found it more difficult to cast spells. The worgen added injury to their confusion by inflicting them with magical afflictions that caused shadows to sear their flesh.

Groun fought through the confusion and did his best to mend the wounds with nature magic while Talia set the worgen on fire, her imp throwing fireballs to assist. Farra’jin dropped a totem and set it to channel magma from the Firelands, the elemental plane of fire, and unleash it on the worgen. The beasts soon succumbed to the flames and fell motionless to the floor, the shaman then having to use water to put out fires to avoid setting the keep on fire.

At the end of the hallway and up a small set of stairs, Thanatas’ feeling became worse as the group began fighting ghostly soldiers. She used her magic to pull back Talia, Groun and Farra’jin to herself, warning them of the guards’ ability to wail and temporarily disable their spellcasting which was the last thing Lokosh needed.

Once the guards fell and Thanatas claimed their essence, she had the four stay where they were so she could enter the room alone as the power she was sensing was coming from that room.

Inside the room, Thanatas looked in the direction of where their next target was supposed to be and found her concerns vindicated. Commander Springvale, the captain of the guard in Shadowfang keep was unlike how he was supposed to be at this point in time. The ghostly paladin’s silver armor was dull and he was carrying a runeblade along with a purple shield with a yellowed white outline and a skull in the center.

This was a very unusual situation as the commander wasn’t supposed to have that appearance until around the time of a certain event years from now. Using her cousin’s psychic network, Thanatas contacted Twilight. “Hey Twi, run a scan of the ghost in front of me.”

It took a few moments before Twilight could get back to her with the results. “That’s odd, it seems he’s being affected by a temporal glitch. Right now his present self and his future self have switched places in the timeline. This might be because the Forge we used to create the galaxy still has some rough spots. I’ll see what I can do to fix this issue and warn Sophia to be on the lookout for any more potential glitches.”

With that done, the death knight turned her attention to the paladin ghost turned death knight ghost. She glanced at the audience in the doorway. “This one is too much for you guys right now. I’ll handle this one personally.”

Thanatas entered the room and raised her sword in the air which released two bolts of necromantic magic onto the floor and opened two black holes from which two giant skeleton warriors emerged. The two readied themselves for a fight. “The death knight is mine, eliminate any who assist him,” she ordered.

Commander Springvale ran toward Thanatas with his runeblade raised and his shield in front of him. Two runeblades of powerful unholy energies clashed with one another. While Springvale had a shield to assist him, Thanatas’ magic was still stronger than his.

She placed a boot on the commander’s shield and kicked him to the back of the room before she blocked the doorway where Lokosh and the others were with a thick layer of ice. With the others now protected from her own power, Thanatas began unleashing more of it, calling forth a biting winter storm. The ice magics tore at Springvale’s phantasmic body. The captain counterattacked by unleashing a wave of unholy energy which would have caused anyone who walked on it to rot but the death knight’s body was well protected from such magics.

Springvale’s next move was to point his shield in front of him and unleash a torrent of unholy flames to incinerate his enemy but Thanatas countered by plunging her sword into the ground and created a null zone that canceled out all magic in its radius.

The captain prepared himself for a counterattack but what he wasn’t expecting was the female death knight creating an arsenal of phantom weapons in the likeness of her sword and impaling him from all angles. His shield blocked the frontal attacks aimed at his torso but that was meaningless as he was repeatedly stabbed in the back, arms and legs. One last phantom weapon dropped through his head. Thanatas finished him by causing the blades to self-destruct with blasts of unholy energy which left the ghost as nothing more than a cursed essence which she decursed and collected.

With the threat dealt with, she shattered the ice on the door and allowed the others in.

“Wow, I can see why Talia considers you a threat,” Lokosh said. “Especially if you were still holding back.”

The others were just as awestruck as Lokosh was, including Talia, despite fighting Thanatas one time.

Looking around the room, the group found it to be a small chapel with the stained glass and what appeared to be shattered pews. Candelabras were placed along the walls at one time. Weathered swords and shields were lying around.

The group exited the chapel and walked down some stairs only to go up another set of stairs and onto the keep ramparts. Thanatas returned to watching the others deal with the soldier ghosts as they advanced toward what appeared to be some expansion to the keep. They moved into the opening into the building and up a small ramp to find a room filled with a few giant bats and a worgen who appeared similar to a Son of Arugal but Thanatas knew who this was.

“Odo the Blindwatcher, a blind recluse who lives in a dilapidated structure hanging over the edge of the keep with his pet bats,” Thanatas thought to herself.

Odo quickly smelled out the intruders and howled, causing the nearby bats to fly in to assist their master.

With the structure as rotten as it was and with straw all over the room, fire was a bad idea as the risk of the structure falling into the ravine below was too great. However, Farra’jin’s lightning spells were quite effective against the flying beasts.

Once the bats were electrocuted to death, Odo went into a rage and started slashing at Lokosh’s shield furiously but the shield held against the onslaught. With the orc’s ax cutting into the worgen’s flesh and Talia’s dark spells burning into the beast and exacerbating his wounds, the worgen became even more furious and slashed harder and faster. Try as he might though, Lokosh’s shield won the battle of attrition in the end and the worgen succumbed to his wounds.

The structure rocked a little as the beast fell to the ground. The expansion was rotten and had become unstable. With urgency, the group hurried out of the building and back onto another section of the ramparts.

From there, the group had to deal with more ghost soldiers which were no problem for the group at this point as they advanced toward a tall tower. “We’re nearly there,” Thanatas declared. Arugal is at the top of this tower. His strongest breeds of worgen are here too so be prepared for the worst.”

With renewed determination, the group entered the tower and proceeded down a set of stairs into a large room that was teeming with worgen. More importantly, they encountered Sons of Arugal in this room as the worgen in question moved with the same speed as the one they encountered in the forest. Farra’jin used his earth totem to slow the movements of the Sons they encountered while Lokosh held the line against the vicious assaults from not only the worgen but also a few ghost wolves.

The Sons tried to place their painful curse on the party but with the experience they gained from dealing with the worgen, Groun had more freedom to cleanse the curses from his allies, leaving Talia and Farra’jin free to use their fire magic to burn the worgen while doing their best to avoid all the straw in the room.

They advanced, moving up a set of stairs, through an overlook, down some stairs to a raised section of the room while dealing with more worgen and ghost wolves, and finally up a walkway and out of the room, dealing with another Son at the exit.

After climbing another spiraling staircase, the group entered what appeared to be a small laboratory or library of some sort. A pair of braziers decorated the entrance with green flames while a large shackle and chain lay next to the biggest wolf they had ever seen.

“That’s Arugal’s favored pet, Fenrus the Devourer,” Thanatas informed.

The wolf heard the undead’s voice and turned to face the group, letting loose a thunderous roar that caused everyone to cover their ears. Lokosh recovered quickly enough to raise his shield as the huge wolf tried to clamp its fangs on the orc. Lokosh’s counterattack with his ax left a deep gash in the beast’s muzzle, causing him to leap backward and try his luck with the others who were entering the room. Before he could attack Groun, Lokosh charged forward at breakneck speed and bashed his shield on Fenrus’ face, causing him to let out a yelp. Fenrus glared at Lokosh with eyes full of hate.

With his full attention on Lokosh, the group used their usual strategy of Lokosh tanking the blows while Farra’jin and Talia incinerated the wolf. Despite his size, Fenrus was nothing more than a simple wolf and he fell like one. Fenrus let out one last cry before the light in his eyes faded.

Apparently everyone in the keep heard the beast’s death cry because a familiar voice above them spoke, “Who dares interfere with the Sons of Arugal?” He looked down at the group before weaving dark magic into the room, causing the shadows to coalesce into voidwalkers who proceeded to indiscriminately attack the group with their claws. Arugal assisted by hurling powerful bolts of shadow at the group.

Thankfully, the minions were not tough at all and Lokosh managed to deflect one of the mage’s bolts back at him which forced him to teleport away.

The group proceeded through the exit door and up another spiraling staircase which led to the second floor of the same room where Arugal was moments before. They proceeded around the edge of the room and into another exit door and another spiraling staircase, dealing with a couple of worgen along the way.

Finally, they reached the top of the staircase and entered another livery occupied by wolves and another red worgen.

“Wolf Master Nandos is in charge of the wolves of Arugal’s army,” Thanatas informed. “The mad wizard himself is just beyond the door behind him.”

At last the group had finally made it to the top of the tower. All that stood between them and Arugal was one last worgen and his pack of wolves. Given their experience, the group had no trouble dealing with the wolves but this also angered Nandos who charged after the group.

As they fought the worgen, his ability made itself known in the form of casting a spell on one of the dead wolves, causing it to rise up again and attack everyone. Groun caused roots to burst from the wooden floor and wrap around the wolf while the others focused on taking down the wolf master.

It wasn’t long before the beast fell and a key that was in his possession fell to the floor. Thanatas picked it up and unlocked the door the worgen was guarding. Once the door opened, the final chamber lay before them. Given the broken flooring above the stairs, it could be assumed that parts of the room collapsed a long time ago from age. The lower floor had a small lab table as well as one on the platform Arugal was standing on. Three Sons of Arugal guarded the lower floor with the mage daring the group to attack his precious children.

Talia fired dark magic at one of the Sons which caused all three to rush toward her. The group fell back to Nandos’ room where Lokosh managed to slam his shield into the lead worgen while Farra’jin used his earth totem to slow their movements while attacking with his fire totem and spells. With the attention off her, Talia unleashed fire and dark spells on the trio of beasts while Groun kept Lokosh healthy while cleansing the Sons’ curses from his teammates.

The fight took several minutes but the group finally managed to bring down the monsters, leaving Arugal alone.

The mage glared daggers at the group before shouting, “You shall serve in their place!”

Everyone entered the room just as Arugal closed and magically sealed the door behind them. Lokosh leaped over to Arugal’s platform to engage the mage in melee combat. Arugal managed to block each of the orc’s ax strikes with his staff while channeling powerful bolts of darkness at the orc which were agonizingly painful to the warrior. Groun’s herbal remedy spells managed to keep up with the mage’s dark magic.

Arugal teleported to a tiny platform on the other side of the room which was only large enough to hold one person which allowed him to continuously fire his bolts of dark magic at everyone while Groun was beginning to wear down.

The dark mage had enough of the druid’s healing antics and afflicted Groun with a minor version of the worgen curse which was only temporary. Groun screamed as he felt his body transforming against his will. His bovine features rapidly became canine and his hooves transformed into paws. His hands grew claws and his teeth became fangs. His consciousness soon faded and he found himself a prisoner in his own mind.

At that moment, a wave of sheer terror entered his mind. It wasn’t concern for his allies that he felt as he knew they were capable, but the fear felt baseless, as if he was terrified of something but he didn’t know what.

After what felt like ages, Groun’s consciousness returned and his body had returned to normal. He also realized that he was a distance away from his allies. Before Arugal could blast him while he was by himself, Groun caused thorns to sprout from the platform the mage was on, causing him to scream in pain and forced him to teleport to another platform.

Groun regrouped with the others after that. “What happened to me?” he asked.

“You turned into a bloodthirsty worgen so I had to keep you occupied with a fear spell,” Talia replied. “Let’s end this charlatan of a mage before he has a chance to try that again.”

To ensure that Arugal couldn’t teleport outside Lokosh’s attack range anymore, Groun caused thorns to sprout on all of the small broken platforms in the room, much to Arugal’s frustration.

Arugal tried to curse someone again but Lokosh was ready with a shield slam to his face before he rammed the mage with the shield and body slammed him into a wall. Arugal fell off the wall and kneeled onto the floor where he was soon burned and electrocuted by Talia and Farra’jin respectively. Arugal was too distracted by the pain to notice that Lokosh had his ax ready for the final blow which ended up separating his head from his body.

As the mage’s head rolled on the floor, the group breathed a collective sigh of relief, glad that this adventure was over. The spell that held the doors closed came undone with the mage’s death, allowing everyone to leave the now empty keep.

It was at this point that Thanatas took her leave of the group, but not without parting words. “Well done everyone, I shall take the head to Sylvanas to show the mage is no more,” Using her necromantic magic, she pulled the head into her hands. “We shall meet again soon. In the meantime, take my advice to heart and find some better armor and weapons. You will be facing much tougher foes than this guy soon and I would hate to see all of you fail your little mission before it really began.”

“Answer us this, why even bother to help us when we know you would find our headquarters eventually with or without using us?” Talia demanded.

A smile crept on Thanatas’ face which soon became full laughter. “It is true that we could eventually find it and of course Sphere already knows who you are. So here is where the deal comes in. We have our own mission objectives in this world and they are of the Alliance. We intend to see them protected until they fulfill their destinies. So our offer to you is this: assist us with our mission and we stay out of your way for yours. Sound fair?”

“You mean to ask us to assist your objectives with their adventures? What does this entail?” Talia asked.

“We won’t occupy all of your time with their adventures, just the ones that would ultimately require a small army to defeat. You might even find what you’re looking for in such places.” Thanatas slowly walked toward the exit. “I look forward to the next time we meet. Until then, keep working on getting stronger.”

Thanatas enclosed herself in a cage of bone and slipped into the floor, leaving the rest of the group unable to find words that could best describe their situation. As much as Talia’s pride told her to not take the death knight’s advice out of spite, common sense managed to score a victory in her mind which would have left a bitter taste in her mouth if she could taste. In the end, everyone sighed in resignation and agreed that the next few years on this planet were going to suck.

Author's Note

In the retconned version of Arugal's story, the mage became a servant to the first worgen, a night elf named Ralaar Fangfire, also known as Alpha Prime. However, since I don't plan to do much with the feral worgen, I'm going to leave out any details of his existence in this story and try to go on as if he never existed and that Arugal was just some mage who had a little too much fun with a spell.

Next time: Flutashe and Mena get some screen time again.

Edit: As for the thing about temporal glitches, it's really just an excuse for me to use revamped versions of bosses or dungeons from a later expansion. The original Commander Springvale boss was really just some ghost with a few weak paladin abilities so I used the revamped version from the Cataclysm expansion to make things more interesting. Also, I have no intention of revisiting dungeons unless necessary. The matter of the "temporal glitches" is expected to be limited to the first arc.

The Maw in the Deeps

After taking the ferry to the port town of Auberdine, which served as a major travel hub for Alliance ships in Kalimdor, Flutashe arrived at the port town with her prisoner restrained on her back.

The druid felt bad for the gnome because she was dabbling in magics that could easily corrupt her mind. But there was little she could do for her and she wasn’t certain she could convince Mena to turn away from that dark path.

Flutashe remained in her doe form for the entire trip to Auberdine. The form had dark gray fur with white markings over her body. Thin vines wrapped around her legs but never advanced down to her hooves.

She carried her prisoner along the long pier which had a pair of pavilions made in the same structural design as the other low-slung, arched wooden buildings that night elves typically used. The roofs were painted purple.

The long pier led to an inn where Flutashe decided to stay the night. The boat ride had given the druid time to clear her head and think about what to do with the prisoner. She had shown no significant signs of struggle and had been well behaved the entire trip. This could either be a ploy or something else.

Regardless, she wasn’t going to get any answers just speculating. Reverting to her night elf form, she rented a room with two beds at the inn and proceeded to the second floor. Once in their room, Flutashe removed the vines from herself and placed her vine-cocooned victim on the opposite bed. She then unwrapped the vines around Mena’s head and glared at her prisoner while Mena stared back.

Flutashe was expecting some sort of demand to let her go or some fanatical rambling or…anything. Instead, the gnome kept staring back at her, as if expecting her captor to say something.

Finally, Mena broke the silence with a surprisingly innocent question, “So, how long are we doing this staring contest? My eyes are getting a little dry.”

“Why don’t you tell me why you want to go to Lathar’Lazal?” Flutashe demanded. “I heard that there were cultists in those ruins. Are you one of them?”

Mena vigorously shook her head and quickly said, “No, of course not! I’m just trying to help this one person get into Blackfathom Deeps so they can consume some monster in the back of the temple.”

“You’re not making yourself look any more sane by uttering such madness,” Flutashe deadpanned. “What kind of thing would be capable of devouring a monster? And where is this person you’re talking about?”

“Right here,” spoke a new voice. The druid’s senses went on alert and she looked around to find the source of the voice. When she looked at Mena again, she nearly hit the ceiling as she jumped up from her bed as a female figure in a pitch black bodysuit and purple hair that seemed to move a little on its own suddenly appeared next to the gnome.

Flutashe could sense major corruption coming from the person before her and took on a hostile demeanor as she shapeshifted into her bear form. “Who are you? What are you doing to that gnome?” she growled.

“What’s the point in explaining myself while you’re acting hostile?” the woman countered.

“Answer me!” she roared.

The woman rolled her eyes before they became horrifyingly pitch black. Flutashe suddenly felt something very wrong as she felt her tense muscles relax and her expression relaxing against her will. Tried as she might, she couldn’t tap into her aggressive tendencies again. “What did you do to me?” she asked, her true feelings not matching her tone.

“Like I said, I can’t explain myself while you’re acting hostile so I temporarily disabled that part of your brain. You can have that part back once we’ve finished our parley. To start, allow me to introduce myself, my name is Violetta Craft.”

“How did you disable a part of my mind?,” Flutashe adked calmly.

“We’ll get to that soon. For now, the explanation. You asked what kind of thing could devour a monster, well I am that ‘thing’. You might ask how something as small as me could devour a huge monster. My counter argument is that you shouldn’t make assumptions about how I devour someone. For example, the fact that you can perceive my existence means that I can devour your mind anytime, anywhere, even if you’re on the other side of the planet from me. I am already inside your mind and I could prey on that at any time.”

At that, Flutashe suddenly felt a sense of terrifying dread wash over her. If this creature could devour her mind so easily, she was a truly dangerous being. However, Violetta gave the druid a moment to let those words sink in before continuing with a casual smile. “But I won’t, you being useful to Mena here is merely a small reason why. The main reason is because you’re still within the safe levels of sanity. Eating that would be like some regular person eating a rubber steak…disgusting. Insanity is the spice that can turn a kitchen catastrophe into a world-class gourmet meal. So as long as you don’t go off the deep end, you’re safe.”

“Wait, if what you say is true, does this mean that the creature in Lathar’Lazal is insane?”

“Well no, but that’s a different story. An insane mind is like an hors d'oeuvre to me while void energies are a meal. Those who are driven to insanity as a result of void corruption can be cured by me as long as the corruption hadn’t fully taken hold, otherwise I devour their mind completely.

“The creature I’m after is a void monster that some cultists are trying to summon in preparation before their masters begin the end of the world. I need to consume the essence of the creature in order to get my hunger under control long enough for me to go after one of my main targets.”

“And what would those targets be?” Flutashe asked with a mix of curiosity and suspicion.

“The four Old Gods who were buried beneath Azeroth eons ago.”

“Old gods?” Flutashe asked with genuine curiosity.

“Four of the most malevolent horrors of the void made flesh on the face of Azeroth. You have heard stories of their work, even if you have never linked the events to them. An ancient night elf civilization sunken beneath the tides and its people transformed into the naga…you ever wonder how they became that way? That was their work. The growing corruption within that realm you druids revere so much, the Emerald Dream? That was their work. The corruption of the black dragon aspect Neltharion, now known as Deathwing, as well as his entire flight? That was their work.”

Flutashe gasped in surprise. She had heard the rumors that the serpentine race known as the naga used to be night elves as well as the rumors of the Emerald Nightmare and the fall of the black aspect, but everybody believed they were isolated incidents. If what the being before her said was true, the implications of their power was truly horrifying. She had to know if there was a reason for this. “But why, why would they do such things?” she asked.

“The brief story is that eons ago, back before the first known civilization, the Old Gods came to Azeroth and subjugated the warring elements. They created the bipedal tentacled monsters you see every now and then called the N’raqi, a race of colossal beings that resemble giant lobsters called the C’thraxxi, and the progenitor of all insect people such as the Silithid and Qiraji known as the Aqir. For a time, the Old Gods practically ruled the world, until the coming of the Titans.

“The Titans did their best to clear Azeroth of the void corruption wrought by the Old Gods and waged war against them. The Titans ultimately won but were unable to remove those four because they were too deeply rooted into the world to remove them without compromising Azeroth. Instead, the Titans compromised and chained them beneath the land and went on their way. Since then, the Old Gods have been slowly working on undoing their shackles and plotting their return to power. Eventually they will return with the help of their allies and bring about the rebirth of their dark empire.”

Flutashe did her best to glare at the fiend given her mental block, “And what would you do with such power after you have consumed them? You would ultimately become more powerful than the four of them combined and you could be just as much a threat to Azeroth as the four of them individually, if not more of a threat.”

“I have no intention of causing harm to Azeroth. I may be evil but if there’s one good thing about me it’s my loyalty to my family. My cousin is currently trying to earn the trust of the Alliance leadership while my mother is doing the same with the Horde. Before you ask, no they are not aligned with the void like I am and my cousin is not evil…neutral, but not evil. Also, before you worry about other worlds that I might affect in the future, your concerns should be for Azeroth, not other worlds that have nothing to do with you.

“At any rate, my current duties involve making Azeroth a safer place and part of those duties involve getting rid of the Old Gods.”

“And what if I don’t help you?” Flutashe asked.

“I knock you out, we ferry you back to Darnassus, leave you behind at an inn and you wake up remembering nothing about the past few days because I will have those memories erased from your brain. Just for good measure I will also make you forget the quest that overgrown wisp sent you on.”

Flutashe wanted to chide Violetta for calling the great spirit of nature an “overgrown wisp” but that seemed to be outside her capacity at the moment. She also wanted to see Aessina’s quest to the end and forgetting it would be the same as abandoning it. On the other hand, working with a fiend like Violetta might eventually lead to a dangerous enemy coming to power. If this was also part of Aessina’s quest then it was likely that this journey was going to test her beliefs and perhaps more. She could only hope that she would make the best decision by taking this proverbial leap of faith.

She sighed, “Doesn’t seem like I have much choice. I need to find out why Aessina sent me on this journey. I’ll help you.”

Violetta clapped her hands together, “Excellent! Also, just so you know, I typically won’t get involved in your adventures too much unless they involve the void; typically void-worshiping cultists, void-corrupted or significant manifestations of the void. Battles taking place in the Twisting Nether are also a possibility.”

“That’s…good to know, I guess.”

With that, Violetta vanished into thin air. With what she just saw, Flutashe seemed to better understand the gnome’s situation. Using her druidic powers, Flutashe caused the vines to wither and become brittle, allowing the priest to break free.

“Ahh, much better…oh wait!” Mena then bolted out of the room at a speed that Flutashe thought impossible with the gnome’s stubby legs. Compared to the druid, Mena’s height only went up to her hips which was a typical height for a gnome.

Mena returned a few minutes later with a look of relief on her face. “Ok, now I feel better.”

“Umm…I’m glad you’re feeling better,” Flutashe replied.

That was when the gnome’s hair went flat and draped over her shoulders, covering one eye. Her expression suddenly became darker. She then glared at the druid. “Maybe next time you abduct someone, you should let them have bathroom breaks! You have no idea how long she’s been holding it in.”

Flutashe sensed the increased corruption within the gnome. Was this Violetta’s doing, or was the priest already corrupted? Flutashe shifted into her cat form and slowly approached, looking menacing and feeling every bit willing to maul her if she tried anything, a feeling Flutashe was grateful that Violetta returned. “Why do you suddenly reek of corruption more than before?”

“You can blame my alter ego for that,” Surprise stated calmly. “She was the one stupid enough to get herself exposed to experimental gas without any protection. I’m simply the result of that. Also, aren’t Alliance priests being trained to use shadow spells lately because the Horde have fielded combat priests who can heal others and attack?”

Now that she said it, Surprise had a point. From what Flutashe heard from Stormwind, the Church of the Holy Light was shaken by this and seeing the edge the Horde had in this case. In desperation, they turned to the fallen priests who lost touch with the Light. The priests were granted amnesty in exchange for teaching their priests how to use their dark spells, bringing about a new generation of priests who could heal and protect with the Light while bringing shadowy death to their enemies. Some of the more adventurous lower priests of Darnassus also use light and shadow in reverence to the light and dark sides of the moon.

Conceding the point, Flutashe shifted back into her night elf form. “Can you at least answer me this: are you evil?”

“Evil? No. But I am a jerk. There’s a difference,” Surprise answered. “I’m not likely to stab you in the back because I need your help keeping miss tall, dark and mindrapey happy, but at the same time I am an abusive type of a person. You want nice, you can talk with Mena. So, now that this meet and greet is over, let’s get some sleep. We have a long walk ahead of us.”

With that, Surprise’s hair became curly and poofy again, a sign that Flutashe figured meant that Mena was back. She had an apologetic look on her face. “Sorry about Surprise. She means well but she can be too blunt.

Flutashe smiled gently at seeing the gnome’s better nature returned. “It’s okay, you seem to have surrounded yourself with a lot of problems. And I’m sorry for the abduction. The corruption within you made me wary of you so I had no idea if you could be trusted.”

Mena nodded, “Thank you for being understanding.” She then laid down on her bed and pulled the covers over herself before wishing a good night to the druid and went to sleep.

Flutashe being a nocturnal person could have stayed up to watch the gnome or look around town but she knew that the journey to Ashenvale Forest was going to be a long journey so she went to bed as well to be at her best tomorrow.

The next morning the two made their preparations for their journey to Ashenvale and the ruins on its west coast. Both gathered what supplies they needed. Auberdine was constructed on a series of tall islands that were bridged together so those bridges were their way of navigating around town.

Once they navigated the bridges and stepped foot onto the mainland, Flutashe shapeshifted into her doe form while Mena climbed on her back. It was for the best since the gnome’s short stature and tiny legs would have slowed them down. Mena held a firm grip on Flutashe’s neck before the druid followed the road south.

Taking in the landscape, the region known as Darkshore was cold, stormy and foggy most of the year and the numerous ruins that dotted the landscape were a bitter reminder of the night elves’ former prosperity. A desolate beach stretched all along the coast of northwestern Kalimdor. The land was hostile to all. Flutashe could hear the animals crying out in pain and was saddened that her people couldn’t discover the source of their pain. The ruins of Ameth’Aran that they passed were haunted by the ghosts of the highborne elves who lost their lives in The Great Sundering that shattered the once-singular continent into smaller ones.

Further south were the dens held by the furbolg who had succumbed to their feral natures and indiscriminately attacked anyone they saw who wasn’t one of them. Looking to their west, the group saw a number of cultists digging up a colossal skeleton of a horror long buried with a massive glowing sword lodged in its skull. A few cultists spotted the duo on the road but Surprise made sure they didn’t make any reports by either destroying their minds or controlling their bodies long enough to make them kill their allies before she made them commit suicide. They would see it as an offering to their local horrific being anyway so Surprise felt that the cultists should be grateful for that.

After several hours of traveling through the cold, stormy forest, the climate and landscape slowly changed to a warmer one with the forest being more vibrant and colorful unlike the dull colors of Darkshore. “We’re entering Ashenvale Forest now, the ruins of Lathar’Lazal should be close,” Flutashe said.

The druid followed the road around some tall hills until the road branched west. The path wasn’t paved well but she could tell where the path was marked and soon they found themselves at a beach filled with ruins that were teeming with naga, serpentine humanoids with differently colored scales, serpentine lower bodies and colorful fins. The males had elongated faces that made them look more like a creature than a person while the females had larger fins on their heads, down their backs and faces that resembled their former night elven selves. They wore armor on their upper bodies and wielded swords and tridents. The females were mages.

The duo took some time to clear the beach of the invading snake people using Flutashe’s cat claws and Mena’s holy and shadow spells while tossing their bodies back into the sea they came from.

With the immediate threat gone, the duo explored the ruins, searching for a way deeper into the ruins. It wasn’t long until they found a rectangular structure near the mountains. The structure was a spiraling staircase which led to a pool of water below. Flutashe descended the stairs and walked into the pool. Once submerged, she shapeshifted into a sea lion with sabertooth fangs. She swam around a little until she found an underwater passage. Entering it, she quickly surfaced to find that she was in an underground cavern.

Flutashe returned the way she came and called for Mena to follow her. The two soon found themselves exploring the passage which was occupied by a number of female naga sorceresses. To keep them from casting, Surprise struck the sorceresses with silence spells to keep them from chanting while Flutashe charged forward and headbutted other naga to interrupt their casts. When Mena got a turn, she bombarded the naga with bolts of light or healed Flutashe’s wounds whenever she got struck by any frostbolts that got through. The attacks didn’t really hurt, but the druid appreciated the sentiment.

After some time traversing the winding tunnel, dealing with naga and a few satyrs, former night elves who accepted the power of the Burning Legion and became shaggy-haired over most of their bodies and had cloven hooves for feet and long horns that curved back slightly, the duo spotted a pair of night elves. One looked injured, looking like he had been impaled by a spear. The spear appeared to go through his upper arm so it missed his vital organs but he did need some emergency treatment.

It was at this time that Violetta, who was observing events from an isolated corner of Mena’s mindscape, noticed something odd was happening. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but it seemed like something was distorted in the duo’s area. She had no idea if this was normal and couldn’t ask her mother about it through her cousin’s psychic link. And for good reason since her presence in the link would be like uploading a menagerie of the most dangerous computer viruses known to mankind and infecting their minds. She would need to find a way to communicate with them at some point that wouldn’t compromise the link.

One of the elves called out to Flutashe, “Lady Flutashe! Thank Elune you’re here. The Twilight’s Hammer have been hunting us down to sacrifice us to their monster.”

“Aluwyn? What are you doing down here?” Flutashe asked. “I thought you were still at the academy being given your first assignment.”

“What are you talking about Lady Flutashe, I’ve been assigned to watch over these ruins for years now,” Aluwyn replied. “A few years ago some adventurers came in and took out the cultists, including their leader, Twilight Lord Kelris. Recently the Twilight’s Hammer moved more of their numbers in and drove the naga out along with any who wouldn’t obey. Their leader, Bathiel, is an ascendant who had been capturing a number of innocent people and sacrificing them to the monster in the back of the temple.

“Ascendant?” Flutashe questioned.

Violetta invaded the minds of the duo. “From what my mother told me, Twilight Ascendants were powerful members of the cult who performed a ritual to shed their mortal forms to gain one akin to an elemental.” She then thought to herself, “Which is strange since the ascendants weren’t supposed to have made themselves known for several more years.”

The invasion in her mind made Flutashe very uncomfortable and was grateful when the invading feeling receded. She shook her head to clear her mind. “Alright, we’ll deal with them.”

“Are you sure? There’s only two of you.”

“We’ll be fine.”

Flutashe and Mena moved forward a few feet when they heard a voice yelling nearby. “Find them you imbeciles! Lord Bathiel will not be denied his sacrifices!”

Not far ahead was a single cultist from the Twilight’s Hammer cult who were known to worship the Old Gods and their creations. Near the cultist were two strange looking murlocs. This particular breed had long, razor-sharp teeth and an appendage protruding from their foreheads that ended in a glowing orb. Neither Flutashe nor Mena had ever seen that type of murloc before.

The duo was soon spotted by the cultist and the murlocs. “Ah good, more sacrifices for the altar. Lord Bathiel will be pleased.” He drew a large steel ax and ordered the two fish people to attack.

Flutashe shifted into her bear form and swiped her claws into the murlocs’ faces, cutting into their large eyes. Surprise took control of the cultist long enough to make him cleave the fish people in the back with his ax before Flutashe knocked him down and crushed his bones with her bulky body and Surprise crushed his mind.

Further ahead were two more cultists, a murloc and a small group of scared people barely wearing anything. It wasn’t hard to figure that they were some of the prisoners. The orc was dressed as a spellcaster. Though the only orc spellcasters that the two knew about were either warlocks or shamans. Though warlocks normally had demons with them and the cult usually didn’t convert warlocks to their cause which meant that he may have been a shaman.

The orc growled at the prisoners, “You should be honored, fools! Your blood will feed Aku’mai, the destroyer of Azeroth!”

Rushing forward to assist the prisoners, the orc spotted the duo and began channeling lightning which Surprise reacted to and silenced the caster while Flutashe mangled the murloc and the cultist. Surprise assaulted the shaman’s mind with shadow magic and left him too unfocused to try casting anything until the shadows seared his mind.

The prisoners cheered as their captors fell. One of them, a human, approached the two. “They were going to feed us to the beast, Aku’mai. There are more prisoners deeper in the ruins. Please, save them!” The prisoners then ran back toward the entrance to make their escape.

Flutashe looked back and sighed, “If I had known there would be so many prisoners, I would have requested a group of Sentinels to provide relief efforts for the escapees.”

“Nothing we can do about that now, let’s keep going,” Surprise said.

Just beyond where they encountered the orc was a partially submerged chamber with ruins and the only way forward was a ledge that was too high for them to jump to unless they traversed the tops of the ruins. A number of tree roots from the surface dangled in the cavern with the glowing light of wisps tending the roots.

Atop the ruins, the duo noticed an orc with a large ax and dressed in black robes near a few more prisoners and a few cultist assistants. A few prisoners lay near the edge of the ruins overlooking the water that seemed to be teeming with the strange murlocs.

The orc noticed the duo enter the chamber. “Intruders?! Move the prisoners. Their flesh belongs to Lord Bathiel.” The cultists forced all but the prisoners overlooking the water to march deeper into the cavern while the orc pointed the knob of his ax at the prisoners before shoving them into the water. “Come along, heroes! The water is fine. HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

The prisoners screamed in terror as they plummeted into the waters below filled with starving murlocs. “NO!” Flutashe screamed and closed her eyes to the impending feeding.

However, the only splash that was heard was from the murlocs in their frenzy. When Flutashe opened her eyes, the two doomed prisoners were standing next to Mena and showering her with praise and gratitude. “Thank you so much, priest! You saved our lives! How could we ever repay you?”

“I think the best thing you can do right now is to get out of here while you can,” Mena answered. “The way behind us is clear but I don’t know for how long.”

Realizing that, the two prisoners fled toward the entrance.

Flutashe looked at Mena in shock, “How did you do that?”

“It’s a spell learned by priests called Leap of Faith. As long as the target has enough innocence in their hearts the spell pulls them to me.”

“Amazing…” Flutashe looked around the chamber for a way forward because the only way up to the ruins that would help them move forward was on the other side of the chamber and they would have to swim across which would be risky with the frenzied murlocs. “Any ideas on how we can get across?”

“Hmm…” Mena looked around and to her right she spotted a post in the sand and a post on the platform overlooking the first post. A coil of rope was sitting next to the second post. “Think you can toss me up to the ledge?”

Flutashe looked at where Mena was looking and realized what she was thinking. Nodding, Flutashe shifted into her bear form and the priest climbed on the druid’s head. With one upward motion of her head, Flutashe tossed Mena into the air before the priest cast a spell on herself to cause her to slowly fall toward the ledge. Landing where she wanted to be, Mena tied one end of the rope to her post before tossing the other end to Flutashe who reverted to her elf form and tied her end to her post. She then climbed the rope and made it to the top of the ledge with Mena. The two high-fived each other for their teamwork.

The two proceeded forward, dealing with more murlocs and cultists until entering another chamber. From a glance, they could tell that murlocs swarmed the waters here too. The island in the middle of the pool was inhabited by tortoises with one large turtle being tormented by cultists. To the side of the island was a prisoner being tormented by a pair of murlocs running around her.

The tortoise was doing her best to resist the efforts of the cultists to subjugate her. “Resisting my magic is useless Ghamoo-Ra!” said the cultist tormenting her. “Soon you will be under my power, then I shall unleash your fury on those meddlesome intruders.”

“Leave her alone!” Flutashe shouted before she unleashed a bolt of natural energy at the offending cultist, disrupting her ritual.

The cultist and her companions went wide-eyed when the spell was interrupted. The tortoise was not under her control and looked ready to counterattack. “Wait...wait! It’s too soon! NOOOOOoooo…” she shrieked before Ghamoo-Ra receded into her shell and spun around, shredding the cultists with her shell’s sharp edges.

Ghamoo-Ra thrashed about in pain as the magic from the cultist had charged up her body with electricity. Flutashe noticed a smaller tortoise at the back of the island who was scared for Ghamoo-Ra. Flutashe had a feeling that the scared tortoise was related to the large one. A son perhaps?

Wanting to avoid the risk of the child being hurt, Flutashe rushed over to Ghamoo-Ra and tried to hug her by the neck, earning a jolt of electricity for her efforts but refusing to let go. “Please stop, you might hurt your son if you keep doing that!” Ghamoo-Ra cried out. “I know it hurts. We’ll find a way to make you better. We just need to find a way to get the lightning out of your body.” Flutashe was still being hurt by the lightning but she didn’t care as she did her best to calm the large tortoise down.

“Flutashe, get her to jump into the water!” Mena called out. “The resulting discharge should get the excess energy out of her body!”

Ghamoo-Ra looked at the gnome then at Flutashe who looked uncertain. The tortoise was desperate enough to try anything at this point so she walked over to the edge of the pool before leaping into it, tucking in her limbs. The splashing impact caused the cavern to glow brightly from the electrical discharge for a few moments before the light dimmed. After a minute, Ghamoo-Ra returned to the island singed, but still alive. Mena used her Light magic to heal both Flutashe and the tortoise.

Flutashe looked around the area to see what damage the discharge caused and cringed when she saw a large number of murlocs and fish floating motionlessly on the surface of the water. “Looks like we killed two birds with one stone; we saved a tortoise and killed all the murlocs in the water with one electrical blast,” Surprise cackled, earning an eye roll from the druid..

The two murlocs harassing the prisoner got too close to the electrified water and were electrocuted to death with the others. The prisoner got to her feet and pleaded with the duo, “Oh please, you must save the others before Domina sacrifices them!” The prisoner pointed to an underwater passage behind her before running back toward the entrance.

Following where the prisoner pointed, the duo jumped into the water that was no longer electrified and swam through the underwater cavern before resurfacing moments later to find the remaining prisoners. Flutashe mangled two cultists while Surprise destroyed the mind of the cultist stirring a cauldron. The prisoners saw their chance to escape and took it.

The remaining cultists in the small chamber were distracted watching something so Flutashe snuck behind the cultists one by one in her cat form. Surprise used her silence spell to make sure the ambushed cultists didn’t scream as the druid mauled them.

The two soon saw what was happening once the audience was cleared out. Two cultists were holding a goblin over a writhing mass of void with a number of tentacles flailing about. “No please! I don’t want to die like this!” the goblin screamed. Overseeing the ritual was a forsaken who was gleefully channeling the void rift like she was getting a thrill out of sacrificing the poor goblin. They figured that she must be the Domina who the prisoner mentioned earlier.

Acting quickly Flutashe raked her claws on the back of one of the cultists, stopping their cast while Mena bombarded the other cultist with bolts of light. The goblin fell toward the writhing maw but was pulled back toward the gnome using her Leap of Faith spell.

“As much as I hate being saved by a gnome, in this case I’m actually glad I was,” The prisoner said before he sprinted away.

Domina glared at the two before her expression turned to a wicked smile, “You interrupted my sacrifice, but I’ll gladly sacrifice both of you instead. Twice the favor after all.” She then reared back and inflated her cheeks, as if she was about to vomit. Not wanting to be in the path of whatever was coming, the druid and priest moved to the side as Domina spewed a wave of purple goo from her mouth. Flutashe could smell the void corruption coming off the vile purge.

“Aww what’s the matter? The void isn’t terrifying, it embraces us all.” Domina cackled maniacally. “Just as it shall soon embrace you! S̶̬̘̈̌̀o̶̬̻̅͐o̴͎͐͐̑n̸̼̦̻̅͗ ̷̱͗̌a̴͉͊̀͝l̷̢̂̍͠l̶͍̼͆̅́ ̵͍͆ś̷̳͓̜̕h̸̝̼̒͜a̸̰̖͇̅̓l̷̞̦̊̀l̵̥͌ ̵̡̠̒b̶̰͉͆̿͜ȇ̶̫͛̂ ̷͇̈c̸̨̽̈́o̴̟̚ň̷̟̤͕s̷͔͇̋́u̷͇̟͒̆m̷͇̗̂e̵͎͚̞̿͝͠d̵̢̩̔ ̴͖͚̯̿̆̚b̴̙̼́͜y̷̰̿́ ̶͉̗̦̓͠A̴̘͉̎k̴̺̖̃̈́̎û̷̮̽̂'̴̦͔̾̄̓m̵̼̜̄́̿ā̵̹ḯ̷͔̃́!̶̧̔̈́̉”

Just as Domina was preparing another void projectile, she spotted another person approaching the battle, a human wearing a black skinsuit. But that was all she saw before everything went black. All around here was an empty void of black. For a moment she believed that her masters had welcomed her to their realm but that was before she saw a pair of black eyeballs with purple irises radiating a violet aura. Beneath the eyes was a fanged maw. The dark face creeped toward her and Domina found herself unable to act, only watching as the maw widened until it passed over her and closed behind her, happily believing that her masters had chosen to send her to a higher plane of existence. The mad cultist never saw the waking world again.

Back in the cavern, Flutashe and Mena stared in surprise as the cultist collapsed on the floor. Mena walked close to the body and poked it with a finger “What happened?” Mena asked.

“Seems to me like she went brain dead, a common symptom for those who had their minds preyed upon,” Violetta answered.

“So this is what happens when you prey on an insane person?” Flutashe asked.

“Yep, their consciousness is devoured and the body is rendered into a permanent vegetative state.”

The two decided not to ask any further about Violetta’s methods and returned to Ghamoo-Ra’s chamber. The mother tortoise was busy nuzzling her young, putting a smile on Flutashe’s face.

While Mena waited on the island, Flutashe shifted into a sea lion and explored the waters for their next way forward. After a few minutes of exploring, Flutashe surfaced and waved the gnome to her. The two swam past some ruins and into another passage.

A pair of murlocs and a cultist commanding a shackled water elemental guarded the passage. Surprise took control of the cultist’s mind and had him banish the elemental before she made him run himself through with his staff. Flutashe dispatched the murlocs.

The two continued down the tunnel dealing with more cultists before a void rift opened and a tentacle emerged from it. Flutashe clawed at the tentacle and forced it to retreat.

This continued until they saw a trio of murlocs, one was holding a bag. They saw the duo and retreated into a small chamber where the duo pursued them. They paused their chase as they saw a giant, blue, humanoid cephalopod. The tentacles on its right arm were arranged in a way that it resembled a hand with two fingers and a thumb. It wore shoulder armor of tarnished bronze and a dull bronze belt with a bright pink gem in the center. It carried a two-pronged bright green spear. The two of them figured that the creature before them was one of those that Violetta warned them about earlier, a N’raqi.

“I̵͔̲̫̊̉t̷̰̀ ̸͍̕s̵̠͕̄̀ë̵̠̦́e̸̖̠͐͝m̸̱͇͔̊̂ṣ̶̑͠ ̸̺͆m̶̥̼̻͛̅̈y̸͙̳̓͛́ ̵̢̂m̶̙̖͛ǔ̶̧̜̰ř̶̗͝l̷̫͆͋o̸̗̓c̸̦̟̀͑s̶̲̤̯̓ ̵̪͖̂͛̒h̷̨̺̩͗͠a̶̛̹͛v̷̞͒̄̄e̷̺̥͈̒͝͝ ̸͕̞̉͗̃b̴̞͍̭͊r̷̹̺̆̒͒o̶̟̊̚u̶̦̮̟̍ǵ̴̨̯̫h̴̰̓̆͒ẗ̸̢̧̛͕ ̷̤͔͠m̶͚̒̀̅o̵̯͙̎r̶͙͛͐ȇ̸͈̭͗ ̵̯̾͒ẗ̴̥̤́̒h̷͐̏ͅa̴̳̤͒n̴̤̤͝ ̶̝̫̾͠j̸̹͆̒û̶̘̙̮̂̕s̵̭̠̍t̵̡̟̼̋ ̸͍̩̄̈́̏ṷ̴̢̜̀̑̎s̸̩̼̀͂̈́e̸̝͗̀̊l̵͓͓̹̀̈́͝e̸͇̱͗s̶͉̣̏͊̅s̵̥͂ ̷͎͉̙͒́͒ţ̵̛̂̆r̵̳̰͒͑ḭ̷̻͔̓͗͘n̸̩̞̓k̷̺̘̙̔̍ȇ̵̻̀̑t̵̻͇̂̋̋s̵̫̓̀̐ ̶̧͓̞̀w̶̯͂͠i̵̝̻̍t̵̳̿ḧ̴̳̰ ̶͚̩́̾͑t̵̪̳̩́͛̈́h̷͔̏e̴͈̽̅͜m̶͇̝̳͋͠ ̷̥͂̂ţ̴̪̣͒̓ḣ̶̢̲̜i̸͍͙̰̿s̵̰̫͈͌ ̶̬̘̲̾̈́̓t̶̨̖͎͆i̷͓͛̉̈́ͅm̷̝̱̰̑̅ë̵̡̤́̅͒,̷͉͒͝” the N’raqi said.

Flutashe charged up to the creature in her bear form to challenge it. The N’raqi blocked her claw swipes with his spear but received a barrage of light bolts in the face for its efforts. It extended its tentacles past Flutashe and grabbed Mena, placing her in a crushing grip. Mena grunted in pain while Flutashe slashed away at the tentacles with her claws and bit into the arm with her teeth, forcing it to let Mena go. The N’raqi then raised its spear in the air calling out, “Ä̸̠̻͇́r̶̫͒̑į̵̝̆̿̀s̵̠̼̲̑̒ẽ̵̦̩͈̒,̷̧̠͇̊ ̷͌͜A̶͓͇̳̍̐k̷̺͍̔̒͜u̶̧͍̥̎͝'̷̫̺̐m̶͇͒͝á̸̗̰̽̚ì̶͔͐͋,̷͍̀͆ ̵̛̮̱͂ä̷͖̺́n̷̢̈́̓̆ḏ̵̲̋́̕͜ ̵̧̰̟͛̍f̷͚͍͍̓̄é̵̡̖e̸̡̻̳͐̃̋ḓ̵̭̈́̅͌͜!̶̺̎” Once he said that, a pair of tentacles emerged from the void and attempted to slam the two. Surprise concentrated her shadow magic into an edge and released it into dark projectiles. The shadow blades cut deep into the tentacles but didn’t sever them. It was still enough to make them return to the void.

Meanwhile, Flutashe dodged a downward slash from the N’raqi’s spear which caused him to overextend and allow her to place a paw on the shaft while the other slashed away at its chest which was followed by her jamming her paw into the aberration’s slashed up chest and piercing its heart. The N’raqi dropped the spear and backed away slowly.

Mena had a very bad feeling that something intense was about to happen. “Flutashe, let’s get out of here! Fast!” The druid wasn’t sure why the gnome was so panicked but decided to listen to her anyway.

As the two of them started to leave the small chamber, the N’raqi shouted, “Â̶̫̱͝k̵͖̳̃ͅu̵̼̿̄̐'̷̱͕͖͌̎m̶̟͆ȃ̸̘̣̩̃i̷̩͗̊,̶͈͖̐ ̴̛̭͔̫̎̾k̴̨̺̍i̶̡̓l̵̫̮̺̾͒͒l̴̺͔̬̉́͝ ̷͕̖̯̀̅ṫ̶̪̥͂́ḩ̵̎é̶͓̲̔̆m̷̙͍̑͝ ̸̛̘̩͇á̸͚̀l̴̠̮̙̅̔ĺ̷̲̩͚͝!̴̬̮͊̿” Mena started sprinting away with Flutashe following moments before a large number of tentacles emerged from the void and started thrashing about in the chamber, causing the caverns to tremble.

“Whew, glad we got out of there in time,” Flutashe said, switching back to her night elf form. She took two steps and paused as she realized something and looked at the gnome. “Wait, did you know that the N’raqi was going to do that?”

“Kinda, it’s sorta like a sixth sense I have about impending dangers. One time it went off and I barely managed to avoid falling equipment from squishing me. I’m not sure why I have this ability, only that I’ve had it for as long as I can remember.”

“I see…” With that, the two returned to the tunnel and took a passage to their left which led them through another tunnel. This one began with an encounter with a pair of rogues who were keeping hidden for an ambush. Flutashe sniffed them out before she pointed at one rogue while she charged and mangled the other. Surprise decapitated the first one with a shadow blade.

Just ahead was the orc from the submerged ruins. He had a look of surprise on his face as he ordered his escort to move the prisoners again. “The intruders are still alive?! Stop them! The ritual must not be disturbed!” Surprise sliced a tentacle that emerged to cover the orc’s retreat.

The duo pursued the orc down the tunnel while dealing with more cultists such as the shadowmagi who commanded voidwalkers. While the voidwalkers were often commanded by warlocks, they could be used by the Twilight’s hammer as well since they were associated with the void.

The tunnel soon started to widen before they came across a strange looking ogre who looked more deformed than the usual kind. This one had spikes on his back and head and had less toes on his feet. He was also a little bigger than the average ogre and wielded a spiked mace with a fishing pole on his back. The ogre was fighting it out with a giant crab.

“Fall back to the sanctum, Lord Bathiel’s ritual must not be disturbed! Thruk, do not let them past!” the orc called out.

The ogre seemed too busy fighting the crab to pay attention to the duo though. “Thruk want Guardian treasure!”

Flutashe shifted into her cat form and snuck past the oblivious ogre while Surprise used a spell to make herself fade into the shadows. Just after the two snuck past, the crab used a pincer to cut itself free. Scuttling back to its lair, Thruk dove into the water in pursuit. “Thruk want Guardian treasure!”

Flutashe and Mena decided to leave the ogre to his battle and proceeded down a set of stairs into the Moonshrine Ruins. The walls held up pretty well over the ages. They still retained the images carved into them. A few pillars survived intact but the rest crumbled. A pavilion in the center of the ruins was where the orc stood with his weapon ready to make his last stand.

Climbing up a set of stairs, the duo met the orc at the pavilion. “I was a fool to think that stupid ogre would focus on his task instead of playing around with that crab. No matter, I will have the pleasure of removing your heads,” the orc said.

Flutashe charged in and bit into the orc’s poleaxe , leaving them to wrestle over the weapon. Whenever the druid moved the weapon out of the way, Surprise struck him with several shadow spells, including one that leeched life from the orc as well as a brief magical disease that ate away at his flesh. Still the orc persisted.

Using all her strength, Flutashe pulled herself and the orc over the edge of the pavilion and into the water. As they continued the fight, the orc soon realized that he lacked experience in underwater combat while the druid shifted into a sea lion and headbutted the orc in the gut, stunning him long enough to drop his weapon. Before he could move to grab his weapon again, the druid sank her teeth into the orc’s throat and ripped it out, filling the waters with blood and attracting a number of nearby carnivorous fish into feasting on the orc’s body.

Flutashe returned to the pavilion a minute later so the duo could resume their journey which they believed was near its end. After dealing with a few more cultists, they entered the sanctum which was guarded by more cultists.

Near the center of the room was a statue of a naga with four arms and four snakes for hair and holding up a spiked ring. In front of that was a large black crystal with images of two familiar figures hovering lifelessly over a bowl with a purple fire inside. Near the flame was a number of corpses who were likely the remaining prisoners surrounding some sort of humanoid elemental.

He had the face of a human but his body looked like it was made of water held together by his armor. He wore a large metal belt that had the symbol of a hammer on it and wore a robe made of patched leather with a mantle made of the same material. His hood looked like a webbed fin like the female naga had.

An elemental humanoid seemed like something one would become if they shed their mortal form to gain an elemental one which must mean that the being was an ascendant and likely Twilight Lord Bathiel.

“You are too late, the summoning of Aku’mai is complete.” Bathiel declared. “Unfortunately, you will not live long enough to behold his glory. Finish them!”

Acting strategically, Flutashe and Mena retreated just outside the sanctum where the other cultists followed right into a bottleneck, making the cultists easier targets for Flutashe’s claws and Surprise’s shadow blades. It wasn’t long before the corpses piled in the doorway. The druid tossed the bodies in the water where they would be chum for the carnivorous fish.

The two entered the sanctum proper and Bathiel growled as he glared at the two. “Before I kill you know this, Aku’mai will devour this world!” Bathiel unleashed icicles at the two which caused them to split up. The ascendant targeted Mena first but failed to account for Flutashe’s speed as she slammed into him and sent him flying into a pillar. Surprise seared the elemental with shadow magic which he countered by causing icicles to rain all over the floor of the sanctum, forcing Surprise to dodge. Flutashe endured the shards and slapped Bathiel with a paw followed by a headbutt that sent him flying into a wall.

Bathiel realized that he was taking too much damage and started casting a spell that caused water to coalesce into water elementals. All he needed to do was wait for the many elementals to come to him so he could heal himself.

Violetta soon became impatient with the fight and with her prize so close, she decided to add in her own contribution. From Mena’s body, Violetta caused liquid black to erupt and hit all of the water elementals, tainting them with her dark essence.

Bathiel was surprised by what happened and began to panic as the elementals drew close. One did get close enough to get absorbed by him but instead of healing him, the tainted elemental poisoned him, destabilizing his elemental form. Soon, multiple elementals were absorbed and the poison grew exponentially worse. The instability of his form became too much and he fell apart, turning into a water puddle and leaving his binding belt behind.

“Wow, he even died like an elemental,” Mena said.

“Aku’mai is close,” Flutashe said. “The stench of corruption is thick here.”

Just then the door to the back of the room opened and a voice invaded the minds of the duo. “O̷̢̐̇̈́ų̸̣͒͐̾r̷͚̰̈́͜͝ ̸̢̻̔̍̄ͅḥ̷̦̙̃͊e̷̘̦̎r̵̝̒̃a̵̙̓͜ͅl̴̲͍̅d̷̩́̂̌,̵̹̒̔̓ ̶̫̹̫̓́A̴̔͜k̴̠̈́̇ṵ̶̢̔'̵͍̭̔m̴͔̮̔ḁ̷͓́͂ḯ̵̢͈̔̕,̸̜͉̼͠ ̴̹̊̌͑ǻ̸͍̼͜ṙ̵̘̓ͅi̴̛̙͈͂̓s̷̰̩̞̐e̵̱̲̅͌s̵͖̟̣͋ ̸̻͔̄̕f̶̠̎̚ṙ̵͙͛͂ö̵̟́̄̚m̶̠̺̪͗ ̸̡̤͗ͅt̶͙̣̍͘h̶͓̣̀̾͜͝e̷͖̔ͅ ̷̩̠̎̊̎d̷̼͖͍͑̾e̶͍̋̾̊p̴̞̂́́t̷͙̆̕h̸̻͙̃̿s̴͚̼͊͌̇.̸͉͓̣̀ ̸̢͔̙͐͌͝Y̴̢̦̾͝ŏ̶̔͜u̸̢͊͊̈́ ̴͖̭͛͜ḧ̴̖͈̩́̽ȃ̴͖͈́̀ͅv̸͕̦͚̓̒e̴͉͕̅̅ ̶̦͉̑̅͘ë̷̖̬̔͜à̷̢͕ͅr̵͐͜n̷͖̂ͅe̴̟̲̲͗d̸̘̭̚ ̴̟͈̼̽͌̓t̸̥́̒h̶̼̺̲̑ḙ̴͔̠̀ ̸̱̙̹͋̑h̸̯͝͠o̵̧͋̐n̴̠̅͘o̶͇̳̗̓͗r̶̲̜̈́ ̶̻͇̚͝ŏ̴̧̝͚̒͝f̵̼́̌ ̷̜͖̟̉b̵̧̤͓͋̅̚ë̷̪́̊͜i̸̡̻̙̇̋n̵̡͙̱͊̉̀g̸̢̪̣͂̍̚ ̵̦̈̌̒ẗ̷̼̺́͒̏h̵̠͛e̴̻̦̱̅̆̑ ̸̮̭̿f̶̭̖̓͐̐i̴̢̛̹̝̕r̸̬̍͗s̴̯̹̤̅̏t̸̫̲̎͝ ̷̘̔̚ḧ̶͕͒̉ě̴́͜͠ ̶̣̋ͅd̴̝̮̋̌ę̸̦̈v̴̢̢́̒̈́o̸̻̗͊̉ͅu̴̙̾̌͘r̵̤̖͈͌̆͛s̶̥͝.̵̯͇̒͊ͅ”

Flutashe groaned from the mental strain, “Do they always speak in that strange language?”

“I don’t know, but whether they say something that’s actually important is the real question,” Surprise snarked.

The two proceeded through the door to the back of the cavern where a number of tentacles tried to get in their way. Surprise quickly dispatched them. Soon they found themselves face to face with a gargantuan serpent head.

As the two prepared to face the beast, Violetta emerged in between the two and Aku’mai. “You two have done your job here. Now, it’s my turn.”

“Ẃ̷̩̯ḧ̷̡̈ą̸̺̔͐t̴̰̟̬̒̃̌ ̷̛̪́̒i̴͓̭̹̔͝s̵͓̿ͅ ̴̘̇ṱ̸̦͗h̶̖̩̐̓̚ḛ̶͔̼̽̍ ̶̤͕̤̀͝m̷̨̢͕̓̿̚e̶̟̭͗a̷̝͓̒̕ͅn̸̡̹͊̂͠ͅị̵̬͠n̷̺̭̔͘͠ǧ̴̩̗ ̶̯̝̱̒o̶͖̖͕̐̔̆f̸̫̝̪̄̄ ̸͉̅̈̈́t̵̮̖̞̏h̶̘̭́̈̈́i̷̠̅s̶̙͎̯͐?̴̢̜͒͛ ̷͇̒W̴̨͋͑͌h̸̻̞́ȏ̴̧̎̏ ̷̲̰̼̄̀a̴͕̹̾͗̽ř̷͜e̷̖̦͍̋̿̽ ̴͇͑̉̉y̵̜͐̂o̸̖̥͑̒ͅụ̶͕̗͋̈́̀?̵̥̃́” the voice demanded.

Violetta didn’t answer. Instead, a number of pitch black tentacles emerged and wrapped around Aku’mai’s throat. Unable to escape her grip, the beast widened the rift at the base of its head and two more heads emerged. Violetta summoned more tentacles to wrap around the other two heads. The hydra then sprayed its miasma over the floor and allowed many tentacles to emerge from the growing rift on the floor. Violetta severed all of those tentacles with a single sharp wave of shadow energy.

From the same rift that Aku’mai was generating, a giant pitch black maw opened and many more black tentacles emerged to wrap around the hydra’s necks and pulled it toward the maw. It struggled with all its might but Violetta’s grip was too strong and soon the three heads were being drawn into the infinite black abyss. Aku’mai was quickly losing the battle and the voice could only watch as its pet was becoming a snack to the mysterious intruder who emitted energies that were much like their own.

Before long, the main body of the hydra was pulled out of its own rift and into the black maw. Once the beast was fully inside, the maw closed and Violetta had a satisfied look on her face as rubbed her stomach in satisfaction. “Mmm…that was a good appetizer.”

“H̶̰͂͂͌o̸̖͉͊̈w̴͎̺̻̒ ̷̧̡͇̏͘d̶̜́̎̄ä̴̺͖̕r̷̹̅͌͜ę̶̉ ̴̰̎y̶̞͗ȍ̴̪̭̘͋u̵̦̘͎̕ ̵̬̓̄̂ď̷̜é̷̲͙̠̂̒v̷̯̫̮̓̈́o̶̧̙̿̀̚u̸̩̠̟͑̕r̵̭̣̰̄̾ ̵̟̙͗̚͜ȍ̵̱̏ủ̷̜̪̃ṛ̸̽̀͝ ̶̤̿p̷̧̻̠̓̉̕e̷̩̯̪̓̀̎t̸͇̃͗!̷̢̮̠̆̆͝ ̶̖̫̓͐T̷͈̪͈̓r̶͇̻̀̈́͗ả̸̢͌ȋ̵͓̘̱͊̾ṭ̴̦̟͒o̸̡̤̯͗̎̔ȓ̷̹̂!̷̪͉͇̒̂̎ ̴̘͍́͑͝Ḧ̵̙̙̞́o̷͓̻̍̓̆w̶̺̆̈͠ ̴̧̿c̵̢̡͍͘ạ̷͋̋̚n̶̤͉̯͌͋͒ ̸͉̈́͑̍y̴̡̤̹̓ǫ̴̹̓u̴̟̽͗ ̵̥̅͘s̸̜̈́͗̒í̷̤̬d̵̨͑͋é̶̖̦̉͆ ̴̛̣̈́̽w̵̨̠̾̈́͝i̷̡̭̮̽̑ẗ̸̻̆̒ḥ̵̢́̚͝ ̵̩͘t̸̘̉̒h̷͉̙͝è̸̝͒ ̴̧̮̔̚c̸̢̨̛͙̆ř̸̳̀͘͜e̵̺̊a̶͖̬͑̈́͝t̵̘̀i̵̺͈̽̊ō̴̦̦̲n̴̗̱̆š̵̛̈́͜ ̷̤̙́̐͝ǫ̸̤͛̑̋f̴̲̺̗̍̂̽ ̴̗̄̂̕t̸̨͖͆h̷̡̜͘͝ë̷͎͉́̔̅ ̸̹̭̾́̍ū̵̝s̵̲̠̓̔͜u̶̢̪̽͒̎͜r̵̘̗̓̓p̵̬̮͠e̵̞̪̕r̴̪̙̹͝s̴̺͐?̵̟̳̫̏͌̌!̴̖̣̻́” the voice demanded.

“Okay, first, I can’t be a traitor if I was never part of your group in the first place. I am my own faction. Second, the Titans have nothing to do with me. I simply seek to hunt down the four of you and take your powers for myself.”

“Y̶̛̬͒̄o̸̡̧̺͋ǘ̵͖ ̷̩̾̔̕s̵̝̯͌e̷̖̔e̸̘̎k̶̜͇̓̃ ̶̣̳̫̓͠ẗ̵̹͍́o̶̤͉̔ ̷̯̇̿c̷̲̳̤̑̇̚h̵͙̀̋a̴̺͉̭̅͐̐l̸̢͚̖͊l̴̜͖̤̏̌̃e̶͍̓̌n̸̙͖̞̎̆g̵͓̍̚̚ë̶̘̱̊͂ͅ ̷̞͈̼͝u̷̥̖͋̆̍s̷̹̄?̴̛̳͍̺́͘ ̶̜̩͘͝V̷̗̟͒ͅę̵̨̒̇̓r̶̾͋̆ͅy̶̬̰͆̿͜ ̵̻̟̌̕͝ẃ̷͍̲e̸̡͓̒̿͠l̵̦̀l̶̩̥̀̈́́,̷̲̈́́ ̷̫͝í̶̟̄̄f̴̧̼̣̂ ̸̭̎̐͒ÿ̵̡̯̣́̐̌ȍ̵̲̠͇̒ű̷͎̳̈́͗ ̵̙͒̓̌s̴̨̧̀ḛ̶͙̈ḛ̸̂͋̓k̷͓̾ ̶̡̂͘͜ͅo̵̥̊͛͝ǘ̶̜̫̋̾r̸͓̋̌́ͅ ̵̱̆ṕ̸͉̊̒r̴̳̪͒̎́i̷̼̪̠͆ş̷͠o̵̺͊n̴͉̗͑s̵͕̣̀͌ ̷̰͐t̶̤̉͆h̵̝̐͝e̷͚͆̈́n̶̪̄̏ ̵̨̪͎̍͋͠s̶̾̄͜e̸̬͘͠e̴̩̪͗̒k̷̺̗̭̍ ̸̛̖́̄ǫ̶̭͐̋̕ü̵̜̳t̵̡̬͑ ̵̧̨̣͒͗̀t̷̰͓̓̂͆h̴̝̣̄ͅe̴͈͖͝ͅ ̸̻̞̞́̓̆B̴̝̖̹͝r̵͔̥̓͜ȏ̶̙̈ņ̵͎̠̒͒͐z̸̘̣͖̓e̷̗̔̈ ̴̢̮̳͛D̶̺͆̀ṛ̶͉̑̉̕a̶̛͎̓g̴͉͙̒̂ȯ̸̞n̶̯̅̌͛f̷̘͑͐l̸̼̗̂̒̽i̶̻̱̱͠g̷͇̑h̵͈̘̹̄̓t̶̰̓ ̴̰̼̗̒ĭ̷̘͓̬̇n̵̡̼͛͒͝ ̴̥͛́t̴̹͈̰́͒͗ḧ̴̯́̉̓e̴̲̚͝ ̷̫̞̀ṛ̴̻͓̈̔e̷̛̘̖̪͐̅g̵̞̃̊͘i̴̢̛̘̜̋ǫ̵̻̆̉̂n̸̹̥̩͂͑̄ ̵̼̪͊͑͌k̶͖͚̀̊n̴̜͑̔̒͜͜o̴̡̪͂͜w̴͚̙̫̽n̷̗̩͂ ̶̭̻͐̓͜͝a̵̧͓̔̅̈́s̵̝̼̏̉͘ ̸̞̻̼̀́T̴̰̔͗̈́a̸͇̚n̷͈̟̈̈̏a̷̠͒ṙ̵̝͜ḭ̵̹͛s̷͔͆̅̕͜.̷̡̣̟́̉ ̴̭͒T̴̝̐̇h̷̹̹̆e̵̢͈͚̒̏͠y̶̛̩̔ ̸͓͖͕͆ẉ̸̛́i̴̤̲̍̊̒l̷̻̟̟͑l̶̛̲̭͆̌ ̴̪̭͆̑͠ͅl̷̯̓̆ḛ̴̼̈́ã̴̩́̐ͅd̸͔̈́̕ ̸̖̑͝y̶͕̠̅͜o̸͔͎̿ủ̸͙̗̏̋ ̷̝̹̖͑̂ť̸̘̏̋o̷̼̓ ̴͖̹̲̋͐̎ō̴͇͑̕n̵̟̞̩̓̀̋e̶͓͌ ̷̛̮o̴̜̤̫̅f̷̡͖̜̍ ̴̡̣̬̔̎ö̴̰͉̠̽û̴̩̒ŕ̸̳̖ ̵̨͘p̶̼̼͋̍̒r̶̡͔̩̈́͆į̵̪̋̇s̴͇̼͑̐̕o̷͚̒̅n̴̥̍̑s̷͇͝.̸̧̦͎̕”

Violetta gave a cheerful smile. “Thanks for the info.” The presence of the voice soon receeded.

Surprise heard the entire conversation and translated it to Flutashe who gasped upon hearing that they would need to visit the Bronze Dragonflight who had been reclusive since the War of the Shifting Sands thousands of years ago. Tanaris was very far away at the very southeast corner of the continent so they had a long journey ahead of them.

With nothing left for the duo in the cavern, Flutashe and Mena began the long trek back to civilization.

Meanwhile, beneath the temple, a short underwater battle was had between Thruk and the crab he was trying so hard to defeat for loot. Unfortunately the ogre forgot that air was an important part of living and his obsession with a crab became his downfall.

Author's Note

This chapter we got to take a look at what Violetta was capable of. Unfortunately, we won't be seeing this duo again for a little while as we focus on the other parties.

Next time: The ELF vs. desert trolls

The Sandfury Tribe

Weeks had passed since the attack on Shadowfang Keep. Since then, Thanatas had left the four Equestrian Liberation Front members to their own devices as they sought means to improve their equipment and skills.

After the attack on Shadowfang Keep, Thanatas left for the Undercity to report that the source of the worgen menace had been taken care of and the remaining beasts had gone into hiding after knowledge of Arugal’s death had spread. Sylvanas was pleased that her Forsaken could finally lay claim to the fallen forest as they were one step closer to reclaiming the lands once held by the Kingdom of Lordaeron. Her sights would soon be focused toward the region of Hillsbrad and the Western Plaguelands to the east of Tirisfal Glades, but that matter would be for another day.

The death knight soon returned to Orgrimmar to report to Thrall and Vol’jin that the situation in Silverpine was now under control. The warchief expressed his gratitude for her assistance before dismissing her, promising to summon her again once a new matter needed to be dealt with.

Lokosh returned to the continent of Kalimdor to explore new regions and gather materials from the various mineral deposits in order to craft the best weapons he could with what was available. He wasn’t confident in his ability to craft armor so he gave the materials to whoever could craft him better armor. Having some foresight, Lokosh crafted a pair of axes for himself in case someone else decided to volunteer to take on enemy aggression.

Groun tried to improve his bond with nature but the animal spirits saw through his guise and refused to grant him their blessing. However, the floral aspects of nature saw the soul inside and gave him a special blessing that few druids ever received. He gained the ability to shapeshift into a tree form that gave him the ability to nourish the ground he walked on regardless of the state of nature around him.

Talia improved her demon roster by summoning and subduing a succubus and felhound.

Farra’jin returned to Kalimdor following the suggestion by that one troll he met at the Sepulcher. He traveled down the east coast of The Barrens and found the hut of Islen Waterseer who sent him further south to meet a female orc named Brine who had him travel to distant places for water. He traveled to a nearby watering hole, then he had to travel all the way to the Eastern Kingdoms continent to gather water from a well in a Forsaken town called Tarren Mill in a region called Hillsbrad Foothills which was southeast of Silverpine forest. Traveling back, he then had to gather water from a fountain that was somehow still working in some night elven ruins in Ashenvale Forest. Thankfully, he was in a world where mages made a killing to create portals to cities when the alternatives were zeppelins and boats. The travel time of either ranged from weeks to over a month.

The shaman was growing aggravated from all the traveling he had to do and was further aggravated when the water samples were mixed together in a vial before he was sent back to Islen only to have to go all the way back to Silverpine Forest for the final part of his water trial. It was there that he had to defeat a plague-corrupted water elemental and purify its remains with the last of the water.

The elemental was so grateful that it didn’t care that the shaman was an imposter in the shaman’s body. It gave Farra’jin a shard of water for him to take to Islen so she could give him his water totem.

He was quickly called upon by his trainer to find a tauren named Prate Cloudseer to be tested for his air totem. As he traveled there, he had to wonder what far off place the tauren would send him and groaned as he traveled to the region known as Thousand Needles, beyond the southern edge of the Barrens.

The region was a red rock canyon with many stone spires, some of which were precariously balancing giant boulders. At the east end of the canyon was a salt pan. The region was largely inhabited by large cats, centaur, harpies, and kobolds with the salt pan being inhabited by large tortoises, vultures and large six-legged lizards called basilisks. Atop some of the spires were a few tauren tribes. The salt pan was home to a goblin and gnome collaboration called the Mirage Racetrack where the two races raced their vehicles throughout the area. The salt pan also bordered the Tanaris Desert.

After some searching, Farra’jin found the cave where Prate Cloudseer was located. There, he learned why wind had always been his favorite element as the tauren simply gave him his air totem, no questions asked.

As he pondered on what he would do now, he received a psychic communication from Lokosh. The orc sounded irritated. “Desert, Greenpeace, Crystal, where are you three?”

“Chillin’ out in the Barrens,” Groun answered.

“Currently in the Undercity planning my next course of action,” Talia answered.

“I’m in the Thousand Needles region. I just received my fourth and final totem,” Farra’jin answered.

“Alright, Desert, you stay in that region for a while, see if you can spend a few days at the inn at Freewind Post,” Lokosh ordered. “I’ve just been contacted by our mutual acquaintance. It seems that we’re about to get our next task.”

“How is it that we only ever do something interesting whenever that woman gets involved?” Farra’jin asked.

“Right now, we have no leads whatsoever as to the locations of the seven fragments. All we can do is strengthen our hosts while we wait for a lead to pop up,” Talia explained.

“What if they left the galaxy?” Groun asked.

“Our leader has been using the fragment we have to track the other seven. It only gives him a general idea where they are but it’s enough to narrow the search pattern to a few worlds and realms as compared to an entire universe.”

“Regardless, as long as working with her will bring us closer to the fragments, I’m willing to swallow my pride and work with her. What say the rest of you?” Lokosh asked. The rest voiced their agreement along with Gemini, Windwhisper and Misty, some more begrudgingly than others. “Alright, we meet up with Farra’jin at Freewind Post. Thanatas will meet us there.”

A few days passed since the four last communicated. Groun arrived at Freewind Post, a tauren village at the top of several bluffs in the canyon, half a day after Farra’jin. Lokosh arrived the next day while Talia arrived the day after that after paying a mage to make a portal to Thunder Bluff, the city that was closest to Thousand Needles.

Once the four were finally gathered, they waited for Thanatas to show up. The death knight in question appeared a few hours later and led them to a place at the post that was away from eavesdroppers. Once satisfied, Thanatas began, “Seems the warchief has another task for you four, one that will show if you are ready to handle the threat I told him about a while back.”

“Get on with it!” Talia demanded.

“Typical pushiness from a former noble,” Thanatas mocked. “Alright, this is about assisting the Steamwheedle Cartel, a neutral goblin cartel that caters to the Horde and Alliance equally for the sake of profit. They have four establishments. One is the pirate town of Booty Bay, then you have the town of Ratchet in the Barrens and the town of Everlook in the northern snowy region of Winterspring. The one we’re going to is Gadgetzan, located at the entrance of the Tanaris desert. Apparently they are having trouble with the local trolls, among other things. Gadgetzan has many enemies in the desert such as a fleet of pirates who established a town on the east central coast of the desert, nomadic bandits who have been stealing their water, and two hives of giant insects called silithid.”

“So why are we not asked to deal with the other threats?” Lokosh asked.

“While the pirates and silithid are numerous and organized, they are also far away from the town itself while Zul’Farrak, the capital city of the Farraki Tribe, also known as the Sandfury, is only a couple of hours west of the goblin town. The pirates and bugs can be dealt with by a few treasure-hungry adventurers.”

“So we’re going to be invading a troll city?” Groun asked.

Thanatas shrugged, “If you can call it that. It’s more like a bunch of huts among the ruins of a city. I never could understand why so many tribes of trolls choose to squat among the ruins of their former civilizations.”

“Wait, did you say ‘Zul’Farrak’?” Talia asked. Thanatas turned her head to her and nodded in affirmation. The warlock continued, “During my travels these past few weeks, I entered a thinly forested region that the locals called The Hinterlands, filled with a feral variant of those pathetic griffons. I encountered a rude tribe of trolls there and one of them begged me not to take their sacred mallet. Needless to say I did. After forcibly interrogating some more trolls I found that I needed to empower the mallet atop their sacred city so I could use it to summon some sort of hydra loa in some other troll city on the other side of the world.” The warlock pulled out the strange mallet in question. “They called it the Mallet of Zul’Farrak.”

“Ah, if you have the mallet then we have everything we need to clear out the place. Let’s head to Gadgetzan,” Thanatas said.

It was nightfall by the time the group traversed the canyon and the salt pan known as the Shimmering Flats. At the southern edge of the region marked by mountains, the mountain pass into Tanaris was marked by torches.

Once they crossed the pass, they were next to a town surrounded by sand-colored stone walls and a peculiar entrance that looked like the gate parted like a pair of scissors. A giant wrench served as a sign above one gate. The sound of clanking from shoddy machinery could be heard. As the group entered the town, the cold of the desert night quickly turned into a warm one, which was likely courtesy of some goblin-made heaters. The group made a quick mental note to stay away from those as goblin technology tended to be unstable and often exploded.

The center of the town had a large combat arena made of thick logs and steel grating which the goblins used to promote matches against whatever got captured and shipped to them…or was used to settle disputes.

Inside the town were a number of gadgets that the goblins were working on and/or showing off. Since the sun was setting though the goblins had simply left their machines out for the night and went to bed.

One goblin, however, was not asleep. He instead approached the group of newcomers with a look in his eyes that he might have found some new money for the town. “Greetings all of ya! I’m Marin Noggenfogger, and I’m the guy who’s gonna be runnin’ this town one day!”

Thanatas snickered to herself as the goblin’s statement was more true than he believed. “So are you an agent of the mayor or someone trying to get us to empty our pockets by selling us something?”

“This isn’t just ‘something’, this is my newest concoction that will make me the richest goblin on Azeroth!” He presented a vial full of a dark green fluid. “I present the Noggenfogger Elixir!”

“Maybe another time,” Thanatas dismissed. “We are here on business related to your troll problem.”

“Oh, yeah, those bozos are bad for business. If you guys are lookin’ to invade their city, be on the lookout for another adventuring party led by some jerk named Sergeant Bly. Apparently Bilgewhizzle, the chief engineer and mayor of this town, is steaming because the guy stole his precious invention, the Divino-matic Rod. The chief engineer needs it to find new water sources to build his water pumps over. As much as I wanna charge you for that info, I’d prefer not to die of thirst if Bilgewhizzle can’t find more water.”

Noggenfogger walked off, leaving the group to find the local inn which was in a long building on the east side of town. The sleeping arrangements were a bit pricey because goblins were like that, but the beds were worth the gold coins spent.

The next day the group gathered their provisions and proceeded west from Gadgetzan. It wasn’t long before they saw the first signs of their new targets. Sandfury trolls were similar in body type to many other tribes of trolls with their tall, lanky bodies while the males were hunched over and had larger tusks than the females. The difference was that sand trolls like the Farraki Tribe had tan to light brown skin, blending to the sand around them. Farra’jin’s skin was a dirty teal since he was a cross between two tribes of trolls.

The sand trolls in the area spotted the group and some started throwing axes at them while others started channeling fire spells. A few of them pulled out daggers and started running toward them.

Groun summoned roots beneath the feet of the dagger wielders and trapped them in place before dragging them back to the other trolls. The fire casters redirected their fire spells to burn Groun’s roots which left terrible burns on their feet.

Lokosh blocked the axes with his shield and slowly advanced toward the trolls. With the orc providing cover, Talia began ordering her felhound to devour the magic of the fire casters before the demon placed a seal on their minds long enough for her succubus to charm the minds of the dagger wielders into stabbing their allies in the back. This forced the fire casters, who freed themselves of the demon’s seal, to incinerate the dagger wielders.

By the time the casters focused on the group again, Farra’jin set down his water totem to create a dampening field which weakened the power of their fire spells. The casters soon noticed that their fireballs were shrinking during transit to their targets and were merely sparks when they hit, doing next to no harm to the group.

Lokosh got into melee range of the trolls and cut them down.

Thanatas smiled as she saw the group in action. “Glad to see you took my advice, since you will need those improved skills to brave this place. These trolls are skilled warriors and know how to fight unlike the savage style of the worgen.”

Groun and Farra’jin had worried looks on their faces and gulped as they heard that. Lokosh and Talia took on more determined expressions.

With the immediate area cleared out, the group proceeded toward some troll ruins which was pretty much a roofless building with an entrance and an exit which led into a narrow valley where Zul’Farrak was built.

Just beyond the archway was a trio of sand trolls talking to each other. One had navy blue hair and wore faded purple robes while the other two had scarlet hair and wore red armor.

The trolls saw the group enter and engaged them. The blue-haired troll started channeling dark magic while the other two charged in with their claymores. Lokosh charged in and bashed his shield against the enemy warriors, pushing them back slightly. Talia’s felhound disrupted the caster’s spells but the caster stayed back to shake off the disruption. Groun used his roots to drag the caster toward Lokosh.

While Farra’jin was blasting the warriors with fire and lightning, one of the warriors managed to get past Lokosh’s defenses and leave a bleeding cut on his shoulder. That was when the warrior did something strange. He channeled some dark magic and started pulling blood from Lokosh’s wound. The blood was consumed by the warrior and any injuries he sustained from Farra’jin were being reversed.

In reaction to this, Talia began pulling the life force from the troll while her succubus wrapped her whip around the troll’s throat to strangle him. It wasn’t long before the warrior withered and collapsed. Groun quickly healed Lokosh’s wound before the other warrior could use the same trick.

Talia and Farra’jin used their fire spells to quickly incinerate the other two enemy trolls.

With the first group dead, the group turned to the death knight who watched the action. “What in Tartarus was that?” Talia asked.

“Looks like their warriors are trained to use blood magic to steal vitality from their enemies,” Thanatas answered. “This practice is frowned upon by certain tribes since it relates to the powers of an evil loa who was responsible for unleashing a blood plague that infected and killed thousands of trolls many millennia ago. It’s one of the darkest forms of dark magic out there and it’s capable of many things, including necromancy. There are plenty of tribes out there who are desperate enough to practice blood magic.”

The group shuddered at such disgusting magic, including Talia who used forbidden dark magics in the past herself.

With that knowledge, the group proceeded deeper into the valley where they encountered another type of enemy wearing masks, maroon robes and scarlet gloves. They also carried crude wooden sticks. When they were fought, they put down totems that emitted a yellow glow that enveloped their allies, mending their wounds. Farra’jin quickly blasted the totems while the others handled the healing troll, a witch doctor as Thanatas informed them.

The group slowly pushed forward through the narrow valley and into a wider area. The ruins had a number of partially buried pots that were bigger than they were. A giant idol with ruby eyes stood in the center. Two pillars with braziers on top stood at either side of the idol with piles of skulls near them. The walls to the left and right were decorated in ancient carvings with a series of overhangs carrying small braziers. Large scarab beetles roamed the area among the trolls. The archway to the next area had a few bone decorations hanging from them.

The group drew the trolls to them a few at a time and eventually cleared out the area.

Continuing down the only path available to them and dealing with more sand trolls along the way, the group soon reached a fork. The area had more toppled sand-colored ruins and giant pots and shrines. There was also a fountain in the center of the area that had three basins. It was dry and some shadowcasters were doing what they could to pull more water from the ground.

A new enemy appeared in this area among the other types. These wore black leather armor, carried scimitars with bows and arrows on their backs.

As the group fought the new enemy, the shadowhunters, Lokosh was still a little shaken about the strange blood magic that was used on him earlier. He didn’t want something like that to hit him again so he raised his shield with intent to deflect the arrows the more distant shadowhunters were firing at him while the closer ones continued hacking away at his shield. The warrior noticed one of the trolls about to cast something so he prepared to deflect that. The result was as successful as it was hilarious.

Lokosh deflected the spell back at the troll who was surprised before he was struck by his own spell. A thick cloud appeared briefly over the troll’s visage before it disappeared and in the place of the troll was a frog. Thanatas pulled the frog to her with her magic and crushed the poor amphibian in her grip before she tossed it aside. The frog soon turned back into the crushed remains of the shadowhunter.

After that the group dealt with more of the trolls in the area, being mindful of that odd spell the shadowhunter used before.

The group took a moment to catch their breath while Thanatas informed them about the spell. “There’s a typical form of voodoo for you, trolls who are trained in such arts tend to have the ability to place hexes on you which briefly transform you into helpless animals.”

“Perhaps these trolls have more useful spells than I thought they did,” Talia mused as she imagined turning the Equestrian princesses into frogs and stepping on them.

“So which way do we go from here?” Groun asked.

“This place loops around so whichever direction we go, we will eventually wind up back here after encountering everything else in these ruins,” Thanatas informed.

“Let’s go right then,” Lokosh decided. The others shrugged and followed the warrior deeper into the ruins.

The next area they entered was a small settlement of two huts made of wood, stitched leather and skulls on the posts for decoration. A large metal cage stood near the right hut with a stand containing a number of tools which were likely used for interrogations. A bonfire acted as the area’s only defense from the cold desert nights. A large drum and a smaller drum stood next to the left hut. In the nearby cliffs were a number of smaller dwellings built into the cliff face.

The group decided to sneak past the small settlement while the trolls in the area were talking to each other. As they entered the archway to the next corridor, they were spotted by a red basilisk who gave chase. Further down the corridor were a few more trolls patrolling the corridor. Not wanting to get pincered, Lokosh led the group through an opening in the wall and into the hills. The patrol didn’t notice them so they only had to deal with the basilisk who ended up losing a few teeth when they got their face smashed by the warrior’s shield before Talia’s and Farra’jin’s magics destroyed the creature.

Deciding to explore the hills, they still ended up fighting more trolls and basilisks before discovering a cave that had a cauldron and a few wooden cages inside that seemed to contain small basilisks. A few piles of skulls decorated the interior. There was also a troll inside petting one of the basilisks. This one wore leather armor with fur lining and carried a wooden mace that looked strangely like a totem.

“That’s Antu’sul, the basilisk breeder of the Sandfury Tribe. He’s a shaman so watch out for his totems. His pets may also interfere. Watch out for their gazes, it’s like a watered down version of a cockatrice’s stone gaze with the effects being brief, but used strategically, it can turn the tide of battle against you pretty fast,” Thanatas informed.

As everyone moved closer, the troll’s impressive vision sighted the group from a fair distance. “Lunch has arrived, my beautiful children. Tear them to pieces!” Antu’sul called out.

Thanatas helped the group out this time by summoning a few troll zombies to keep the basilisks busy while the others focused on Antu’sul.

The breeder used healing totems and a type of earth totem that held them in place with tendrils of sand, The totems were quickly broken while the enemy shaman struck random members of the group with converging rocks and lightning bolts that jumped to each group member. Groun’s healing skills had improved since Shadowfang Keep so he was able to keep up with the shaman’s attacks.

Farra’jin put an end to Antu’sul’s spells by placing a wind totem near the group’s feet. Whenever the breeder cast a spell, the totem absorbed the spell, leaving the group unharmed. Antu’sul tried to heal himself once he started taking too much damage but a slap from Lokosh’s shield stopped that.

Soon the breeder fell and his pets scurried into the hills, giving the group some breathing room.

An odd looking sword dropped into the sand next to Antu’sul’s body. Lokosh picked it up to examine it. It looked like the hilt might be made of wood with leather binding. The pommel forked in a hollow half circle. The body of the blade was sand colored with symbols near the end while the edge fanned out at the end before dipping inward at the tip.

As the orc examined the blade, he had a strange feeling that the blade was incomplete for some reason. He kept the blade in his backpack for safekeeping.

The group moved forward, crossing another breach in the wall and into an area infested with scarabs and a single troll walking around. The troll had green hair and wore orange leather armor with thick lines of green on his pants and gloves. His staff had a pointed black crystal on its head. Thanatas also sensed that the troll was undead but didn’t really care about that info.

As the group engaged the troll, the scarabs around the room began converging on the group and tried to bite them. Talia made it rain fire while Farra’jin used his fire totem to unleash waves of fire all around it, incinerating the insects.

Meanwhile, Lokosh was keeping the troll, Theka, busy. The undead troll’s attacks were weak but he soon showed what he could do when he tried to channel the pestilence in his body. He unleashed a smelly green cloud from his palms and enveloped the warrior with it.

Lokosh’s body suddenly felt hotter than before and his vision was getting a little blurry. He fought through whatever the troll hit him with to the best of his ability. Thankfully, Farra’jin noticed the orc growing a little pale and figured that his ally was infected with some sort of disease. He placed his water totem next to Lokosh and the cleansing effects enveloped the warrior. Lokosh felt incredible relief as the water washed over his body and purged the disease from his system.

As the group continued blasting the troll, Theka became desperate and wrapped himself in shadow. The first thing the group noticed was that Lokosh’s strikes were bouncing off the troll’s form. Talia soon found out that her shadow spells were doing nothing to him either. However, she noticed that all of Farra’jin’s spells were still hitting Theka so she switched to using her fire spells.

Before long, Theka was nothing more than a charred corpse.

Once again, Thanatas clapped for the group’s accomplishments. However, she soon made it clear that she was clapping for Farra’jin. “Well done figuring out that Lokosh was infected by the troll’s disease. But before we continue, I want to inform you four about various types of status effects in this world.

“One of the more common are poison attacks, often coming from venomous creatures or poisonous plants. With Farra’jin’s water totem, that should be no problem. Then you have diseases unleashed by undead like that piece of charcoal.” Thanatas pointed at Theka’s corpse. “Magical afflictions should not be mistaken for curses. However, given that both are magical in nature it can be difficult to differentiate the two. Groun has the ability to purge curses from his allies while for those afflictions that he cannot, you will have to rely on Talia’s puppy to drain the affliction from your body. There are other types but there isn’t much you can do about those except to use your healing spells to keep your allies from bleeding out.”

“Glad we have a solution for the status effects, I guess,” Groun said, sounding unsure.

The group proceeded through a narrow passageway and ended the life of a solitary witch doctor as they proceeded into the next area.

The next area was a burial ground. Thanatas could sense the corpses of trolls everywhere in the area buried in shallow graves beneath the sand. In an alcove in the center of the area was a troll who wore the attire of a witch doctor with red and black robes, wooden shoulder pads made to look like masks and a white wooden mask over his face. The alcove itself had a large bubbling cauldron along with a metal cage with a post holding the witch doctor’s implements of torture. There was also a dry trough on the other side of the witch doctor’s sanctum.

Thanatas recognized the troll as Witch Doctor Zum’rah who used the dead of the city to do his bidding.

And he was just asking for a poetic death in Thanatas’ eyes.

With a malicious grin on her face, she encouraged the group to move onward and ignore the witch doctor who didn’t seem to care that they were moving deeper into the city as long as they didn’t enter his sanctum. Once the group moved on to the next narrow passage, Thanatas remained.

Zum’rah gave the death knight a wary look while with a sadistic grin on her face, Thanatas raised her sword into the air and unleashed a huge wave of necromantic energy throughout the burial site. Within moments the troll zombies beneath the sands emerged from their shallow tombs.

Zum’rah was amazed at how much power the death knight used to raise so many dead but before long that awe turned into full-blown terror as Thanatas pointed her sword at the witch doctor. Within moments, he was swarmed by a large number of troll zombies. He tried to regain control of the corpses but his magic wasn’t powerful enough to overpower Thanatas’ necromancy. His eyes only showed despair as his last moments were of his own minions literally tearing him limb from limb before another zombie ripped his head off.

The group soon found themselves in what seemed like the heart of the city as they saw a large number of huts, a few on the ground and a lot more built into the walls of the city. A large number of Farraki trolls were patrolling the area, some were shadowhunters patrolling alongside a basilisk.

One of the trolls noticed the group and called for everyone to assist him with dealing with them. Soon, the entire square started running after the group.

Thinking strategically, Lokosh had everyone move back into the narrow corridor. Once they had enough of a distance to work with, Lokosh had Farra’jin place his totems strategically with the fire totem in front of them unleashing magma on the incoming wave of trolls with his earth totem next to his fire totem shackling the feet of the trolls to slow them down. His air totem was set to absorb incoming spells while his water totem was set to assist with healing if the wave got too close.

Talia prepared to make fire rain before the totems while she summoned a felguard to provide one last line of defense before they reached the group.

Groun was in his tree form to provide healing and to summon roots to control the battle.

Thanatas looked at the group with pride as she saw the fruits of their progress into becoming an effective adventuring group. Because of this, she pointed her sword behind her then to the west. Once she did that, she watched as the quartet held the line against a large wave of trolls.

As the trolls came, they found themselves being pelted by balls of fire, the spellcasters panicked as their robes caught fire. The others tried to fight through the blaze and get out of the fire quickly but soon found that they were slowly walking toward the edge of the fiery barrage while waves of magma slammed into them. One shadowhunter was smart enough to fire arrows at the totems which disabled their effects while the elemental spirits within the totems returned the objects to their wielder.

The trolls grew closer but the felguard started moving in and cleaved his ax through the armor of the trolls and biting into their flesh, leaving deep gashes and leaving them bleeding profusely. With the witch doctors being too busy putting out their ignited robes, the fighters soon fell over and bled out.

Soon only a few blood drinkers remained as they finally managed to kill Talia’s felguard, sending him back to the Twisting Nether until the warlock was ready to call on his contract again. The last of the wave of trolls reached Lokosh but by then their numbers were so few that they were easily manageable by the group.

With the trolls dead, the group returned to the square. Looking around, they noticed that only two trolls stood in the center of the square next to a bonfire. They were looking at the nearby pyramid with a long staircase to the top. One wore a green and black robe. His green hair matched his robe. The other wore black armor with blue feathered shoulders to match his blue hair. He also appeared to be in a state of rotting which told the group that he was undead.

The two were too distracted by what was going on at the top of the pyramid so it was easy to ambush them. Rushing forward and before the robed troll had a chance to react, Lokosh managed to drive his ax into the back of the troll. Death came quickly for him.

The undead troll became fully alert because of this and readied his mace for combat against the warrior. What he wasn’t expecting was for Talia and Farra’jin to set him on fire with their spells. His rotting flesh only made him more flammable and he quickly turned to ash.

With the two dealt with, the group decided to climb up the long set of stairs to find out what was going on.

After an exhausting climb up what seemed like a thousand step pyramid, the group panted heavily, except for Talia who was undead and wasn’t capable of exhaustion, and looked around the summit to find an altar of some sort with five cages.

Three of the cages were open and in front of them was a dead orc male wearing black and red robes and a black eyepatch. Next to him was a staff with a black crystal on its head. There was also a dead human female wearing studded brown leather armor and two knives on the floor next to her body and a dead female dwarf wearing jet black and scarlet robes and a wooden club with jeweled decorations at the head next to her body.

The remaining two cages still had people in them. One was a human male wearing plate mail on his chest, arms and feet while carrying an ornate sword and a standard-looking shield. His brown hair was done in a spiked manner. The other cage contained a goblin wearing red studded leather armor and carried a blunderbuss along with some equipment that appeared to be useful for crafting explosives.

“Please, you have to get us out of here!” the human begged. “The executioner was in the middle of killing us when he was suddenly called away for some reason. Get us out of here before he comes back! I’ll give you anything!”

It was pitiful how the human behaved, but they had better things to do than entertain the guy. Of course, they also considered that he might be Sergeant Bly since the group that was with him seemed like an adventuring party. Since they hadn’t come across any other non-trolls in the city it had to be them.

Lokosh walked up to Bly’s cage and narrowed his eyes at the sad-looking man. “Give me the Divino-matic Rod and I’ll let you out.”

Bly looked nervous through the bars of his cage. It wasn’t hard to notice that the man started to sweat. “Uh, w-what are you talking about? I-I don’t know about any rod. Nope! Not me! What about you Weegli?”

The goblin stared daggers at the human. He looked very irritated with him. He then looked at the group. “Yeah he’s got that rod you’re lookin’ for. He was hoping to use it to find water sources and sell the rights to them to Gadgetzan for a hefty profit.”

Bly stared daggers at the goblin, mouthing the word “traitor.”

Weegli continued, “The chieftain of the Sandfury is behind that locked gate in the square behind you. Let me out and I can blast the door open. And just because I hate this sack of manure, I’ll even give you a bomb for free to use on him.”

Lokosh quickly agreed to the deal and had Talia open Weegli’s cage with her fire magic. Weegli then handed the bomb over to the orc. “I’ll get that door open real quick.” The goblin then ran toward the gate in the plaza. He planted a barrel of explosives in front of a wooden gate with a tiki mask on it. Once the charge was set he lit the fuse and backed away a fair distance and waited for the fireworks which came a few seconds later. When the smoke cleared, the gate was destroyed and the path to the Sandfury chieftain was wide open.

Meanwhile, Lokosh gave the sniveling human a wicked grin as he repeatedly juggled the bomb with one hand. “Alright! Alright! I’ll give you the thing! Just don’t hurt me!” Bly cried. He slipped the Divino-matic Rod through the bars of his cage with Lokosh grabbing the device. He then handed Bly the bomb and a match. “What am I supposed to do with these?”

Lokosh chuckled sadistically, “Anyone with a brain should be able to figure out what they need to do with what you got.”

With that, the group walked down the pyramid, leaving the sniveling coward behind.

With the way open, the group proceeded past the destroyed gate. They entered another narrow corridor that was guarded by a pair of shadowhunters who were quickly dispatched.

Unfortunately, the death cries of the shadowhunters could be heard in the next area which was occupied by a number of basilisks and cobras. The beasts entered the corridor to face the intruders. However, the narrow corridor made them easy prey for Talia’s Rain of Fire spell and Farra’jin’s Magma Totem, burning them alive.

The moment the group entered the small central area where the chieftain was, they spotted him and one other. Both wore blood red armor and while the chieftain wore two red pauldrons, the other wore one. The chieftain wielded a staff while the other wielded an ax.

Thanatas recognized the chieftain as Chief Ukorz Sandscalp while the other was Ruuzlu. Taking them out would make sure that the Farraki wouldn’t be bothering the goblins for a long while, but she had something else in mind to really break the tribe’s will.

Having enough of the intruders in his presence, Sandscalp and Ruuzlu charged in after the group. “Dis desert be mine!” Sandscalp shouted.

Lokosh roared in challenge to the two trolls but only Sandscalp faced the warrior while Ruuzlu ignored the call and went after the others. Farra’jin deployed his earth totem and set it to mitigate any damage caused by Ruuzlu’s ax swings. Farra’jin and Talia quickly focused their attacks on the chief’s attendant.

Groun saw an opportunity when Ruuzlu tried an overhead chop on Talia. Calling on the roots, he grabbed the troll’s ax and stopped his attack. With Ruuzlu wide open, a barrage of attacks from the warlock and shaman quickly incinerated the attendant.

Meanwhile, Lokosh was still keeping Sandscalp busy. Upon seeing his close friend fall, Sandscalp went into a blind rage and started bashing his staff against Lokosh’s shield until the warrior found an opening and swiped his ax into a weak point in Sandscalp’s armor.

Exposed and still enraged, Sandscalp was wide open to a joint attack from the party. The attack became too much and was forced back into a wall before he slumped over and collapsed.

Thanatas clapped for the group for their performance. “Well done, you’ve certainly crippled the Sandfury. But before we leave, we have one more thing I’d like to get done. A little further into the city and we’ll find a pool where the last target is located.”

“If da Sandfury are crippled, why do we need ta do more?” Farra’jin asked.

“There’s crippling and there’s breaking one’s spirit. Killing the beast these trolls have been worshiping will certainly do that,” Thanatas explained. “A crippling effort will only get the trolls to back off from Gadgetzan temporarily, if you want something more long term, you break them.”

The group groaned as they had little choice but to heed the orders of their boss.

On their way out, Lokosh discovered a hilt buried in the sand. He moved to pull it out and discovered that it looked identical to the sword they found off Antu’sul. It also seemed incomplete. He pulled out the first sword and held it close to the second. The moment the two were close to one another, a dark force pulled the two weapons together, forming something new. The weapon was double the size of the other two and had become a greatsword. It still fanned out at the edge while the body of the blade as well as the hilt were black. A pair of shadowy skulls revolved around the blade.

Lokosh had a feeling that the blade would be useful so he placed the blade into a holder on his back.

The group proceeded further into Zul’Farrak, after proceeding through another corridor, they found an area that had a giant pool in the center of it. Strangely, they also spotted a horde of troll zombies feasting on the corpses of a large number of trolls.

The group moved in with their weapons ready but were stopped by Thanatas as she held out a hand in front of them. “It’s alright, they’re with me.” They soon realized that they were the zombies that Thanatas raised from the burial ground. It wasn’t too hard to figure that the Sandfury were caught off guard because they thought the zombies were on their side.

While the zombies were having their feast, the group inspected the pool. It was very deep and was walled in by the same type of stone blocks that built the city. At the south end of the pool was a large gong with two piles of skulls and two ritual torches. An offertory bowl and a jug sat next to the gong.

Knowing where they were, Thanatas turned to Talia. “This is the place where we use that hammer you found. Once you hit the gong with it, be prepared to fight a hydra the size of an Equestrian one.

The quartet gulped and hesitated for a moment before Talia slowly approached the gong. As she walked, she pulled out the Mallet of Zul’Farrak from her backpack, deeply regretting ever stealing the thing in the first place. She soon stood before the gong, mallet in both hands. She hesitated as fear gripped her heart but quickly banished it as she focused on her thoughts of revenge against the princesses and let that be motivation to help her with this task.

Banishing her fears, she raised the mallet and struck the gong.

Everything went quiet for what felt like an eternity. That was until they spotted bubbles rising to the surface of the pool. The stream of bubbles slowly moved to the far end of the pool and about halfway a white beast’s head arose from the surface, followed by two more. Sea green dorsal fins traveled the length of the beast’s necks.

Soon its main body surfaced. Its gigantic body soon caused tremors as it walked. The creature had two legs to walk on, a tail longer than its long heads and three heads. Its scales were white with a sea green underbelly.

Not wasting time, Thanatas ordered the zombies in the area to attack the monster known as Gahz'rilla. The creature felt the zombies pulling at its scales and quickly jerked its body to shake off the zombies.

Using the distraction, Thanatas ran in and used her blade to sever the beast’s left head. The other two cried in agony as one of its brother heads was dead. The death knight backed away and used her wings to get some distance from the hydra while the others attacked it.

At the same time, Talia unleashed her demons and ordered them to attack the creature. The hydra’s scales were durable so her attacks didn’t do much. She then decided to assault the open wound where the severed head used to be and assaulted that part with her shadow spells. The spells struck the tender area and made the beast roar in pain before turning its hateful glare to the warlock.

Groun called roots from the ground to wrap around the right head, causing the beast to choke a little. Lokosh decided to try his new weapon out as he leaped on the hydra’s back and leaped toward the struggling head. Using his new weapon, he was able to sever the right head.

Now left with a single head, Gahz’rilla raised its left foot and stomped the ground hard, sending shockwaves through the area and causing the walls to tremble. Everyone else was sent flying backward. Thanatas recovered using her wings while Farra’jin called on the winds to slow the falls of himself and his allies.

Once Lokosh recovered, he began charging back toward the hydra, raising his new sword in the air. Thanatas took to the air and dove for the beast while at the same time Lokosh leaped at the beast’s final head. The two struck simultaneously and Gahz’rilla lost its final head in one scissor-like motion. Headless, the hydra’s body went motionless.

After a few moments of catching their breath, Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun cheered in celebration for felling a huge beast. Talia instead decided to approach the death knight with a question.

“I’ve always heard that hydras regenerate their heads when one is severed. Why didn’t this one?”

Thanatas looked at the warlock and smirked as she got into lecture mode, “Most Azerothian hydras aren’t like that. They’re simply three-headed beasts. The ones that do, however, are quite ancient and almost never have their bodies above the surface. Hydras like that have also developed specialized heads, different colored heads for different specializations. For example, red heads breathe fire while blue heads breathe frost. There could even be purple heads that breathe raw mana. Those are the types who can regenerate heads and create extra ones. We may one day encounter one of those. In fact, I’m sure we will.”

Talia sighed as she considered the likelihood that Thanatas knew of future events which would at least make their lives a little easier. She returned to her celebrating allies to unenthusiastically take part in it.

With the Sandfury trolls defeated and the survivors going into hiding, the group proceeded back to the entrance of the ruins and back to Gadgetzan. With the mission complete and the Divino-matic Rod returned, Thanatas left the four to celebrate their victory while she sank into the shadow realm and headed to Orgrimmar.

Later, Thanatas was inside Thrall’s chamber. By now the warchief and his advisors were beginning to get used to seeing the death knight in the room.

However, Thrall had a more pressing matter to deal with and he was growing impatient with Thanatas’ agenda so he asked, “What’s the status of the group of adventurers that you are training? Are they prepared?”

Thanatas gave her report on the events of Zul’Farrak. Vol’jin had mixed feelings about the matter since they were still his fellow trolls, but he had made his choice to make the Horde his family long ago. The Sandfury tribe was only one of many tribes who refused to stop living in the past. What happened to them they brought on themselves.

Soon, Thanatas concluded her report. “So yes, I think they’re ready to take on this challenge.”

Thrall hummed as he closed his eyes in thought. He reopened them a moment later and nodded in understanding. “Very well, you are to guide this group to Blackrock Mountain and hunt down the leader of the Dark Horde, Dal’rend Blackhand, along with any who have supported him. See to it that the Dark Horde can never rise up again.”

“It will be done, warchief.”

Author's Note

The purpose of having a group tackle the Zul'Farrak dungeon is part of a setup for an event much further down the line. Not much else to say about this.

Next time: A side story of Thanatas' younger sister on a quest to obtain her own power.

PS: Blackrock Mountain is where a lot of things are going to go down.

Side Chapter: Hearts of Stone

Thanatas exited the warchief’s throne room. Since Thrall had given the order to have her blackmailed trainees to journey to Blackrock Mountain, she smiled to herself as she was glad that everything was going according to plan.

She was still uncertain on the status of the other two who have yet to meet with Sophia’s party. Since neither she nor Sophia had any updates on their whereabouts, Thanatas decided to open a link to Twilight. “Hey Twilight, are there any updates as to the other objectives outside of Sophia’s party?”

“Let me check…” A few keystrokes and some thoughtful humming from the mare later, she came back with an answer to her query. “It looks like they are in Kalimdor traveling south from Ashenvale. They are currently in the Stonetalon Mountains region.”

Thanatas remembered the Stonetalon Mountains as a highly mountainous region where the Horde and Alliance held a presence. The rugged landscape had numerous small forests in the valleys but a cartel of resource plundering goblins called the Venture Company was deforesting the land. They also set fire to a vale in the southwest part of the region and now the place was overrun by enraged fire elementals.

Twilight continued, “I’m not sure what happened to Pinkie, but it seems like she’s exhibiting high levels of void corruption. Huh? What is this reading? Is the corruption alive? But how? The corruption readings are off the charts!”

Thanatas thought for a moment about the readings before her eyes widened in realization. “Twilight, whatever you do, do not investigate those readings! You will risk your mental health doing that. If I’m right, then it sounds like my daughter is with them. She may be using Pinkie as a vessel for some reason. Whatever the case, it’s best to leave them be for now and hope we come across them later.”

“...Alright,” Twilight said hesitantly. “It looks like Fluttershy is with her. I’m guessing that Violetta roped her into accompanying them south.”

“Violetta will be hunting the major void parasites that were forced beneath Azeroth’s surface eons ago.” Thanatas sighed as some concern for her daughter surfaced. “I’ll contact you later for an update. As for the four ELF members, they seem to be behaving themselves so far.”

As Thanatas cut the link, she suddenly had a feeling that someone was watching her. As she felt around for the souls in the area, her eyes widened as she discovered who was watching her. She groaned as she looked down a hidden alley away from the eyes of the typical Orgrimmar resident.

Down the alley she spotted who appeared to be a human with blonde hair that went almost past her back. Her choice of clothing was odd at best. She wore a pair of baggy pants like what a desert dweller would wear with an aqua-colored half skirt that flowed in non-existent wind. She wore a sand-colored shirt and a pair of steel gauntlets that extended up her arms. Atop her head was a tiara that was made of a red-colored metal with a floating jewel above the front that was on fire.

Thanatas sighed. As if problems with her daughter weren’t bad enough, now she had to deal with her younger sister. If she were alive, Thanatas would be having a migraine. “What do you want, Zoias? You know I can sense your soul so if you were trying to get the drop on me, I suggest you give up trying.”

Zoias regarded her sister with a smile, “Oh, I knew that you could sense me, just as I can sense the graveyard soil that composes your disguise as well as the drop in temperature in the air wherever you go.”

Thanatas raised an eyebrow at her sister, who had always been a strange one since she was an adult among the family and she had still yet to embrace an affinity. At least, until now if Zoias’ declaration meant something. “So I take it you finally chose an affinity?”

Zoias nodded, “Sure have! I decided to check in with you before I began my journey to gain the power I need to fully embrace it.”

Thanatas kept her eyebrow raised, “I hope you have a plan. We can’t help you with whatever it is since we have our own missions to accomplish.”

Another nod, “I do, and it involves an earth totem that I won off a drunk shaman in a card game.”

With a huff and a dismissive wave of her hand, Thanatas walked out of the alley, “Fine, just don’t do anything too crazy. It’s only the first year and I’d rather a few more pass before shenanigans start happening.”

Zoias shrugged before she pulled out the totem. She could sense the earthen energies radiating from it and in order for her to reach her objective, she needed to reverse the energies, an act that sent many shamans to their doom. She had plenty of knowledge about how Azerothian shamans worked their magic and their reverence toward the elements.

Unlike the usual shamans though, Zoias was wanting much more than that.

Planting the totem into the ground, the earthen energies started to radiate as it awaited its new master’s commands. She channeled her own energies into the totem and pushed back the energies until they reversed back into the earth.

As she hoped, the earth began to sink around her as she was pulled into it. Within moments she was completely submerged.

Zoias soon emerged from the rocky ceiling of her destination. Once she was through, she began to plummet from thousands of meters above the floor. She cheered and whooped as she was in freefall toward the rapidly approaching floor.

Once she was only a few hundred meters from rock bottom, she used the air available in the realm to create wings which slowed her descent and landed safely on the ground.

Zoias took a few moments to gaze in wonder at the majesty that was the elemental plane of earth, Deepholm. Countless earthen spires as far as the eye could see with the tips occasionally breaking apart and held in mid air before pulling back together. Rocks and boulders floated around by what was likely the ever-shifting magnetism that was present in the realm. Lighting up the realm were piles of minerals that glowed brightly of a jade color. A towering temple sat at the very center of the realm that stretched all the way to the ceiling like a load-bearing column.

Zoias could sense a powerful and terrifying presence within the temple. Of course, she figured that her sister would probably warn her to leave the being alone since they would be dealt with in due time.

Zoias’ destination was in the northern reaches of the realm. An overlook that served as the best place for the lord of the realm to observe it. Flapping her air wings, Zoias took to the air again and headed north, avoiding the magnetic rocks and floating ruins on the way.

She spotted a pair of adolescent dragons, also known as drakes, flying her way. These drakes were made of stone and were somehow able to fly despite that. One drake opened its mouth to devour her but the human rapidly descended to avoid the attack. She ascended again fast enough to where she delivered a hard uppercut to the dragon’s jaw which sent the beast flailing out of control toward the ground when the impact caused its body to flip upside down.

The other drake tried to attack Zoias with its talons but she hovered to the side to avoid the strike. She then grabbed one of its wings and tugged hard enough to cause the drake’s momentum to halt. The drake was stunned from the sudden jolt but that was long enough for Zoias to shift herself toward the drake’s back and place herself there. She wrapped her arms around the drake’s neck and approached whatever hole on its head that counted for an ear. “Take me to the throne or I’ll shatter you against the rock face!” she threatened.

The drake looked Zoias in the eye and a sense of primal fear overcame it. It gulped before acquiescing to its new rider, flying toward the realm’s overlook.

She soon came upon the entrance to the overlook where she set the drake down. The creature landed gently as it didn’t want to anger its rider into smashing it to pieces.

Zoias dismounted the drake before it flew off, leaving her standing before the tall entrance guarded by two giant earth elementals. Both were bipedal and, unlike regular earth elementals that were composed of different pieces of rock, these were made of a single giant piece of living rock shaped roughly like a humanoid. Both were composed of the black rock that made up the whole realm while one had small shards of glowing jade rock while the other had giant crystals of jade sticking out of his back and head.

The one on the left with the smaller shards was the first to speak as the two observed Zoias. “What is this? Some small fleshling dares to bring herself before two of the Stonemother’s Stone Lords? Such audacity!” The voice was deep and rumbling.

“She shall soon regret coming here! I will squash her into paste for her arrogance!” the other shouted with a deep and gravelly voice.

In order to get what she wanted without undue conflict, Zoias knew that she needed to do what she could to earn their favor. She knelt down before the two Stone Lords which gave them pause as they narrowed their eyes at the fleshling and left them curious as to what she intended. “Great Stone Lords of Deepholm, I humbly request an audience with the Stonemother. I wish to make a deal with her that would greatly interest her.”

“Hah,” the crystal-burdened elemental scoffed. “What could a tiny fleshling like you possibly offer that would be of interest to the Stonemother?”

“I do not have the offering yet, I am simply here to provide the bargain before I retrieve someone who was lost to her countless millennia ago. I only wish to ensure that she upholds her end of the bargain when I fulfill mine. What I offer should be fitting for the price paid.”

The two Stone Lords looked at each other before glaring down at the confident-looking fleshling before them. After a few moments, the shard-laden giant slowly stomped the ground hard enough that a pile of rocks leapt up and took the shape of a standard earth elemental about the size of Zoias. “Inform the Stonemother of what has been spoken by this fleshling,” he ordered.

The elemental skittered into the cave. The three waited in silence for several minutes before a deep, bellowing and feminine voice emerged from the cavern. “Let them through, I will humor this one just this once but do not let it out of your sight!”

Hearing this, the two Stone Lords parted to allow passage for Zoias into the inner sanctum of the Stonemother. The human walked respectfully inside the cavern.

The inside was filled with colorful rocks and crystals. The outermost stone in the area farthest from the throne in the back of the cavern was a deep purple. Closer to the throne was a number of hills of white stone with orange crystals growing from them. The throne itself was a stone slab in between a pair of braziers with red crystals hovering over them. The back was a large cluster of scarlet gems.

Zoias walked to the center of the chamber to behold the Stonemother herself. While she was slightly smaller than the Stone Lords, her presence carried far more weight than the giants. She was composed of brown stone with her short brown skirt being decorated with purple crystals. Her legs were short and stubby to the point of being nearly non-existent. She was always floating off the ground and the area underneath her feet was showered by purple crystals. Her torso appeared to compose over seventy percent of her overall body with her gut resembling a massive boulder and her breasts half as large as her gut and covered only by her long, purple crystalline hair. On her chest was a pendant that was a large stone circle with five purple crystals sticking out of it. Her broad shoulders had a field of purple crystals sticking out of them while her arms were almost as short as her legs were while her hands were almost comically small compared to the rest of her body. She had a face that resembled an overweight ugly woman with her double chin and her teeth that looked like a dentist’s nightmare of crooked and uneven teeth along with a pair of large earlobes.

“You now stand before Therazane, Elemental Lord of Earth and mother to all earth elementals. Speak your proposal and do not test me any more than you are now as I am sorely tempted to bury you where no one will find you for your arrogance.”

Zoias kneeled before Therazane. She briefly recalled the report that her sister made on the denizens of Azeroth. Among them were the four Elemental Lords who ruled primordial Azeroth since long before the Old Gods invaded.

Therazane the Stonemother was the most loving and patient of the four, but her patience was matched by her cruelty on the battlefield. She was known for waiting her enemies out until fatigue settled in before she crushed them with the force of the land itself.

Neptulon the Tidehunter was a cunning strategist who would have his enemies weaken each other before moving in and finishing them off.

Al’akir the Windlord believed in disrupting the enemies’ ranks from within through chaos and distrust.

Of the four, Ragnaros the Firelord was the most brutal and most powerful of the four Elemental Lords. Brute force was his way of waging a war. Always angry. Always raging. Ragnaros was the type who wouldn’t stop until he destroyed everything in his path.

Choosing her words carefully, she began. “Great Stonemother, I have come into possession of a titan-made device that mimics the same power that bound you and all of the other elementals to the Elemental Plane.”

“We have no interest in returning to the surface at this time. If that is what you propose then begone,” Therazane dismissed.

“You misunderstand my intentions, Stonemother. It is not that I wish to free you and your elementals, but to bind a certain elemental who escaped the Titans’ gaze and bring them home to Deepholm.”

The room was silent for several moments. The Elemental Lord was briefly shocked that such a proposal had been dropped on her doorstep, but she recovered quickly. “You intend to bring my daughter Theradras home to me? I will not tolerate such mockery–”

“I can assure you that I am quite serious about this. I am fully aware that you would see her safe return to you. Though I hope you can forgive me if I rough her up a little before she comes home. I doubt that she will return quietly.”

“Hmph, if that is your intention then I won’t mind her coming home with a few cuts and dents.” Therazane narrowed her eyes and gave the human a displeased look. “What do you wish from me in exchange for her safe return?”

Now they reached the most unpleasant part of the conversation, Zoias knew what she wanted and knew that she would have to do something spectacular in order to make the exchange fair. What she wanted she would want from all four Elemental Lords eventually. “What I wish for in exchange is a piece of your essence.

Therazane was shocked again. The fleshling had just requested a lot from her, but at the same time, she was offering to return one who she gave part of herself to in her creation. One piece of herself for another, a fair exchange. The glare she gave the human was scathing but Zoias didn’t back down.

Therazane relented her gaze and took a moment to compose herself. “Very well, as long as my daughter is returned to me alive and well, I shall uphold my end of the deal. Now begone, and do not return without my daughter.”

Zoias nodded and turned to face the edge of the overlook. Deploying her wings of air again she leapt out of the cavern and into the open fields below.

Returning to Azeroth from the Elemental Plane of Earth was easy with her totem. The difficult part was that she needed the totem planted in a more precise location if she wanted to emerge where she wanted to be. The wrong place would place her in a far away region at best, a separate continent at moderate and the bottom of the sea at worst. Since Azeroth was mostly ocean, the worst case scenario had the highest chance of occurring.

Thankfully, Zoias had a solution to that as she touched the rocky floor and concentrated until she had a vision of where she would end up. Using this ability, she was able to find a location where she would end up near her destination.

A few troggs made of rock got in her way but were dispatched quickly when she punched the ground and a series of earthen spikes burst from the ground and impaled them.

With the area clear, she planted the earth totem into the rock and reversed its energies again, pulling her back to the surface.

Desolace. Once a beautiful and fertile region, the lands were stripped of life due to the folly of the tauren when they had mistaken the daughter of an Elemental Lord as the Earthmother that the people worship.

Princess Theradras slumbered for eons after the Titans banished all of her kind to the Elemental Planes. She was one of the few who evaded banishment. Over a millennium before the coming of the modern times, the tauren mistakenly awoke the ravenous elemental princess who proceeded to devour all life from the region, turning it into a desolate wasteland devoid of all but the most hardy wildlife.

Zoias emerged from the earth in the southern part of the dead region near the road. Looking around, she saw a mountain range to the north. Feeling the vibrations of the earth, she sensed the presence of what seemed to be a village nearby.

According to her sister’s report on the region, the village was most likely a centaur village. The half equine humanoids were very numerous in the region. Which made sense since the mother of the centaurs on Kalimdor, Theradras, lived here too. The report mentioned that the earth elemental princess fell in love with one of the sons of the demigod Cenarius and the centaurs were the product of that union. Sadly, the report also mentioned that the son of Cenarius was murdered by his own children and left Theradras to grieve over her lover’s corpse for centuries.

Beyond a small pass to the east of her current location were some ruins that were inhabited by remnants of the Burning Legion on Azeroth. The demons there lacked leadership so they were not perceived as a real threat at this time.

To the west was the coastline where life fought back against the lifeless region. The breeze of the sea encouraged the growth of grass and trees. The local makura, a race of lobster people who looked more like giant lobsters than displaying any humanoid traits, were seen scuttling around the revitalized area. There was also a Horde fishing village nearby.

Zoias turned her attention to a pass in the northern mountains. Beyond that was her destination.

Before she began her trek, she spotted a night elf and a gnome emerging from the ruins in the east. They looked like they had just been in a fight which was understandable since they just walked through a den of demons. She could also sense the presence of her niece among them so she ignored them and proceeded up the mountain pass.

It wasn’t long before she spotted a pair of centaur guarding the pass. The reports indicated that they belonged to the Maraudine Clan who were charged with guarding the vast caverns beneath the surface. The clans came to call the caverns a sacred place called Maraudon. The inner sanctum of the caverns was her ultimate location.

Since she had no reason to be bothering the centaur with guarding the place and she wasn’t assisting some adventurers, unlike her sister and cousin, Zoias cast a spell that melded herself with the land and allowed her to move past the centaurs from beneath their hooves without their notice.

The entrance to the caverns was carved from stone. A huge statue of the hunched-over upper body of a centaur wielding a seven-headed spear, three pairs of heads on opposing sides of the shaft, served as the entrance. A pair of thick stone doors blocked entry.

Zoias went under the door with her spell. Bypassing the Maraudine centaur inside, she crossed a bridge and down a flight of stairs and through a winding tunnel until she came to a fork in the path. To the left was an area marked by purple crystals and the right side was marked by orange crystals. The central route was decorated by a pair of centaur statues but led to a dead end unless you had a special staff that opened a portal to the inner sanctum.

The path led to a small altar in an otherwise empty room. Two more centaur statues stood at either side of a short hallway that led inside. The altar was a stone square barely an inch above the floor. Four braziers decorated the corners of the altar.

Zoias touched the stone platform and concentrated on the residual energies in the room. Thankfully the staff needed to bridge the inner sanctum with her current location was druidic in nature so tracing the energies through the earth was easier. It wasn’t long before she discovered the exit point.

Using an earth spell she knew, Zoias enclosed herself in a pillar of earth and sank into the ground.

At her destination two things happened, a pillar of earth emerged and the loud sound of water splashed away from the earthen eruption. The pillar collapsed to reveal the human who took a moment to gather her bearings.

The inner sanctum of Maraudon was a lot more verdant than the entire region of Desolace and more than the coastline. The water she was standing in looked clean and pure and sensing the quality of the water confirmed it. Looking behind her she could sense water that was defiled with toxins which somehow became pure as they approached the waterfall that she stood atop of. She had to wonder if this was the work of the son of Cenarius keeping the area pure and vibrant even in death.

She could think about that later. Rushing ahead, she jumped over the waterfall and plummeted thirty feet into the waters below. She then swam a short distance to a ledge and climbed up on it. From the ledge the water was still up to her ankles.

Looking around, Zoias quickly caught sight of a number of large hydras wandering the area. A few stone pillars were holding the chamber up. There were also a number of flowers whose leaves were catching any water that fell on them.

Zoias didn’t care enough to mess with the hydras so she melded into the cavern floor and snuck past the hydras. She also snuck past some subterranean dinosaurs who crawled on the ground on six legs and had dorsal fins on their backs as large as their bodies.

The cavern started to ramp upward and out of the water. She passed by a group of earth elementals made of white stone. The elementals sensed her presence but were unable to do anything since she was beneath the surface.

Eventually, she came across a pair of stone elemental giants that were almost as large as the Stone Lords of Deepholm. Zoias knew that the giants could knock her out of her spell by stomping the ground hard enough so she surfaced before the giants could stomp.

One giant reacted to her presence by tossing a boulder at the human. However, a simple punch broke the boulder into gravel.

Before the giants could continue their attack, Zoias tried for a diplomatic solution. “Hold stone giants, I seek an audience with Princess Theradras.”

“The princess is not to be disturbed! Begone, fleshling!” one giant bellowed.

“Even if I come on behalf of the Stonemother herself?” Zoias offered.

“Even more so! The princess has declared that she will have nothing to do with the Stonemother!” the other giant bellowed.

Zoias sighed in resignation and shrugged, “Well, I tried.” She unleashed a blast of fire at one giant which ignited the moss that was growing on his body. While the two giants were distracted by the fire, Zoias recast her earthen meld spell and proceeded deeper into the cavern, passing another group of dinosaurs.

She soon found herself in a huge chamber that was lit by sunlight from the surface. At the bottom of the chamber was a large underground lake with a massive crocolisk swimming around. She found herself on a walkway suspended above the lake that was guarded by numerous stone giants. At the far end of the walkway was her destination, a gravesite of the dead son of Cenarius that was marked by the being’s own antlers. She could barely make out her objective in the distance.

First she needed to deal with the giants guarding their princess. Using the moisture from the lake, Zoias conjured some clouds and introduced a powerful electrical charge to them. With enough of a charge built up, she fired a bolt of lightning at the ground beneath the giants’ feet. The blast damaged the walkway and caused the ground beneath their feet to crumble. The giants couldn’t react fast enough and fell into the lake below.

Zoias repeated the process with the rest of the giants in the chamber. Some tried to rush to her and some tried throwing boulders at her, but she corrected the angle of the bolts to deal with the attacking giants while smashing the boulders with her fists.

She soon found herself at the gravesite and beheld the princess herself. She took after her mother in terms of body shape but not as ridiculously as her mother. Her arms and legs were more proportional to her body. She also wore more clothing than her mother did. Her brown skirt was decorated with sticks of bamboo. Her bra was tied together by a large emerald. The piece of clothing in question matched her hair in alternating shades of light and moderate brown. The stone she was composed of was light gray unlike her mother’s dark brown complexion. She wore gold bracelets on all four of her arms and two were inlaid with skulls while the other two were inlaid with emeralds. Her head was composed of three faces with the central face having tusks pointed upward like orc teeth. Her emerald green eyes shone on her middle face while the other two had emeralds on their foreheads. She also wore geta on her feet.

“How dare you invade the grounds of my beloved! I shall crush your bones!” Theradras bellowed.

Zoias tried the diplomatic approach again. “Greetings princess, I was sent here by your mother to deliver a message to you: It’s time to come home.”

Theradras let out a deep belly laugh as she heard that. “You seek to send me to that realm the usurpers banished my mother to? She will have to send someone stronger than you, fleshling. I did not escape pursuit by the titans and received injuries as a result only for some agent of my mother to finish the job they failed to do. She can erode in that place for all I care, here I am free to do what I want.”

“Your actions destroyed this region,” Zoias countered flatly.

“Who cares, the usurpers already remade the land once, why can’t I?”

“And it’s that attitude that makes it clear that you need to go back to your mother.”

Theradras growled and began repeatedly stomping the ground and creating numerous shockwaves which shook the cavern. Zoias took to the air with her air wings to avoid this attack. Knowing that her foe could fly, Theradras picked up a boulder and hurled it at the human. However, Zoias grabbed the boulder and threw it back at the princess. Theradras was not expecting return fire so the boulder shattered against her face. She yelped in surprise and pain.

The elemental princess then took to grabbing numerous boulders with her four arms and throwing them at Zoias who gracefully dodged three then hurled the fourth back at Theradras who blocked the counterattack with her arms.

Zoias pulled out the titan banishment device and activated it. The device needed to charge a little before it could work on Theradras but she knew how to distract her in the meantime. She landed on the ground while the princess was still holding her arms defensively. She tried to punch the human but the human was faster as she struck Theradras in her large gut with her fist which sent her flying to the back of the cavern.

Theradras looked down at where she was punched and noticed a large dent in her stomach with a number of cracks surrounding it. She stared daggers at the fleshling before gritting her teeth as she worked to fight through the pain. She would need to devour the life from the sanctum to recover from a blow like that.

However, Theradras took too long in trying to recover as the device above her activated and sent waves of light in her direction. She didn’t feel any pain from the light so she wondered if the device scanned her. She quickly got her answer which filled her with dread. [Unbound earth-type elemental detected. Database records indicate all Azerothian elementals are bound to elemental planes based on type. Beginning correction of discrepancy,] the device said.

“No!” Theradras yelled as she tried to flee the device. However, she was too slow as the device struck her with another beam of light before she began to feel her feet sinking into the ground. She struggled to find anything solid to grab to help stall her inevitable fall into the realm of earth, but every rock, every mound of soil, the walls of the cave itself, would give her no purchase as the land itself betrayed her as she sank deeper and deeper into the land. She screamed against the futility of her situation as her torso fully sunk into the ground and soon her head followed.

Once Theradras was fully consumed by the land, the device stopped glowing. [Discrepancy corrected. Returning to standby mode.] The device fell to the floor of the cavern where Zoias caught it before it landed. With the princess banished to Deepholm, she pulled out her totem to return to the realm to claim her reward.

Before she did, a spirit manifested from the nearby grave. The figure had the upper body of a night elf and the lower body of a stag deer. The spirit’s arms became branches toward the hands and his antlers matched the ones marking the grave.

The spirit nodded to Zoias in gratitude. “Thank you for freeing me from the curse placed upon me. Now my spirit can return to the Emerald Dream to rest.” The spirit then faded away.

Shrugging, Zoias activated the totem and reversed its energies again to deposit her into Deepholm again. Using her wings of air, she began her descent to the floor.

Surprisingly, as she looked down toward the floor, she noticed Therazane with two of her Stone Lords flanking her. One had crimson shards growing from him while the other was composed of white stone with brown crystals growing from him. She spotted Theradras with her legs imprisoned in the stone of the realm.

Zoias soon came close enough to catch the conversation occurring. “It would seem that I will need to teach you some manners, young lady. You will find no solace from our former enslavers here,” Therazane said.

“It doesn’t matter where we are, they will find us. How can you turn your back on our masters?” Theradras demanded.

“I am not a fool unlike those idiots, Al’akir and Ragnaros, who gave their loyalty to the Old Gods simply because we lost the war against them. I will have nothing to do with what goes on outside of my realm.”

“You were always too passive for your own good, mother!” Theradras spat, putting extra venom in the last word.

“But I am also the most patient, my daughter. In time, I will train this mentality out of you, even if it takes hundreds of thousands of years. Now that you’re here, we have all the time in the world to talk.”

Zoias soon landed before the elemental rulers before she quickly knelt before Therazane, waiting patiently for her reward. The Stonemother frowned in disappointment that she would now have to uphold her end of the bargain. However, having her beloved daughter returned to her, despite her injuries which could be fixed with time, would make the exchange much more bearable.

Therazane summoned a double-bladed battle ax. Her small hands barely wrapped around the handle. The head was a stone ring decorated with dark purple crystals. The shaft and blades were composed of the sharpened stones of Deepholm. The blades had purple crystals inlaid in them. The toe of the blades were much longer than the beards, suggesting that the ax could be used as a two-pronged spear as well. Runes were inscribed along the shaft and the head.

The Stonemother tossed the weapon to Zoias’ feet. The weapon shrank to the human’s size. “You have upheld your end of the bargain and I must now uphold mine. That weapon was forged by my very essence, Terrakios, the Stones’ Embrace. Take it and begone from my realm.”

Zoias quietly picked up the ax which melted into her hands, much to the elementals’ surprise. She then turned away from the elementals and began walking away.

“Before you leave however, I need to confirm one last thing with you,” Therazane suddenly said. Zoias stopped and turned to face the Stonemother again for the sake of manners. “I have a feeling that your quest does not simply end with me. I take it that you will make the same request of my fellow Elemental Lords?”

Zoias nodded, “In time and when the opportunity presents itself. But yes, I will seek their essence as well.”

“Then in the spirit of generosity, I shall give you this warning. The others will not part with their essence as easily as I did. Neptulon might do so in exchange for dealing with his enemies, but I doubt that Al’akir and Ragnaros will part with theirs, not without slaying them anyway. Though you’d be doing me a favor if you did kill them since I never liked them anyway.”

The human respectfully bowed to the Stonemother, “I thank you for your generous words, Stonemother.”

With the power of the Stonemother in her hands, Zoias found that she didn’t need the totem anymore so she cast the object aside. Using her new powers, she concentrated on where she wanted to be on Azeroth’s surface before she encased herself in stone then disappeared beneath it.

Until an opportunity presented itself, Zoias would have to wait. If her sister’s report was correct, then it would be a few more years before such a time came. She would have to find something to do in the meantime.

Author's Note

I have referred to this chapter as a side chapter since it didn't involve the ELF or the reincarnated 6 but I felt that this chapter held importance as the main purpose was to make a small change to canon events. Basically, sparing Theradras from being killed by adventurers by sending her back to her mother.

Also, the matter of Therazane's weapon was completely made up. In truth, nobody really knows if she had a weapon or not unlike Ragnaros and Al'akir, same with Neptulon.

Next time: A 3-parter! The reincarnated 6 take on what I believe is still hands down, the largest 5-man dungeon ever designed in the game.

P.S.: As for the matter of the images I put in...I REGRET NOTHING! :rainbowlaugh:

In the Hall of the Dark Iron, Part 1

Weeks had passed since the Defias prisoners’ failed attempt to break out of the Stormwind Stockade. The situation in the kingdom had begun to stabilize with the leadership of the Brotherhood dead and the organization disbanded. This also had the effect of disheartening the allies of the Brotherhood into behaving themselves for the time being since the gnoll attacks on the roads had greatly lessened, giving travelers more courage to walk the roads again. The murloc raids on Alliance ships had lessened too.

This was merely one problem resolved of many more though. Duskwood, a dark region in the southern reaches of the Kingdom of Stormwind, was still cursed with eternal night, worgen and rogue necromancers raising the dead. To the east of Stormwind, in a region called the Redridge Mountains, the town of Lakeshire was surrounded on all sides by enemies. The closest threat was a tribe of gnolls who had established camps south of the town beyond the huge lake that took up thirty percent of the region, north of the town in the mountains, and east of the town with nothing but mountains to the west of the town.

Redridge was also being invaded by the Blackrock Clan, a clan of orcs who served as the remnant of the Dark Horde from the First and Second Wars. Rumor had it that the orcs had also forged an alliance with the malevolent Black Dragonflight. Evidence toward this alliance were the young black dragon fledgelings, or whelps, fluttering around south of Lakeshire. Magistrate Solomon, the mayor of Lakeshire was at his wits’ end because the town was in danger and Stormwind was doing nothing to help.

This was the situation when Bella, Stella, Jaqueline and Sophia arrived in the region. With the town surrounded and the roads unsafe, the group was forced to fight their way to Lakeshire while cutting down any gnoll and black whelp that got in their way. They entered Lakeshire once they crossed a large damaged bridge that connected the north and south sides of the lake.

Upon seeing the desperation in the magistrate, the group spent a few days assisting with dealing with the invading gnolls, dragons and orcs in the region. Through their efforts and some secret nighttime massacres from Sophia and her impaling tentacles while away from the others’ notice, they managed to put a dent in the invading army and were set for the following day to take out the leadership of the Blackrock invaders.

Once the Blackrock leaders were dealt with, Solomon asked them to deal with a rogue human warlock named Morganth who led the gnoll army along with his gnoll lieutenant, Fangore. The warlock stood no chance against the four of them and the gnoll fared little better.

With the warlock’s death, Redridge was secure for the time being so the group could continue north and pursue the lead they received from Bazil Thredd weeks ago. Journeying through the northern mountain pass, they crossed a massive gate that once served to prevent entry to and from the region ahead.

While Redridge was idyllic, full of rushing rivers, towering elm trees and rising elevations, the Burning Steppes was a flatter region of charred landscape, dwarven ruins and pools and streams of lava. The sky was a fiery red as a result of volcanic eruptions from Blackrock Mountain.

“Wow, this place kind of reminds me of when Lyra and I were stuck on Char for nearly two months,” said a familiar and unexpected voice in the link.

“Sweetie Drops? I didn’t expect you to pay a visit to Sphere anytime soon,” Sophia replied.

“Neither did I. Lyra wanted me to come with her to see this mission of yours. When I told her that I still had other things to do, she brought an old friend of ours to help out and we completed my list of tasks for the next few weeks.”

“Yep, and now she has no more excuses to avoid helping Twilight and Midnight oversee the mission,” Lyra said cheerfully.

“I will say that I agree that the place does look like Char somewhat, though it does bring back some unpleasant memories of back then.” Came a voice that was unfamiliar to Sophia though she suspected that she was the “old friend” that Sweetie mentioned. “Such as the time you two started anticipating my actions and humiliating me across several worlds.”

“You know you deserved that for acting like a bitch on a power trip, Sarah,” Sweetie said playfully. “You got a little too sure of yourself with all your evil plans and that cost you a few wings and an arm.”

“Ugh…I am never going to live that down, am I?” Sarah groaned. “It’s been a thousand years and my days as the Queen of Blades continues to haunt me.”

Sophia ignored the banter going on in favor of requesting information from Thanatas. “Hey Thana, what’s the deal with his piece of charcoal called a region?”

“This region used to be the northern half of Redridge Mountains up until about three hundred years ago. When the various dwarven clans fought over Ironforge and its resources, the Bronzebeards won and banished the other two main clans, the Wildhammers and the Dark Irons. The Dark Iron Clan established a city, vainly named after their leader, Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan.

“The Dark Irons pushed their luck and tried to attack the Bronzebeards and the Wildhammers which backfired and led to the two clans working together against the Dark Irons.

“In desperation, Thaurissan tried to summon a powerful fire elemental to destroy his enemies. This proved to be his undoing as the elemental he summoned was the Elemental Lord of Fire, Ragnaros the Firelord. His emergence into Azeroth unleashed a devastating wave of fire which annihilated two regions, took countless lives, including the Sorcerer-Thane himself and created a volcano where the ritual took place; a volcano called Blackrock Mountain. The tunnel in the mountain serves as the only land connection between the two regions, known today as Searing Gorge to the north and Burning Steppes to the south.

“These days, Blackrock Mountain and Burning Steppes are under the control of the Dark Horde, composed of not only the Blackrock Clan, but also a couple of less than successful offshoot tribes of the Amani Tribe of trolls and a few small ogre clans. The Dark Horde has an alliance with the Black Dragonflight but that alone wouldn’t be enough to defeat the Kingdom of Stormwind since the Dark Horde is very much limited in numbers and incapable of replenishing them.”

Sophia pondered on the information given to her which led her to realize something. “The Dark Horde wouldn’t stand a chance, not unless Stormwind was already being weakened from within. Could it be that Prestor is working with the Dark Horde?”

“And that’s all the time we have for today,” Thanatas said, blatantly dodging the question and disconnecting herself from the link.

Sophia huffed at that, but figured that she was on the right track at least since her cousin didn’t try to correct her.

Now that the group was in the Burning Steppes, Sophia secretly sent out a psionic pulse, searching for minds that weren’t filled with evil intentions. The orcs and black dragons in the region would have destructive thoughts while the ogres only had two thoughts that went through their heads: eat and smash.

She quickly found minds that didn’t match the criteria in two locations. One was to their north and the other was in a small mountain trail to the east, too close to what she felt was a small army of dragonkin that blanketed the eastern reaches of the region.

“According to Magistrate Solomon, the nearest camp in this region is Morgan’s Vigil to the east,” Bella said. “We can start our investigation there.”

The group walked around the blackened hills as they moved toward the east. On the way, they were repeatedly accosted by black dragonkin of different shapes. The majority of the dragonkin were whelps, but there was also a race of centaur-like dragonkin who walked on four legs while having the upper bodies of humanoid lizards.

“According to the bestiary for this world, those creatures are known as dragonspawn. They act as foot soldiers for the dragonflights,” Twilight informed. “Some of the more powerful of these creatures have wings but are incapable of flight.”

“Anyone else think those critters are a little too close to Morgan’s Vigil fer comfort?” Jaqueline asked. Her body tensed as she reached for her weapons.

“I don’t think it would hurt to clear some of them out of the area,” Sophia agreed.

“It certainly does appear that Morgan’s Vigil is in danger,” Bella agreed while reaching for her mace and shield.

“Let’s make this quick, if the enemies in this region are connected to Lady Prestor, I’d rather we make haste before she finds out and tries to send the Stormwind Army after us or something,” Stella said.

The group spent the next hour hunting down black dragons in the region. Stella froze many of the whelps in midair, causing them to fall to the ground. Bella summoned hammers of light to shatter the frozen black younglings.

Jaqueline engaged the black dragonspawn with her two mithril swords. Each dragonspawn fought like the soldiers they were but the warrior had the advantage of agility as she dodged strikes from their halberds. Jaqueline quickly dispatched her enemies by taking advantage of the openings they left and the fact that their flanks were not properly protected.

Stella occasionally encountered dragonspawn who were spellcasters who specialized in flame magic. She took control of the energies they were channeling and caused it to feed back into their bodies, injuring their insides. At the same time, the mage assaulted them from the outside with waves of arcane energy to make sure they didn’t survive.

Sophia spotted a larger dragon hovering around the area. It was still too small to be a fully grown dragon so it had to be a drake. With the others having their fun with the rank and file, she decided to have her fun with who could be the one commanding the dragons in the area.

It wasn’t long before the drake spotted the humans and the high elf fighting off his kin. He flew in to engage them, but before he got too close he felt something land on his back. He looked back to see a blue-wearing rogue grabbing one of his wing joints. He would have scoffed at the feeble mortal’s efforts if it weren’t for the fact that she managed to dislocate his joint, sending a powerful wave of pain through his body. The drake was forced to crash with his face slamming into the ashen ground.

With the drake grounded, Sophia jumped off his back and deployed one of her wrist blades while using her unnatural strength from her infested heritage to slice off the drake’s left wing, causing the beast to roar with agony. She quickly moved to the right wing and sliced that off too. In desperation, the drake turned to slash at the assailant with his claws and breathe fire on her but Sophia quickly jumped onto the drake’s back. The beast tried to buck her off but Sophia timed the buck with a jump where she aimed at the drake’s head. With both blades deployed, she plunged them into the drake’s cranium. The drake gave one last roar before he collapsed, never to get up again.

With the drake dead, the rest of the dragonspawn in the area were quick to retreat. The whelps followed the soldiers out of fear.

With the area secure, the group traveled up a mountain trail marked by a torch. They soon entered a camp that appeared to have been made among some scorched ruins. The remains of a few houses and a mage tower were the only signs that there was civilization there before the campsite.

The camp was inhabited by a band of Alliance soldiers composed of humans, dwarves and a night elf.

The night elf was the first to approach the group and politely bow to them in gratitude. “On behalf of this camp, we thank you for driving off the dragonkin that threatened to overrun us. But I must ask, what brings you to this region?”

Stella moved to the head of the group to address the elf, “My name is Stellaglim, agent of the Kirin Tor of Dalaran. I was originally sent here to investigate a rumor that the regent of Stormwind, Highlord Bolvar Fordragon, was under the effects of a mind control spell. My efforts have been waylaid by Lady Katrana Prestor who sent me on a wild goose chase to deal with the Defias Brotherhood. I talked with Master Mathias Shaw and he agrees with my suspicions that Lady Prestor was magically manipulating the regent. A testimony from the second in command of the Defias Brotherhood gave me a lead that Lady Prestor might have connections with the Blackrock Clan and that I might find some answers in Blackrock Mountain.”

Just then, one of the soldiers, one who wore the armor of a high-ranking officer, began to laugh maniacally. Sophia could sense the despair in his laughter. “Are you serious?!” the man shouted. “That’s why Stormwind hasn’t acted to deal with this obvious crisis?! We’re not getting any help from Stormwind because the highest authority we have right now is under the control of a traitorous noble?” The man resumed his crazed laughter for another minute before he started to calm down and slumped over. “Words cannot begin to express how screwed we are.”

Bella walked up to the officer and gave him a look of disappointment. “Are you the officer in charge of this camp?”

The officer didn’t even look at her as he continued to slump, “I am. I’m Marshal Maxwell. And before you question my sanity, I’m not crazy. I just have no idea how we’re getting out of this mess. Not just us, but the whole Kingdom of Stormwind. We had so much valuable intel on the Blackrock Menace that we hoped that it would force Stormwind to act. It might have even exposed that bitch for the traitor she is.

“But it all vanished with the disappearance of my commanding officer, Marshal Windsor. He had all the intel we gathered from this region and Blackrock Mountain. He was attacked by a Blackrock raiding party and I have no idea what happened.

“Only one who might know would that good-for-nothing coward of a dwarf, Ragged John. If you can get some info from him about Windsor’s whereabouts, I might have an idea on what our next move might be. He’s over at Flame Crest, a small Horde camp to the north. The people there don’t care about factions so don’t start anything.”

The group took a few minutes to rest after fighting the dragons before they proceeded north to Flame Crest. During their walk they wandered a little too close to the nearby ogre den and ended up fighting a few red-skinned ogres. The walk took about an hour before they walked up a crude stone bridge up to Flame Crest, which was a small camp built on an elevated ledge with a small cave. The inhabitants were mainly orcs and goblins who eyed the group warily.

Among the residents was a dwarf with a long brown beard and wearing tattered leather armor. As the group approached him, one of the orcs suddenly gave an amused smirk. Only Sophia caught that but kept it to herself.

Bella was the first to speak, “Excuse me sir, would you happen to be Ragged John?”

The dwarf turned to face the voice. His bleary eyes and loose expression quickly gave away his inebriated state. “Aye, that be me. What you be wantin’?” He hiccuped.

“We were told that you were with Marshal Windsor last, do you know what happened?”

“Oh, I remember that clear as day, Windsor was particularly ornery that day. And believe me, for Windsor, that’s a monumental accomplishment. He kept telling me that something feels off. Well he sure wasn’t kiddin’. We were in the middle of Blackrock Mountain when the filthy animals attacked. I’m talking about the orcs of course. Pay attention, will ya? All ya could hear was the clangin’ o’ steel as they rushed us.”

“And you helped?” Bella guessed.

“Are ya kiddin’ me? Me against fifty orcs? I’m no fool lass. I hid in the shadows and watched it all go down. Windsor didn’ wanna be hidin’ so he attacked the animals himself, Spinnin ol’ Ironfoe around and screamin’ like a madman.”

Sophia really didn’t have the time nor was willing to waste the brain cells listening to a drunken dwarf who wasted their time by going off on tangents. Instead, she secretly plucked the information from the dwarf’s mind. While he was going on about Windsor and the masterfully crafted hammer he wielded, she went through what the dwarf knew.

From what she could tell, Windsor ended up in the middle of a battle between the Blackrock Clan and the Dark Iron Clan. He decimated the orcs with his hammer but was overwhelmed by three hundred dark iron dwarves. He was apparently captured and his weapon and armor confiscated. This likely meant that Windsor was in a prison in some place called Shadowforge City in the depths of Blackrock Mountain.

By the time she sorted the info, her three companions were beginning to get impatient with the dwarf’s drunken ravings, even Bella, the most patient of the group.

“Alright, I think we have all we need to know, Ragged John. We need to get back to our camp and report while you can stay here and keep being…you,” Sophia said, trying to be polite about it.

Seeing the opportunity to get away from the obnoxious dwarf, Stella quickly wrapped her magic around herself and her friends and teleported away before Ragged John could go into another one of his rants.

The group suddenly appeared back at Morgan’s Vigil. Everyone breathed a sigh of relief. Maxwell approached them and laughed at their expense. “I could have warned you but where’s the fun in that?” Everyone glared at the rude marshal. “So what did you find out?”

Sophia explained the events that led to Windsor’s capture, surprising Stella, Bella and Jaqueline who figured that the dwarf was talking nonsense. Maxwell hummed in thought, “I see, so that good-for-nothing coward thinks Windsor is alive? In that case, you four better suit up. You are going to infiltrate the city and find him.”

“We would have done that anyway with or without your orders, marshal,” Sophia said flatly. “If he has information that can convict Prestor and save Stormwind, we’ll take the risk. Right everyone?” Stella, Bella and Jaqueline nodded in support.

The people at the camp gave the group what few resources they could spare before the group left the camp and began the long trek to Blackrock Mountain on the other side of the region in the northwest. The journey there was long and fraught with danger. They were occasionally accosted by Blackrock raiding parties but Stella’s magic and Sophia’s speed ensured that they minimized the expended energy.

After several hours, the group was walking up the wrought stone ramp into Blackrock Mountain. The door at the top of the ramp was open. The door itself was made of very thick dark metal with a huge face on both doors. Beyond the doors into the mountain was a wrought stone path with lanterns hanging from the ceiling.

Anticipating the increased heat the group would be exposed to while inside the mountain, Stella placed her best cooling enchantments on everyone to help them avoid heat stroke.

Beyond the corridor they entered a massive chamber which appeared to be the heart of the mountain. A broken walkway wrapped around the right side of the chamber. A pair of broken portcullises were to their left and right. The lower level of the chamber was filled with molten lava. Hanging over the lava was a massive piece of rock with a building on it. The rock was held in place by a number of massive chains that were large enough to walk on. The chains were held by massive dwarven statues.

The group walked along the walkway looking for the entrance to Shadowforge City. However, the walkway only led them to the opposite side of the mountain and the entrance to Searing Gorge so they had to find another path.

While they found an opening at the four o’ clock position of the circular room, Thanatas warned Sophia through the link that the doorway would lead the group to the wrong part of the mountain to be looking for Windsor as that led to the Dark Horde-held fortress of Blackrock Spire. Sophia scouted the entrance and quickly found some orc patrols and warned her friends about them, prompting them to believe that Shadowforge City was not that way.

Eventually, after some exploring, the group decided that they would try to reach the hanging rock over the lava. They found a chain that they could climb up on and carefully walked up to the suspended stone.

Jaqueline was bothered by a thought about the situation with Windsor so she finally decided to voice it, “Hey y’all, ah’ve been wonderin’, why did those dark irons capture him instead of killin’ him on sight? Ah thought the dark irons were evil like the Blackrocks?”

“That’s actually a misconception,” Sophia explained. “The Dark Irons may have differing opinions than the Bronzebeards and the Wildhammers, but none of them are inherently evil. The former leader of the Dark Irons got too greedy and made foolish decisions, one of which got him killed and created this mountain. I’ve heard that these days, the Dark Irons are being influenced by a cult that worships eldritch horrors. Many in Shadowforge City have fallen to their influence.”

“By the Light, the Twilight’s Hammer is in Shadowforge City!?” Bella gasped. “But why?”

“Probably because in addition to worshiping eldritch horrors, the cult also worships the Elemental Lords who serve them. Three hundred years ago, Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan summoned the ruler of the fire elementals, Ragnaros, to Azeroth. The cult lives among the Dark Irons in Shadowforge City not only to be near their fiery master but also to slowly convert the clan into evil-worshiping cultists.”

“But what does that have to do with Windsor?” Jaqueline asked. “With cultists bein’ in the city, it would make less sense for him to still be alive and not sacrificed on an altar somewhere.”

“I think it shows that not all is lost with the Dark Irons. That hammer he carried was a famous one, forged by the famous dark iron architect, Franclorn Forgewright. The Dark Irons still respect his work and Windsor’s ties to his ancestor who received the hammer and passed it down to each generation.”

“Huh, so they still have some sense of honor, huh? Ah guess ah can respect that,” Jaqueline mused. “So since Thaurissan died three centuries ago, who’s leadin’ the Dark Irons now?”

“That would be his son, Emperor Dagran Thaurissan,” Stella said. “Not much is known about him though, but if he’s still allowing the cultists in his city then I can’t say he’s in his right mind.”

The four soon reached the building atop the suspended rock and entered it, hoping to find a path forward. Inside the building they proceeded down several flights of stairs until they came across what looked like a table or an altar.

Before the group proceeded onward however, Jaqueline began to behave strangely. At first it appeared as if she was examining the altar in the middle of the room but her eyes were slightly above it, as if she were staring at a wall or at something that wasn’t there. Even worse was that she was talking to thin air.

“Yeah, Ah can see ya, can’t everyone else?” Jaqueline looked at her friends who were giving her weird looks. “Wait, so Ah’m the only one who can see ya? Why?” A pause. “No idea huh? So whaddya want?” A few minutes passed with Jaqueline nodding as if she was listening to a private conversation meant only for her.

During this time, Sophia decided to contact Twilight about this issue, “Twilight? Has Applejack always been able to talk to things that aren’t there?”

“I’m picking up paranormal activity coming from the altar in the room. I think she’s talking to a ghost. But I thought ghosts on Azeroth were still visible on the material plane.”

“Most are, but there are the occasional ghosts who can only be seen under special circumstances, either by a special item or by being dead themselves,” Thanatas explained.

“So does that mean…?” Sophia ventured.

Twilight cut her off, “No, Jaqueline is still very much alive and she is not in possession of any necromantic artifacts. Though that still begs the question of how she can see the ghost.”

“Have the scans of that strange magic inside her yielded any results?” Sophia asked.

“I don’t know, I haven’t read the results yet.”

A few moments passed before Lyra spoke through the link, “Yikes, Bonnie looks like she just sucked on a really sour lemon. That can’t be good.” A few minutes passed as everyone in the control room observed the results. A wave of sorrow was briefly felt over the link before Twilight shut herself from it. “Aaaaaannnd Twilight just ran out of the room. I can’t blame her though since this affects the reincarnation of one of her closest friends.”

“It would probably be best to focus on your journey for the time being and let us work on making sense of what we just learned,” Sarah said.

“...Right…” Sophia affirmed before she closed the link.

At that time, Jaqueline finished her conversation with the invisible ghost and relayed what she learned. “So apparently, ah just talked to the ghost of that dwarven architect, Franclorn Forgewright. He talked about how he made two hammers, Ironfoe and Ironfel, and he gave one to Windsor’s ancestor. When he died, Ironfel fell into the hands of another architect named Fineous Darkvire who he says is a charlatan of an architect. He wants us to kill the guy and bring the hammer to a shrine near the arena. We need ta put the hammer in the hand of the statue and in exchange he’ll give us the master key ta Shadowforge City. He said it’s in a small compartment in the statue that’ll open when the hammer is put in its place.”

“We’ll keep that in mind as we explore the city, provided we find the entrance,” Bella said.

“He said we’re on the right track. Just keep followin’ the path we’re walkin’ and we’ll be in the city once we get past the quarry.”

With that slightly disturbing distraction done, the group proceeded down another set of stairs and found an exit which became a ramp spiraling downward until the path ended near another length of giant chain. At the other end was a stonewrought ledge with dwarven runes inscribed on the side of it a few meters above the lava. Once they reached the ledge they found an opening that took them inside what appeared to be a small building.

The odd thing though was the blood elf standing in a small alcove next to the doorway. They weren’t sure how long he was down there but he seemed content to be there. Stella also noticed that he was standing next to what appeared to be a small tear in the fabric of reality, at least that was the closest she could tell from her studies.

“Greeting’s travelers,” the elf greeted. “Tell me, what do any of you know about rifts?”

“You mean aside from the fact that you’re standing next to one?” Stella asked.

The elf blinked. He opened his mouth then closed it for a few moments then opened his mouth again. “You are certainly no ordinary elf if you are able to perceive the rift. This one leads into the very depths of Blackrock Mountain, the lair of the Firelord. Do you know how to attune yourself to the rift miss?”

Stella studied the rift for a few minutes and searched through her mind as she tried to recall. She soon remembered the type of rift she was looking at. “Aha! You need something that came from the general area of the destination point in order to attune to the rift and use it.”

The elf applauded Stella for her deduction. “Very good! I can see that my services for you are not necessary so I shall provide guidance to the next group of travelers who wish to brave the depths.”

The group proceeded into the doorway and came out into what appeared to be a quarry. There were digging tools abandoned around the area and a few people of various races digging through the rock. The diggers were males who wore only pants with a number of dark iron dwarves acting as overseers. This painted the idea of slave labor into the minds of the group.

Not wanting to alert the city just yet, the group took a stealthy approach and snuck past the overseers which worked since there weren’t many overseers in the area.

They proceeded into a short hallway that had two grated walkways on either side of the path with a number of stone blocks as well as a number of grinding stones.

As they neared the end of the hallway, they heard a roar of fury behind them. They turned around to discover that a fire elemental, a bulbous mass of flames with a vaguely formed face along with arms and hands that wore a pair of ornate bracers and a legless lower body with a tail that hovered an inch over the floor, had spotted them and was hovering toward them quickly.

Jaqueline blocked the elemental’s path which led to the elemental punching his burning fists against her shield. Stella bombarded the elemental with ice shards which created a steam cloud but also brought pain to the elemental. The mage took the steam, refroze it into a larger icicle, and hurled it at the elemental again. The larger shard melted slower than the smaller ones which also caused the elemental’s burning light to flicker and dim.

“Fools! I will be reborn, mortals! Incendius shall raise me from the ashes!” the elemental declared before the flames of his body faded out of existence, leaving a pair of bracers on the ground.

The group said nothing as they proceeded into Shadowforge City.

As they entered, they were spotted by two dark iron guards. One called out that there were intruders entering the city. It wasn’t long before enemy reinforcements came to their aid from the chamber ahead. Accompanying the dwarves was a pack of red demonic-looking hounds with yellow manes. About ten dwarves and ten hounds composed the group’s welcoming party.

Jaqueline charged in and kept three of the dwarves and four hounds busy while the others were forced to contend with the rest. Stella unleashed a wave of frost ahead of her which froze the feet of the other dwarves to the ground while Bella pulled out her shield, infused the Light into it and hurled it at them which ricocheted into three dwarves before it returned to her.

Once the dwarves freed themselves, Bella moved in and slammed the ground with her Light-blessed hammer, sanctifying an area around her. As the dwarves moved in to attack, they found that the ground itself burned their feet.

While Jaqueline and Bella were dealing with the dwarves, Sophia was beheading the hounds one by one while Stella dropped sharp icicles on top of the beasts and impaled them. The hounds were quickly slain.

Jaqueline fought the dwarves in a way as if she could anticipate their moves which made it much easier to eliminate her enemies. Bella finished with hers shortly after.

The group put their weapons away for the time being while Bella commented on Jaqueline’s fighting. “I must say darling, you certainly are becoming a masterful warrior with the way you dealt with those guards.”

“Nah, ah just knew how they fought. After ah fled the farm when the Scourge attacked, mah sister and I lived at Aerie Peak fer a year. Ah wanted the Wildhammer dwarves over there to teach me how to fight and they did. Ah learned a lot from them. This fight only turned out this way because the Dark Irons used a similar style of fightin’ to what the Wildhammers used.”

“I see, perhaps this task will not be as difficult as I had imagined, at least I hope so.”

Now that they had some breathing room, the group looked around the chamber. The entire area was mostly composed of black volcanic rock with torches to serve as the main source of lighting for the area. To their right were some supplies that ranged from food to explosives and some grinding stones and saw tables. To their left was a barred gate that appeared to have a lock on it. They also heard crying nearby. Looking around, they spotted some alcoves blocked by grates and some of them had prisoners trapped in there. The cramped conditions were likely some form of torture.

However, despite how they felt about the whole thing, there was nothing they could do to free the tortured prisoners.

Proceeding into the next chambers, they found that it was a wide area that was mostly cleared out as a result of the commotion from earlier. There were six other paths out of the chamber, not counting the one they entered from. One seemed to lead to the area beyond the barred door while they had no idea where the rest led. One passage seemed to be made of wrought stone.

“You are entering the detention block, where all the prisoners of the Dark Iron Clan are held,” Thanatas informed.

“Would we find Marshal Windsor here?” Sophia asked.

“Possibly, but the cells are locked and the only way to open them is a key that’s being held by a cultist somewhere in the area.”

Sophia thought about how to tackle the task of finding the cultist with the key. She sent out a psychic pulse to determine who was in the area and found that the prison hallways were crawling with dark irons and cultists of various races, mostly humans, trolls and tauren. Most were just bored because they were guarding cells while others were just relaxed, as if taking a break from their duties.

One mind stood out though, it seemed excited about something. Focusing on that mind, she found that the excitement they felt centered around the instruments of torture they were surrounded by and impatience about using them. This one seemed like a sadist.

She also sensed the minds of the prisoners in the area, some of them seemed hostile while others were scared. Those fears centered around the sadistic person that she sensed down the stonewrought hallway.

With any luck, the sadist might be the one with the key to the prison cells.

She wasn’t sure which cell held Marshal Windsor since she had never met the man before so they would have to open the cells one by one until they found him once they got the key.

“So, which way are we goin’ first?” Jaqueline asked.

“I think that stonewrought hallway would be the best place to search first,” Sophia suggested.

“That would be a good place to look for anything important around here,” Stella agreed.

With everyone in agreement, the group proceeded into the hallway where they were soon accosted by more dark iron guards who called for help from the four side rooms in the hallway. Just like at the entrance, the group was attacked by a large number of dwarves and hounds. This time though, they were also attacked by cultists.

Stella took advantage of the narrow hallway that the reinforcements were coming from and blocked their advance with a pillar of fire which incinerated the ones hit by it while the rest were halted before the flames. This allowed Stella to bombard the hallway with bolts of arcane magic which passed through the flames and struck down the dwarves, hounds and cultists. The survivors ducked into the side rooms and waited for the flames to die out.

Bella and Jaqueline had no problem dealing with the standing forces that were in front of Stella’s spell.

When the spell faded, the survivors chanced a peek around the corner from their hiding spots which resulted in Sophia quickly stabbing them in their chests and backs before they realized that she was slaughtering them.

The group proceeded to the end of the hallway where they found a few stone chairs overlooking a lower level of the room where a series of torture devices were haphazardly placed. Six individuals were at the lower level. Two were dwarves, three were hounds and one was a human female who had a look of bliss on her face. She wore a set of purple robes with shoulder armor colored red, black and gold and a circlet on her head.

“That’s High Interrogator Gerstahn, a woman after my own heart,” Thanatas explained. “A former noblewoman who gets a thrill out of torturing people. If only she had chosen a different cult to join I would have loved to have her among my undead. If her techniques weren’t so amateur I would have overlooked her affiliation with the Twilight’s Hammer, but alas…”

The group spotted Gerstahn reading a piece of paper before she wadded it up and tossed it into a corner. “It looks like the information that pathetic marshal had on him is almost decoded. Once we get word that they’re finished, I’ll be able to torture him to my heart’s desire. I’ll make it as slow and painful as I can manage.”

Gerstahn was broken from her reverie from the death cries of her dwarven guards and the yelps of their hounds. Her expression quickly turned to one of seething anger with some surprise mixed in. “Who dares assault my guards?” She jumped back in time to avoid five ice shards that landed where she was at. She looked up at the overlook and spotted someone in a blue mask.

“Hi there, we’ve come to rob you of your key and make the world one cultist safer,” Sophia said cheerfully. She backed away in time to avoid a shadowy bolt.

“You will all suffer in darkness, heretics!” Gerstahn yelled. She then ran up the stairs to the overlook to confront the intruders which only resulted in Jaqueline slamming her with her shield which made her tumble down the stairs. She tried to get up only for a hammer of light to slam into her face which knocked her unconscious.

Not wanting to kill an unconscious person, Bella instead rifled through the cultist’s pockets and found a rune-etched key. Sophia picked up the discarded note that the cultist had discarded earlier in case the information became useful later.

To make sure the interrogator didn’t cause problems later, Jaqueline ripped off a piece of her robe and tied it over her mouth. She then placed her head and arms into a stockade to make sure she didn’t go anywhere when she woke up. Stella placed a deep sleep spell to make sure she didn’t wake up anytime soon.

With the interrogator dealt with, the group headed into the hallway beyond the torture chamber and discovered that it was a looping corridor full of hanging cages full of skeletons and small alcoves sealed by grates where more skeletons lie and some unfortunate prisoners were trapped. Both ends of the corridor led to the large chamber they were in earlier. They spent the next few minutes dealing with patrols and guards consisting of dwarves, hounds, cultists and fire elementals.

Once the corridor was empty, they proceeded through the hallway once more in a clockwise fashion, opening any doors with the key they procured from the interrogator. Some cells were empty while the first cell that was occupied that they opened had a dwarf inside who was huddled in a corner. He spotted the group opening his cell and while he recognized that they weren’t with the Dark Irons or the cult, he still huddled. “If ye’ve come ta rescue me, move on. All is lost…”

“Why do you say that?” Stella asked.

The dwarf prisoner who called himself Kharan Mighthammer went into a story where Lakeshire pleaded to Ironforge for assistance and Princess Moira Bronzebeard volunteered to provide assistance to the region. He and his twenty elite soldiers were assigned to escort the princess but were ambushed in the Burning Steppes and taken prisoner. “As far as I know, the princess is now at the side of Emperor Thaurissan. He has her under some sort of thought-altering spell and I’m powerless to do anything about it.”

“How do you know?” Stella asked.

“I just know! There’s not a snowball’s chance in this place that a Bronzebeard would ever give their heart to a Dark Iron willingly.”

“Well anyway, the way out is mostly clear,” Sophia said. “If you sneak past the overseers in the quarry you should be able to escape.”

“Well okay then, jus’ please do Ironforge a favor an’ rescue Princess Moira from that vile Dark Iron emperor.” Kharan then walked out of the cell before he ran for the entrance.

The group then proceeded to the next occupied cell which contained a human with brown hair and a thick mustache and beard wearing a white sleeveless shirt and black pants. He was walking back and forth in his cell grumbling about something until he noticed the cell door open. He glared toward the cell and was prepared to punch his captors but stopped at the last minute when he noticed none of them were dressed like a dark iron or a cultist. “Who are you?” he asked.

“I’m special investigator Stellaglim of the Kirin Tor. Are you Marshal Windsor?”

Windsor nodded, “I am. Why were you looking for me?”

Stella began explaining her investigation into a tip that Bolvar Fordragon was being mind controlled which put a vindicated smirk on his face for some reason. She explained the chain of events which led her and her party to Burning Steppes and Marshal Maxwell telling them to find Windsor in Blackrock Mountain.

When the explanation concluded he nodded before he sighed in resignation. “So you’ve been victims of that lizard’s political maneuvering as well, huh? There’s not much we can do about it now with all of my notes gone. They’ve probably been destroyed by now. If I ever get out of here and find my Ironfoe, I’m going straight to Stormwind Keep and bashing that lizard’s skull.”

“Would those notes actually convict Prestor of treason?” Stella asked.

“Ha! Treason? Understatement of the century, lady. Prestor isn’t even human, she’s an ancient black dragon in disguise. The reason she’s been supporting the Blackrocks is because those orcs are being led by her brother who goes by Lord Victor Nefarius. Those two are in cahoots to either seize control of Stormwind or burn it down again.” He sighed again. “If only I had my notes, I’d have all the evidence I need to march into Stormwind and crush her.”

“Actually, I think your notes are still intact. We just dealt with the High Interrogator and she mentioned something about notes being nearly decrypted,” Sophia said. She then handed the wadded up paper to Windsor who eagerly grabbed it and unfolded the paper and began reading intently. Only a few seconds passed before a wide grin appeared on his face.

“Looks like we still have time. Before I can get out of here, I need you four to retrieve my notes and a couple of tablets for me. They appear to be in the hands of a couple of prominent figures among the Dark Iron military: General Angerforge and Golem Lord Argelmach. They are currently holed up in the West Garrison of the city. The bridge that connects the east and west garrisons seconds as a massive gate which is usually kept open most of the time and only closes on occasion. You four will need to find a way to close that gate to get to the West Garrison and get my tablets back.

“Since you four seem to be quite skilled, you should have no problem accomplishing this. While you’re doing this I’m going to look through the corpses of the guards to find something to use to get my gear back. I also have a few debts to settle with some of the prisoners here so I’ll take that key off your hands.”

“Will you be alright on your own?” Jaqueline asked.

“Don’t underestimate me, young lady. Even without Ironfoe I am a force to be reckoned with,” Windsor boasted.

With that, Stella gave Windsor the prison cell key and left the former prisoner behind. The group returned to the central chamber and considered their next option. Shadowforge City was a huge place and their exploration of the place had only just begun.

Author's Note

Part 1 of 3

I hope nobody is put off when I try to have dwarves and trolls speaking with Scottish and Jamaican accents respectively. Warcraft uses a lot of accents for the various races of Azeroth. It would feel like it would be lazy writing if I didn't try to capture the accents.

Anywho, this part is going to be split into three chapters because Blackrock Depths (aka Shadowforge City) is massive. I'm also going to skip a few bosses because there really isn't much point in tackling them.

What did the observers find within Jaqueline that has Twilight so upset? If you haven't figured it out, you will soon enough. If you have, you may have a faint idea about my plans for her.

Next time: We have a special guest party member for one chapter only.

In the Hall of the Dark Iron, Part 2

Despite assurances from Marshal Windsor that he would be fine, Bella, Jaqueline, and Stella couldn’t help but feel some worry for the soldier as he intended on exploring the rest of the detention block of Shadowforge City by himself. Sophia didn’t care either way, if he was as good as he claimed then he would have her respect, if not, it didn’t really matter as long as she got the intel from the Dark Iron generals.

With all but two paths explored in the central area of the detention block, the group decided to pick one of the remaining paths to check out.

As they neared one of the paths, they heard a deep booming voice roaring not far ahead, “Is that all you have to send at me Grimstone!?”

“Somethin’s going on ahead!” Jaqueline said.

The group proceeded down the path and dealt with a few dark iron patrols before they spotted a closed portcullis. Peering through, they spotted a human in the center with dark brown hair tied into a ponytail. He wore scarlet plate armor on his arms, legs and one shoulder with brown leather padding. In his hands were a pair of curved longswords with spiked handguards. The large buckle on his belt had the relief of a lion’s face on it. The man’s face and body sported a number of scars, most likely mementos of past battles.

It took a few moments to recognize him. Jaqueline and Bella remembered seeing him around Stormwind, Stella recognized him from the Kirin Tor reports on the leaders of the Alliance while Sophia recognized him from the three thousand page report on the key individuals of Azeroth that Thanatas wrote for the family. Even Sophia’s mind felt overloaded from reading that report that she wouldn’t have been surprised if her head had expanded in some evolutionary reflex.

“By the Light, it’s King Varian Wrynn!” Bella exclaimed.

“Sure looks like him,” Jaqueline agreed. “But what’s he doin’ here?”

“We need to find a way to get to him, fast,” Stella said. “Looks like he’s being forced to face wave after wave of monsters. There’s no telling when his stamina is going to give out on him.”

“That’s the Ring of Law that the Dark Irons use to carry out their punishments of those who committed any misdeeds against the clan. There are no records of those who survived this arena since they often call it a death sentence,” Thanatas informed. “Also, until the crowd gets their fill of blood sport, they will be pretty riled up so until then going into the stands would mean fighting the crowd as well. Interfering with this match would probably be a good idea since the stands offer the only route to one of your objectives since the other way requires having that key you’re looking for.”

“Which objective are you talking about?” Sophia asked. The undead didn’t respond, meaning she closed the link again. “I hate when she does that…”

With the king in danger, Sophia decided that now was the time to reveal one of her secrets to the others. Channeling her infested heritage, Sophia enhanced the strength and durability of her arms and hands to inhuman levels while avoiding any significant external changes and punched hard on the portcullis. One punch left a huge dent, two knocked it loose from the opening and three sent it flying into the giant crystalline spider that was skittering toward Varian.

The three were stunned by the display of inhuman strength. They couldn’t help but wonder just who the mysterious rogue in blue really was. It was Bella who managed to get any words out. “Where did you get such strength?”

“I have a lot of secrets, Bella,” Sophia deflected. “I may tell you one day, but right now the king needs help.”

The gladiator jumped back in surprise so he had some time to think about what just happened. In the heat of his endless battles, a flying gate was the last thing he expected. He turned his head toward where the portcullis came from and saw four figures enter the arena. Unsure whether they were friend or foe, he took up a stance in preparation to fighting more enemies. Hearing the outraged cries from the crowd made him second guess that thought so he decided to give them a chance to explain themselves. “Who are you?” he demanded.

“Greetings, Your Majesty,” Sophia said. “As much fun as you appear to be having, we have things to do and we need to take our turn here so we figured that we would share this time slot.”

Just then, a dark iron dwarf in dark gray and white robes appeared at the edge of the arena. “What is the meaning of this!? Intruders dare interfere with this human’s death sentence?” It was then that he pressed a hidden button on the arena wall. “In that case, ye can all die together!”

All but one portcullis in the arena suddenly opened. A growing rumbling was heard soon after that. As it became louder, the group noticed a menagerie of creatures, composed of giant bulky lizards that shot lightning, scorpions, worms, spiders, beetles and large bats, emerged from the cells and flooded into the arena along with tougher-looking prisoners such as a bulky-looking troll, a spider-like creature that seems as if its forelegs were actual arms, a worgen, an ogre, another giant spider and a Blackrock orc. They figured that they were all the majority of creatures and violent prisoners they captured over the years.

Stella decided to unleash a cloud of green mist toward the creatures which put them to sleep. Sophia moved in and slaughtered each creature one by one with her blades, using a technique that bisected large groups at a time with a single slice and a razor-sharp shockwave.

Grimstone appeared in the stands screaming for the guards as the last portcullis in the arena opened and allowed a large number of dark iron guards and a few fire elementals to file into the arena. Bella, Jaqueline and Varian lined up side by side with their weapons ready. Bella switched to a more protective stance to take enemy aggression while Jaqueline and Varian took on more aggressive stances with a sword in each hand.

Bella ran in and sanctified the ground around her, causing the Light to burn the skin of the dwarves who endured the burn to attack the paladin. Jaqueline and Varian charged forward and cut through the first line of guards with their blades. Both were skilled fighters in their own right and while Varian’s weapon slashes were heavier than Jaqueline’s, the female overpowered her enemies with strong kicks which unbalanced them and allowed her to capitalize on that to cut down many dwarves.

Everyone in the stands were stunned by the display. Sophia and Stella easily dispatched the monsters and violent prisoners by themselves while between the paladin and two warriors, the guards were practically walking into a meat grinder with how efficiently they were slaying the guards. Their strikes damaged and shattered the elementals’ bracers, destabilizing and banishing them back to the Firelands from whence they came.

It wasn’t long before the only living people left in the arena were Varian and the four invaders. High Justice Grimstone didn’t like what he was seeing but since he had nothing left to send at them, he made a hasty retreat by teleporting away in a fiery flash.

When no more guards entered the arena, the group proceeded up the ramp that the guards came down from and entered a rest area with chairs and tables with mugs of beer that would sadly go to waste. Large kegs of ale were lined against the back wall. The place was now completely empty thanks to their prior actions. Feeling safe for the time being, the five decided to explain things to Varian so they each took a seat in one of the numerous chairs in the area.

Varian took a deep breath to calm his nerves which took a couple of minutes due to his life as a gladiator leaving him on edge. “First, allow me to thank you for getting me out of that situation. Even I was uncertain that I would get out of that without my former teammates by my side.” Another breath, “But tell me, why are you four here? I wasn’t sure Stormwind had sent any parties to come rescue me.”

“Ah hate to break it to ya, Yer Majesty, but we had no idea you were here,” Jaqueline answered. “All we knew was that ya went missin’ and nobody knew yer whereabouts.”

“I am afraid she is right, Your Majesty,” Bella said. “We actually came here originally to find Marshal Windsor and we found him. He tasked us with finding his notes on the Blackrock menace and a pair of tablets which are in the hands of a pair of Dark Iron generals in the west garrison.”

“Any idea what these notes entail?” Varian asked. “If they were only about the orcs then that wouldn’t be any significant loss. There would have to be something more important on them.”

“Windsor claims that they contain proof of Lady Katrana Prestor’s treachery against Stormwind,” Stella said.

“So that’s what’s going on…” Varian had a thoughtful expression on his face. “I already know that Prestor isn’t who she claims to be. I briefly saw her true form.” His thoughtful expression then turned to great concern as a growing fury burned inside him. “How is my son? Has she harmed him?”

“He seemed to be alright for the time being, though Bolvar is with him, he is most likely under her control through a spell. Prince Anduin may likely be aware that he is being used as a hostage.”

“I need to go back to Stormwind to put an end to this madness,” Varian declared.

Before the king got up from his chair, Sophia placed a hand on his shoulder. “With all due respect, Your Majesty, that would be a bad idea. If Prestor finds out that you’re in the city, she will keep Prince Anduin close and leave him in harm’s way when you confront her. I have a plan to confront her on our terms. If you can be patient with us, we can keep Anduin from being harmed.”

Varian was silent for a few moments as he considered Sophia’s proposal. “Are you certain that Anduin won’t be harmed?”

A confident smirk graced the templar’s face, even if nobody could see it through her mask. “Prestor is arrogant when she believes that her plans are still on track, typical of her kind. With you and Marshal Windsor, I believe that this plan will work.”

“Very well, what would you ask of me?”

“We have a few things to do in this city before we execute the plan. We need to go into the west garrison to get Windsor’s notes. We also need to find a way to get into the west garrison. After that, we need to pay a visit to Emperor Thaurissan since he appears to have captured Princess Moira Bronzebeard and we need to rescue her. We would appreciate the help.”

“I see, I had no idea that a member of the royal family of one of our closest allies was being held hostage here. We may be her only chance of rescue. Let’s move out!” Everyone nodded in agreement to Varian’s declaration and rose from their chairs.

The group explored the garrison for any clues on how to connect the east and west garrison. They soon came across a giant mechanism that looked like a massive gear with an anvil emblem on it. The gear appeared to be held in place by a large locking mechanism in the form of a raised stone bar. They examined the locking mechanism and saw what appeared to be a small uniquely-shaped keyhole.

“Ah think this is where we use that key that Franclorn Forgewright fella talked about,” Jaqueline guessed.

“I think you’re right,” Stella agreed. Now was the matter of finding out where the architect who was wielding a legendary hammer was along with the statue that Jaqueline described.

Stella found a rolled up map of the city on one of the tables. She unrolled it and examined it. She located the detention block and the ring of law. Tracing her finger on the parchment from where the arena was, she figured that they were in the east garrison. It wasn’t hard to figure that the door next to the one they came in from led to the arena stands. She traced her finger across the arena again and noticed a doorway on the other side. From there, a path to the right led to a dead end, which might be where the shrine that Jaqueline mentioned was located.

The left path from the arena stands appeared to lead through a dormitory into the center of the city where the city bank was located. That didn’t interest her. Beyond that was a crafting hall where she suspected the dark iron dwarves chiseled the constructs that they were famous for building.

She wasn’t sure where to find Fineous Darkvire, the architect with the hammer they were looking for, but she figured that the crafting hall would be a good place to look.

With a new lead, Stella led the group into the arena stands which had cleared out since the earlier battle. She led them around the ring to the door on the far side of the arena.

From that point, the battles resumed. Once again, they had to deal with dark iron guards, hounds, cultists and fire elementals. Between the warriors’ brutal attacks, Bella’s skills with the Light and Stella’s magic, the enemies were easily brought down. They cleared the way to the shrine that Forgewright’s ghost mentioned and dealt with a tauren pyromancer who was a little tougher than the average cultist, but not that much.

Stella then led the group toward the dormitory which was past a long stone bridge guarded by four fire elementals, two on each end. Stella blasted one pair with frost magic which banished them back to their realm.

As the group reached the middle of the bridge, a pair of dark iron guards thought they could ambush them from both ends of the bridge where they appeared via a fiery teleport spell. Sophia appeared behind one guard and roundhouse kicked him in the head and over the edge of the bridge while Stella put the other to sleep and made him sleepwalk over the edge. She then dealt with the second pair of fire elementals and everyone moved forward.

Once they entered the dormitory, they had to deal with more guards who appeared as if they were on break as well as a few fire elementals. The hounds in the building were of a stronger, more ferocious breed which made overpowering them a little more difficult for the warriors. There also appeared to be dwarves in civilian clothing, but they still tried to cast fireballs or shoot at the group with their guns so they were still fair game. The close quarters fighting, however, gave Bella a small advantage in that she could sanctify a large part of the stone floor and have the Light burn the ashen flesh of most of the enemies in the building. Stella unleashed an icy bombardment to deal with the fire elementals.

Once the dormitory was cleared out, the group explored the small building to find it a typical dwelling for any dwarf. There were a few large kegs of ale by one wall, a few tables loaded with bottles of varying sizes and a couple of murals on the wall: one being a dwarf mining and the other a fire elemental. A couple of bookshelves decorated one wall. In a separate room were a few gun racks filled with dwarven blunderbusses. A couple of other rooms were bedrooms with some dwarf’s personal effects.

After going down a small staircase, the group exited out the back of the building and entered what appeared to be a circular area that appeared to serve as the center of the city. The area was split into two halves with what appeared to be a couple of lowered bridges that served to connect the two halves. However, with no obvious way of raising the bridges, they would have to find another way to get to the other side at some point. Below where they were was a platform that held a giant black anvil that was being guarded by a rather large fire elemental.

The half of the center they were walking into had a few groups of dwarves and cultists who were discussing something only to be interrupted by the intruders. The dwarven soldiers, cultists and civilians who the group suspected had been converted into cultists attacked the group in vain. Between Varian’s and Jaqueline’s skills, Stella’s magic, Bella’s Light attacks and Sophia making sure the enemy doesn’t try anything sneaky, the enemies were becoming less of a challenge to the group. Another group came out of an open building but were dealt with all the same.

They moved forward, taking a brief glance into the open building to find that it appeared to be a bank. This didn’t interest them so they moved toward the other side of the city center. Where another open doorway was.

They soon entered another roughly carved passage. The first thing they saw were a few humanoid stone constructs that appeared inanimate. The Dark Irons were famous for their sorcery and stone constructs. This was probably the place where the constructs were crafted. Up ahead, they spotted a few groups of dwarven craftsmen who were being protected by a few active constructs.

“I’m going to scout ahead, wait here,” Sophia ordered.

Sophia concealed herself with her Shadow Walk ability to scout ahead. The cavern was on a downward slope that looped back to the central area, most likely toward the anvil platform and the large fire elemental. One of the constructs was patrolling up and down the cavern.

Sophia’s attention then fixed on one particular dwarf with black hair and wearing a fancy black suit and a monocle. He was also carrying what appeared to be a well crafted ornate white stone hammer. A peek into his mind revealed the dwarf to be Fineous Darkvire, which meant that the hammer he was carrying was Ironfel.

On a whim, she decided to peek further into the dwarf’s mind to see what designs ran through his mind. It didn’t take long for her to discover that the architect was a complete fraud who presented Franclorn Forgewright’s ideas as his own to the emperor. Even worse was that he wasn’t the one who had the idea to take credit for the true architect’s ideas but rather his daughter was the one who stole the plans. He was covering for her.

Since she needed a place to lure the “architect”, she proceeded into the lower part of the central area. She then threw stealth out the window and revealed herself to the fire elementals guarding the area. With nobody of consequence watching her, Sophia changed her weapons to her energy blades and slashed through the bracers of the elementals, banishing them. She then turned her attention to the large elemental near the black anvil.

She decided to quickly and quietly deal with the elemental. The group was still just outside the city center and any noise might send them back and look below.

The elemental wouldn’t go down quietly though as he unleashed fire all over the platform and forced the templar to back away. “You face one of the greatest servants of Ragnaros, insect! I am Lord Incendius!”

Of course, as he declared that, one of his bracers was sliced in half. The elemental looked at his arm in shock then back at the templar in rage. Only, she wasn’t where she was. Incendius looked around the platform for his prey but failed to locate her before she sliced off his other bracer, banishing him back to the elemental plane of fire.

“Why are so many enemies so overconfident and blinded by their arrogance?” Sophia muttered to herself. With a shrug, she put her plan into action.

She returned to the cavern and spotted her target approaching her end of the cavern. She placed a psychic compulsion on the false architect to come to the anvil platform. The dwarf couldn’t resist the compulsion and obeyed it. By the time the compulsion wore off he was on the platform with the bunny templar before him. “What’s this then? Yer not taking me without a fight!”

“Actually, I’m here to relieve you of your hammer,” Sophia said, a false smile of innocence gracing her face. “We can resolve this peacefully or I can get underhanded.”

“You’ll have to pry it from me cold dead hands,” Fineous said coldly.

“Really? Surely you wouldn’t want your family name to be completely sullied upon your passing, would you?”

The dwarf raised an eyebrow in confusion. “What’re ya talking about?”

“I know your daughter is the one who stole the plans of Franclorn Forgewright and planned to steal his credit.”

Fineous’ eyes widened and he took a step back from the templar. “I-I have no idea what you’re talking about. You’re planning to sully my daughter’s good name?”

“All it would take is an investigation into the matter. It shouldn’t be too hard to compare the style of your ‘plans’ to the stylings of Forgewright to make the emperor suspect plagiarism. If he finds out, I’d say your family name will be tarnished for many generations to come.”

Fineous thought desperately for a way out of the situation. He thought about killing the person before him. However, Sophia read that thought and leapt all the way up to the upper level of the city which was about a thirty foot jump. He watched her perform the stunt with ease. There was no way he was going to be able to shut her up without giving in to her demands.

Signing in resignation, Fineous tossed the hammer to the base of the anvil where the templar quickly jumped down and picked it up. Her deviously innocent smile never left her face. “There, ye got what ye wanted. Just don’t tell His Majesty.”

Sophia casually walked past the architect while twirling the hammer in her fingers. Before she went back into the cavern, she paused and turned her head to glance back at the dwarf. “I suggest you resign from that position before someone finds out the truth for themselves. Preserve what little dignity you have and all that.” With that, she blended into the shadows to quietly return to her allies.

Darkvire fell to his knees, stunned in disbelief that someone found out about his daughter’s scheme. He could only pray that his blackmailer was merciful.

Sophia returned to the group with the hammer in hand. She casually walked past the others and headed back in the direction they came from.

“Wait, what’s that hammer you got there?” Jaqueline asked.

“It’s Ironfel, the architect was so nice to give it to me so I spared his life,” Sophia answered.

Stella suspected that there was a lot that she was leaving out, but she didn’t care enough for the Dark Iron dwarves to really care how she got the hammer so she let the matter lie.

The group backtracked through the dormitory, across the bridge and returned to the shrine that the ghost of Forgewright mentioned. Sophia inserted the handle of the hammer into a slot in the statue’s closed hand. Once the hammer was in place, the statue glowed for a moment and the hammer was transmuted into the same material as the statue. At the base of the statue a small compartment opened and within that compartment was a black key. Sophia collected the key and the group backtracked some more to the east garrison. There, they returned to the lock holding a large gear in place.

Sophia inserted the key into the lock and turned it. As she removed the key, the stone block holding the gear began to shift and grind a little against the metal gear before it fell onto the base, releasing the gear.

As the gear spun, the rattling of chains was heard. Looking through the window, the group observed a massive pair of doors closing.

Once the gear stopped spinning, the gate was completely closed. With hope that the action did what they wanted it to do, they proceeded into a hallway in the garrison which led to a small metal tunnel.

Upon reaching the other end of the tunnel, they emerged into another narrow corridor where they encountered better armored dwarves and two larger fire elementals. The elementals were not as large as Lord Incendius, but were still more powerful than the usual ones. Some dwarves wore red chainmail armor and carried battle axes and blunderbusses. They preferred to shoot from a distance if they could. Others wore gray armor and carried stone warhammers. Making the new soldiers more irritating was the fact that the gray-armored ones were paladins as they used the power of the Light to protect their allies.

The paladins charged their hammers with Light while Bella did the same with her hammer. The fire elementals bombarded the group with balls of fire which forced Stella and Bella to put up shields to protect everyone. Bella gave the mage a look to which Stella silently acknowledged before she dropped the shield and showered the dwarves and elementals in the hallway in shards of ice.

Stella unleashed more ice magic from waves of cold air to freezing all enemies ahead of her but the elementals took the hits and melted the ice quickly. Varian blocked a strike from one of the paladins and slashed through his armor, dealing him a mortal wound. The paladin attempted to use the Light to heal himself but Jaqueline saw the attempt and ran toward him where she kicked him in the jaw.

With so many dwarves in the narrow corridor, the elementals became impatient and began indiscriminately unleashing their fire around them. Bella unleashed an aura of protection that gave the group some resistance to the elementals’ fire attacks. Most of the dwarves were incinerated in the attack.

While Varian, Jaqueline and Stella took some burns from the attack the pain was much more bearable thanks to the aura. Bella proceeded to heal the group of their burns while Varian and Jaqueline finished off the dwarves whose numbers were now more manageable thanks to the elementals’ mistakes.

With more room to work with, Stella conjured a water elemental through her ice magic ahead of the warriors and had it engage the two fire elementals. She knew it wouldn’t be enough but it would buy her some time for her to conjure a lot more ice and condense it into an arctic blue sphere. In the time it took the elementals to evaporate the water elemental, Stella released the ball of frost. Surprisingly, the ball was slowly drifting toward the elementals. At that time Stella warned everyone to retreat to the other end of the tunnel. The others were unsure why she suggested that but obeyed to be safe.

The elementals moved to pursue the intruders and one of them tried to slap away the sphere. This action proved their undoing as the sphere exploded in a huge icy blast that coated the entire corridor and half the tunnel in ice. The blast proved too much for the elementals’ bodies to handle and dissipated.

Once the blast went off, the group cautiously returned to the corridor and advanced into what appeared to be another break room like the one in the east garrison. This further confirmed that they had now entered the west garrison which meant that the dark iron generals may be nearby.

From where they entered, they spotted a staircase which led into a pit area where they saw a dwarf with a red beard in a double braid. He wore a black and light blue chestplate and legplates. He also wore bright red shoulderplates, and navy blue gauntlets and sabatons with a red flame design. His belt was of a similar design with a red skull on the buckle. He also carried a double-bladed battle ax that had a motif of embers on a black background. He was also surrounded by several soldiers.

“You probably already know this but that is General Angerforge,” Thanatas said through the link. “There’s not much to know about this guy. He commands troops and fights like a veteran warrior but that’s it. I also heard that he wrote a critical treatise that infuriated Emperor Thaurissan.”

Upon closer inspection, they noticed that the dwarf was examining a stone tablet while holding on to a folder. Sophia figured that the folder was part of Windsor’s notes and the tablet was likely what they were looking for.

There was the possibility that the general might call in more troops if he was threatened and everyone was still recovering from the intense battle against the dark iron officers. After thinking about how to approach the situation, Sophia decided to try something clever.

“Hey Stella,” Sophia whispered. “See if you can flood the pit with your sleep cloud. I’ll move in and get the notes.”

“Won’t you get affected too?” Stella whispered back.

“Not if I hold my breath.”

Stella nodded with some uncertainty but went along with the templar’s plan. She channeled a large cloud of green mist into the pit area and the general and his subordinates were completely unaware.

General Angerforge started feeling sleepy which he figured was because of the boring work he was doing at the moment. He was completely oblivious to what was happening as he slipped into unconsciousness.

Sophia took a deep breath and held it before leaping over the staircase into the pit and swiping the tablet and folder before returning to the group.

“One down,” Sophia quietly cheered. “Now to find Argelmach.”

The group didn’t have to look far as they moved toward the next room beyond the garrison. It turned out to be a small construct assembly plant where a large number of gnomish technicians and dwarven mages assembled and powered their constructs. The hallway separated two large rooms that were both dedicated to the same tasks. Large hooks hung from the ceiling and some held golem parts. Tools and toolboxes were strewn all over the floor and a few chemistry lab tables could be seen.

Standing at the far end of the hallway beside a number of constructs, all but two of them unpowered, was a dark iron dwarf in a full set of brown and yellow leather armor and wielding a dagger. He appeared to be overseeing operations. It wasn’t hard to tell that this would be Golem Lord Argelmach. They could barely see from a distance that he was also looking at a tablet with a folder on hand.

“This is a dwarf who does not die easily,” Thanatas said. “Argelmach was actually killed ten years ago but apparently he found a way to transfer his soul to his constructs in the event of his death. It seems to be a similar method to how the Equestrian Liberation Front have been maintaining their ‘immortality’. It doesn’t seem like he will stay down unless you find out where he keeps his stash of spares.”

“Well in the least I can destroy this one and take the notes long before the next one is prepared and sent here,” Sophia offered.

“We’re gonna have a real fight on our hands if we start a ruckus in there,” Jaqueline warned.

“Perhaps Stella might be able to put them to sleep like with the last general?” Bella offered.

Stella shook her head, “The enemies are too spread out and there’s too much ground to cover in there for the cloud to be effective.”

“I would prefer to resolve this with as little bloodshed as possible,” Varian said. “These technicians are only doing their jobs and we are not at war with the Dark Iron Clan so I would prefer a solution that does not risk us going to war with them.”

Sophia sighed as she had a solution but it would require her revealing more of her secrets. “I have a plan. Hide around the corner and I’ll lure Argelmach here.” She moved back to the staircase and into the pit that was now cleared of the mist. She stood next to General Angerforge who was still in a deep sleep. She peered into his memories and gained a fair enough idea on the dwarf’s personality profile before returning upstairs.

To her friends’ surprise, they witnessed Sophia shrinking to a dwarf’s size before her skin darkened to an ashen gray and her features became masculine with a long red beard growing from her face. Her equipment also transformed into an exact duplicate of the general’s gear, right down to the battle ax. Soon she was an exact copy of General Angerforge.

“Varian, be ready tae end Argelmach with one strike,” she said in a voice of that of a male dwarf, right down to the accent. Varian was confused about what just happened but shook his head as he regained his focus and nodded with grim determination.

“Angerforge” strolled into the manufactory like a dwarf on business. The gnomish technicians and dwarven arcanosmiths stared at the general for a brief moment before continuing with their business. The “general” reached the end of the hall where Argelmach stood with two active constructs. Sensing his presence, Argelmach stopped staring at the notes and glanced at the general.

“What do ye want, Angerforge? I just finished decoding my half of these notes and goin’ over what I just learned.”

“Then we can compare notes, then. Come with me tae the garrison so we can go over them.”

Argelmach raised a clay eyebrow, one of many features of his new artificial body that he had to get used to after his prior death. “An’ why did ye not bring yer half of the notes here so we could go over them?”

“Because I don’t trust those gnomes ye keep company with. I’m not trustin’ those little blabbermouths tae keep quiet about what we learned here. No tellin’ if one a’ them might be a spy from Ironforge.”

Argelmach thought about the possibility and while he didn’t believe that any of his technicians were working for the enemy, he didn’t get where he was today by being trusting. “Alright, let’s go.”

As they returned down the hallway, “Angerforge” noticed the constructs were following behind their master. He figured that the golem lord didn’t want to be away from his escort. He had to do something about that.

“Jus’ one moment Argelmach, I’d like tae take a moment to admire yer craftsmanship. I can never get over how impressive these things are. If we had enough of these centuries ago, we’d have conquered Ironforge and Grim Batol.” He began rubbing his hands on the two golem escorts for a few moments before he resumed walking back to the garrison. Argelmach was beginning to feel suspicious of the dwarf’s behavior and decided to ask him about that once they reached the garrison.

Within moments, the two dwarves exited the hallway and entered the garrison. The moment Argelmach entered, the last thing he saw before his world went black was the edge of a sword flying for his face.

The constructs began to react to the aggression but their actions were overridden the moment “Angerforge’s” eyes glowed blue. Within moments, the constructs twitched repeatedly as some sort of organic growth began wrapping itself around the golems, taking control of their systems. Once the twitching stopped, the golems returned to the manufactory.

A few moments later, the panicked screams of gnomes and dwarves were heard as the golems went on a rampage throughout the facility. The group decided to ignore that and paid attention to the tablet and folder that the headless golem lord dropped. Varian picked up the notes. “I think that’s everything. Let’s get back to Windsor.

Everyone nodded in agreement and backtracked to the detention block.

Once the group reached the detention block through a door in the east garrison that had to be unlocked with the black key, they found Marshal Windsor in the central chamber fully equipped in his old armor and a sword in hand. The marshal heard the approaching footsteps and turned to face the group.

“Did you get the–Y-Your Majesty!” Windsor nearly shouted in shock. “What are you doing down here?”

Varian smirked as he walked up to Windsor. “Glad to see you’re still doing well Reginald, my old friend.” The two gripped each other’s hands in fellowship. “These champions found me in the arena and helped me out. They also told me that they have a plan to deal with Prestor while ensuring that my son is out of danger. Perhaps they can enlighten us about our roles in this?”

Sophia had everyone gather into a huddle where she informed everyone of the plan. It was a sound one though the chance of damage to the keep was high. As long as Anduin was safe, Varian would go along with it.

Once the huddle ended, Varian moved beside Windsor while the others stood in their own group. “Alright, we’ll head to Stormwind and begin our preparations,” Varian offered. “The rest of you will head for the throne room and rescue Princess Moira Bronzebeard. When you’re through, meet us at Stormwind.” With that, Varian and Reginald Windsor headed to the entrance of the city.

Once the two left, Jaqueline turned to the mage who had the map. “So how do we get ta the throne room?”

Stella took out her map and examined it. She spotted the throne room but it would be a long walk there. She traced her finger along a possible route until she came to a familiar location. “Looks like we need to go through Argelmach’s manufactory and head into a place called the ‘Grim Guzzler’. I think that’s a tavern. It will lead us back to the center of the city where we couldn’t access before. From there we head into a place marked the Chamber of Enchantment followed by the Mold Foundry. Beyond that is the Summoners’ Tomb where the patriarchs of the Dark Iron nation are entombed. From there we enter the Lyceum where the citizens hear speeches from the senators or the emperor himself. Once we get past that and the Iron Hall, we will be in the throne room.”

“Well, looks like we have a long walk ahead of us,” Sophia said. “Let’s get moving.”

Author's Note

Getting this chapter out took longer than I wanted but with my attention on Dragonflight, my writing has been slowed.

Anyway, give a round of applause for our special guest, King Varian Wrynn. Finding him in Blackrock Depths is one of my major deviations from canon.

What's on those tablets that seems so important to Windsor? You will find out in a couple of chapters.

Next time: The quest to rescue the princess...maybe...!

In the Hall of the Dark Iron, Part 3

With Marshal Reginald Windsor and King Varian Wrynn on their way out of the city, the group of Stella, Bella, Jaqueline and Sophia began the long trek back to the manufactory to continue their journey through the depths of Blackrock Mountain to meet with Emperor Dagran Thaurissan to convince him to return Princess Moira Bronzebeard.

Bella gave a quick prayer to the Light to grant mercy to the poor souls who got between King Wrynn and his son.

After fifteen minutes, the group had returned to the west garrison and prepared to enter the manufactory.

While the workshop was in a chaotic mess during their first visit, the whole place was trashed this time. Lab tables were smashed, a few gnome and dwarf bodies lay on the floor, damaged golem parts littered the floor as well as a few of the formerly hanging hooks. However, it appeared that the majority of the workers had evacuated the place. The inactive remains of the golems that Sophia had controlled through a specialized parasite were found in pieces across the left and right rooms. Any evidence of Sophia’s tampering had died and crumbled to dust.

“Dang, ah don’t know how those things went outta control like that, but they sure made a mess,” Jaqueline commented. Sophia wasn’t about to tell the others about what really happened. No need for the others to see her as she really was, not yet anyway.

“The right room should have an exit that should be our path to the Grim Guzzler,” Stella informed.

The group carefully navigated around the disaster area and quickly spotted the exit. Looking outside the room, they spotted a bridge that was guarded by four large fire elementals; two at each end.

Knowing how strong the elementals they fought in the west garrison were, they needed something to help them deal with their intense fire attacks.

Stella attempted to assemble some nearby damaged golem parts together into a functional golem. The work was shoddy without knowledge of dark iron sorcery but she would have to make do.

She sent the rickety golem against the elementals while Bella and Jaqueline ran in behind it. The paladin caused swords of light to burst from the ground beneath the front two elementals which damaged their forms. Jaqueline dared not slashing her sword too much against the fiery beings unless she wanted to risk heating up her sword and causing it to bend. The warrior made a note to ask Stella later to enchant her weapons and armor to increase their heat tolerance.

Stella channeled more ice magic in an attempt to cool off one of the elementals. It took a fair amount of magic to produce enough ice and at least two minutes. The melee group bought her enough time to unleash a sphere of ice which crashed into the elemental and banished it. Unfortunately, the ice was nearly completely melted from striking one elemental and hardly did anything to another.

With three powerful fire elementals still fighting the group, Sophia didn’t like their odds at this point so in order to even things out, and keep the more observant members of the group from becoming suspicious of her inaction, she quickly moved in and sliced through the bracers of two of the elementals, banishing them and leaving them with one left.

In a vengeful rage, the last elemental unleashed a wave of intense heat that forced Bella and Jaqueline to take cover behind the makeshift golem which crumbled to pieces. The last vestiges of its attack flew past the golem and struck Stella’s robes.

The mage blocked the attack with her right arm which saved her face but caused the sleeve of her robes to catch fire. In a panic, she patted down the flames and blew on it in desperation.

That was when the strangest thing happened.

When Stella blew on her robes, a blast of frost emerged from her mouth and put out the flames while placing an icy glaze on her slightly singed sleeve. She yelped in surprise and stumbled backward as she had no idea how she did that nor how it was possible for her to do that.

Sophia was the only one who had a look of concern for the high elf mage as the others were too busy with the fire elemental and guessed that a frost spell backfired.

“Midnight, what is going on with Stellaglim?” Sophia inquired.

“Hang on…huh?” Midnight’s confused tone left the templar more than a little concerned. “That’s strange, I just examined her magical signature, but it doesn’t match a high elf or blood elf at all. It’s draconic, but at the same time it’s more chaotic than most dragons.”

“That might explain the frost breath, but how come this surprised her? Aren’t all dragons supposed to remember they have a breath ability?”

“She’s either suffering from a case of amnesia or she was raised on the belief that she was a high elf from birth. There might be other theories, but now isn’t the time to examine her origins.”

“Right, we can look into that later,” Sophia agreed. Since this matter had the possibility of throwing the group synergy off balance, she quickly ended the last elemental herself.

Once the battle was over, Bella and Jaqueline ran back to the mage to check on her. “Darling, are you alright? Did one of your frost spells backfire?”

“I…I don’t think so. All I was trying to do was put out a fire on my robe and when I tried to blow on it, frost came out.” Stella was still shaken up about what happened but Sophia had to remind them of their mission.

“We can look into this new development later. We’re not safe here. The sooner we get to the emperor, the sooner we can go help King Wrynn.”

As much as the two wanted to rebuke the templar for her callousness, they knew she had a point. The three stood back up and continued their journey.

Across the bridge, the group entered a building that Stella had called the “Grim Guzzler” earlier. Just as the mage guessed, it was a tavern teeming with dwarves who were so inebriated that they couldn’t tell that four intruders had entered the tavern.

The tavern was vibrant with patrons. Jaqueline thought she saw a goblin among them alongside two trolls and a tauren. To their left was what appeared to be a storeroom for beer kegs. When the group moved up the stairs they spotted several things: a door which they discovered was locked from the inside, a succubus serving drinks to the patrons, a golem who looked like it was programmed to be a bouncer, a green-skinned gnome was acting as a bartender and a smaller storeroom was at the end occupied by a dark iron dwarf who was keeping an eye on the scene and appeared to be the only dwarf in the place who wasn’t drunk.

The dwarf in question beckoned the group over to him. The others stared at the dwarf for a moment before Sophia shrugged and walked over to him. The others followed.

Once they were in the storeroom with him, the dwarf addressed them in a low voice. “Ye four are lookin’ ta get past the tavern, aren’t ye?”

Everyone nodded in affirmation while Stella responded, “You’re the first dark iron dwarf we’ve seen that hasn’t tried to kill us.”

“Not all dark irons are tainted by the cultists lass, I’m a member of the Thorium Brotherhood. We’re a group of dark irons who want nothin’ ta do with the Twilight’s Hammer an’ we make sure our wayward brethren dun cause too much trouble while offerin’ our blacksmithin’ services ta those who can afford em’.

“So how do we get through here without causing too much trouble?” Stella asked.

“Several ways lass, Plugger the bartender holds the key ta the backdoor. Ye can pick his pocket fer the key or ye can just take it from his cold dead hands. If ye wanna set him off, ye can steal his wares from the table. Either way, the patrons won’ like that one bit an’ ye’ll have yerself a barfight on yer hands. If ye start killin’ patrons, security is gonna come knockin’ an’ ye’ll have ta deal with them ta get out. Yet another way ta get out is ta get Private Rocknot over there…” He pointed to the dwarf in question. “...so drunk on Dark Iron Ale that he’ll go into a drunken frenzy and start smashin’ kegs lookin’ fer more ale. The one at the end looks ready to burst and it’s in the perfect position to smash the door open. Phalanx, tha golem over there…” He pointed to the golem. “...won’ like seein’ the door smashed so it’ll start guardian’ the door an’ ye’ll have ta fight it.”

“I think I have a better idea that keeps the heat off of us,” Sophia declared. She looked at the dwarf, “Do you have a piece of paper and something to write with?” Confused, the dwarf handed her what she wanted. She then wrote a message on the paper and handed the dwarf his writing quill back. “The rest of you meet me at the door,” she ordered before she turned invisible with her Shadow Walk.

Stella, Bella and Jaqueline obeyed the templar’s order.. A moment later, Sophia appeared next to them, putting a key into the lock and turning it. With a soft click, the door opened and the three of them filed out of the building.

Putting the next phase of her plan into action, Sophia stealthily rushed down the stairs and rolled up the key into the note she wrote and dropped it at the feet of the goblin at the lower level of the tavern. Confused, the goblin picked it up and found the key. He then unrolled the note. “What is this? ‘If you are reading this then I am dead. Please deliver my head to Yuka Screwspigot at Flame Crest for a reward.’”

As the goblin was trying to figure out what the letter meant and why it mentioned his sister, the gnome upstairs, Plugger, screamed in fury. “My pockets were picked! No more beer for anyone until this mess is sorted out!”

As Sophia slipped out the door, she altered her voice to that of a female dwarf before she yelled, “Everyone, tha goblin stole Plugger’s key! Get him!”

Upon hearing that, the goblin’s pupils shrank as he realized how screwed he was. “Uh oh!” He barely got a word in before he was blasted by Shadow Bolts and brutally pummeled by a tavern full of angry drunken dwarves.

“Oh my dear cousin, I am so proud of you. That was just pure evil!” Thanatas gushed.

“He did deserve what was coming to him though. I’m sure you already knew about the bounty on his head by Baron Revilgaz of Booty Bay and how much his sisters wanted to cash in on his head.”

“Yeah, but the way you handled that was so devious.”

“I do admit, that was something that I would have seen myself doing once upon a time,” Sarah commented.

Sophia closed the door to the tavern shortly after the sounds of violence erupted from inside. She then walked down the stairs into the central part of the city to find her friends in combat with some elite dwarven soldiers and some hostile civilians. They had no problems dealing with them.

They were now back in the central area of the city with the Black Anvil below where they were a while ago, except this time they were on the other side of the area.

Only one entrance could be accessed from where they were and Stella knew that they were still going the right way. Entering the building, they proceeded down some stairs and into a large chamber. The inside of the room had a grated walkway through which thick smoke rose from. Along the edges of the room were seven metal plates with strange symbols that glowed orange. Midnight quickly informed Sophia that they were flame runes.

Standing in the center of the room was a naga-like creature with orange scales and a serpentine body. Numerous unsteadily straight gray horns extended from the top of his head and along his spine. Numerous spikes grew along the length of his arms with a few more along his tail. Like the female naga, this one had a flat face. Long tendrils ran down from where his cheeks were. He carried a flaming trident with a two-pronged pommel.

“And here we have your first encounter with a flamewaker, a race of fleshbound fire elementals who serve as the upper echelon of Ragnaros’ forces,” Thanatas informed.

The four of them quickly entered the chamber before the flamewaker slithered after the group in a charging motion. Jaqueline met his charge and blocked his trident with her sword. She bashed the flamewaker’s face with her shield, forcing him to back off. Jaqueline wiped the sweat from her brow from the heat she felt from the elemental’s weapon.

The flamewaker chuckled wickedly before he channeled his magic into the seven runes around the room. Each of the seven runes produced a small elemental that moved toward the flamewaker. When one got close, he absorbed the elemental and grew in size a little. Reacting quickly with that new information, Stella quickly bombarded the chamber in ice which destroyed the small elementals.

However, the runes produced more elementals which meant that they needed to kill the flamewaker before he absorbed too many elementals. Bella assisted Jaqueline in rushing the flamewaker while Stella focused on unleashing frost magic on the lesser elementals. However, with the elementals approaching the flamewaker by seven places through the room, some of the elementals were getting to their master and empowering him.

Stella became increasingly frustrated because her frost spells weren’t enough to stop the elementals. Bella was forced to back away and focus on supporting Jaqueline with her spells as the warrior was being struck by heavier attacks over time. The mage wished she could have done better to stop the elementals and in her desperation, tried to replicate that breath thing she did earlier, only instead of frost, sand sprayed from her mouth. While it wasn’t frost like she hoped, the effects were just as good as the bracers of some of the elementals rusted along with three of the runes in the room, disabling them.

Sophia had a feeling that Stella was going to need some time to adjust again so she acted by unleashing powerful bolts of psionic lightning which shattered the remaining four runes and cutting down the last of the elementals, cutting the flamewaker off of his power source. Bella charged her hammer with Light and slammed it into the side of the elemental’s head, stunning him long enough for Jaqueline to cut off his head. Sophia was glad that the other three were too focused on the battle or themselves to notice the lightning.

The fighters put away their weapons and tended to the once again shocked Stellaglim curled up on the floor. “W…What?! I-I thought ice was supposed to come out of my mouth, not sand!” What is happening to me?!”

Sophia took a more gentle approach this time to get the mage to calm down. “Calm down Stella,” she spoke softly. “I think I have an idea about what is happening to you and I have a hunch that we will find the answers on this mountain. Between conjuring flames that cause flowers to bloom, mist that puts people to sleep and a sand breath that causes things to corrode, I have a feeling that you might not actually be an elf. If I’m right, then you are probably able to channel the energies of the five dragonflights.”

“W…Wait, what? The five dragonflights? But…but I’m just a high elf. In order to do that I’d have to be a dragon in disguise. But I don’t remember having a dragon form…” Sophia could sense another panic attack coming from the mage so she used her psionic powers to soothe her mind.

“Which is why we will help you find the answers about yourself. We will start by exploring this mountain. If the Black Dragonflight are here in large numbers then this area must be important to them and we might find something if we look hard enough.”

Stella took a few deep breaths and meditated to calm her mind. After several minutes of this, she got back on her feet, her determination renewed. “Alright, I’m ready to continue.” She stared at Sophia before she added, “But I’m holding you to your word.”

Just past the chamber, the group entered a short tunnel which led into a room with two levels with equipment meant to handle molten metal. One corner of the room appeared to be the source of the lava flowing into the room which flowed underneath the floor of the upper level where the group came in from. Occupying the room were a number of dwarven mages and a few golems which looked red hot. The group guessed that the room was a foundry meant for fortifying golems with metal plating.

Sophia turned to Stella again, “A good step to accepting this new part of you is owning this new part of you. Try thinking of something to calm you down, maybe your state of mind might determine what breath you use. We will probably have to find someone later to help you learn how to use your powers.”

Nodding, Stella took a moment to imagine things that calmed her down. She went with her teaching sessions with her master, Rhonin.

As a heated golem patrolled past the entrance, Stella took a deep breath and released it all at once toward the golem. It came out as a ruby-tinted flame breath which only aggravated it into attacking.

Jaqueline blocked the golem’s punches with her shield, but she was feeling her shield heat up with each punch and its body was heating up her armor. “Ya might wanna try thinkin’ about somethin’ else,” she quipped.

Hastily, Stella tried to think of other things that might get her in the right state of mind. She settled on reading books in her room this time. When she tried breathing on the golem again, Jaqueline was pulled out of the way by Sophia before the mage released a torrent of frost from her mouth. The icy blast struck the molten construct and rapidly chilled the body until its joints froze. Bella used her hammer to smash the joints and caused the golem to fall apart.

Using that breath took a lot out of Stella and her friends noticed that so they decided to not use that ability too much.

Instead, Sophia and Bella would deal with the dwarf mages while Jaqueline handled more heated golems with Stella falling back to her frost magic which still saved the warrior from having her weapon and armor heated as the spells cooled the golems before she froze and hurled icy spears which shattered the unprotected joints.

Soon the group cleared out the foundry and moved down some stairs into what appeared to be a tomb with seven sarcophagi and the ghost of a dwarf before each one. Each one wore a set of scarlet robes. The door on the other side of the tomb was locked so they had to figure out how to open it.

“This is the Summoner’s Tomb, the burial site for the seven sorcerers who helped Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan summon Ragnaros to Azeroth. They also served as the patriarchs of the Dark Iron nation. I think it’s pretty obvious what you will have to do to get through this room.” Thanatas then hummed a dirge over the link.

“Leave this place or challenge us,” one of the dwarves said.

Stella channeled magic into her hands in preparation for a fight. “Who are you?”

“We are The Seven. Ye are not kin to the Dark Iron. If ye wish to pass, ye must challenge us.”

“And what does this challenge entail?” Jaqueline asked.

“One on one. One a’ ye must challenge all seven of us. For each of us that falls, the next one shall attack. Prevail against all seven of us an’ ye may pass.”

“Then ah’ll be the one to challenge you. Bring it on!”

“Jaqueline, what are you doing?” Bella asked.

“Don’t interfere girls, Ah’ve got this.”

At Jaqueline’s declaration, the dwarf who had been speaking called out, “Ye have challenged The Seven, now ye must die! Anger’rel, unleash yer fury!”

From behind them, one of the dwarves moved from his sarcophagus and ran toward Jaqueline. This one carried a sword and shield.

Bella, Stella and Sophia moved to the edge of the room and watched the two warriors fight it out. Both were using a sword and a shield. The sound of metal clashing with metal rang numerous times in the tomb.

Eventually, she managed to move the dwarf’s shield out of the way and left him open to a kick to his face. Anger’rel roared in fury and attacked with more fervor. However, his anger had also dulled his skill and left him with plenty of openings, one of which led to his sword being knocked out of his hands. He placed as much of himself behind his shield in an attempt to protect himself from the taller warrior’s attacks while he retrieved his weapon but in his carelessness, he didn’t notice Jaqueline moving behind him until she stuck her sword through his back.

With that blow, one of The Seven fell. “Seeth’rel, entomb her in ice!” the speaker called out.

This time a female dwarf to the right of the speaker started acting. She placed a protective enchantment on herself which gave her an icy blue aura. She then started casting a bolt of frost at Jaqueline who had her shield ready. When she released the Frostbolt, the warrior thrusted her shield forward which deflected the bolt and caused the spell to bounce back at Seeth’rel.

The dwarf grunted as the bolt struck her. In reaction, she placed another enchantment on herself which enclosed her in an icy blue bubble. “Ye won’t get me with the same trick twice,” she declared.

Jaqueline moved in to close the distance between herself and her target. Seeth’rel smirked when the warrior was within striking distance and quickly trapped the warrior’s feet in ice when she unleashed a wave of frost around her. Jaqueline managed to strike at the dwarf once which was blocked by her staff. The dwarf then ran away to cast more bolts of frost at Jaqueline who deflected them back at the caster. However, the bolts were absorbed by the barrier.

“She’s using a Frost Ward spell which provides her with protection from frost magic,” Stella said. “There’s only so much the shield can take before the enchantment fails.”

Soon, Jaqueline managed to free herself and charged at the mage again. This time she slapped the dwarf in the face with her shield to disrupt her concentration before she ran her sword through her.

Two dwarves down, the speaker called the next one. “Dope’rel, ye know what ta do!”

This time a male dwarf to the speaker’s left acted, drawing a pair of swords. Seeing this, Jaqueline decided to meet him blade for blade by putting her shield on her back and drawing her other sword.

Dope’rel proved to be more nimble than he looked as he struck at the warrior with precision attacks that often got past her guard and gave her a cut to her face while others nicked her armor. He tried to spin his way behind Jaqueline to stab her in the back but she ducked under the strike and kicked backwards, knocking the dwarf off balance with one of his legs knocked out from under him. She then spun around and dealt a powerful horizontal slash that was poorly parried by the dwarf and sent him on his back. Jaqueline quickly capitalized on this and plunged both of her blades into the dwarf’s chest until he stopped moving.

Three down. “Gloom’rel, show her the might of dwarven blacksmithing!”

Suspecting that the speaker was going to attack last, Jaqueline turned her attention to the lower level of the chamber where four of the tombs were, one no longer having a dwarf near it after she defeated Anger’rel. Looking at the lower level, the dwarf to her left pulled out a bastard sword and charged her.

Jaqueline switched back to her sword and shield and clashed blades with the dwarf. Gloom’rel’s attacks were heavy but slow. Her shield was able to block his attacks but they pushed her back a little. A lunge from the warrior overpowered her opponent’s stance and threw him off balance with her on top of him with her shield pressing against his face. She plunged her sword into Gloom’rel’s right arm which was holding his sword and while leaving her weight on the shield, drew her other sword and plunged it into his chest.

With four of The Seven down, Jaqueline sheathed one sword and picked up her other sword and her shield before the speaker called out the next dwarf. “Vile’rel, show her why yer the terror of The Seven!”

Another male dwarf moved away from his tomb. He began by channeling dark magic which made Jaqueline reel as she felt her mind being assaulted. She grunted and shook her head. Vile’rel enclosed himself in a bubble of Light which confirmed that the dwarf was a priest.

With this confirmed, Jaqueline switched to her dual sword stance and delivered numerous slashing attacks which broke through the dwarf’s shield and dealt numerous cuts on his body. Another mental blast stunned Jaqueline long enough for Vile’rel to cast a light spell to heal his wounds.

Using both of her blades to deal a heavy attack, Jaqueline dealt a grievous wound on the ghost’s phantasmal body. He tried to heal the wound but the warrior kicked him in the chin to stop him from channeling magic. She then followed up with thrusting one blade into the dwarf’s throat which silenced him for good.

Once the priest fell, Jaqueline faced the one she knew was coming next, a female dwarf with a battle ax. “Hate’rel, unleash yer wrath!”

Jaqueline and Hate’rel charged at each other. Once again, blades clashed as the two fought for dominance. Despite her weapon, Hate’rel’s attacks with the battle ax were fast, which had Jaqueline on the defensive. The warrior didn’t expect the dwarf to mutter words of channeling as dark energy gathered in her left hand. Jaqueline barely moved out of the way in time for the dwarf to unleash a bolt of shadow magic at her face. Based on what she had seen so far, she figured that Hate’rel was a hybrid fighter and spellcaster.

Hate’rel decided to protect herself with a bubble of shadow magic which protected her from Jaqueline’s attacks for a few moments before the bubble shattered and the warrior spun around to turn her back on the dwarf who was preparing another Shadow Bolt. Hate’rel didn’t realize until too late as she unleashed the Shadow Bolt before the shield on Jaqueline’s back sent the bolt back at her face. Jaqueline took advantage of the resulting stagger to spin around again and horizontally cut the dwarf in two from the waist.

With six of The Seven down, Jaqueline turned her attention to the speaker who enchanted himself with an aura of shadow to protect himself as he prepared for battle. “Now ye face Doom’rel, leader of The Seven!”

Doom’rel demonstrated his skills as a warlock by summoning a trio of voidwalkers to attack the warrior while he stood back and attacked from a distance.

Facing three foes at once, Jaqueline attacked wide, striking each void demon with each slash. She made sure to avoid the punches and clawing attacks from the void minions. She soon realized that the voidwalkers shared the same weakness as fire elementals and began slashing at the bracers on the minions’ arms. As she did that, she felt intense pain as her body ignited as a result of Doom’rel’s spell. Acting quickly, she destroyed the bracers of the void minions and banished them before she rushed for the warlock.

Jaqueline found that her attacks were not as effective as they could be. She wondered about this until Stella warned her that the warlock placed a curse on her that weakened her strength. However, without his minions, Doom’rel was not as threatening as he could have been. The warrior’s attacks left cuts all over the dwarf’s phantasmal body which caused energy to leak out of his body. He did his best to block more of her attacks with his staff and tried to channel dark magic to get the warrior to back off but Jaqueline punched him in the face to prevent that before she cut his head off.

With the last dwarf finished, Jaqueline collapsed in exhaustion. Bella moved over to her and used the Light to heal her injuries. They took a break and ate some of their food they brought with them, some of which Sophia pilfered from the Grim Guzzler while the gnome wasn’t looking.

“That was quite the impressive feat, Jaqueline.” Bella complimented. “The Wildhammer Clan has taught you well.”

“Thank ya kindly Bella,” Jaqueline responded between breaths. “Them dwarves really gave me a workout.”

After about ten minutes of resting, the group was ready to move forward. With The Seven defeated, they proceeded past the formerly locked door and into a hallway that went in two directions. One led to a door, which Stella told them would lead to the Lyceum. The other was a bridge that was guarded by six large fire elementals. For such heavy security, they felt as if there had to be something important beyond it.

“What does the map say about that path?” Bella asked.

Stella pulled out her map and ran her finger along it. She raised an eyebrow in confusion. “It looks like the map doesn’t show what’s beyond the bridge. It says that the area is where something called the Black Forge is located. I read a little on Dark Iron lore in Dalaran. Apparently, that forge is the only one in the world that can produce enough heat needed to refine a mineral called dark iron. This mountain is also the only place on Azeroth where deposits of this mineral are located.”

Sophia briefly scouted ahead and found the forge in particular on a grated path off to the side from the bridge. Lava continuously flowed around it. “That still doesn’t answer what’s on the other side of the bridge.”

Stella sensed something familiar nearby but was too distracted by the map to realize it. Once she put the map away, she focused on what she was looking for. In moments, her eyes widened in realization. “Wait, I think I’m sensing a rift on the other side of the bridge. It might be the destination point.”

“If that is true, then if the elf from before was right, then that way leads to the lair of the Firelord,” Bella concluded.

“We might have to venture there at some point. Hold on for a moment.” Stella suddenly disappeared in a bright and loud flash of light. Sophia looked past the bridge to find the mage looking around. Thankfully, the fire elementals weren’t paying attention to what was going on behind them. After a few moments, Stella found something on the ground and picked it up. In another flash she reappeared behind her teammates.”

“What did you find?” Bella asked.

Stella pulled out what appeared to be a gemstone from her pockets and showed it to everyone. “I think this might work to attune us to the rift.”

Bella’s jeweler nature made itself known to everyone as she stared at the gem in the mage’s hand. Everyone could tell that the paladin had stars in her eyes. “May I see that for a moment? I want to examine it.”

Uncertain to the reason behind Bella’s sudden bout of passion toward the gem, Stella still handed it to Bella.

The paladin quickly snatched it from her hand and examined it in detail. Her expertise in jewels and eye for detail helped her to understand that the gem was flawless. Not a single crack or misplaced cut anywhere. She then decided to use her ability to witness visions through gemstones to see if any truths could be uncovered.

As she peered into the gem, her eyes turned completely white. Soon, the paladin’s mind was filled with images.

A lava-filled cavern like the ones they had been traveling through.

Fire elementals and earth elementals made of volcanic rock.

Giants made of volcanic rock and magma.

Giant two-headed beasts with molten skin with spiked iron collars with chains dangling from them.

Flamewakers of different scale colors roaming around.

Metal plates with glowing runes.

The last vision was of a colossal fire elemental with a lower body like a magma tornado and an upper body with numerous binding rings on his arms and around his neck. His shoulder armor and head armor were designed to look like flames. His head looked like a flaming skull made of molten rock. In his hand was an ornate orange and dark brown spiked hammer.

From the vision alone, Bella could feel how powerful the elemental was and she knew that he was far more powerful than anything they had encountered so far. They would need more allies if they hoped to bring down that monster.

As quickly as it began, Bella’s vision returned to reality. She then breathed heavily as the experience took its toll on her. “I saw…I saw what awaits us down that way. *huff* We would need more allies before we could venture in that cavern without it being suicide.”

“Don’t worry Bella, we will find some allies before we go down there,” Sophia assured. “For now, let’s head into the Lyceum.”

Returning to the hallway, the group approached the door. Sophia halted the group as she sensed many minds on the other side of that door. Hundreds, maybe thousands of dwarves likely awaited on the other side.

“Hey Thana, I need your expertise. How are we supposed to get past the Lyceum with a vast army of dwarves on the other side?”

“There aren’t many trained soldiers in that room. It’s mostly just reserve troops who haven’t been properly trained. Still, their numbers would be too much for your friends in a straight-up fight. You need to light the two braziers on both sides of the next door. The braziers only take a special flame and the torches holding such flames are being carried by dwarves in red armor and scattered around the place.”

“Understood, this calls for some stealth.” Once Sophia knew what to do, she addressed the group. “Wait here and gather your strength. I’m going to work on opening a way forward.”

“Are ya sure you can handle that yourself?” Jaqueline asked.

Sophia winked at the warrior. “This is my specialty, just trust me.”

With that, Sophia used the black key to open the large double doors just enough for her to pass through. The mage, warrior and paladin did their best to take their minds off their concerns for their friend but the worries refused to be banished nor pushed to the back of their minds. Several minutes passed and Jaqueline decided to risk a peek past the door to find more dwarves than they ever knew existed beyond that door. None of them had any idea how they were going to get past the room without bringing a sea of dwarves down on them.

After fifteen minutes of worrying, Sophia returned through the door while wiping the sweat from her brows. “Wow, that took a lot of effort to get the doors open without being discovered.” She then had everyone gather near her as she wrapped her allies in shadow. “Stay close and don’t wander too close to a patrol. This is already tricky enough to navigate.”

Jaqueline, Bella and Stella stayed close to Sophia as they navigated their way through the crowded area. They came close to making physical contact with a few dwarves as they made their way to the far door. The dwarves were still looking for whoever lit the torches but never entered the doorway themselves since they knew the punishment for entering the throne room unbidden.

The Lyceum was a massive room supported by nearly a hundred pillars with a small pit area in the center. The room was patrolled by hundreds of dark iron dwarves and only a few of them wore red armor. Near the door on the other side of the room were two platforms containing a brazier and each one was guarded by a large fire elemental.

After several close calls, the group finally made it through the room and through another large set of double doors. They entered a hallway with a number of alcoves that were occupied by golems with cannons for hands. In the hall was a figure like the ones Bella saw in her vision: a giant made of volcanic rock and magma.

The giant took up a fighting stance. “Emperor Thaurissan does not wish to be disturbed! Turn back now or face your doom, weak mortals!”

Everyone noticed the golems in the room along the walls, filling their minds with dread that they would have to contend with a large number of them along with the giant. That was when Bella noticed the bolts at the golems’ feet and the hoses attached to their backs. This led the paladin to suspect that the golems might be functioning more like turrets than attack units. This meant that they needed to focus all of their efforts on bringing down the giant.

The group charged in. Jaqueline slashed away at the giant’s ankles while dodging his stomps. She also ducked under any swipes from his hands. Bella used her hammer to smash the other ankle while Stella unleashed her ice magic.

As the fighting started, the giant roared, activating the constructs in the room who began randomly unleashing torrents of flame from their cannons. The group was thankful that the constructs were not firing all at once but they still had to be careful whenever a construct facing them started firing.

Eventually, one construct did start unleashing fire on them. Stella managed to counter this by placing wards on everyone that blocked the flames to a certain extent. However, the wards were enough to keep the flames away until the construct stopped firing.

The giant didn’t have any tricks to use so the fight was a matter of avoiding being crushed and slashing and smashing away at the ankles until the giant toppled. After that, Sophia delivered the final blow by slashing his head in two.

The constructs continued to fire even after the giant fell so Stella shielded everyone with anti-fire magic until they reached the large set of doors on the other side of the hall.

It was then that they realized that their journey had nearly reached its end. They were now in the throne room and the emperor sat on his throne with a female dwarf by his side. She was the only dwarf in the whole city who didn’t have ashen skin. Her red hair was done in space buns and she wore a scandalous pink and gold dress with a pair of leather armbands and a pair of sandals.

Emperor Dagran Thaurissan wore decorative robes of black and white with gold filigree. He wore a red vest and red and gold mantle. His long, thick black beard and mustache were tied with silver rings. On his head was a silver circlet with a ruby sphere in the center.

Thaurissan glared at the invaders coming into his throne room and shouted to everyone in the throne room with him, “Soldiers, senators, ambassadors, come to the aid of the throne!”

Soon a massive number of dwarves and cultists started to converge on their position. The senators and ambassadors prepared shadow and fire spells to use against them while the soldiers charged at them with bastard swords or aimed their blunderbusses at them.

By this point, Sophia was getting sick of the place and herded her allies back into the hallway and around a corner from the door, forcing the ashen tidal wave to chase after them.

The templar decided to use another of her abilities she kept hidden from the others. Once the dwarves started emerging from the door, Sophia unleashed a storm of psionic electricity in the doorway, electrocuting many dwarves to death. The ones who didn’t get caught in the storm stayed where they were until it passed, enough time for Sophia to rush in and decapitate the emotionally shocked survivors.

The others made a note to ask Sophia how she created a lightning storm later.

“Alright, it’s clear!” Sophia called out. The three entered the throne room again to find only Emperor Thaurissan and Princess Bronzebeard staring in shock at what just happened.

Nervously, the two assumed combat stances. However, Moira stepped in front of Dagran. “I won’ let any of ye hurt me beloved!”

Dagran attempted to assuage the woman, “It’s okay love, I’ll handle this. We can’t let anything happen to the little one, can we?”

“But they’ll kill ye!”

“As long as the heir is safe, that’s all that matters.”

Sophia raised an eyebrow at the scene before her. This certainly didn’t seem like a case of mind control like that one prisoner said. Out of curiosity, she peered into Moira’s mind and found it to be clear of any influencing thoughts, though she did find a few stray thoughts about unusual food cravings.

She then noticed Stella, Bella and Jaqueline preparing for battle with the emperor doing the same. Within moments, the three charged at each other. However, before the four clashed, Sophia appeared between both parties and held out hands to block both of them. “Everyone, time out!” Everyone looked at the templar in confusion before she started explaining. “This matter deems investigating before we make any foolish judgements.” She turned to Dagran. “We need to confirm whether or not Moira is under a mind control spell.”

Dagran gave a scandalous look of outrage at the accusation made against him. “How dare ye make such a claim to me! I would never do anything like that to the woman who gave me hope for the future.”

“He’s right, I love him of me own free will,” Moira added.

“Then you wouldn’t mind if Stella confirms this?” Sophia asked.

“Do yer worst, I have nothin’ to hide,” Moira proudly proclaimed.

Sophia looked at the mage and nodded to her. Nervously, she approached the princess as she still believed there could be some treachery going on. Once she was in range, Stella performed a scanning spell on the princess to check for magical tampering. After a few moments, the spell faded and she returned to the group. “She’s clean. It’s either Durnholde Syndrome or true love.”

“I haven’t been a prisoner long enough to develop Durnholde Syndrome ye daft lass!” Moira growled.

“There’s still the whole takin’ people prisoner along with the torture and arena murderin’,” Jaqueline mentioned. “Why shouldn’t we kill ya because of what ya done?”

“What do ye expect me to do, openly rebel against me slaveholder?” Dagran rhetorically asked. “Me people are all slaves ta that Elemental Lord in the Core. If he wanted, he could wipe out the entire clan in an instant. To make matters worse, those cultists who worship Ragnaros are all subvertin’ me people an’ leaving me with fewer options. As long as they believe that I am his willin’ servant, me people are safe.”

“Which is why we need ta bring in outside help,” Moira offered. “We need powerful adventurers such as yerselves to venture into the Molten Core and rid us of that fiery menace once and fer all.”

“Which will have to wait until I can get these bozos to Blackrock Mountain,” Thanatas added through the link, referring to the Horde party that was accompanying her. “In the meantime, you should probably return to Stormwind and deal with your evil noble problem.”

“We’ll see what we can do,” Sophia responded to the princess. “We originally came here to recover some evidence we needed to oust a corrupt noble who we suspect might be a black dragon in disguise.”

“Aye, ye be talkin’ about Onyxia, sister ta that scoundrel Nefarian who claims ownership of Blackrock Spire,” Dagran said. “We’d owe ya one if ye could deal with him too.”

As the group began to make their leave, with Stella creating a portal to Stormwind, Moira stopped them to say one last thing. “If ye ever see me father, tell him that I’m not under a spell and that I have truly fallen for a dark iron. If he don’t like it, he can stick his complaints up his daft arse for all they’re worth. More importantly, tell him that he has a grandchild comin’.”

With the message received, the group entered Stella’s portal, preparing for a confrontation that had been a long time coming.

Author's Note

So many things packed into one chapter. Stella having an identity crisis, Bella learning what they are in for in the next few chapters, a goblin getting horribly maimed, Jaqueline getting to show off, and a tragedy averted.

Yes, Dagran Thaurissan is still a terrible person for all the abductions and executions through the Ring of Law and the conflicts with Ironforge. However, he is still the political leader of the Dark Iron Nation. But the main reason I had Thaurissan spared is for the sake of the unborn child. I'd rather not see the kid grow up without a father like he will in canon. With any luck, having a wife and an heir to two thrones might help to curb his unpleasant traits and who knows what else this event might affect in the future.

Anyone wondering what Flutashe and Mena are doing? Find out next chapter.

Next time: a confrontation that has been a long time coming.

The Great Masquerade

After weeks of travel, they finally made it. After leaving the safety of the elven forests, traveling through treacherous mountain passes, traversing a desolate wasteland, prancing through a verdant wilderness, weaving their way through a red rock canyon with needle-like spires and quickly moving through a salt pan with a racetrack built by a collaboration between gnomes and goblins, they had finally arrived.

The Tanaris Desert.

With the final leg of their journey before them, Flutashe and Mena restocked their supplies in the goblin town of Gadgetzan. It was expensive though since goblins were notorious for jacking up their prices for strangers and even more so when their traveling companion was a gnome. However, after some shrewd dealing from Mena and some mental influence from Violetta, they were given a good deal.

After spending a night at the Gadgetzan inn, the duo was ready to begin their trek through the desert.

From what Flutashe remembered her masters telling her, the home of the Bronze Dragonflight was a small mountain range southeast of Gadgetzan in a strange place where objects that didn’t belong were there. They knew there would be a few hazards on the way to the Caverns of Time, as Flutashe had heard them called, but they were nothing they couldn’t handle, especially after everything they faced on their way to this desert.

On the way, Mena spoke up. “So, you said that the bronze dragons keep to themselves. Why? Aren’t they supposed to be protecting Azeroth?”

Flutashe shook her head, “It’s more complicated than that Mena, each dragonflight has their own duties. The Red Dragonflight protects life where they are able, the Green Dragonflight protects the Emerald Dream and all those who gaze upon it when they sleep, the Blue Dragonflight regulates and manages the magic of Azeroth, and the Black Dragonflight was supposed to protect the land itself but became the pawns of the Old Gods instead, if what Violetta said was true.”

“And the Bronze Dragonflight?”

“They were charged with protecting Time itself. The Bronze Dragonflight have the ability to travel through time to police the temporal pathways and ensure that history is not altered. They keep to themselves usually because there is no need to interact with mortals to fulfill their duties.”

The duo encountered the scavengers of the desert, including vultures who created fire from their wings somehow, basilisks, hyenas and nomadic human bandits. Their harassment made the journey slower than it should have been but they continued making progress.

They soon found the mountain range they were looking for. A pass in the mountains that was littered with objects that originated from races of the Alliance and Horde, partially buried in the sand. Among them were Horde watch towers, dwarven bunkers, stone walls made by Stormwind masons, troll houses, towers of night elven design, totems of tauren origin, a ship wedged in the mountains and a stone gate that appeared to be sealed by a black stone with a purple swirl pattern on it.

Standing in front of the gate was a fully grown bronze dragon who appeared to be almost twice the height of Gadgetzan’s walls. Younger dragons were flying around patrolling the area. Figuring that the large dragon was as good of a place to start as any, Flutashe and Mena decided to ask him about a way to find the prison of an Old God.

Before they came into the open, Flutashe heard footsteps coming from behind them. The druid looked back to find a night elf in ornate gray chainmail with huge shoulderguards. The male narrowed his eyes at the duo, “What are the two of you doing here? This is no place for mortals to casually enter.”

Flutashe took a moment to calm her nerves and think about what she was going to tell the mysterious man before her. She figured that not saying too much about Violetta would probably be for the best. “My friend and I came this far south from Ashenvale on a quest to defeat a powerful and dangerous monster and our best lead at finding that monster seems to be in seeking out the Bronze Dragonflight.”

The night elf paid attention to all of Flutashe’s story and nodded his head to encourage her to continue. Once the druid finished her story, he sighed. “That is a very interesting story you told me, but it doesn’t tell me whether you can be trusted or not. However, it seems that my master has returned. Which means that my watch over the sands has come to an end. A hero must be found! The prison that you seek is likely the one in the depths of the ancient city of Ahn’qiraj. The city was sealed away behind a great wall.

“If you wish to open the seal and unleash the horrors within, you must prove yourselves allies of the Brood of Nozdormu. The task that I ask of you is one that would require an army to accomplish. Within the lair of the Lord of Blackrock is a most cruel beast. Broodlord Lashlayer guards the way into his master’s inner sanctum. Slay the foul aberration and return his head to me. Do this and you may begin the next step of your journey.”

“Wait, you want us to go all the way to Blackrock Mountain on the other side of the world!? That’s crazy!” Mena complained.

The male handed the two a stone. A tingle down Mena’s spine told her that there was some powerful magic within it. “That stone will take you to the city of Stormwind, which is as close to Blackrock Mountain as I can get you. Crush it in your hand and the released magic will send you and anyone near you to your destination.”

As Mena held on to Flutashe, the druid still had to know who the mysterious stranger was. “We never did get your name.”

“Baristolth of the Shifting Sands,” he said. He then walked away, leaving the duo with more questions yet unanswered but the male was not willing to speak further.

With that, Flutashe crushed the fragile stone in her palm before the magics within the stone wrapped around them and they vanished in a flash of light.

Baristolth watched the two leave before he turned his attention to the approaching bronze dragon who stopped in front of him. “Master Anachronos, are you certain that this is a good idea?”

“Nozdormu has told me that the original timeline has been altered by forces beyond our ability to control. He asks us to adapt accordingly to the change and only intervene if absolutely necessary, which is why I had to ask you to make the journey here from Silithus.”

“And what of the gnome you warned me about?”

“The fiend within her will not threaten Azeroth. Any other concerns are beyond our ability to see. Our gifts are quite limited it seems.” Anachronos sighed in exasperation, “What a mess…” He paused for a moment as he looked west. “When they bring you the heads, send the heroes to me and return to Silithus to prepare for war. I have already sent representatives to the Alliance and the Horde to warn them of the coming conflict. They will be busy scrounging for provisions from all over the world in preparation. Meanwhile, I will be guiding the one who will gather the pieces of the scepter that will spark the war.”

“As you wish, master,” Baristolth said before walking away while Anachronos turned around and returned to guarding the cavern.

Bella, Jaqueline, Sophia and Stella appeared inside the mage tower of Stormwind from Stella’s portal. They were not sure whether Windsor and Varian reached the city yet so they began to make their way toward the city entrance.

“Ah got a question, how come we didn’t make Thaurissan give up Windsor’s hammer?” Jaqueline asked.

“That is a matter to be settled between the two of them,” Bella explained. “As long as the Dark Iron Clan doesn’t openly go to war against the Alliance, that is a matter that can be settled with diplomacy.”

“Still, ah know that Thaurissan’s done a lotta terrible things over the years. If them dark irons ever negotiate with the Alliance, ah hope we make him pay a hefty fine.”

“That seems likely to happen regardless. Ironforge is already furious with Thaurissan for not only past transgressions, but also for kidnapping Princess Moira Bronzebeard. The fact that the matter is likely to turn into a political marriage and the fact that she is bearing the legitimate heir to both the thrones of Ironforge and Shadowforge means that the Dark Iron Clan will need to work quickly toward removing the cultist presence from both their city and its people and work on mending relations toward the Bronzebeards and the Wildhammers. King Magni isn’t going to like it, but he’s going to have to put in some effort as well for the sake of his grandson as well as convincing the citizens and politicians of Ironforge that the political marriage was his idea to save face.”

“So the princess is probably gonna change her last name to Thaurissan soon? Ah can kinda sympathize with King Magni. Mah ma was a Pomerton and mah pa was born from a family of pear farmers in the same region. Our two families feuded fer years, until them Scourge came around. Me, mah brother and mah sister were born from two feudin’ families and could have inherited either farm when we grew up.”

As the four neared the portal out of the tower, a bright flash of light erupted behind them, which was strange since mage portal spells were usually not that flashy. While the lack of surprise by the guards told them that it was nothing too surprising, Sophia was the first to sense a familiar presence behind her.

Sophia turned around to see a night elf with bright pink hair in a garb of leather and leaves that told her that she may be a druid as well as a gnome with a darker shade of curly pink hair. The dark presence from the gnome made her think back to a certain family member of her’s. Examining the duo further, her mind soon thought back to the profiles of Twilight’s friends. In the least, the hairstyles matched.

“Midnight, has Twilight recovered from whatever had shaken her yet?”

“Me and Azure Lazer are calming her down. Apparently, that magic inside Jaqueline is some sort of seed that seems to be feeding on her life force, shortening her life span the more she fights. Given her stubborn nature, telling her to stop is going to come off as a major insult to her.”

“So what do I tell her?”

“Nothing. If they realize that you know about the seed, it’s going to raise questions that might lead to our cover being blown. It’s best to leave the matter to Thanatas when they finally meet her.”

“Very well, at any rate, it looks like Fluttershy and Pinkie’s reincarnations found us. I can confirm that Violetta is inside Pinkie’s mind.”

“She’s probably lounging around in there,” Thanatas guessed. “You will probably have to ease them into the introduction and warn them of a few things before they actually meet her. We also need to find a way for her to contact us without her presence contaminating the link.”

While Sophia was having her psychic conversation, Flutashe approached Stella and the others with a question passing her lips, “Excuse me, would any of you happen to know of a place called Blackrock Mountain?”

The question caught the group, sans Sophia, off guard as they jumped slightly in surprise. Of all the questions for the druid to ask, they never expected her to ask one about the place they had just returned from. “We were just there,” Stella answered. “Why do you ask?”

Flutashe began explaining their journey thus far while leaving out the parts of Violetta as they didn’t feel mentioning her was necessary yet. Mena added in any parts that the druid overlooked. However, in the end, Surprise made herself known which was another surprise to the group. Any attempts at subtlety went out the window when she started talking about the parts they didn’t want mentioned, especially about Violetta.

“Wait, so you’re saying you have some sort of monster living in your mind?” Bella asked.

“Yep, and the whole reason we’re on this quest to begin with is to feed this thing some other monster that lives beneath some desert ruins in the southwest corner of the world map and the reason we’re here is because we need some dragon’s head from Blackrock Mountain who goes by the name Broodlord Lashlayer so we can get the bronze dragons to show us how to get into the ruins.”

“Y’all gotta be insane if y’all wanna go to some crazy place like that! If it was sealed away thousands of years ago it had to have been fer a good reason!” Jaqueline exclaimed.

“Well avoiding the place isn’t getting this creepy bitch out of my head any faster,” Surprise countered.

“Look everyone, we’re probably going to end up going into Nefarian’s lair at some point anyway so if you two will stick with us, we’ll stand a better chance of succeeding,” Stella negotiated.

“Help us get into the ruins and we will help you with whatever it is you’re trying to do.”

“Mena, err I mean Surprise, that’s not how you go around making friends,” Flutashe scolded. She looked back at the others, “Sorry about that, we will be happy to help you with your adventures, if you will have us.”

“Well of course, the more the merrier,” Bella said. “Isn’t that right everyone?” Jaqueline, Stella and Sophia, who had just finished her psychic call nodded in acceptance.

Flutashe thanked everyone for their acceptance. Of course, she also had no idea what they were doing now. “So what are you guys doing here?”

“We gotta meet someone at the city entrance,” Jaqueline answered. “Somethin’ big’s about to go down in the city.”

Flutashe nodded and followed the group to their destination along with Mena, who switched back to her curly-haired self.

After fifteen minutes, the group made it to the Stormwind City entrance. However, they saw no sign of the marshal. However, one guard who was wearing glasses was making subtle gestures to the group, hoping someone would catch on. Thankfully, Bella was familiar with guard signs and walked over to the man.

Suspecting that the man wanted to be subtle, she kept her voice down as she spoke to him. “Squire Rowe? Is that you?”

“Aye, he told me to wait for your arrival and signal him when you guys are ready to begin.”

Bella gave the group one last look to her friends and new acquaintances who appeared ready for a fight. She turned to the squire once more, “Send the signal, let’s begin.”

The squire nodded and launched a flare into the air. Moments later, Reginald Windsor rode into the city on horseback and stopped before the group before he dismounted and slapped the horse’s flank, driving him away back into the forest. Windsor then turned to the group. “It’s good to see all of you again in one piece. Did the emperor give you a lot of trouble?”

“We came to an understanding,” Stella answered. “We will likely be returning to Blackrock Mountain in the near future to deal with the major threats within.”

“I see you didn’t come back with my hammer. I hope he doesn’t break it before I get it back.” He took a deep breath as he prepared himself for what was to come. “On guard everyone, the lady dragon will not give in without a fight.”

Meanwhile, at Stormwind Keep, Lady Katrana Prestor was making preparations for delivering the tragic news to the kingdom. News had gotten to her that King Varian Wrynn had been captured by the Dark Iron Nation and was sentenced to be executed in their Ring of Law.

Knowing that nobody had ever survived that arena and Grimstone’s ruthless cruelty, Varian would eventually exhaust himself and be slaughtered by the monsters the dwarves had captured over the years.

She may have failed to kill him after she had the Defias sabotage the king’s trip to Theramore when the naga interfered, but nobody was coming to save him now. She kept the army away from her brother’s mountain and made sure that no snooping adventurers ever got curious enough to investigate. Anyone who did, such as that Kirin Tor investigator, she sent after the Defias in Westfall to meet their deaths.

It was disturbing news when she heard that the brotherhood had fallen apart with the death of their leader, but she still managed to keep any important information out of the hands of those who could possibly be a threat to her plans. Even if the investigator survived, she had plenty of resources to keep her investigation stonewalled for years.

Still, there was something odd about the investigator, something that smelled less like one of the mortals and more like one of her kind. Could the Blue Dragonflight have taken an interest in Stormwind? She would need to ask her brother about that later.

Prestor was pulled out of her thoughts by the sound of clanking armor approaching her. She was annoyed with the interruption and she wasn’t afraid to show it. The soldier approached the noble and kneeled before her. “Speak,” she commanded.

“Lady Prestor, I bring a message from Marshal Windsor at the front gates.” He presented a scroll to her.

While she was usually not startled by surprises, this one actually made the noble wince. The guard had his head lowered so he didn’t notice. She could have sworn that her brother had orchestrated the man’s capture by the Dark Iron Clan. Though given his history he probably found a way to escape and leave a trail of dwarven bodies in his wake. Still, he may have known who she really was but he had no proof of his claims.

Prestor took the scroll and unrolled it just to humor the poor fool. On the scroll was one sentence.

“As was fated a long time ago in Karazhan, monster - I come - and with me, I bring justice.”

Prestor merely scoffed at the marshal’s threats. At least she could see this as a threat to a member of the nobility and have him arrested and executed.

“The marshal has clearly gone mad during his time in captivity. Seize him and any who have chosen to side with him,” She ordered in a cold tone of voice.

“Y-yes ma’am.” The soldier walked away as respectfully as he could and as fast as he dared.

“By now that message I sent her should have gotten to her, though she may already be sending the troops to stop us,” Windsor said. “Nothing to do now but to move toward the keep.”

The group nodded grimly as Windsor began his march across the bridge into the city. Each side held two statues of a famous hero from the Second War.

As they neared the end of the bridge, their advance was halted by a wall of soldiers with a decorated general in the middle of them. General Marcus Jonathan, a man with red hair cut to military regulation and a thick beard and mustache. He wore a thicker version of the Stormwind Guard armor. He was also in charge of Stormwind’s defenses.

The general had a conflicted look on his face as if he really didn’t want to stop Windsor but his duty told him otherwise. “Reginald, you know that I cannot let you pass.”

Windsor nodded to the general in respect. “You must do what you think is right, Marcus. We served together under Turalyon. He made us both the men that we are today.” He shook his head sadly. “Did he err with me? Do you truly believe that my intent is to cause harm to our Alliance? Would I shame our heroes?” He paused before giving the general a determined look. “Holding me here is not the right decision, Marcus.”

The general looked away from Windsor in shame. After the words came out of the marshal’s mouth, his will to perform his duty faltered. He knew that this was wrong. He had to consider whether he was acting in the best interests of Stormwind or in the interests of the nobility. “I am ashamed, old friend. I know not what I do anymore. It is not you that dare bring shame to the heroes of legend - it is I. It is I and the rest of these corrupt politicians. They fill our lives with empty promises, unending lies.” He sighed in resignation. “We shame our ancestors. We shame those lost to us…forgive me, Reginald.”

Reginald placed a hand on Marcus’ shoulder. The general looked at the marshal once more who gave him a gentle smile. “Dear friend, you honor them with your vigilant watch. You are steadfast in your allegiance. I do not doubt for a moment that you would not give as great a sacrifice for your people as any of the heroes you stand under.” He then removed his hand from the general’s shoulder and gave him a serious look. “Now, it is time to bring her reign to an end, Marcus. Stand down, friend.”

Marcus knew what must be done. He was sick and tired of being a pawn to the politicians, especially Prestor. It was time to bring about a change to the system. It was time to remember that he was a man of the people.

It was time to do the right thing.

The general turned to his soldiers. “Stand down!” he ordered. “Can you not see that heroes walk among us? Move aside! Let them pass! By my order as general of the Stormwind army, Reginald Windsor and his entourage is not to be harmed! They shall pass through untouched!”

By his orders the soldiers moved aside, kneeling before Reginald as they did.

“Thank you, old friend. But before I go, I have a message for you.” Reginald handed the general a scroll. “Don’t let anyone read it but you.”

Marcus nodded and moved to where his troops couldn’t read over his shoulder. He opened the scroll and quickly read through it. His eyes widened before he looked at Reginald once more who nodded.

“Once the coming battle has come to an end, spread the word.” Reginald turned to the group. “Follow me, friends. To Stormwind Keep!”

Word spread quickly about Reginald’s grant of passage. Rumors about the man spread through the city like wildfire as the group entered the Trade District. The bustle of the city folk was interrupted briefly as they passed through and proceeded northeast through the streets.

Along the way, the soldiers gave the marshal a firm salute in admiration of his heroism.

Reginald exited the district through the northeast tunnel and crossed a bridge over the canal toward the red-roofed buildings of the Old Town. He continued along the canal’s path and stood before the doorway into Stormwind Keep. “Be brave, friends. The reptile will thrash wildly. It is an act of desperation. Are you all ready?”

Jaqueline pounded her fist into her open hand. “You betcha, let’s pound this varmint.”

Bella took a brief moment to touch up her makeup. She did so when they got back but she wanted to be extra certain that the heat hadn’t ruined her appearance. “I’m ready.”

Stella took a moment to remember her spells, her draconic abilities she could worry about later. She silently nodded in affirmation.

Mena could tell that Surprise had a sadistic look on her face even though she couldn’t see her counterpart.

Flutashe shifted into her bear form and growled in anticipation.

Sophia was ready with her own plan in case the dragon tried to flee.

“The tablets you recovered will reveal the true form of any dragon who hears the one who reads them. Be ready once I read them,” Reginald warned.

“What were the folders fer?” Jaqueline asked.

“Attempts by the dark irons in translating the tablets. They were completely off base, though I did get a few good laughs from reading them.” Reginald then steeled himself as he prepared for what was coming. He knew that he wouldn’t survive this, but he was willing to give his life for Stormwind. “Onward!”

The group advanced through the long hallway and into the throne room. Standing in the center of the room were three individuals: Prince Anduin, Highlord Bolvar Fordragon who was wearing his ornate silver and gold armor and carrying his shield and sword, and Lady Katrana Prestor who seemed irritated that the guards allowed Windsor to get near her unshackled.

Reginald began with a plea to Anduin, “Your Majesty, run while you still can! She is not who you think her to be!”

Anduin tried to flee into another room but Prestor grabbed the boy by the arm. “No, I think he will be safe near me.”

Struggle as he might, Anduin couldn’t free himself from the noble’s grip. However, Prestor felt a heavy impact on the back of her head that startled her into letting go of the boy who quickly sprinted out of the room. Prestor took note of the rock that landed on the floor next to her but quickly switched her attention back to Anduin. She was about to cast a spell to force the boy to return but Bella struck her in the face with a hammer of Light.

“Arrgh! You dare strike a member of Stormwind’s elite? I will take great pleasure in watching all of you hang!” Prestor growled.

“It shall not be you who delivers justice this day, but us Prestor, or perhaps we should call you by your true name…Onyxia!” Reginald declared.

Prestor merely laughed at the man’s declaration. “You will be incarcerated and tried for treason, Windsor. I shall watch with glee as they hand down a guilty verdict and sentence you to death by hanging. And as your limp body dangles from the rafters, I shall take great pleasure in knowing that a mad man has been put to death. After all, what proof do you have? Did you expect to come in here and point fingers at royalty and leave unscathed?”

Reginald smirked at the dragon’s preening before he pulled out the two tablets. “You will not escape your fate, Onyxia! It has been prophesied - a vision resonating from the great halls of Karazhan. It ends now! These tablets were written in the ancient dragon language. Listen dragon, and let the truth resonate through these halls!”

Reginald read the tablets out loud and everyone who heard it also heard an unknown sound flowing through their consciousness. For Reginald, Bella, Jaqueline, Sophia, Flutashe and Mena, the sound was nothing more than that. For Bolvar, he suddenly clutched at his head as his own thoughts started racing through his mind, as if whatever dam was suppressing the flow of his thoughts was suddenly breaking.

For Onyxia and the guards in the throne room, the words were like an irresistible compulsion to undo their mortal forms. Try as they might, they were unable to resist the compulsion. The guards transformed into the dragonspawn like the ones that Bella and the others fought in Burning Steppes.

Onyxia’s transformation however was far more grandiose. Her form was of a massive, quadrupedal, fully-grown, ancient dragon. Her underbelly was a light reddish brown with a fin going from her chin to her chest. The fins on her head, neck and back were red with purple spines. A pair of bluish gray horns curved from the sides of her head to the edge of her muzzle along with a much smaller horn growing from her forehead. The sinew of her massive wings were a deep purple with the tips of her wing fingers ending in the same color. Her piercing glowing yellow eyes bore draconic slits.

Onyxia hissed in outrage. Whatever those tablets were, they had completely ruined her plans. With her cover blown, there was no way to seize control of Stormwind now. But she was determined to make the mortals pay dearly for this.

It wasn’t surprising to the dragon that the Kirin Tor investigator was clutching her head before she began transforming. She had already suspected her of being a dragonkin. What was surprising to her and everyone in the room were the color of her scales; they were pinkish-purple. Her slitted draconic eyes were teal while the sinew of her wings were royal purple. The dragonkin before Onyxia was shaped as a humanoid and barely taller than her disguise but she was not bulky like the dim-witted drakonids. She also noticed some awkwardness beneath her robes which made the dragon suspect that her legs were digitigrade.
Her teal horns grew down the back of her head and curved forward around her neck.

The look of surprise as she looked at her clawed hands which turned into panic for the mage told Onyxia that she really didn’t want to be found out or she had no idea that she was a dragonkin in the first place. She would have to ask Nefarian about that at the earliest opportunity. For now, it was time for some revenge.

She glared at Reginald, the man who ruined everything. “Curious…Windsor, in this vision, did you survive? I only ask because one thing that I can assure is your death. Here and now.

Onyxia raised her left claws and prepared to strike down the offending human. Her swipe only struck air however as another man rushed in and tackled Reginald to the floor away from the dragon’s attack.

She glanced at the human who interfered with her execution and her eyes widened in surprise to find that it was King Varian Wrynn. “Varian Wrynn?! How are you here? Can’t those dwarves do anything right?” She shook her head in disappointment. “No matter, I will have my revenge soon enough. Children, kill them all!”

The throne room erupted into chaos as the defenders faced the elite soldiers of Onyxia’s personal guard. Jaqueline, Bella, Varian, Reginald, Bolvar, who recovered his senses, and Flutashe all faced their own dragonspawn. Mena and Surprise both supported the defenders while shifting personalities as needed to switch between Light and Shadow spells. Stella’s combat effectiveness was greatly weakened as a result of her mental turmoil and being in a form that she was not familiar with.

Wanting to make the mortals pay before she left, Onyxia prepared to unleash a devastating fire breath that would set the keep on fire. However, as she was about to release it, a powerful uppercut was dealt to her chin which sent her head flying upward. Before she could open her mouth just to get the flame out, something small wrapped around her muzzle and forced it shut, causing her own flame to feed back into her body and damage her insides.

The feminine voice of the offender cheerfully stated, “As important as it is to stick to the script, I think this one deserves some alterations. For example, me slicing your head off!”

Onyxia thrashed wildly while violently shaking her head trying to remove what appeared to be some sort of blue masked figure from her face. Her tail accidentally slammed into a few of the dragonspawn in the room while the defenders either ducked, jumped or took the hit and were slammed into a wall.

As much as Onyxia wanted to teleport out of the city, she couldn’t risk teleporting the tiny blue monster with her.

Sophia kept clinging to her prey. When the dragon tried using her claws to scrape the templar off, Sophia leapt onto the Onyxia’s back. To avoid anyone from taking notice of her true abilities, she activated her Shadow Walk to turn invisible before she got to work on executing the dragon. Turning the tips of her fingers into sharp claws, she began scraping away at the dragon’s scales until her flesh was revealed. Onyxia roared in pain as the templar stabbed into the dragon’s exposed hide. The tips of her fingers grew into the dragon’s body, impaling her internal organs.

Onyxia’s desperate movements forced Sophia to detach her tentacles and left them inside the dragon’s body before she was thrown off and flown toward a wall. Quickly regenerating the severed fingertips, the templar then jumped from the wall and back onto the dragon’s back and deployed her energy blades, the light of which was also concealed by her invisible state, empowering one to be as long as her own body. She then grabbed onto the dragon’s dorsal fin with one hand and used her empowered blade to deliver a single slash that ended the ancient dragon with her massive head removed from her body.

Disheartened from the loss of their mother, the dragonspawn lost focus on their opponents who capitalized on their demoralized state.

The last living dragonspawn in the room decided to try to kill Stella who was still in shock and at least go out after killing someone. However, that plan failed when a pair of daggers went through the dragon’s back and out his chest. He looked back at his killer to find the spymaster of Stormwind, Mathias Shaw. His eyes closed one last time.

With the situation now deescalating, everyone put their weapons away and observed the mess in the throne room. Many black dragon carcasses littered the floor including the massive headless ancient dragon in the center.

While everyone was staring in awe at the scene, Sophia secretly stowed Onyxia’s head in a dimensional pocket for safekeeping. Some wanted to question where the head went, but decided that it would be a mystery for another time.

Once the shock of the fight had subsided, the throne room erupted into numerous conversations; mainly ones that had to do with Varian’s return and Stella’s new form along with the comforting of said dragonkin.

Even though Stella had been told that she might have been a dragonkin, she had some hope that they might have been wrong. The reality of her situation dashed her hopes and left her experiencing an existential crisis. At least her friends didn’t care what she looked like so she found some comfort that she hadn’t been abandoned. Even Flutashe and Mena helped to comfort her despite only meeting them a couple of hours ago.

While the dragonkin mage was being comforted, Sophia tried getting some answers from her other allies.

“So that’s why she showed no features of her past self…” Twilight realized, revealing that she had mentally recovered from the shock about Jaqueline, at least somewhat. “She was using a visage form and didn’t even know that she was born as a dragon.”

Lyra giggled, “Spike is gonna love hearing this.”

“Yeah, he definitely needs to be here to see this,” Sweetie agreed.

“At least she looks better than I did when I was infested,” Sarah commented.

“Yeah, but what kind of dragon is she?” Sophia asked.

“A better question is how she ended up here when the rest of her kind are supposed to be locked up on the Dragon Isles,” Thanatas said. “She’s a dracthyr, a type of humanoid-shaped dragonkin no bigger than most mortal races. However, it is said that they wield the power of all five dragonflights. I know that Nefarian had been experimenting with the five flights attempting to recreate his father’s work but had yet to succeed.”

“We also need to consider the problem that she doesn’t know how to reapply her disguise. It’s going to make walking around in public very awkward,” Sweetie pointed out.

“I’ll send Fayt to help her learn how to reapply her disguise,” Midnight said.

Meanwhile, Varian asked Bella to give him a report on what transpired in Shadowforge City. Bella explained everything. The king looked at Stella and gave her a look of sympathy.

His eyes widened when he found out about the relationship between Princess Bronzebeard and Emperor Thaurissan, informing him that the Dark Iron Clan may at some point try to reconnect with their fellow dwarves, which would be a welcoming matter as long as they were able to remove the influence of the Twilight’s Hammer from their city.

He then heard the plight of the Dark Iron Clan and their enslavement to the Elemental Lord of Fire. Dealing with Ragnaros was going to be the biggest hurdle in beginning negotiations with the clan.

Finally, there was the matter of Onyxia’s brother who also needed to be dealt with before the Stormwind Army could bring the situation of the kingdom’s threats back under control.

Despite the dangers though, Varian knew that his first priority was to assure the people that the situation in the keep was under control and to confirm his return to the citizens before he could begin to undo the damage Onyxia had wrought upon the kingdom. That alone would take some time and there was no telling when Nefarian would launch a full-scale invasion on Stormwind, likely soon after he learned about his sister’s demise.

The situation was dire and Varian could only think to turn to those who had saved him. “Bella, you and your friends are the only ones I can turn to in this dire time. I ask a lot of you, perhaps too much, but you and your friends may be the last hope of saving Stormwind. I will not think less of any of you for turning down my request. I ask all of you to return to Blackrock Mountain and remove the two biggest threats there. If Stormwind is to survive, Ragnaros and Nefarian must fall.”

To Varian’s surprise, there was no hesitation in their answers.

“We faced a lot in that mountain already. Ah have things ah need to do before ah kick the bucket. Ah ain’t gonna let no fire elementals, orcs or dragons stop me. We just took down an ancient dragon, ah ain’t gonna fear her brother so ah’m goin’.” Jaqueline pounded her hand.

“Nefarian knows something about my origins. I have to go to find out what he knows about me.” Stella said.

“I too have something that must be done in his lair for the sake of my own quest,” Flutashe said.

“I know this is a bad time, Your Majesty, but I sense that you’re about to get a visitor who is going to warn you about something big going down in southern Kalimdor that’s going to be related to our quest,” Mena prophesied.

Bella gave Varian a look of determination and a smile, “There you have it, we just volunteered to bring down this menace looming over our heads. I’m sure that if we work together we can find a way to emerge victorious.”

Varian took a moment to look at the group, even Stella who appeared to have recovered somewhat from her shock. After a few moments he gave the group a nod. “Very well, I shall entrust you with this task.”

Once the group left to rest after their ordeal, Varian spotted a bronze-colored dragon whelp enter his throne room. When he landed the whelp transformed into a female gnome with pale blond hair, green eyes and wearing a white and black robe with bronze-colored armor. “Greetings Your Majesty, I have come to warn you of a major threat that will soon emerge from the Silithus Desert in southern Kalimdor.”

In Varian’s mind, the knowledge of the emerging threat seemed nowhere near as scary as a pink-haired gnome who could predict the future without being a member of the Bronze Dragonflight.

Author's Note

I'll admit that I don't feel as good about this chapter as I do previous chapters. Mainly because I'm not sure I handled the matter of Sophia's fight with Onyxia very well while she was using some of her true abilities. The reason I wanted the fight to go down like that was because I really didn't want them to go to the other side of the world to fight her in the Onyxia's Lair raid.

Anywho, we now reveal that Stellaglim has been dual classing as a mage and as a dracthyr evoker. I'm sure the WoW fans had already figured that out by now.

While our heroes return to Blackrock Mountain to deal with the two raids there, a certain event is about to begin. For all of you long time WoW players, you know what this event will be.

Next time: Equestrian Liberation Front versus the Dark Horde

The Dark Horde

Around the same time as Onyxia’s defeat, a group of individuals belonging to the Horde had finally managed to reach the Burning Steppes in their journey to Blackrock Mountain.

Given that the mountain was directly in the center of Alliance territory, they had to pay a mage to create a portal to the closest anchor point to the mountain. That point turned out to be an outpost called Stonard in a swampy region south of Redridge Mountains.

Thankfully, Thanatas knew of a route through the mountains that wasn’t guarded by Alliance soldiers so they didn’t have to be too sneaky. Once they trekked that secret mountain path on the eastern edge of the region, they entered the charred region.

“How much further is it to Blackrock Mountain?” Lokosh asked.

“The mountain is around the northwest part of the region. You can’t miss it since it’s the tallest mountain in the region,” Thanatas answered.

The journey to the mountain was fraught with danger in the form of red-skinned ogres and orcs with grayish-green skin wearing bright red armor. They also had to deal with the occasional volcanic rock elemental and avoid the trenches that were populated by flamekin, a type of fire demon that bore a close resemblance to imps. There were also some ruins that were being investigated by dark iron dwarves.

After several hours of travel through the charred wasteland, the group ascended the ramp into Blackrock Mountain. They took the time to look around the area before they decided to go over their mission.

“Our objective is the death of Warchief Rend Blackhand of the Dark Horde who lies somewhere in this mountain,” Talia stated. “We just need to know where he is.”

“Rend resides in the upper levels of Blackrock Spire, the fortress which makes up the upper levels of this mountain,” Thanatas added. “However, getting to Rend will not be easy as the way to the upper spire requires a special signet ring.”

“Of course dere are complications…” Farra’jin complained.

Thanatas shrugged helplessly, “What can I say? We’re in a world where most of the time you have to solve a puzzle or travel long distances or kill someone for the sake of opening a door or finding valuable relics and treasures. It’s the Eternal Sphere, a universe that is also a bunch of RPGs stuffed into a single system.”

“Point taken,” Farra’jin conceded.

Thanks to her knowledge of Azeroth, Thanatas knew exactly how to get into Blackrock Spire. While she could have used a route that involved a giant chain and leaping over to a balcony that would lead them into Blackrock Spire proper, she figured that her allies should warm themselves up against the orcs guarding the entrance. About at the four o’ clock position of the circular room, the group spotted an entrance for them to explore.

It wasn’t long before they were spotted by a patrol of Blackrock orcs. “Lok-Narash! Intruders!” one orc called out. It wasn’t long before everyone who heard the orc’s call moved in to attack the group. However, the narrow spacing of the area they were in made them easy targets for Talia and Farra’jin. Groun was able to cause the roots of a plant that thrived in the mountain to burst from a wall and crush one orc who fought with a bow.

With that group dealt with, Lokosh advanced forward with the others behind him. They had to squeeze past a makeshift barricade of crates, sandbags and rusted shields and swords. They moved past a portcullis that appeared to have been ripped out of its frame.

They moved past what appeared to be a bonfire which they figured the orcs made a camp there for some reason. Taking a right, they walked up a flight of ramps, taking care to avoid the gaping hole in one of them. They took out the two guards at the top of the ramp which sent more guards coming to them. Thanks to their training, the guards didn’t last long against their teamwork.

One orc they felled dropped an envelope with a broken seal. Talia noticed the note and picked it up to look at it. While she had no confidence that the orcs could compose anything meaningful on a piece of paper, given their savage nature, she humored the brutes and read the letter.

Imbecile,

I hold very little faith in your ability to prevent outsiders from accessing the master’s lair. In the very likely event of your death, this orb has its failsafe built in to prevent outsiders from teleporting directly into Blackwing.

Only those with the Mark of Drakkisath branded upon their hand may use this orb. Thankfully, Drakkisath is not nearly as incompetent as you, quartermaster. He guards the brand himself!

-Warchief Rend Blackhand

P.S. Destroy this letter, idiot!

“Hmph! Their warchief was certainly right about that orc being incompetent,” Talia snarked. “Though this Rend Blackhand is just as incompetent, given that he practically wrote out how to access his master’s lair in this letter and entrusted this oaf to perform the simple task of destroying it, let alone entrusting the letter to said oaf in the first place.”

“What does it say?” Lokosh asked.

“Apparently, there’s an orb nearby that can transport people to the lair of his master, some place called Blackwing. Though in order to use the orb, we need to be branded with something called the Mark of Drakkisath which is guarded by someone of the same name.”

“General Drakkisath is in the depths of the upper spire. But in order to access the upper spire we need that signet ring,” Thanatas explained.

“Why are we even considering goin’ after Rend’s master, mon? Aren’t our orders to take Rend out?” Farra’jin asked, failing to conceal his anxiety.

“Warchief Thrall also said to take out anyone who supports him,” Groun countered. “I’m pretty sure that includes his master.”

“There is a way into Blackwing Lair through the upper spire, the orb would be more of a shortcut to and from there in case we need to retreat and come back later,” Thanatas said.

“That’s good to know,” Lokosh said.

The group continued to climb ramps and deal with orc soldiers, one of whom mentioned the Scarshield Legion which Lokosh figured meant that the Dark Horde was separated into platoons.

Eventually, they reached a narrow hallway. Looking left, they spotted a small room that held a few things, along with an orb on a pedestal with draconic wings. Talia could sense powerful magic coming from the orb which led the group to figuring that it was the orb mentioned in the letter. Farra’jin volunteered to touch it and as they figured, nothing happened, giving proof that the letter was telling the truth.

Regardless, their current objective was finding a signet ring that would get them into the upper levels of Blackrock Spire.

Moving to the other end of the hallway, the group came across a balcony that overlooked the central chamber of the mountain. A few black drakes were flying around but they paid the group no mind. Behind them was a doorway which would lead them deeper into the fortress.

At the top of another ramp, the group found a pair of tattered orcish banners crudely depicting a mountain in front of the setting sun, the symbol of the Blackrock Clan. The next room was large and, like the previous parts of the fortress they explored, in disrepair. This made sense since Blackrock Spire was originally a dark iron fortress and the orcs had no idea on how to handle any repairs.

Once again, the group had to deal with a number of orcs in old armor and wielding axes and shields of poor craftsmanship. Lokosh showed the Blackrocks of the Scarshield Legion the difference between theirs and his superior weapons.

With that bunch of orcs slain, they looked around the room to find that the orcs had been using the fortress like some sort of indoor campsite which seemed to be the theme for the area. A number of campfires with pig skewers along with tables of raw meat and meat smokers were set up in the room. This gave the impression that the Blackrock orcs were a bunch of squatters and had been for quite some time.

A set of stairs led to an upstairs walkway. One end led to a door which had no knob, only a small indent. Thanatas informed the group that the door led to the upper levels of the spire. The other end of the walkway led to a broken passage that was now a balcony that overlooked the next room.

Returning down the stairs, the group explored beneath the walkway and found a passage that led into the room they just saw. The room was mostly collapsed and what was left had enough room for a few warriors, a spellcaster and a pair of wolves who seemed to favor one of the warriors.

Taking mind of the limited space as the group engaged them, Farra’jin placed a water totem to provide Lokosh some protection while Talia rained fire on the orcs. The wolves decided that the warlock was a threat and attacked her but were quickly halted when some roots burst from the eroded stone and wrapped around the beasts’ legs, the roots pulled the wolves over the edge of the broken platform.

Once the orcs were dead, the group advanced through a narrow passage that seemed intact until they entered a vast chamber. They could see a number of orc squatter camps all over the area, as if the area were some sort of city of squatters.

After dealing with another group of orcs from the Scarshield Legion, they moved forward until the sound of an orc’s voice could be heard from above. “Hey, you down there, come up here! There’s a path around the corner that will lead you up here.”

“This isn’t a trap, right?” Groun whispered to the others.

“He’s either really skilled that he thinks that he doesn’t need to ambush us, or he wants to be helpful,” Lokosh guessed.

“If he’s an enemy, we kill him, if not, then I will kill him anyway if he’s here to waste our time,” Talia said.

In the end they decided to follow the path up to the orc’s roost. Upon reaching him, the orc turned into a human which everyone but Thanatas was not expecting. She knew who the man was. The human wore white and red robes with gold lining as well as a crimson hood.

“It’s good to see someone who is not part of Nefarian’s forces down here. I am Vaelan, I came here to investigate the Black Dragonflight activities.”

“And you’re not upset to be working with members of the Horde?” Lokosh asked.

“He might be if he were human,” Thanatas pointed out. “He’s a member of the Red Dragonflight, most of the time you can identify them because they have too much red on them.”

Vaelan frowned at the death knight, a representation of his flight’s antithesis. Though he could also pick up on something else from her. Something faintly draconic. “You reek of death,” he growled. He then looked into her eyes and briefly detected slitted draconic eyes before they faded into the blue energy they gave off. “What are you? Has the Lich King taught his frost wyrms how to don a visage?”

Thanatas gave a neutral expression to the disguised dragon. She knew that he understood nothing about her, but she was nobody’s minion. “I can assure you that my will is my own, Vaelan. I am here to make sure these adventurers do not get themselves killed in whatever mess they get into.”

“You’re the one who gets us into these situations,” Talia snapped.

“And yet you benefit from your ordeals,” Thanatas countered. She looked at Vaelan again, “Unless you have something useful to tell them, then perhaps I should allow Talia here to incinerate your scaly hide.”

Vaelan sighed in resignation. “Fine, if you are planning on assaulting the upper reaches of Blackrock Spire, you will need this.” He handed Talia a silver ring. It contained three empty slots to be occupied by gems as well as faded runes on the inner ring. “This is the unadorned version of the signet ring you need to open the way. For it to be used as a key, you must gather three gems from the leaders of the Spirestone Ogres, the Smolderthorn Trolls and the taskmaster in charge of this part of the fortress, Overlord Wyrmthalak. Once the gems are in place, the ring must be bathed in the flames of the Black Dragonflight before the Seal of Ascension is complete.”

“How are we supposed to get a black dragon to breathe on this thing?” Lokosh asked.

“I will tell you once you gather the gems.”

With their new acquisition in hand, the group proceeded further into the ruined fortress, taking out more of their warriors and the wolves they trained. They crossed a pair of rope bridges and cleared out the squatter camps along the way. Of course, they left the orcs who were napping on mats alone because waking someone from their nap to kill them was just rude.

They were soon led into a narrow passage that was occupied by ogres. The strength of the brutes and their large weapons made defending against their attacks difficult for Lokosh but his allies had his back as they worked together to slay ogre after ogre. This also blocked the passage with their bulky masses so they were forced to climb over their corpses to proceed further through the passage, being extra careful since they also had to traverse a narrow stone bridge.

They soon entered a room that was filled with ogres, leading the group to believe that they found the ogre base of operations. The stench of rotting meat on hooks was also a dead giveaway that was usually present in ogre mounds.

Not wanting to waste too much time on the ogres, Lokosh had everyone retreat to the previous ogre corpse which they had to climb over as they were on the bridge. The warrior then banged his shield to get the ogres’ attention before they started running after him. He then leaped over the corpse and had his allies help him push the mass of dead flesh toward the incoming horde.

The lead runner stopped before the corpse and took the time to toss it over the side. However, his buddies behind him didn’t get the memo that they had to stop so they crashed into him which threw most of the ogres off balance and they fell over the edge.

The remaining ogres were more careful and some tried to cast spells but were blocked by the bulk of their brethren. Out of impatience and stupidity, the ogre-magi shoved some of their brethren over the edge just so they could get a clear shot. This continued until one remained whom Thanatas yanked toward her and stabbed him in the gut with her sword and kicked over the edge.

They advanced into the makeshift ogre mound where they spotted three ogres hanging in the back of the room. One was more armored than the others, wearing plates over his gut and his chest. He wielded a spiked warmace.

“That’s Highlord Omokk, the leader of the Spirestone Ogres,” Thanatas said. “He has one of the gems for the seal.”

Omokk’s guards looked ready for a fight but the leader himself was laughing uproariously. After a few moments, he finally calmed enough to speak. “Dat was funny, makin’ all dem ogres fall off da bridge like dat. But me smart. Me not follow dem to fall off bridge. Me smash you here.”

The three ogres charged toward the group. Lokosh charged at Omokk with his shield in front of him and slammed it into his gut, earning the ogres’ attention. Before the other two could flank the warrior, a bunch of rocks in the shape of a fist punched one in his face while a thick vine grabbed the remaining ogre by the throat and pulled him to the wall. The second ogre looked toward where the rocks came from and saw a large earth elemental winding up for another punch.

The ogre and the elemental clashed with one another. The ogre was using a wooden staff which was not holding out against the onslaught of stone. When the staff broke, the ogre ended up bludgeoned to death. At that point the stored energies in Farra’jin’s earth totem depleted and the elemental returned to Deepholm. Farra’jin figured that the totem would need a small recharge period before he could use it again.

Meanwhile, Lokosh was enduring the heavy onslaught of Omokk’s hammer and was being pushed back toward a wall. Talia assisted by using her felguard demon to cut away at the ogre’s unprotected areas on his body while she bombarded him with shadow and fire spells. The spells proved effective because the armor plates protecting the ogre’s body were not enchanted to resist magic. However, the ogre also had a lot of stamina and was still going despite the damage he was taking from the warlock.

Once the duel between the second ogre and the earth elemental concluded, Farra’jin assisted in attacking Omokk with lightning, fire and frost magic. However, the ogre still kept going.

Omokk went for a wide swing intent on striking all three of his enemies when a root suddenly wrapped around his hammer which caught the ogre off guard to where he loosened his grip and lost hold of his weapon. The root tossed the hammer out of the room and into the chasm below.

The ogre then roared in fury. “Dat not funny! Me lose me favorite hammer!” He then used his fists to punch Lokosh’s shield which sent him flying into a wall. Lokosh got off the wall but it took him a moment to get back up. Meanwhile, Omokk ran toward the warrior to finish him before he recovered, only to trip over a root on the floor and fall on his gut.

Before Omokk could realize what happened, the felguard came up to the ogre’s head and with one powerful downward slash of his battle ax, his head came off.

The remaining ogre who was held on the wall couldn’t get loose from the vine strangling him until he asphyxiated.

The group took a moment to catch their breath. That was a tough fight. They decided to take a short break and eat some of the food they brought with them, mostly fruits and water since they were still averse to eating meat.

Meanwhile, Groun searched through Omokk’s pockets and found a white gemstone. He handed it to Talia who reluctantly took it since she really didn’t want something that came out of an ogre’s pants. She quickly placed the gem in one of the ring’s sockets so she wouldn’t be touching it for long.

After a few minutes of recovery, the group was ready to go again. Thanatas was glad that she didn’t have to intervene in the fight against Omokk since she was planning for herself to be involved with much tougher fights in the near future.

She led the group back into the area formerly guarded by the Scarshield Legion and took a left and went around a broken pillar to reveal that there was a path downward. At the bottom of a ramp was a group of Smolderthorn Trolls which meant that the next area was likely to be lousy with them.

Of course, the group had experience in dealing with trolls by now and as they fought, they weren’t any tougher than the ones at Zul’Farrak. In terms of appearance, these trolls had forest green skin.

The next room was decorated in troll icons such as tiki masks. As it turned out, Smolderthorn trolls fought differently than Sandfury trolls. While some were casters of dark magic, others fought by throwing axes or traditionally with swords. It was a relief that these trolls didn’t practice blood magic.

For a moment, Thanatas went into tour guide mode. “This place is Tazz’Alor, the capitol city of the Smolderthorn Tribe. The tribe’s population is small so don’t expect the place to be as big as Zul’Farrak.”

The others didn’t really care about the info as they were now looking out for the troll leader who had the second gem.

They had two routes they could take: a doorway and a flight of stairs that would take them to the lowest levels of Blackrock Spire. They decided to check out the doorway first.

They walked through a hallway and ended up in a room which was a dead end and filled with a number of trolls who appeared to be in the middle of one of their rituals.

There was no sign of their leader in the room but they dealt with the troll ritualists inside in case they tried to be a nuisance later, eliminating a few priests and warriors along with a pesky shadowhunter who tried hexing the party only for Lokosh’s shield to bounce the spell back at the shadowhunter where she was tragically crushed under Groun’s hoof.

They returned to the previous room and descended the flight of ramps down to the bottom floor which had several groups of trolls conversing with each other. Some of them looked like they were unnaturally bulky. They certainly never encountered anything like them in Zul’Farrak.

“What are they?” Talia asked, not even trying to hide her disgust.

“Dire trolls, they are either born that way or altered as such through alchemy or magic,” Thanatas explained. “Those muscles aren’t for show either.”

The trolls in the area soon noticed them and attacked, unleashing their dark magics and their axes on the group. Lokosh managed to deflect some of the spells while Farra’jin and Talia’s magics made quick work of the trolls. The sound of combat drew in more trolls including a few dire trolls. Some even emerged from a nearby doorway to fight them. However, their experience in dealing with trolls made the newcomers less threatening than they could have been.

After most of the area had been cleared, Thanatas led the group into the room before whispering, “War Master Voone, chieftain of the Smolderthorn Trolls is in the next room. Get ready.” They took her advice and readied their weapons for what could be another tough fight.

Voone didn’t hear them coming but his twin axes were still out nonetheless as while he didn’t hear them, he did hear the sounds of fighting.

Lokosh charged in and Voone started ferociously attacking the warrior, exploiting any openings in his defenses to deliver cuts to his body. Groun switched to healing duty and mended any cuts dealt to the warrior. As usual, Talia and Farra’jin assaulted the chieftain with spells.

Voone was not about to fall into the rhythm of his enemies so he spun around Lokosh’s left side to deliver a brutal chop to Farra’jin’s shoulder but the shaman managed to back away in time. The chieftain then set his sights on Talia but a battle ax to the chest from her felguard prevented him from trying that idea. Fighting through the pain, he charged after Groun, the healer. The druid tried to trip him with a root but Voone saw it coming and jumped over it while leaping for the tauren. However, Lokosh intervened and his shield slammed into the troll’s face and sent him flying away from everyone and landed on the floor.

Voone quickly got up and tried again but Lokosh body slammed him with his shield into a wall where Groun bound the troll with roots while Farra’jin repeatedly electrocuted him until his skin blackened. Voone’s head slumped downward and his body became still, the roots still holding him in place.

Lokosh searched through the troll’s pockets and found an orange gemstone which he passed to Talia to place in the ring. Only one gem remained.

With the second of the three gem holders dead, they took another break to discuss their next move. “So where are we supposed to find this Overlord Wyrmthalak.”

“Please tell me he’s nearby like Omokk and Voone were,” Farra’jin pleaded.

Thanatas shook her head, “I’m afraid that Wyrmthalak is a little far from here. Once we leave through the backdoor from Tazz’Alor, we will be in a shattered passageway, the passage is home to the Firebrand Legion, a division of orcs who specialize in fire and shadow magic. After that we will be climbing the Skitterweb Tunnels infested with crystal spiders and other critters. Once we get past that infested area, we will be in the home turf of the Bloodaxe Legion, known more for their brutality than any sort of specialty. Wyrmthalak will be close once we get through that.”

With that info, the group prepared themselves for the next leg of their journey through the lower spire.

A closed gate in the room appeared to lead back into the outer area. Talia pulled a torch by the gate which turned out to be a lever that opened the gate.

“How did you know that was there?” Groun asked.

“I am no stranger to secret doors opened by cliche means such as pulling candelabra or books to reveal secrets. My mansion had such things.”

They left the room and explored the area, dealing with more trolls as necessary, until they found an exit.

Outside the room was a shattered passageway with large rubble that the group had to navigate through. A nearby pool of magma greatly increased the heat in the area.

Once they were past the rubble, they were back to fighting orcs. These orcs wore red armor while the casters wore varying shades of red robes and hoods. They wandered around what appeared to be a makeshift village in a passage. There were red tents for sleeping under, blankets for sleeping on, smokers for cooking food, campfires for various needs, and even a couple of supply wagons for storing their goods that they didn’t want lying around.

As the group fought through the many orcs in the area, they found that they lived up to their division name. The Firebrand Legion not only had pyromancers who tried bombarding the group with flames, which were weakened thanks to Farra’jin’s water totem, but the warriors had runed stone axes which looked like blunt objects and they were enchanted to unleash fire with each swing.

Talia had her felhound counteract the pyromancers’ spellcasting which they reacted foolishly to by trying to run in and bash the group with their staves only for Talia to plant shadow magic into their bodies before warning Lokosh to jump back as she struck one with an Incinerate spell which snaked its way to one of the unsuspecting orcs. When the flames burned the orc, the planted shadow magic erupted into a huge explosion of shadowy energy which in turn triggered the other seeds and caused the orcs’ entrails to splatter all over the area, turning the passage into a gorey scene.

Any normal Equestrian would have probably released their lunch all over the place which Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun did. However, Talia looked at the scene with glee as she seemed to enjoy that particular spell and the gruesome end it gave to them. A part of her wished she could unleash that power upon her real enemies.

After turning a corner and dealing with more Firebrand orcs, they were soon clear of their presence and were climbing a ruined slope. It wasn’t long before they encountered the crystal spiders Thanatas warned them about.

The spiders were huge with some of them being two to three times their size. Their bodies were made of bluish white crystal and their legs were long, skinny and segmented. The larger ones seemed to have been carrying egg sacs on their abdomens.

Dealing with the spiders was not as tricky as the Firebrand orcs since they only wanted to bite their prey and trap them in webs. Talia was glad to find that fire still worked on the arachnids, even as the larger ones died and the younglings burst from their egg sacs to feed on the meals before them. For good measure, Talia and Farra’jin set all of the spider eggs in the tunnel on fire to avoid potentially facing them.

As they were having their fun, Thanatas took the time to gather up some venom sacs from the dead spiders.

This action drew the ire of a particularly large spider which Lokosh guessed was the broodmother of the spiders. Lokosh turned to face her but a flash of light caused the warrior’s body to lock up and become unable to move as his body became encased in a thin layer of crystal. The spider moved toward Talia and Farra’jin who unleashed their flames on the broodmother but she endured the fire much better than her children did.

The broodmother spat poison at the group which didn’t seem to hurt them at first until their bodies temporarily locked up. By then Lokosh had shaken off the effects of the light and broke free before he used his ax to cut into the broodmother’s abdomen. The spider screeched and turned around and spat poison on him. It wasn’t long before his body became paralyzed again. The spider tried taking a huge bite out of Lokosh but the others had broken free of their paralysis and unleashed everything they had on the spider. The flames unleashed upon it also incinerated the eggs she bore while the blasts of frost from Farra’jin and the heat from Talia shattered its legs.

As the giant spider went down, their bodies locked up again, showing that the poison had not left their systems. As that happened, Thanatas placed a venom sac into each of their paralyzed hands. “When the paralysis wears off, eat the sacs otherwise we will be here all day watching you play ‘red light, green light’.”

When the paralysis wore off, only Talia ate the sac as her pride overrode her sense of disgust. The others soon became paralyzed again, leaving the former noble to groan in frustration. “Will you idiots get over it and eat the bucking things already?! We don’t have time to sit around while you work up the courage to eat the damn things. So either eat them or I move on without you.”

The three cringed at Talia’s shouting at them which somehow didn’t attract more enemies to come after them. Small blessings they supposed. Not so with the fact that they had to eat spider venom sacs to rid themselves of the paralyzing toxin. Groun and Farra’jin considered using their own means of cleansing the poison, but at this point Talia would probably kick their asses if they cleansed the poison while she was the only one who ate the sac.

In the end, the three plugged their noses and swallowed the disgusting flesh. The taste was as disgusting as they feared but they kept trying to consume it while fearing Talia’s wrath.

Once they finally finished, they waited a few moments and found that the poison was no longer paralyzing them. The three gave a sigh of relief while doing their best to avoid the sac coming back up.

Satisfied, the group moved onward, briefly walking along a giant metal beam and climbing a ramp of collapsed rocks and soil, burning more eggs along the way. They moved through an intact door frame and climbed another broken path.

At the top of the path was a large gathering of ogres, each carrying a steel ax in each hand. Everyone looked at Thanatas in irritation as she never mentioned this bunch of ogres. The death knight shrugged, “I don’t have to tell you about every enemy in this place. Besides, I count ogres as part of the infestation.”

“Maybe you could do something useful here since you’ve only been following us around,” Talia offered.

Thanatas rolled her eyes, “Fine…” She pulled out a test tube from her satchel. This tube was filled with a reddish-brown substance while the tube had two numbers taped on it: ‘eight’ and ‘two’. “I suppose a gemini tube would help in this situation.”

The death knight tossed the enchanted tube into the middle of the group of ogres. The sound of glass shattering turned their attention to the middle of the platform where the glass shattered and the substance spread, before eight more tubes flew away from the point of impact and shattered nearby. Each of those eight tubes created eight more tubes each which shattered and splashed the ogres with the mysterious contents.

“Ugh, what dis mess?” one ogre shouted. “Me gonna smash whoever hit me wit brown sticky stuff!”

Just then, from the nooks and crannies of the area around them, all manner of insects skittered out of the cracks, mainly beetles and scorpions, and rushed toward the ogres. The ogres tried fighting the bugs off but there were too many and they soon started crawling all over the ogres.

In a panic, the ogres started running around aimlessly trying to pry the infestation off them while some crawled on their faces. Blinded by insect bodies, the ogres began running into each other and knocking each other down. In the chaos, some began falling off the platform or getting knocked off.
“Dare I ask what that was?” Talia asked.

“Concentrated insect pheromones, tricks nearby insects into thinking its mating season,” Thanatas answered.

The group pretended to not hear the answer and took advantage of the chaos to move forward and into another hallway that was occupied by orcs in red armor. A glance in the hallway showed that the orcs of the Bloodaxe Legion appeared to train black wolves and were mainly warriors and spellcasters.

Lokosh decided to use the strategy to lure in a large number of Bloodaxe into a narrow passage and burn them while they were bunched up. Once he banged his shield, Lokosh retreated into the passage with a fair number of orcs behind him. Once again, between Talia and Farra’jin, they incinerated the clustered warriors and spellcasters along with a few trained wolves.

Once the orcs stopped coming and the bodies cleared from the doorway, Thanatas led them left toward where she knew the Bloodaxe kept their supplies. The storeroom was filled with wooden crates filled with weapons and provisions that the Dark Horde might need for a war. The orcs inside had ignored Lokosh’s taunt from earlier, but Thanatas had another idea.

“Talia, Farra’jin, you two start some fires from here,” Thanatas whispered. “You have a few seconds to start as much fire as you can.”

Nodding, Farra’jin set his fire totem to summon a large fire elemental like he did earlier with his earth totem against the ogre highlord. He set the totem in the room and a fire elemental started unleashing flames all over the place. Talia and her imp cast a few fire spells themselves.

Once time was up, Thanatas froze the doorway into the storeroom, trapping everyone inside while smoke filled the room.

The orcs focused on dealing with the fire elemental first but by the time they realized the trap, it was too late. They ran to the ice wall and desperately tried to hack away at the ice but it was thick and it would take too much time to break it. When they considered explosives, the flames had already spread to them and lit them up, worsening the chaos in the room.

Ultimately, those orcs who didn’t die of the explosions or fire died of smoke inhalation.

The group proceeded to the other end of the hallway where they found a den of wolves, primarily pups and the den mother. The mother appeared to be shackled to a post in the den to prevent her escape.

“If we kill her we can cut the clan off from their supply of quality wolves,” Lokosh offered.

“Nah, this seems wrong. We can’t go killing a mother and her pups just because the Blackrocks were using them for war,” Groun countered.

“Don’t get sentimental on me Groun, we do whatever it takes to complete our mission,” Talia said.

“But dis isn’t part of our mission. We can take da Dark Horde out of the equation and da mada can be dealt with later if she becomes a problem. Our mission is gettin’ da gem off Wyrmthalak so we can get ta Rend,” Farra’jin offered.

Lokosh thought about it for a moment and made his decision. “Very well, we can leave her be.”

As they prepared to move forward, however, a high-pitched barking was heard from the direction of the den. Lokosh looked back to see a wolf pup approach him and stop in front of him with its tongue hanging out, eyes wide and tail wagging, as if it wanted something.

Lokosh briefly began to remember the old days as Steel Edge, the talented blacksmith. He had a dog once when he was a colt, on the verge of becoming a stallion. He remembered then he helped out at the shop, giving him any tools he might need for his orders which became fewer as time progressed.

Sadly, dogs had short lifespans and by the time he was in his mid thirties, the dog had passed from old age. He was still mourning his death by the time Crystal Silicon came by to make her offer.

The sound of whining from the pup broke Lokosh from his trance and he quickly realized the pup was hungry. He knelt down and took out some meat rations from his pack and gave them to the pup who quickly devoured it before cheerfully barking and racing around him.

“Great, one more mouth to feed,” Talia groaned with sarcasm.

That was when the pup vanished in a flash of light and in its place was a token that appeared in the warrior’s hand.

“Huh, that’s an interesting mechanic Sphere put in for this world…” Thanatas mused. “It seems that you can adopt companion pets and raise them as mounts or, in the case of hunters, as combat companions.”

“Wow, that’s good to know,” Lokosh said, for lack of a better word given his stunned state.

They put the matter behind them and entered a doorway that led into a shattered room filled with tents and campfires along with other supplies.

Obviously, the Bloodaxe Legion were not happy to see them and ran toward them to attack. By this point the fights were becoming monotonous and the group was hoping that they were near the end.

Once they finished off the Bloodaxe Legion, they carefully navigated through the broken room while avoiding the massive holes in the floor. They soon made it to the door on the other side and found themselves on a stone bridge. At the other side of the bridge was an entrance that was guarded by a Bloodaxe soldier and a Smolderthorn dire troll.

Seeing the two in the same place was odd since the past groups had kept separate while forming makeshift districts. This made the group wonder if this next area was going to mix the different legions, Smolderthorn and Spirestone together. It was also the best place to consider Wyrmthalak's location.

They quickly dealt with the orc and dire troll and entered the building. As they figured, the orcs, trolls and ogres were together in this room but there were still few to deal with. They took down the mixed groups with ease and climbed up a pile of rubble until they discovered an armored black dragonspawn at the top.

“A black dragon leads the Dark Horde down here?” Lokosh whispered.

“It makes sense when the one pulling Rend’s strings is one of Deathwing’s children. The Dark Horde is the army of the Black Dragonflight to use against Stormwind,” Thanatas explained. “They would send a black dragon to keep the troops down here from falling into chaos.”

“I can still hear you, intruders,” said the black dragonspawn. Wyrmthalak decided not to wait for the intruders to come after him and charged after them instead. Lokosh braced himself for the impact which came a moment later. Wyrmthalak’s spear strikes were heavy and pushed the warrior back. The dragonspawn backed away from any ax counterstrikes. At the same time, Talia and Farra’jin were unleashing spells on him.

Wyrmthalak unleashed a torrent of flame from his mouth which Lokosh did his best to block but he was still getting singed in places which were quickly healed by Groun. He also had to heal a few burns that his allies received.

Lokosh tried to slowly move around the dragonspawn to turn his attacks away from the others but the dragonspawn smirked before turning around to face Talia and prepared to unleash another flame breath. Talia braced herself for a very painful experience but instead heard glass shatter and an explosion immediately after. She saw Wyrmthalak fly a short distance before he rolled down the hill. Talia looked on the floor and spotted glass shards and residue.

“That’s what happens when you don’t play by the rules little dragon, I get to have some fun,” Thanatas called out.

To his credit, Wyrmthalak quickly rose to his feet and unleashed a loud roar that resonated throughout the chamber and beyond. Thanatas spotted a number of orcs, ogres and trolls crossing the bridge ready to assist their overlord. She took her position at the entrance and began cutting down the reinforcements. “I’ll deal with these guys, the rest of you should hurry and finish him.”

With renewed vigor, Lokosh and the others began attacking Wyrmthalak from different angles. This time when the warrior saw the dragon trying to cast his gaze on anyone but him, he made sure to slam his shield onto his face. Groun bound his feet with roots to make turning difficult and unable to attack behind him which meant the druid who was behind him was safe for the moment. Farra’jin unleashed his earth and fire elementals to attack the dragonspawn while his water totem weakened his fire attacks. His wind totem was set to give Lokosh a boost in the speed of his attacks which meant that Wyrmthalak was beginning to have his scales cleaved. Talia and her imp unleashed a barrage of spells.

With his mobility cut off and his options very limited, Wyrmthalak thrusted his spear at Lokosh with all his might and pushed the warrior away before he began breathing fire on the roots, burning them off and damaging his feet somewhat. He prepared to turn and burn someone when another root burst from the ground and grabbed him by the throat and pulled him to the ground, exposing his belly.

While his scales and armor made him very durable, he was still vulnerable when his belly was exposed. Talia knew that given her research into Equestrian dragons, so she called on her felguard who began hacking at Wyrmthalak’s exposed weakness with his battle ax.

Eventually, the dragonspawn succumbed to his injuries. The final blow knocked loose a red gemstone from Wytmthalak’s armor which bounced off the floor several times and once off a wall before it settled in a corner of the room. Farra’jin grabbed the gem and handed it to Talia to complete the collection for the signet.

Now they needed to find a way to get a black dragon to breathe on the ring.

With the Dark Horde forces all but wiped out in the lower spire, the group made the long trek back toward the entrance. It was in the same room that they found the door to the upper spire that they ran into Vaelan again. He stood near the entrance as if waiting for them.

It was when they began approaching the red dragon that things took an unexpected turn.

“Hey Thana,” Sophia suddenly announced over the link. “My group is back in Blackrock Mountain and they noticed the trail of orc bodies and are investigating. If you’re in the spire right now, you might want to prepare for a meet and greet for our parties.”

And just like that, the situation was about to turn chaotic.

Author's Note

Only 1 more chapter before the first raid dungeon. There will be about 5 of them for this arc. No, I will not be doing Naxxramas 40-man in this story for several reasons. One of those reasons relates to me not doing what is effectively the same raid twice (For you non-WoW fans, that raid was released in the original installment before it got removed and revamped for the third installment, Wrath of the Lich King). Another of those reasons is plot purpose and how it ties to the fate of one of the characters in this story.

Next time: The fated meeting between two parties.

United Under the Mountain

Multiple scenarios went through Thanatas’ head. While she had planned for this to happen all along, she didn’t expect that Sophia’s party would come waltzing toward them. Any plans she had on getting her group and Sophia’s group had gone out the window.

Now was the time for improvisation.

Lokosh noticed the worried look on the death knight’s face and while Talia would have taken no small pleasure in watching her squirm, whatever it was about, he preferred not to have the mission jeopardized. “Is there a problem, Thanatas?”

Thanatas snapped her head toward her group and gave them a stern look. “Apparently my cousin’s group is heading this way. I’m not sure how this is going to go down, they may act with hostility but I will not permit you to fight them. Sophia and I will get this situation under control.” She paused for a moment before she remembered one other thing. “Oh, and do not mention your Equestrian origins to them. I want them to be unaware of the nature of their reality for as long as possible until we can find a way to break it to them without putting them through an existential crisis.” She finalized her orders to them with a look that said ‘or else’.

A few minutes earlier…

Stella and her friends returned to Blackrock Mountain looking for a way to reach the lair of Onyxia’s brother, Nefarian, and put an end to his plans. However, this task was easier said than done as they had no idea how to reach his lair.

The only places in Blackrock Mountain where he could be were Shadowforge City and Blackrock Spire. However, they had already explored the city and found no trace of a dragon’s lair nor any sign of Black Dragonflight activity. This left the only option of Blackrock Spire.

From the central chamber in the mountain, the group took the route that they omitted the first time they were here. However, a few steps into this passage led to the discovery of orc corpses who appeared to have died from wounds or severe burns.

“It appears that someone has been through here,” Bella noted.

“No tellin’ if whoever did this is friend or foe. We better watch ourselves,” Jaqueline warned.

Sophia already knew who did this, especially since she sensed her cousin within the spire. This could only mean that their two groups were about to meet. Realizing this, she sent her psychic warning to Thanatas of their coming. This was a bit unexpected, and she had a feeling that the death knight was going to lay out some ground rules to keep the situation from escalating out of control. She needed to do her part to keep control of the situation.

“I can imagine that the most likely people to come to this mountain in the first place would be adventurers, either Alliance or Horde,” Sophia said.

“I hope it’s not a Horde party, those ruffians are nothing but trouble,” Bella remarked.

“Ah ain’t gotta problem with them, they weren’t the ones who ruined mah family farm and murdered mah ma, pa and brother,” Jaqueline said.

“They still deforested part of Ashenvale and rendered a good portion of the creatures there homeless,” Flutashe remarked. “Me and my people are still very upset with them about that.”

“Still, I think we’re going to need their help if we want to rid Blackrock Mountain of its two main rulers,” Sophia offered. “It’s going to take a small army to take on the forces of Ragnaros and Nefarian.

Bella groaned in exasperation, “I hate it that you’re right. I saw enough of the Firelord’s power in that vision to understand that we will need help in defeating him.”

“So are we going to ask this Horde group to join us?” Mena asked.

“How do you know they’re Horde?” Stella asked.

“Violetta told me. She said her mom is with them and they’re expecting us.”

“Mena are ya sure that thing ain’t messin’ around in yer brain?” Jaqueline asked. “‘Cause that makes no sense.”

“About as much sense as a blue dragon landing near us and transforming into a dashing looking young man with blue hair all for the sake of giving Stella some sort of impromptu… ‘Visage Day’ I think he called it?”

Stella was thankful that she didn’t have to wander around in public in her draconic form for too long. The blue drake who introduced himself as Faytagos, or Fayt while he was in his human form, helped her to design a new form for her to use. As shocking as the revelation of her true self was, she didn’t want to reject it as that came with its own psychological problems and she didn’t have time for an identity crisis right now. Instead, she compromised between her elf form and her dragon form. She still had the body of a high elf, except her hair was now a wavy-styled royal purple with teal horns shaped like the ones in her dragon form. It turned some heads but was not as attention-grabbing as if she were in her full draconic form. She kept her Kirin Tor robes but considered designing a new outfit once they were finished traveling.

Fayt also taught Stella how to shift between her visage form and her draconic form as both came with their own pros and cons.

“Don’t worry about my brain, Vio said that she needed me to stay as sane as I can manage. She also said that she prefers her house to not be made of gingerbread…whatever that means.” Mena shrugged.

The others decided to ignore that and move forward.

They soon came to the balcony with the doorway into Blackrock Spire near them. As they entered, they saw a man in a white and red robe with his back turned to them and blocking the entrance.

Vaelan had sensed the presence of both parties and considered his next course of action. He would have preferred that neither party would attack each other and hoped that it wouldn’t come to that. However, he did sense something odd about one among the Alliance group.

“Pardon me sir, but might we get past you?” Bella asked.

It was as the Alliance group entered the previously cleared room that he discovered the source of the odd feeling was coming from the purple-haired mage. He sensed the draconic power within her but while that wasn’t cause for alarm as dragons sometimes mingled with mortals, he sensed magics from all five flights within her. He could only think of one reason for that.

The bolt of fire came too fast for Stella to react and it slammed her in the face, knocking her to the floor. Vaelan readied another fire spell but Bella, Jaqueline, Mena and Flutashe were ready this time and moved between the red dragon and Stella, weapons drawn.

“Out of the way mortals, that abomination needs to be disposed of!” Vaelan ordered.

“We most certainly will not!” Bella snapped. “You just attacked our friend and you won’t get away with that!”

“You mortals are being deceived! She is one of Nefarian’s experiments to create a dragonflight capable of using the powers of the five flights. All of them have been made to serve him unquestioningly. She must have been sent to lure you to your doom!”

“That’s not true!” Stella shouted. “I don’t know much about my past except that I was raised from childhood by the wizards of Dalaran. I don’t remember anything about Nefarian!”

“A likely story…” Vaelan channeled a more powerful fire spell. “If you do not wish to share her fate, then I suggest moving out of the–”

His spell was interrupted when an icy spell briefly chilled his mind and made him lose his concentration. Another icy blast froze him from the chest down, binding his arms and legs.

Thanatas glared at the human visage with her sword pointed at him, “Stand down Vaelastrasz, the next spell you cast against her will end with me sending you back to Alexstrasza in a body bag!”

Vaelan struggled against his icy bonds while he glared daggers at the death knight, “How appropriate, dragon of death…”

Thanatas rolled her eyes, “Look, she’s not one of Nefarian’s experiments, she’s a dracthyr.

Vaelan’s glare turned to one of confusion with a raised eyebrow and a clueless expression. “A what?”

“Didn’t Alexstrasza ever explain to you about Neltharion’s army? The one he made before his descent into becoming Deathwing? He created the dracthyr with not only the essences of the five flights but also the adaptability and cleverness of the mortal races. They were his ultimate soldiers, at least until the relic that controlled them was destroyed and they were sealed away and abandoned on the Dragon Isles.”

“And how do you know that she is one of these dracthyr?” Vaelan countered. “You said it yourself, they were sealed on the Dragon Isles which doesn’t explain how one ended up here. The Isles have been abandoned for over ten thousand years!”

“As a scientific mind, I know of the extent of Nefarian’s experiments, his subjects are sloppy and amateur. He’s not as clever as he thinks he is. I know for a fact that none of them are capable of creating a visage form like she can. Nefarian has spent millennia trying to recreate his father’s dracthyr but failed time and again. As for how she ended up here, we will have to ask the self-proclaimed ‘Lord of Blackrock’ himself.”

The red dragon grit his teeth but looked away. She had made some valid points, ones that aligned with his observations on Nefarian’s forces. While the black dragons who served him had visage forms, those who were bred by that abominable breeding program did not.

If Stella was not on Nefarian’s side he would have her prove it.

“Is there something we need to know here?” Lokosh asked suddenly since he and his allies were watching the whole time but were ignored until now.

Vaelan suddenly channeled his fire magic to melt the ice around him. Once he was thawed out, the Alliance group kept their stance until they noticed that Vaelan’s stance was relaxed. He turned to the Horde group. “I see you have made it through the lower spire. I take it you have the adorned seal with you?” Talia presented the adorned ring to the dragon. “Place it on the floor and everyone move away from it.” Talia placed the ring on the floor while not taking her eyes off Vaelan, wary of his intentions.

Vaelan then turned to Stella. “I will give you the benefit of the doubt for now. Right now, we need your assistance in empowering the ring.”

Stella matched Talia’s glare toward the dragon with her own. “You mean like to enchant it?”

“In a sense. However, this enchantment requires the flames of the earth to work; the flames of the Black Dragonflight.”

Stella took a step back from the human visage. He was asking a lot from her. “I don’t know how to use the flames of the Black Dragonflight! I only just recently found out that I was even draconic! I don’t even know how to control which type of flame comes out of my mouth!”

“If that is true, then you either have amnesia or you were raised by the mortals. Which would make sense if you were indeed raised by the wizards of Dalaran.” Vaelan paused for a moment and looked toward the floor with a hand on his chin. “I don’t know how to get you to use your earth abilities but I might be able to point you in the right direction. Tell me, have you utilized abilities that were tied to abilities of various flights? Magic that mages usually don’t learn or spells that have an effect that is unusual when compared to how others use the same spell?”

It didn’t take long for Stella to recall such times. “I know my flamestrike has caused flowers to grow in the area of effect. There may also be my mist spell that puts enemies to sleep. No other mage seemed to know that spell and have confused me for a druid once or twice. Back in Shadowforge city I produced an ice breath and a sand breath.”

“So you have been channeling the other flights’ powers, you just haven’t realized the source of that power until now. My flight is about passion and love for all living things.

“Green dragons have a few responsibilities that overlap with red dragons but their main focus is the Emerald Dream. They protect the dreams of all who sleep on Azeroth.

“Blue dragons focus on the regulation of magic in the world. Given your profession as a mage, I would imagine that you would know how to channel that flight’s magic the most.

“Bronze dragons are the custodians of time but they are capable of manipulating it in places, such as the acceleration or reversal of the time on an object or person. Use it responsibly.

“At one time, the Black Dragonflight were the protectors of the land and what lay beneath it. They were charged with the protection of the world itself. Their power shaped the land we walk on, and it is that power that we need right now.”

Stella thought back to her studies in magic, including magics that were researched but never practiced by the mages of Dalaran. She gave a look to the dragon, still unwilling to extend much trust. “Alright, I’ll try.”

At first she considered the magics of druidism, given that their magics were based on what came from the land. However, that turned into a dead end as she only felt the life magics of red and green dragons.

Her normal magical studies were out of the question as she would only find the magics of the Blue Dragonflight there. A focus into the arcane school also helped her to make brief contact with her bronze magic. She would need to look into that later.

This left shamanism left to consider. A shaman’s ties to the elements, particularly earth and fire, seemed to be her best bet. However, her knowledge on shamanism would do her no good as this was something to be practiced.

Farra’jin picked up on her distress. Hearing that black dragons held dominion over earth, he had a feeling that he might be able to help. “‘Ey girl, ya don’t need ta be commiunin’ with spirits ta use dat power. Tink about what earth and fire represents. Earth is patient and unmoving most of da time, but fire can make da earth move if it be strong enough. Da will of fire can move mountains, but not without help from da earth itself. Fire be da will to move da land but earth be da body that fire inhabits ta make it happen.”

Stella wasn’t sure what the troll was talking about. To her it sounded like nonsense. At the same time though, she had to wonder what he meant by ‘the will of fire to move the earth’ It’s almost as if he were saying that she needed to exert her will on the ring, not through her magic, but a force of will to make the ring’s power activate.

That was when she felt the presence of the black essence within her. It remained elusive, as if mocking her for being unworthy of it. She decided to test Farra’jin’s theory and exerted her will over the black essence. The mental pressure she exerted upon that part of her caused it to struggle to fight for its freedom but Stella would not have it. She pressed upon the will of the black essence, suppressing it and forcing it to fall in line with her desires.

With a look of determination on her face, Stella transformed into her draconic form, surprising Vaelan as he had never seen a form like that before. She walked up to the ring but maintained a safe distance as she didn’t want to sear her robes by accident. She wasn’t sure how long she had before the black essence might try to break free of her will once more so she worked fast and took a deep breath. She opened her mouth wide and shifted her head toward the ring before unleashing a torrent of flame with bits of lava on it.

The flames were intense and within seconds the floor around the ring was charred black. The ring itself glowed from the heat. However, as bright as it was, it showed no sign of melting.

Stella breathed on the ring for a few more seconds before exhaustion kicked in and she stopped the blazing stream and fell to her knees on the floor, panting heavily.

Vaelan walked over to the still glowing ring and picked it up to inspect it, manifesting his red scales on his right hand to do so without burning himself. He stared at the draconic runes on the inside of the ring and smiled as he saw the runes glowing vibrantly. “You have done well. This Seal of Ascension is now ready to be used to open the way to the upper spire. I’d like to add one final touch to it though.”

He enclosed the ring in a fiery sphere before channeling a fiery beam into the sphere and the ring. The process took moments before the ring was freed once again and it fell into his hand. The ring rested there for a few moments before the ring stopped glowing but the runes continued to glow a fiery light.

“I have placed a tiny portion of my essence in this ring. If you encounter Nefarian or his persona, Lord Victor Nefarius, this ring will summon an echo of myself. It should be enough to get you out of trouble until you find your way into Blackwing Lair.”

“So what are ya gonna do now?” Jaqueline asked, eyes narrowing as she said that.

“My mission has been to hunt down and eliminate Nefarian. If you end up finding him before me, I wish you luck in surviving the encounter. He and Onyxia are two of the most powerful members of his brood, and their mother, Sintharia, would be your doom if you ever encountered her.”

“Your warning is appreciated, even though Onyxia is already dead,” Sophia said.

Once again, Vaelan was stunned by that declaration. He began to wonder how many more earthshaking revelations he was going to hear today. He tried to open his mouth to ask about that but the only thing that came forth was a stuttering, “I-I see…” He shook his head to regain his senses. With his composure restored partially, he became more cognizant of his next words. “Are you certain that it was her you encountered?”

“She is an ancient dragon with purple sinew on her wings and curved horns, Marshal Windsor of Stormwind openly declared her name and she didn’t deny, and I have her head in a dimensional pocket with me. I’d rather not bring it out because this room seems too small to be bringing it out and I’d rather not set Nefarian off just yet as he will be looking to seek vengeance for his sister once he finds out.”

“Yes, I’d rather he not be on the warpath until we find a way into his lair,” Vaelan thought out loud.

“We still don’t know how to get there though,” Bella said.

“Actually, we found a way,” Lokosh declared. “Somewhere in the upper spire is the entrance to Blackwing Lair where Nefarian resides. There is a shortcut there using the orb outside but we need something called the Mark of Drakkisath branded onto our hands to use the orb and the brand is guarded by a dragon of the same name. Drakkisath and the brand are somewhere in the upper spire.”

“So you guys are here to take down Nefarian too?” Jaqueline asked.

“Sort of,” Groun replied. “We came here with the mission to take down Rend Blackhand, the leader of the Dark Horde and any who support him, which would include Nefarian.”

“I see, perhaps we might be able to offer our assistance in your mission,” Bella offered. “However, Nefarian is not our only objective in Blackrock Mountain.”

“What do ya mean?” Farra’jin asked.

Thanatas answered this one, “This mountain is a battlefield between the Dark Horde and the Dark Iron Clan of dwarves. Both sides are led by two malevolent beings. The Dark Horde is led by the black dragon Nefarian while the dwarves are led by Ragnaros the Firelord, the ruler of all fire elementals. Defeating only one of these two powers would lead to the other claiming the rest of the mountain before beginning their war on the nearby kingdoms of Stormwind and Ironforge. Their forces would spread through the rest of the world if left unchecked. Neither the Alliance nor the Horde will be spared.”

“So we need to topple both of them, and quickly,” Talia concluded. “The question is: Which one do we attack first?”

“Given that we just dealt a severe blow to the Dark Horde’s numbers in the lower spire, it may take Nefarian and Rend time to regroup their forces. That may just give us time to focus on Ragnaros,” Lokosh offered.

“That may be the best course of action,” Stella replied. “With Ragnaros taken out, Emperor Thaurissan and Princess Bronzebeard can begin the path toward redeeming the clan, as long as the emperor was being honest.”

“Ah don’t think we need to worry about that,” Jaqueline assured.

“If no one objects, then it appears that our course is set,” Thanatas said.

With that, the group began leaving Blackrock Spire and headed toward the lower sections of the mountain while Vaelan continued his hunt. On their way, the group introduced themselves.

However, their journey was paused when Mena said something odd to everyone but Sophia and Thanatas. “Hey Thanatas, Violetta wants me to tell you ‘Hi mom!’”

Thanatas sighed and rolled her eyes. “How long are you going to be lurking? Just show yourself so we can get the introductions out of the way. It’s rude to lurk, after all.”

The Alliance and Horde groups jumped back as they saw the woman in the black skinsuit and writhing purple hair manifest before them. “Aww…but lurking is a means of causing uncertainty which leads to a delicious case of paranoia…”

Thanatas had her arms crossed as she gave her daughter a disapproving look. “Maybe, but you’re also not supposed to drive insanity into the minds of those you’re trying to befriend. There’s a time and a place for those antics but not in this case.” She had to be careful to word that in a way that didn’t raise unwanted questions.

The only reason the behavior between the two wasn’t a major surprise to the Alliance group was because Flutashe and Mena had already explained Violetta to Stella, Bella and Jaqueline. They also mentioned something about her mother forming ties with the Horde leadership. Of course, one being pale and dead while the other being a mind-raping eldritch horror, there was some difficulty in finding a resemblance between the two.

While the death knight and the horror were having their conversation, Talia received a mental message that made her feel more unclean than she ever felt in her life…

“I’d be careful with that hatred you carry if I were you, otherwise you might draw unwanted attention from me one day…”

Despite being undead, Talia felt a biting chill that made her want to hug herself and shiver uncontrollably for warmth.

Jaqueline noted that Thanatas was undead, but guessed that she was one of the Forsaken since she was associating with the Horde. Of course, some part of her didn’t want to dismiss that she might be a Scourge agent. She would need to keep an eye on her.

Once Violetta made her introduction, she returned to the recesses of Mena’s mind while leaving everyone feeling a sense of discomfort.

“How ever are you related to that fiend?” Bella asked. Everyone else, except Sophia, shared in the paladin’s curiosity through overlapping sounds of agreement.

“It’s a long and unbelievable story, trust me,” Thanatas dismissed, not in the mood to share the story right now. “Now come, we have an appointment with the king of the fire elementals.”

Author's Note

This chapter is shorter than usual since this is basically the last of the setup needed for their first raid dungeon. The two parties are brought together for the purpose of fighting monsters a lot more powerful than anything they have encountered so far.

I hope my readers can appreciate the effort I made to try to explain how Stella's dragon powers worked. Seems like a lot of bs, but it's not like Blizzard ever gave any real explanation as to how a dracthyr shifted between their dragon essences.

Next time: A 4-parter, the first raid, Molten Core!

Happy New Year everyone!

The Molten Core, Part 1: Hounds of the Firelord

Azshara, a beautiful region in northeastern Kalimdor. The region was cast in an eternal autumn with trees of varying shades of red and gold. The grass matched the color scheme of the trees. Within this region rested the ruins of Zin-Azshari, the capitol of the Night Elven empire ten thousand years ago before the land was shattered into the continents of today. Ancient night elven ruins littered the landscape today with naga forces occupying the ruins of their old home.

Today, the region known as Azshara was a large bay area with two peninsulas in the northern and southern parts of the region closing in around the Bay of Storms.

It was on an island off the tip of the southern peninsula where Zoias found herself after sensing a group of water elementals through the earth. What interested her was the fact that one of them was particularly powerful, not as powerful as Neptulon, but still stood out from others of their kind.

The reason for the elementalist’s visit in this region had to do with trying to earn the favor of Neptulon by aiding him in his war against the other elemental lords.

The elementals in the area were shocked by her sudden appearance and prepared to attack. However, what she said next gave them pause. “I wish to parley with your leader.”

The elemental guards looked at each other for a moment, as much as she could tell since they were bulbous masses of water with bracers, before they glared at her. “You bear the mark of the Stonemother, trespasser. Why should we believe that this isn’t a trap set up by her?” one demanded.

“My quest is not limited to the power of the Stonemother, but all four. I earned the Stonemother’s favor through a bargain. And now, I come to earn the favor of the Tidehunter.”

“I shall speak with the mortal,” spoke a voice behind the guards. The two moved aside to reveal a large deep blue water elemental who was shaped differently than his brethren. Instead of a bulbous shape, this one had a more defined shape than the others. His torso appeared to display watery muscles along with properly developed arms and hands. His shoulders appeared as if he wore a spiky mantle made of water along with a helm that appeared as a faceguard of six fangs curving toward the center with a crest that appeared like the head of a hammerhead shark. His form showed no signs of bindings, it was all pure water.

The large elemental moved closer to Zoias and fixed a scrutinous glare at her. “I am Duke Hydraxis, emissary of Neptulon. You come seeking the favor of my lord? Unless you are willing to make our enemies your enemies then there shall be no bargain.”

“Greetings your grace, I do seek to make war on both Ragnaros and Al’akir, for as I have claimed a piece of Therazane’s essence through a bargain we made, I am aware that I must claim the essence of your other two enemies by slaying them. I am here to take an important step toward earning the favor of your lord.”

Hydraxis stared at the human for a few moments before he made his decision. “If you seek a piece of my master’s power, then you shall prove your intentions. In a place on the eastern landmass is a place called Blackrock Mountain. There, Ragnaros slumbers.”

With a motion of his hand, one of his guards brought a crate filled with glass vials filled with a blue fluid that matched the duke’s color. “The Firelord rests safely in his lair until his majordomo summons him. The majordomo himself is safe from attack by a series of warding runes located throughout the Molten Core where the Firelord’s minions reside. These vials will extinguish the runes and make the majordomo vulnerable. Force him to summon his master and defeat both of them. Elementals are bound to the elemental planes and are banished back to their realms upon their demise. You will not be able to obtain Ragnaros’ essence unless you defeat him in the Firelands.”

Zoias knew that she would not be able to try her hand at defeating the Firelord on his home turf without her sister’s permission so she would have to settle on assisting Neptulon with his war against the elementals for the time being. She placed the vials in a special pocket in the ground that would appear whenever she summoned it. The vials were enclosed in the pocket and sunk into the ground.

“I’ll be back with news from the Core,” Zoias said. She then vanished into the ground.

The now large group composed of races from the Alliance and the Horde made all the preparations they could. Stella’s conjured food and water to keep their strength going. She used the best cooling enchantments she knew on everyone with Farra’jin setting his water totem to provide additional resistance to the intense heat they would be experiencing.

Sophia performed some warm up exercises and did her best to loosen up her muscles for the coming battles.

As they entered the chamber where Jaqueline encountered the ghost of Franclorn Forgewright, Thanatas went into lecture mode to make sure everyone knew what to expect. “I doubt this will be the only time we will be facing foes as powerful as Ragnaros so I will explain what to expect in places like the one we are heading into.

“Places like the Molten Core and Blackwing Lair are filled with enemies that would take more than a handful of people to take down and the leaders of such places are extremely powerful. We will need to work together in order to prevail. The leaders will have a number of tricks up their sleeves to disrupt our teamwork and wipe us out. If we are to survive we can’t let that happen. I will do my best to offer tactical assistance.”

Jaqueline raised an eyebrow at the death knight. “Ya know, ya sound like ya know exactly what to expect in these places. Why is that?”

“Do you really want to look a gift horse in the mouth, Jaqueline?” Thanatas deadpanned.

The warrior wanted to retort, but she also knew that Thanatas had a point. Given that they were going into a place where mortals like them could be crushed like ants, they needed all the help they could get. “Ah suppose not, still don’t know if ah can trust ya though.”

They soon arrived at the ledge a few feet above the magma. The elf from before was still there waiting for any travelers to pass by so he could tell them about the rift. While he saw the large group coming, he also spotted Stella among them, telling him that this group was about to begin an assault on the Molten Core. He then moved aside and let the mage do her work.

Stella pulled out the gem she found near the Molten Core’s entrance. She turned to everyone who were all looking at her. “Is everyone ready?” Everyone nodded. She then channeled her magic into the gem which fired into an empty space before a spatial rift opened.

Everyone proceeded one by one into the rift.

The party emerged in a volcanic tunnel. Already they could feel the intense heat more than ever, even when they were near the magma it didn’t feel as hot. They were ever grateful that Stella’s enchantments were holding.

“So this is the Molten Core?” Lokosh asked.

“Yes, Ragnaros keeps his strongest soldiers from the Firelands here,” Thanatas answered. “He employs many fire elementals as well as volcanic earth elementals. We will also encounter more giants made of glowing volcanic rock and the favored beasts of Ragnaros, core hounds.”

“Core hounds?” everyone asked in unison.

“Giant two-headed canines who are elementals with flesh. We will be facing a lot of them here.”

Everyone nervously gulped before taking their fighting positions. Lokosh got his shield ready while Flutashe shifted into her bear form, an ability that Groun was slightly jealous of but quickly crushed that feeling. Groun and Bella prepared their healing spells as they were certain that they would need them. Everyone else prepared to unleash their fury upon whoever came after them.

As they moved around the corner toward the main chamber, they saw their first enemies: two molten giants. Neither one looked any weaker than the one they encountered in Shadowforge City.

Once the two noticed the intruders and charged forward, Lokosh and Flutashe each held the attention of one giant while everyone else used their abilities to bring the giants down. Against such colossal beings, the warrior and druid focused on dodging their stomps and arm swings since there was no way to block attacks from creatures ten times their size.

The attackers found that the giants were not going down easily. Jaqueline hacked into their ankles repeatedly but their molten rock exterior was very durable. Shadow attacks from Talia and Surprise were having an effect on the giants but they continued to endure.

While everyone else was busy fighting the giants, Sophia and Thanatas were hanging back as usual while discussing the battle out of earshot of the others. “These guys seem a lot tougher than anything they’ve encountered before,” Sophia remarked.

“That’s raids for you,” Thanatas explained. “Monsters and bosses are much more powerful than anything you would find outside the area. This is why these enemies would require a small army to face normally. It’s how they are going to be able to face enemies that would normally be nearly impossible for mere mortals to face.”

“So are they going to require our help here?”

“Definitely!”

At the time, the giants were beginning to wear down and their ankles had deep gashes thanks to attacks from Lokosh, Jaqueline and Flutashe. The giants winced every time they moved their legs while their bodies were starting to lose chunks of rock from the bombardment of spells. Stella’s ice breath and spells made their movements sluggish and parts of their body brittle while lances of ice conjured by the mage shattered chunks off their rocky bodies.

The party suddenly saw Sophia and Thanatas leap toward the heads of the giants before readying their blades for a strike each that removed their heads. The giants toppled afterward.

The party took a small break to catch their breath. As they began drinking from one of Stella’s conjured water bottles, Jaqueline gave the cousins a look. “‘Bout time you two did something to help out. Ah was beginnin’ to wonder if you two were gonna carry yer weight.”

Seeing as they were at the point of doing raids in their adventures, Thanatas figured that now would be the time to come clean about that. “The reason we hold back most of the time is for the sake of your own development as adventurers. If we became more involved in your battles, you wouldn’t have grown as much as you have.”

Jaqueline narrowed her eyes on the two. “Sounds like an excuse ta me.”

“I believe a demonstration is in order.” She pointed to two more molten giants on the other side of a bridge that was guarded by several large fire and lava rock elementals. “Me and Sophia will quickly eliminate two opponents that took all of you so much effort to take down. You may want to be ready to face those elementals in the way.”

As the party got ready for whatever the two cousins were planning, Lokosh got the attention of the elementals. Thanatas gave a few quick warnings about the elementals, “Those firelords can weaken you with a flame that prevents you from casting spells. If they create smaller fire elementals, kill them quickly or they will divide and eventually overwhelm you with numbers. The lava earth elementals lack an attention span so they could attack anyone at any time.”

While the party members faced two firelords and one lava annihilator, as they were known as, Thanatas and Sophia quickly moved to engage the giants behind the elementals.

Thanatas created a sphere of highly condensed frost magic from her mouth and launched it at one of the giants. On impact the sphere froze the giant solid. She then created a number of illusory swords in the likeness of her own and launched them at the frozen mass. Striking key points, the blades caused the giant’s body to fall apart and dim as the magma in its body cooled.

Sophia levitated herself before rushing the other giant and delivering a heavy kick to its chest, sending the massive creature flying into the back wall and leaving a dent in it. She then created a sphere of condensed psionic power in her palm and pressed it into the giant’s chest. As the energies surged through the creature, its body changed from red and black to blue and black. The giant glowed brighter until it was almost blinding. This lasted for a moment before the giant exploded.

While the others saw the performance, the elementals didn’t pay attention to it and focused on them. This forced the party to focus on their enemies.

As Thanatas forewarned, the annihilator attacked whomever it pleased, forcing Jaqueline to exchange one sword for her shield to defend herself from the elemental’s heavy attacks. Talia would call on her demons to defend her, Bella had her light spells to protect her, Farra’jin would call an earth elemental to combat it, Stella would freeze it and hurl icicles at it to keep it away from her until it picked someone else to mess with, Groun would summon roots what could survive in volcanic environments to bind it until it broke free and went after someone else, and Mena would use her uncanny sense to dodge the elemental’s attacks until it got bored.

When the elemental wasn’t focusing on them, the party focused on the firelords. To ensure that Thanatas’ warning didn’t come to pass, they bombarded any spawn that the larger fire elemental created with spells and attacks until it vanished. Occasionally, a party member would suffer a strange fiery attack that left them feeling enervated and cut off from their magic while suffering excruciating pain. Thankfully, Talia’s felhound smelled the magical affliction and used its tendrils to suck it out of their bodies, leaving the victim energized and able to use their magic again.

This went on for a few minutes before Thanatas moved in and unleashed a wave of intense cold that overpowered one firelord’s heat, allowing Talia and Surprise to finish it off with their shadow spells. Sophia delivered a heavy punch to the volcanic rock elemental that left deep cracks in the boulder that made up its torso which Groun took advantage of by burrowing roots into the cracks to wedge the elemental’s body apart. With two of the three elementals down, the party assaulted the remaining firelord with everything they had until it faded away and left its bindings behind.

With the immediate threat taken care of, the party could address the matter of Thanatas and Sophia’s overwhelming power. However, Sophia was the one to begin that conversation, “Can you imagine if I punched VanCleef like that? He would have ended up a bloody smear on the wall if I kicked him as hard as I kicked that giant.”

“So you’ve been holding back for the purpose of us getting combat experience?” Bella asked.

“That and teamwork experience, you especially need that to handle the challenges you will face down here.”

“Okay…ah suppose that would explain why you were hangin’ back most of the time…” Jaqueline ventured. “...but that brings up another question; why us?”

“Yes, I would like to know that too,” Bella agreed. “I am guessing that it has something to do with Stella, since you joined us shortly after we met.”

“And what was that strange power you used against that giant?” Mena asked. “I think it’s safe to say that you’re no ordinary rogue.”

Sophia shook her head, “This isn’t just about Stella, I was as surprised about her nature as a dracthyr as you were. All five of you were destined to meet. However, that’s all the information that I’m allowed to divulge about that at this time. Just know that me and Thanatas mean you no ill intent and that we wish to see all five of you fulfill your destinies, whatever they may be.

“As for my powers…” Sophia sighed in resignation. “You’re right, I’m no ordinary rogue. If I were to be classified as a class it would be a dark templar. To describe a dark templar, I would be a warrior with psychic powers with the stealth and assassination skills of a rogue.

“And what about Violetta?” Mena asked. “You didn’t mention anything about her not meaning any harm to us.”

Violetta manifested again and pouted with an eye roll, “Look, I really do need your help with dealing with the Old Gods. I need their power to control my own void powers. Without you as a vessel I would get paralyzed by the overwhelming voices in my head. I still intend on upholding my end of the bargain for each Old God I devour. Also, my mother over there…” she pointed to Thanatas, “...is leading this mission and her orders are absolute for Sophia and I. Therefore, I am not allowed to harm you in any way as long as she says so.”

Thanatas crossed her arms and rolled her eyes. “Put all the pressure on me, why don’t you?” she sarcastically stated. As Violetta vanished, she continued, “Anyway, forget about her for now. She just likes to sew chaos and mistrust which is what we don’t need right now. Let’s keep going.”

They didn’t get far before they ran into a patrolling lava earth elemental, or rather it ran into them as it immediately performed a full body charge at the group which sent everyone flying backward. Farra’jin and Flutashe nearly flew off the edge and into the magma below but Mena saved the troll by yanking him back to her with her Leap of Faith spell while Flutashe quickly shifted into a bird and rode the thermal current back to her friends.

Meanwhile, Lokosh was keeping the elemental, a lava surger as Thanatas called it, busy while everyone else focused their fire on it. It took about a minute to shatter the elemental.

“Those lava surgers love to move at fast speeds,” Thanatas explained. “The best way to tell a lava surger from a lava annihilator is the fact that the surgers hate staying in one place for long.”

The party continued forward after the brief lecture from the death knight. As they moved, they faced another firelord and a lava annihilator. They continued along the wide volcanic walkway over the magma lake.

That was when they had their first encounter with a beast out of a nightmare.

The beast was easily three times their size. His flesh looked like it was made of molten lava. The massive canine had two heads with razor-sharp teeth and a pair of tusks with a horn on both foreheads. He also had a stubby tail and his back was lit with flames. On his forelegs were a pair of ornate steel-colored manacles and a pair of spiked shoulder guards on his upper forelegs. Each head was wearing a spiked steel-colored collar with a broken chain. The metals that composed his armor were unknown as their bodies radiated intense heat that would melt some metals. The lava-like drool that came out of his mouth looked like it could melt armor and weapons.

“Ladies and gentlemen, a core hound,” Thanatas announced. “These guys breathe fire and the ancient ones can inflict a number of magical afflictions.”

The howl of the two-headed beast reverberated throughout the cavern. Lokosh acted quickly to gain his attention by slamming his shield into its left head, angering him. The warrior jumped backward to avoid the fanged maw of the left head while the right head made his own failed attempt at a bite. Stella worked to immobilize the beast by unleashing ice at his feet using her frost magic. Thanatas reinforced that magic with her own to make sure the core hound didn’t try to break free.

Switching to her dragon form, Stella unleashed a beam of mana at the core hound which caused him to roar in pain as it struck the snout of the right head. Sophia fired her own beam of psionic power which would have pushed the core hound back if his feet weren’t frozen.

Now truly angered, the core hound unleashed a strange howl that placed a dark aura around everyone. Stella quickly detected that she was afflicted with a curse and quickly cast a countercurse on herself. She then warned everyone about the curse which Groun reacted with his own anti-curse remedy, assisting the dragon-mage with removing curses.

Suddenly, Flutashe moved in between Lokosh and the core hound. She was still in her elf form. “Stop!” she screamed. The core hound began to inhale to unleash a flame breath but paused when he laid eyes on the druid’s eyes. Its primal instincts told him to stand down. His instincts warred with his loyalty to Ragnaros. While he would have disregarded a stare from anyone else, there was something otherworldly about the night elf’s eyes.

To everyone’s surprise, the core hound relaxed and whimpered. Thanatas had a feeling about what just happened and tested it by freeing the molten canine from his icy bonds. The Alliance group kept up their stances while the Horde group tried to protest the death knight’s actions but were shut down when Sophia, who telepathically received her cousin’s intentions, shot them a menacing aura.

Freed from his bonds, the core hound tried to move up to lick Flutashe, but the druid held up a hand. “You know that you can’t do that with creatures of flesh, but a small nuzzle will do.” The core hound did just that, leaving everyone with stunned expressions.

Back at Sphere, the observers were watching the events unfold with different reactions. Lyra and Sweetie were cooing at the situation, Midnight and Sarah had impassive expressions, and Twilight was lost in nostalgia as she remembered her old animal-loving friend who had a way with dangerous beasts.

Once Flutashe was finished defusing the situation, the core hound jumped off the walkway and into the lava where he paddled away.

They soon pressed on, dealing with more firelords and both types of volcanic elementals. They also ended up facing another pair of molten giants.

Thanatas soon led the party across a bridge onto a small island inhabited by more elementals and a core hound who Flutashe kindly made leave. Another bridge took the party into a smaller cavern. While they had to smash more lava surgers while being careful that one of them didn’t send them flying into the magma, the cavern they entered was teeming with flamekin. As soon as they entered the cavern, they were swarmed by the imp-like creatures. Thankfully, they were still frail but they were still dangerous in large numbers.

In an effort to mow down the flamekin, Jaqueline used a technique that she learned from a dwarf who like to wield two heavy weapons. Keeping her blades pointed outward and making sure she was surrounded by the flamekin, she started spinning around while crouching low to meet the demons’ low stature. The flamekin weren’t the smartest people in the world so they continued running toward her while her spinning technique started cutting and slicing the flamekin. Some of the more unlucky ones ended up decapitated by the whirling storm of blades. Of course, the warrior could only keep it up for a few seconds without getting dizzy. By then though, at least twenty flamekin were felled.

Others used their area-affecting attacks as well. Some burned in Bella’s consecrated ground, some were chilled by Stella’s magic and ice breath, some burned under Surprise’s shadow magic, some were simply crushed by Groun’s roots. The rest were obliterated by Sophia’s psionic blasts.

Eventually the flamekin were wiped out and they proceeded deeper into the cavern.

This was where the true challenge of the Molten Core began.

Within the cavern were several packs of smaller core hounds. Thanatas assured them that they were juveniles and lacked any tricky spells that the older ones had, except for the ability to rekindle the flames of their kin and revive them. This meant that they had to focus on killing them all at around the same time.

…Or would if Flutashe didn’t start befriending them.

They also spotted a dark gray flamewaker wandering the cavern along with four other reddish-yellow flamewakers. They didn’t notice the party yet but they would soon once they returned.

“That guy is going to be your first major challenge in this place,” Thanatas whispered. “The gray one is Lucifron, one of the more powerful flamewakers in Ragnaros’ army. By himself he isn’t too challenging as long as you make sure his magical afflictions and curses don’t become an issue.”

Glad to be forewarned about what Lucifron was capable of, the party made preparations for their upcoming fight with the first of Ragnaros’ lieutenants.

As the flamewaker and his entourage slithered away, Flutashe got the attention of one of the packs and quickly got to work befriending them. As they moved to bite her, they paused as they sensed an invisible aura coming from the druid. As the hounds were still young and kept to their pack mentality until they reached maturity, their instincts were tricked into believing that she was the pack alpha.

Another pack witnessed what was happening and moved to attack but fell to Flutashe’s alpha charm all the same.

Lucifron eventually returned from further in the cavern. He and his four lackeys began slithering after the group once they were spotted by the flamewakers. “Mortal insects have found their way into the Molten Core! Slay them!”

Almost immediately the flamewaker guards attempted to use dark magic to take control of Farra’jin, Talia, Jaqueline and Mena. Talia’s felhound quickly purged the affliction from its master and worked on the others.

However, for the one who tried to control Mena, they made a grave mistake. In their attempt to control her mind, Violetta turned the tables and took control of his mind instead. The other flamewakers were taken by surprise when one of their own was slashing at them with his spear. Believing he suddenly turned traitor since it seemed inconceivable for one of their own to be under the effects of a mind control spell from a mere mortal, the others tried to control him which made things much worse as Violetta’s influence spread to them, resulting in all four of them being controlled by the eldritch horror.

Meanwhile, Lucifron was busy fighting Lokosh. He kept the flamewaker leader far away from the others so his spells wouldn’t cause problems for the others. He often placed a magical affliction that threatened to crush his heart if the spell was allowed to run its course but Talia’s felhound was dutifully consuming the magic on him. He attempted to strike down the demon with his sword but the strike was suddenly blocked by a spear from one of his flamewaker guards.

Lucifron was momentarily caught off guard when he realized that he was being attacked by his own guards. “You dare strike down a servant of Ragnaros!? I shall crush all of you for this betrayal!”

His situation was made worse when the nearby core hounds moved in to attack him as well, following the will of their new alpha. The beasts tore lacerations in Lucifron’s flesh.

In retaliation, Lucifron desperately cast his deadly magical affliction on everyone around him. The party managed to dispel the affliction from themselves through their various means while allowing the spell to run its course against the flamewaker guards who eventually succumbed to it. The core hounds also succumbed to the spell all at once. However, Talia and Farra’jin cast their fire spells on one of the core hounds and reignited his flames. The juvenile beast ignited the others in turn before they resumed tearing into the flamewaker leader’s flesh.

With all of his spells being dealt with in a timely manner, Lucifron found that he was fighting a battle of attrition, one that he was losing as his attackers were dealing heavy damage to his body. He soon succumbed to his wounds and collapsed, his essence returning to the Firelands.

Once more the party took a break from the ordeal and each took some conjured food and water from Stella to keep their stamina up. The core hounds laid down around Flutashe.

“So what else can we expect in this place, aside from Ragnaros?” Lokosh asked.

“You mean the leaders of Ragnaros’ forces here?” Thanatas assumed. “Including Lucifron, there are four other flamewaker leaders here and most of them will have an entourage of lesser flamewakers. At the end of the cavern we’re in is where Magmadar, the progenitor of all core hounds resides. You will know him when you see him. There are also his top lieutenants, Garr and Geddon, Ragnaros never conducts an invasion without them. Finally, there’s the most powerful molten giant in this place, Golemagg the Incinerator. He sets himself apart in the fact that he has two tame core hounds at his side.”

“And why are we bothering to kill the mutt in the first place?” Talia asked. “Unless there is a good reason for doing so, why not head directly to Ragnaros?”

“If you can swim in magma, be my guest. Thanatas facetiously stated. “For those of us who are not so inclined, Ragnaros is sleeping under the magma and only his majordomo can wake him. However, he is in a place we can’t get to right now and the only way to flush him out is to extinguish the runes that are being guarded by the other leaders, except Lucifron.”

“So we be up against five flamewaker leaders, three elemental lieutenants, one colossal core hound and de ruler of de fire elementals.” Farra’jin summarized.

“Well, four flamewakers now since we killed one of them,” Thanatas corrected.

With that knowledge, the party moved deeper into the cavern while Flutashe exerted her dominance over more packs of core hounds. It wasn’t long before they reached the back of the cavern and witnessed the largest core hound they had seen so far. This one was much larger than the first core hound they killed, almost dwarfing the first one.

Magmadar spotted the group and growled at the party, ready to strike if they came near. His form moved over the glowing metal plate on the floor.

Flutashe moved forward and tried to stare down Magmadar. Unfortunately, that only resulted in her jumping back to avoid a glob of magma being spat at her. His bark echoed through the caverns.

“He says that my trick won’t work on him,” Flutashe said sadly. “It seems that his loyalty to Ragnaros is too great to influence him.”

Bella took a step back in shock, “You can understand these beasts?!”

“Yes, I’ve had this ability to commune with animals since as long as I can remember. Though it won’t be helpful here since Magmadar is completely faithful to his master.”

“We need to take Magmadar out anyway to get access to that rune on the floor,” Thanatas said.

With battle unavoidable, everyone prepared their weapons and assumed their fighting stances. Magmadar saw this and roared in defiance. As he ran toward the party, he spat globs of magma at them, forcing everyone to move away.

Just like with the first core hound, Lokosh and Flutashe had to keep the massive two-headed dog busy while dodging his bites. Both mouths were large enough to swallow them whole if they weren’t careful. They quickly learned that they needed to make sure the beast was not facing the others as he breathed fire in their direction. They also had to avoid being stepped on by his massive paws.

Things became more dangerous for the duo when Magmadar became frustrated that his prey wasn’t standing still and greatly intensified his efforts by going into a frenzy. At that point, Lokosh and Flutashe were barely avoiding his attacks while his teeth were starting to leave scratches on the druid’s hide. Sophia countered this by sending psychic waves to the twin heads in order to soothe his rage. The effect worked but the beast didn’t like what the templar did.

Unexpectedly, Magmadar turned away from Flutashe and Lokosh and ran after Sophia, likely to prevent her from soothing his frenzies again. He tried going into a frenzy again but her speed surprised him as she quickly moved under the right head and jumped up to deliver a strong uppercut to the right head’s jaw. This threw Magmadar off balance momentarily.

Stella and Thanatas capitalized on this by breathing frost on the left head and freezing it solid.

Before they could go further, the right head recovered and breathed fire on the left head, freeing it from the ice. It then unleashed a horrifying roar which placed a psychic compulsion to flee in terror on everyone except Sophia whose mind was strong enough to resist it and Mena who was mentally protected by Violetta. The templar then extended her psychic influence to break the fearful compulsion on them.

Magmadar began spitting magma all over the room to limit the movement of the party. Stella countered this by cooling the areas of magma spit with her ice magic before she struck him with a magical disintegration beam from her mouth which tore into the beast’s right neck a little.

The beam succeeded in opening a wound in his neck that Thanatas could take advantage of by creating a phantom blade and infusing it with one of her deadly diseases, one she designed to work on fire elementals. While Sophia kept Magmadar busy, the death knight launched the blade into the opening in the beast’s thick hide. Magmadar roared in pain before setting his eyes on Thanatas.

However, as Magmadar approached the death knight, a chill started to take over his body and his movements began to slow. His molten body’s interior was beginning to cool rapidly and he began to shiver uncontrollably. He was no longer paying attention to his prey and worried more about whatever foreign substance was affecting his body.

It wasn’t long before the flames on his back began to die down and his molten glow began to dim. His breathing became ragged.

With his final breath, Magmadar gave one last grunt before his body turned black like a reactor shutting down.

“He said ‘Well fought, I return to my home in the Firelands’.” Flutashe translated.

With the canine behemoth defeated, the party headed to the rune on the floor that Magmadar was guarding.

“So do we just break it?” Talia asked.

Thanatas shook her head. “Nah, this thing has a failsafe where if the plate is broken the rune will embed itself elsewhere and we would be searching high and low for it.”

“Any suggestions?” Bella asked.

“I believe we should leave it be and move on.”

“Huh?!” everyone else exclaimed in unison.

“Don’t worry about the runes, I have a feeling that they will be extinguished as we go.”

Sophia had a feeling that her cousin was talking about a certain someone but said nothing as she helped convince the others to ignore the rune and move on.

Once they left the cavern through the way they came in, an earthen spike burst from the ground next to the rune. The spike receded to reveal a certain strangely dressed elementalist.

Zoias hummed a tune in her head as she regarded the rune next to her. She then summoned her earthen pocket which spat out a vial which she caught. She then popped open the cork and poured the contents of the special liquid onto the rune. Steam billowed from the metal plate before the flaming rune dimmed and became extinguished.

With the first of seven runes put out, Zoias took a moment to observe the party’s progress through the rocks as she eagerly awaited for the next rune to be left unguarded.

The Molten Core, Part 3: Majordomo's Rise

The party returned to the chamber where they first saw Baron Geddon. Without that massive fire elemental racing all over the area the chamber seemed less crowded. There were still numerous lava packs in the area though and they had to deal with the blue flamewaker in the back of the chamber.

“Shazzrah is the only flamewaker here who doesn’t have his own guards,” Thanatas informed. “Though he is an odd one; he’s an arcanist. He’s practically like a mage who specialized in utilizing raw arcane magic.”

“Maybe I can counter his spells?” Stella offered.

Thanatas shook her head, “Despite him being an arcanist, he seems to prefer two spells to fight with, Blink and Arcane Explosion.”

Stella clicked her tongue. Arcane Explosion took no time to cast at all. It was a short range pulse of arcane energy that hurt a little. Of course, Shazzrah likely had a way to make such a spell really painful. If he was using Blink as well, which was a short range teleport spell, he was probably going to teleport all over the area to blast the most people he could with an Arcane Explosion.

“Anything else we need to know?” Talia asked.

“Other than a curse that amplifies how painful his blasts are and a spell that dampens any harm he receives from spells, not much else.”

The party took the time to clear out the chamber of lava packs along with Flutashe driving away a few core hounds while they took out more firelords and lava annihilators who were along the path deeper into the caverns.

It took some time but they finally eliminated enough enemies that they wouldn’t have to worry about any minions interfering with their fight against Shazzrah.

Before they were ready, the party was taken off guard when Shazzrah teleported next to them and unleashed a pulse of arcane energy. The blast didn’t push them back as the energies didn’t displace the air but the energies did leave painful burns.

While Lokosh was getting the flamewaker’s attention, everyone else ran away from the area to avoid being hit by another Arcane Explosion. Stella chanced a look at where Shazzrah was and saw a transparent Mirror Image of the arcanist standing in place repeatedly casting Arcane Explosions.

Before everyone moved too far, he afflicted his curse upon the party to amplify any damage his blasts dealt to them, leaving Stella and Groun to focus on breaking curses. Farra’jin made sure the flamewaker couldn’t dampen any magic damage he took from the others. Whenever he tried, the troll used a spell to purge the enchantment.

Shazzrah blinked again into the party and released another arcane blast, forcing them to move away again. Stella saw another image where Lokosh was. The warrior noticed this and moved away, suffering a couple of blasts.

“He’s leaving Mirror Images whenever he blinks,” Stella noted. “The images are programmed to continuously cast the same spell so we can’t go into that area again until we take Shazzrah out.”

Jaqueline cursed, “If this fight goes on too long he’s gonna box us in with all these damn fakes.”

Knowing that they were now in a race against time, Flutashe in her cat form and Jaqueline ran in to fight Shazzrah, enduring the searing pain inflicted by the flamewaker’s arcane blasts. Bella and Groun focused their efforts in keeping the melee attackers from succumbing to their magical burns.

Against the swords and axes of the warriors and the claws of Flutashe, Shazzrah did not falter as he blocked most of their attacks with his staff while continuing to unleash pulse after pulse of arcane magic.

As the fight progressed, Talia used a spell a warlock trainer once taught her; she began to pull magic from Shazzrah. While she was pulling only a small amount of magic from the flamewaker during the fight, he drained his own wellspring with each pulse he unleashed.

After a few minutes, about a quarter of the chamber was filled with Shazzrah’s images. At the same time, the party endured as his magic began to dwindle. He could feel how low his wellspring was getting while his enemies were more conservative of their magic while their tactics minimized harm to them while wearing him down.

It was then that Shazzrah decided on a desperate action. Drawing on every last drop of his wellspring, he filled the entire chamber with Mirror Images, leaving the party with no room to move without being caught up in one or more Arcane Explosions.

Seeing that the flamewaker was playing dirty, Thanatas raised her sword into the air and pulled everyone to her before she plunged her sword into the ground and created a black dome around herself and her allies. “This dome should protect us from the blasts for a time but we need to finish him off now!” Thanatas said.

Sophia nodded and created a psionic barrier around herself before she lunged at Shazzrah and broke his staff in two with a downward slash of her wrist blades. Her shield held against the onslaught of arcane energy but she didn’t push her luck further as she returned to Thanatas’ shield.

Stella had a crazy idea on how to use Shazzrah’s magic against him. Placing a shield around herself, she flew upward and out of the flamewaker’s reach. She then drew all residual arcane energies to herself. Upon learning that the secret to the images’ endless casting was a magical feedback loop that expelled the excess energy then drew it in to release it again, she used the Blue Dragonflight’s ability to manipulate arcane energies to collect the images and condense them into a huge sphere of volatile arcane power.

Shazzrah stared in horror as the drakthyr took all of his magic that he had available. It didn’t take any stretch of imagination to know what was coming next as he covered his face with his arms in a futile effort to brace himself for the end.

Once ready, Stella hurled the volatile sphere of concentrated arcane magic at the flamewaker. Upon impact a blinding flash erupted through the chamber. Everyone covered their eyes before the mana bomb hit. The sound of the explosion echoed through the Molten Core, drawing the attention of all of the remaining denizens. Tremors were felt as the explosion rocked the cavern.

When the light of the blast finally subsided, all that was left of where Shazzrah used to be was a crater that was now filling with magma. Nothing remained of the flamewaker.

Thanatas banished the anti-magic dome and picked up her sword. She saw the Alliance and Horde party around her show stunned expressions and dropped jaws as they stared incredulously at the aftermath of the massive explosion.

“Impressive, that blast was almost as destructive as a tactical nuclear warhead,” Sophia said through the link. An idea suddenly popped into her head. “This gives me an idea to think up a way to use psionic power to mimic the explosive power of a nuclear missile.”

“Be careful how you use that if you go through with that idea,” Sweetie Drops warned. “I know how destructive those nukes are. One time I literally made it rain on a Terran base. It was beyond overkill.”

“I only wished you could have used those missiles to level Mengsk’s palace and the grounds with it,” Sarah added.

The rest of the party finally began to regain their wits before Jaqueline spoke first. “Ah always heard magic weren’t no plaything. Now ah understand why that is. Ah was almost afraid that blast woulda caused the whole place to fall on us.”

Stella landed near the party. “Sorry about the intense blast,” she apologized. “If there was another way to handle that I would have considered it.”

“Do not worry darling,” Bella said. “I’m just glad that it all worked out.

“Let’s keep going,” Thanatas said. “We have three more enemies to deal with before we can face Ragnaros.”

The party was soon off once more. This time they walked up a ramp that was teeming with elementals of every type they had encountered so far. By this point the party had little problems with them since they figured out how they fought.

Once the party left that part of the chamber, Zoias appeared next to the Rune of Mazj that Shazzrah was guarding. She pulled out one of the last three vials of special water that she had and poured it on the rune, extinguishing it.

It wasn’t long before the party was on a narrow walkway that overlooked a pool of lava on their right and a pit that held many more elementals on their left. They also saw a molten giant at the bottom of the pit near where they were. The giant’s back was turned to them. They also realized that he was even larger than the largest molten giants they had seen so far, leaving them to consider that the giant was Golemagg the Incinerator.

However, they decided to face him later as fighting him by jumping into the pit was very dangerous and too risky.

Their path soon turned right and ramped downward. They faced more lava packs while Flutashe drove away more core hounds.

At the bottom of the ramp they found two paths. One would lead through a rising passage in the cavern while the other ultimately ended in an alcove with another rune that was guarded by five flamewakers. One was colored similarly to Gehennas with his bright orange scales and dark gray underbelly and horns while the other four were dark yellow.

“He doesn’t really have a name, he is simply referred to as Sulfuron Harbinger,” Thanatas informed. “He’s also the commander of all lesser flamewakers here and answers to Ragnaros’ majordomo.”

“And your advice for this fight…?” Talia asked.

“Don’t let any of those four priests cast a heal spell. It’s a shadow class heal spell so beware of that.”

Sulfuron Harbinger didn’t wait any longer for the battle to begin as he yelled, “The intruders have gotten this far into the Core? Eliminate them all!”

The five flamewakers charged after the party. The four priests began their attack by inflicting a shadowy affliction on them. Mena and Talia’s felhound worked on removing the afflictions while Lokosh got Sulfuron’s attention. Flutashe, in bear form, got the attention of two priests while Jaqueline, using her sword and shield, got the attention of the remaining two priests.

Going with the strategy to eliminate the priests quickly, Talia, Farra’jin and Mena attacked Flutashe’s priests while Groun, Stella and Bella targeted the other two.

Unfortunately, their strategy hit a snag when they saw that any and all harm they inflicted was hardly doing anything at all. Thanatas, being the specter of death as she was, noticed waves of life force being transferred between one another. “They are using a life bond ability!” Thanatas called out.

“A what now?” Jaqueline asked.

“I’ll explain after the fight, just keep attacking. Try to hit multiple enemies at once.”

Sulfuron didn’t like getting called out on that ability so he hurled his spear at the death knight who knocked it away with her sword. She then pulled the leader to her with her Death Grip spell before running her sword through his body. The flamewaker smirked as he summoned his spear and attempted to drive it down on Thanatas who was forced to pull her sword out and back away. The wound healed quickly, but she noticed the pained looks on the priests’ faces.

The priests attempted to cast a healing spell on themselves but Jaqueline slammed one in the face to interrupt his cast while Flutashe, headbutted another in the jaw. Mena, with Surprise in control, cast a silence spell on the third to prevent him from uttering magical words. Stella roared in the ear of the last one which caused him to lose his train of thought and lost the spell completely.

Sulfuron Harbinger was a warrior, but unlike his fellow flamewakers in the Molten Core, his magical prowess was lacking. He could imbue his weapons or his fists with flame but that was about it. He made up for his lack of magic with his martial prowess and because of that, he could still best the likes of Lucifron, Gehennas and Shazzrah in a fight since he knew how to deal with magic users.

However, the death knight before him was a master of martial skill and magic. She blocked every strike he sent at her, she hurled him over her shoulder when he tried to punch her with a fiery fist despite the difference in their sizes, the frost magic she inflicted upon him chilled his elemental body and threatened to extinguish his inner flame. Indeed, she was slowly proving to be his superior in every way but size. Thanatas was tempted to take that from him too but didn’t want to reveal that card to the others yet.

Over the next few minutes, the wounds accumulated over the five flamewakers and the life bond was only delaying the inevitable demise of the five. Their injuries were grievous and the only thing keeping them alive was the bond. Sophia noticed this and decided to put them out of their misery by moving fast enough to create four images of herself before she ran her blades through the chests of the four priests and Sulfuron Harbinger, striking their hearts. The five collapsed at the same time, their spirits returning to the Firelands.

Once they were certain that the flamewakers weren’t getting back up, the party relaxed and put their weapons away for the moment and turned to the death knight. “Now then, perhaps you can enlighten us to that ability they used?” Stella asked.

Thanatas shrugged as she began her explanation. “I doubt this will be the only time you come across an ability like that on your adventures, but life bonds are a pain to deal with. The user ties their life with that of the others, effectively pooling it all together. It makes them tougher altogether and harder to kill, but their overall pool of life force is still the sum of their combined life force. It also means that they will either stand together or die together, meaning that you can’t just kill one off to make the fight easier.

“Still, you guys handled yourselves pretty well and kept the flamewakers from healing themselves and extending the fight.”

“So when ya suggested that we hit them with abilities that hit multiple enemies at once, ya were sayin’ that to make our attacks more effective?” Farrajin concluded. Thanatas nodded in affirmation.

“Alright, let’s keep goin’,” Jaqueline said. “We still got a few more enemies to take down.”

Since Sulfuron Harbinger’s alcove was a dead end, the party backtracked to the passage to explore it. There was little in the way of resistance up until they came across a fork in the path. They figured that the path to the left would take them to the pit where they saw that colossal molten giant. Thanatas told them that they would explore the path to the right after they took down Golemagg.

Meanwhile, Zoias appeared next to the Rune of Koro that Sulfuron Harbinger was guarding and doused it with her penultimate vial of liquid, leaving only one more rune to go.

Clearing out the pit took some time since it was filled with elementals of nearly every type they had encountered so far in the Molten Core. They noticed a while ago that there were no other molten giants in the areas with the lava packs except the one in the back of the pit which seemed strange but they decided not to question it.

Once they cleared out the pit of elementals and Flutashe drove away the core hounds, they were soon facing Golemagg the Incinerator.

Sitting next to Golemagg were two core hounds who seemed a bit smaller than the ancient core hounds they had seen around the caverns but larger than the juvenile core hounds in Magmadar’s cavern. The two hounds wore chain leashes with the giant holding one in each hand.

As they prepared to face this powerful giant, their usual strategy was thrown out the window the moment Flutashe saw the eyes of Golemagg’s core hound companions. From any other core hound that she had seen, their eyes were still ablaze with vigor and fury. The two next to the giant though, the druid could somehow feel the despair, the sorrow, the forced acceptance of their lot in life, and a desire for release from their lives.

Red filled Flutashe’s vision as a rage she had never felt so strongly before bubbled to the surface. In her bear form, she snarled at the giant. The others could see a faint amount of foam coming from her mouth. “HOW DARE YOU!” she screamed. She then charged in to face the giant. She quickly began swiping at the giant’s ankles with all her might.

Golemagg felt the druid’s claws slashing at his ankles before he let go of the leashes and attempted to stomp on her. Flutashe dodged each stomp with ease while switching feet each time the one she was clawing at was raised.

The others were stunned by her sudden display of ferocity, including Thanatas and Sophia. An order from Flutashe snapped them out of that state, “Keep those two out of the fight and help me bring this monster down!”

As the two enslaved core hounds moved in to bite at Flutashe, Sophia rushed in and lightly kicked the two hounds in one of their jaws each, drawing their attention on her. She then lured the core hounds out of the pit to let them chase her for a while.

With the hounds out of the way, Flutashe continued smashing her paws against the molten rock of the giant’s body. She often had to jump away for a moment while Farra’jin used water magic to heal her burns. He also placed a water totem to provide resistance to Golemagg’s molten body.

Talia, Surprise, Stella, Jaqueline and Lokosh battered and blasted at the giant’s body despite their attacks not doing much but making him angry.

Lokosh changed tactics to defend the spellcasters when Golemagg started hurling fireballs at them. He knocked them back with his shield and sent them back at the giant.

Now fully angered, Golemagg began stomping the floor and causing tremors through the cavern, knocking everyone off balance. He used this chance to stomp on Flutashe but a glacial spike from Thanatas erupted from beneath his foot. The spike pushed his foot up and caused the giant to become unbalanced. However, he used the cave wall as support to regain his balance.

Golemagg continued stomping on the ground to unbalance the party while attacking the spellcasters with fireballs. Groun tried to bind his feet with roots but his molten body burned through them in seconds, though that did slow his attack.

The giant then grabbed handfuls of magma from the back of the cave wall and hurled it at the party, forcing them to dodge. With another quaking stomp he managed to kick Flutashe away and she slammed into a wall. She was slow to rise because of how hard she was hit.

With the troublesome pest indisposed temporarily, Golemagg attempted to stomp the others. They were still recovering from the last tremor so they wouldn’t be able to dodge the next stomp and he would flatten someone into paste.

Before he could bring his foot down, a pillar of earth erupted from beneath it and sent him off balance. This time he was too far from a wall to regain his balance and fell to the floor with a ground shaking thud.

The party looked at Farra’jin who shrugged. “That was not my doing.”

Golemagg tried to get up only for a giant jewel-embedded ax to come flying and embedded itself into his head, knocking him back to the floor. A female blonde human wearing a set of mismatched armor landed on Golemagg’s chest. She held a hand out and the ax shrank as the handle flew to her hand. She gave an innocent smile as she addressed the giant, “I’d stay down if I were you. Consider that the best advice of your life.” She wasn’t sure if Golemagg would read the hidden meaning behind that, but would make him understand if he didn’t take the advice.

It turned out that Golemagg was too stubborn for his own good as he tried to rise again and roared at the human on his chest. She responded with a vertical chop of her ax onto the giant’s chest which caused his entire body to tremble. His angered roars turned into pained roars as he laid back down again.

“Do you really want to try that again?” she asked. “You won’t survive another one of those.” A minute passed and Golemagg didn’t try to get up again. “Good, now let’s extinguish this rune.”

Golemagg’s eyes reignited its fury once again and he tried to slam his hand against his chest to try and crush the woman who jumped out of the way. The giant tried to rise once more in a desperate attempt to protect his master’s rune.

The woman shrugged, “Have it your way…” She then channeled her earthen powers into her ax to maximize the impact of her next attack. Golemagg was too large to avoid what was coming so he unleashed all the flame he could muster to burn the woman to cinders, but an ice barrier from Thanatas blocked all of that before it shattered. “Thanks sis.”

With a leap into the air, aided by launching herself with an earthen pillar, and a vertical downward spin her ax struck the head of Golemagg once more but this time it cut through his massive body like butter and did not stop until the ax came through the bottom of his body, splitting the giant in half.

Golemagg stared in disbelief as the light from his magma body faded and turned into a pile of rocks.

The woman picked herself up and shook her head in disappointment as she stared at the giant’s remains, “Shoulda listened…”

The party wasn’t sure what to make of the newcomer so they weren’t about to lower their guard yet. “Excuse me madam, but who are you and how did you get in here?” Bella asked.

“Fer that matter, ah think you called Thanatas ‘sis’ during that fight,” Jaqueline noted.

The stranger made her ax vanish into thin air before she turned to the group. “Nice to meet all of you.” She looked at Mena for a moment but decided not to count their last meeting as an actual meeting. “The name’s Zoias. I’m an elementalist, which is not to be confused for a shaman in that I don’t channel the spirits of the elements but the elements themselves. My power over earth is pretty strong right now so I can use that to get around through the land, which is how I got here.

“As for the ‘sis’ part, that is because Thanatas is my big sister.”

The party stared at the death knight in question, a non-verbal demand for confirmation was shown on their faces. “Yes, she’s my little sister…” she sighed in resignation. “She’s here to put out those runes we’ve been coming across.”

Bella looked at Zoias but backed away with a look of disgust on her face. “Does she have to go around in such a dreadfully mismatched outfit?”

Zoias deadpanned at Bella, “You try finding something that represents your affinity to the four elements without being mistaken for a shaman.”

“Ta be fair, ya abilities and that of shamans do overlap quite a bit,” Farra’jin said.

“If you will allow me, perhaps I can make you something that would fit the criteria you desire?” Bella offered.

A faint smile graced Zoias’ face. “I would like that.”

“Hey, are you two done with the fight yet? I’m getting bored playing with these pups,” Sophia complained through the link.

Once Flutashe’s injuries were healed, Thanatas directed her toward the area where they fought Sulfuron Harbinger to check on the templar. The druid shifted into cat form and raced off to tend to the broken core hounds.

Just as Flutashe ran off, Zoias approached the Rune of Theri that Golemagg was guarding before she took out the final vial, popped it open and poured the contents on the final rune to extinguish it.

The party spent several minutes resting while they waited for Sophia and Flutashe to return. In the meantime, Zoias told them the story about how she got her ax and the deal she made with Therazane to get it.

The templar and druid soon returned to the group to discuss their next move but Thanatas had the party relax for a while since she was waiting for something important to happen.

It was half an hour later that a deep gravelly voice rang throughout the cavern. “The runes of warding have been destroyed! Hunt down the infidels, my brethren!”

“And that’s our cue to get moving,” Thanatas declared.

“Who was that?” Bella asked.

“That was our next target, Majordomo Executus,” Thanatas answered. “I was waiting for him to show up now that the runes are extinguished.”

“So what’s the info on him?” Lokosh asked.

“He’s the right hand of Ragnaros, but he is a bit cowardly. He will likely have rallied the last of the flamewakers in the Core to stop us. Also, we can’t kill him. It’s not because he’s invincible, but because he’s the key to getting Ragnaros to stir from the magma.”

“How do we get him to do that?” Jaqueline asked.

“Kill his guards and he will beg for his life. We make him summon his master and we fight the Firelord.”

“He certainly sounds pathetic when you put it that way,” Talia noted.

“Oh, he definitely is.”

The party began moving forward once more. Once they left the pit they took the route they didn’t take before and began ascending a curving path up a hill. Surprisingly, there were only a few firelords and lava annihilators on the path to the summit of the hill.

“Sure ain’t a lotta elementals left around here,” Jaqueline noted. “Ah can hardly believe we took down a whole army of elementals to get this far.”

“We have certainly come far over the few months we have been together,” Bella agreed.

They soon reached the plateau of the hill to find a smoldering pit of burning coals and behind that pit was a small army of nine flamewakers. Four of them were orange-scaled, four were yellow-scaled and one was gray-scaled with coloring similar to Lucifron. It wasn’t hard to figure that the odd one was Majordomo Executus. The yellow ones were armed with spears while the orange ones were bare-handed. Executus carried a flaming trident.

As the party reached the top of the hill, Executus narrowed his eyes at them. “Foolish mortals, you dare assault the army of my lord? Have you come to steal the secrets of the living flame?”

“Actually…” Zoias began, putting on an innocent smile. “They came here to free the Dark Iron Nation from your master. I came here to personally declare war against Ragnaros with a promise that I will one day follow him into the Firelands and claim his essence for myself.”

“You dare make such bold claims in front of me!? Reckless mortals, face the Sons of the Living Flame!”

Executus and his flamewakers charged at the party. The flamewaker leader placed a magical shield around himself for his protection. Lokosh, Flutashe, Jaqueline and Bella each ended up fighting the four yellow flamewakers while Talia, Mena, Farra’jin and Stella fought the four orange flamewakers in one on one fights. Groun focused on helping whoever needed his assistance the most.

Meanwhile, Zoias was personally toying around with Executus by taunting him and leading him around the area while dodging his trident strikes. Sophia and Thanatas decided to help Zoias keep Executus entertained.

Executus cast a spell on Groun which teleported him onto the bed of burning coals. The tauren was forced to quickly run out as his hooves felt the searing pain of the burning coals. Once out of the pit he cast a natural remedy to heal his burns.

The flamewaker leader did the same thing to the others which forced them to quickly move away while their flamewaker was pursuing them. It frustrated the party that they couldn’t do anything to the majordomo but took their frustrations out on his guards instead.

Talia’s demons assaulted her orange flamewaker while she bombarded him with shadow spells and shadowy afflictions. While she wanted to burn the creature with her fire magic, she knew such magic would be ineffective in the Molten Core as everything here was fire based.

Since she was fighting an opponent who used his bare hands, her felguard quickly began slicing into his flesh with his battle ax while her felhound drained the magic out of him. Her imp threw fireballs which did some damage even if it wasn’t much and her voidwalker kept the flamewaker’s attention.

At one point a magical bubble appeared around the flamewaker, courtesy of Executus, and she quickly found that it threw her spells back at her, forcing her to dodge her own blasts. Thankfully, the bubble didn’t reflect all of her spells, just half of them.

She soon wore her flamewaker down with her and her demons’ might and he soon collapsed. With her enemy down, she turned to the one the gnome was fighting.

Mena, with Surprise in control, had been able to dodge the punches and shadow spells of her opponent. She continued to assault the flamewaker’s mind and body with her shadow magic. As a gnome, she was a small target and strangely nimble for a priest as she avoided the flamewaker’s punches.

The priest’s opponent was mentally and physically weary where a few more blasts of shadow would finish him, but that became unnecessary as a bolt of shadow magic struck the flamewaker’s head and he collapsed in a heap.

Surprise glared at the one who stole her kill but Talia paid her no mind as she moved on to the next flamewaker while Surprise chose a different target.

Stella didn’t need help with her opponent as she made sure the flamewaker didn’t cast while her draconic instincts were slowly kicking in to allow her to use her wings to move around the battlefield while blasting the elemental with ice magic and red and blue dragon magic. The flamewaker was outmatched and defeat came quickly.

Farra’jin’s elementals were battering his flamewaker while he was free to unleash his elemental fury upon his opponent unmolested.

As he was about to finish his flamewaker, a sharp wave of shadow magic from Surprise cut through the unfortunate elemental and was severed from his lower body. Farra’jin dealt the finishing blow by having his earth elemental crush the flamewaker’s skull.

The yellow flamewakers proved a little tougher than the orange variants since they were armed with spears and deadlier spells as they began unleashing waves of flame around them along with bombardments of fireballs at everyone in the area.

Executus attempted to teleport Stella into the coals but was as surprised as she was that the coals were not hurting her like the others. This was another matter to look into at a later time. For now, she landed at the edge of the pit of coal before levitating in the air with her wings and, remembering how to use the black element of her powers, took a deep breath and flew over the coals while unleashing an explosive blast of fire that sent the coals flying. The others saw the flying flaming rocks and quickly took shelter in front of the yellow flamewakers, using them as meat shields as their bodies got bombarded by rocks. Their elemental bodies could stand the heat but getting pelted by rocks still hurt.

Not long after that, Bella’s, Jaqueline’s and Flutashe’s flamewakers fell. Executus took notice of this and knew that the situation was turning desperate. Using his strongest magic, he empowered the final flamewaker that was fighting Lokosh. However, his enhancements proved useless as the party unleashed their might upon the flamewaker and he too collapsed in a heap, leaving Executus alone.

With everyone preparing to unleash their fury upon him, he knew that he couldn’t win against that. For the sake of his own life, he had no choice. “Stay your attack, mortals! I submit! I submit!” The party depowered their attacks but kept their stances for a little longer in case of treachery. “Brashly, you invaded the Molten Core seeking to wrest control of this mountain from my master. You will soon regret the recklessness of your quest. I go now to summon my master. Should you follow me, your paltry lives will soon be forfeit. Nevertheless, seek out his lair, if you dare!”

In a flash of blazing light, Executus teleported away. The party knew where he was going but weren’t sure where that was.

“Alright, now to backtrack all the way to that cavern that I told you that we shouldn’t explore yet,” Thanatas declared.

The party suddenly remembered that part of the cavern, it was near where they fought Gehennas. They were told earlier that there was no reason to explore it until later. It seemed that “later” was now.

The party made sure they were rested and ready for the battle to come because they were about to face their toughest opponent yet.

Author's Note

9/10 Molten Core bosses defeated, only Rags remains. 4 more chapters of Blackrock Mountain action left.

The Molten Core, Part 4: Lair of the Firelord

The volcanic caverns of the Molten Core placed a heavy toll on the unprepared. The heart of the volcano was deep beneath the surface of Azeroth and guarded by the fiery servants of the ruler of the fire elementals.

Ragnaros the Firelord slumbered beneath the magma awaiting the day he returned to full strength. Being outside the Firelands had done him no favors as the elemental energies in the mortal plane were not strong due to the weak connections of the elemental planes to the mortal world; an aggravation brought about by the usurpers.

The elemental lord dreamed of returning to the surface to bring about his fiery vengeance against the creations of the usurpers. After all, Azeroth belonged to the elements since the day the world was formed. All life on the planet was his by right to consume in flames.

The Dark Iron Dwarves, failed creations of the usurpers, would serve as fodder for taking the brunt of moral resistance while his forces move in and set their flammable holdings ablaze.

With his masters imprisoned, he would be able to claim all of Azeroth for himself, reducing it to a blackened volcanic world as it was meant to be. His fellow elemental lords would do nothing but watch as he charred the land, ignited the air and vaporized the seas. That time would soon come.

For now, he must rest and regain his strength.

With the party, Zoias now included, ready to move on, they began their long backtrack through the volcanic caverns that they had to fight tooth and nail to get through as they faced countless elementals in their quest to defeat the Firelord.

The victory over the majordomo of Ragnaros had driven the flamewaker into a corner and forced him to retreat in order to awaken his master from his centuries-long slumber. All that remained for them to do in the cavern was to reach the lair of Ragnaros and face him in combat; a task easier said than done since they were in for a long walk to fight one of the most powerful beings that they had ever fought.

Now that the majority of the cavern was devoid of elementals, save the core hounds who were swimming around in the lava and pretending the party wasn’t there, they had time to look around the volcanic caverns and glanced at the pools of magma with more of it flowing into them. They saw stalagmites blowing ash into the air and stalactites looming over their heads.

As they returned to Shazzrah and Baron Geddon’s chamber, they returned through the tunnel and entered Garr’s chamber. They moved right from there and entered the pillar-riddled area where they fought Gehennas.

Not far in that area is where they saw the passage that they had not explored yet. A single lava surger ran in and out of that passage. He didn’t last long.

The party took a deep breath and moved inside, still trying to psych themselves up for the coming battle.

The chamber they entered was huge and round. The party noticed some strange markings on the walls of the chamber that resembled the runes that they had doused earlier. Most of the area was magma with the rock forming a spiral toward the center. It was at the center of the spiral where they spotted Executus.

They moved along the spiral and took out the few lava surgers that remained. It wasn’t long before they reached the center of the spiral. Executus appeared to be in a state of meditation but his tense body language gave him away, as if he was about to do something he really didn’t want to do.

Thanatas gave a look at the party, silently asking if they were prepared for the fight. Some hesitantly nodded while others were more determined. The death knight figured that this was the best she was going to get.

With a glance and a nod to Zoias, Thanatas told Zoias that they were ready. The elementalist approached the flamewaker.

Executus sensed their presence as they entered the chamber. Part of him was hoping that they would have seen sense to flee and quit while they were ahead, but alas. He really didn’t want to disturb his master over such a matter but with the Core now reduced to those in the chamber and the cowardly hounds who stayed out of the fighting, this situation could no longer avoid the attention of his master.

“The Firelord and his brethren once held sway over this entire world, mortal. As a servant of the Old Gods, he fought against the Titans for domination of this planet. The victorious Titans banished my master and his brethren to the Elemental Plane, there to remain imprisoned until the end of time.”

Zoias deadpanned at Executus, “Are you really going to give me a history lesson? We already know about the folly of Sorcerer-Thane Thaurissan and how your master’s return from the Firelands decimated the surrounding lands. One day I shall face him in his own realm and claim his essence from his extinguished corpse. But that day isn’t today, today we send him back to his realm and end his threat on the mortal plane. Now, summon him!”

Executus glared in defiance to the elementalist but soon relented as he turned his attention to the pool in the center of the spiral. “Very well.” He began channeling the spell of awakening to bring his master above the magma. “Impudent whelps! You’ve rushed headlong to your own deaths! See now, the master stirs!”

Executus finished the spell and in moments, the magma began to shift and bubble violently as something below stirred. A colossal vortex of fire erupted from the center of the magma. The upper part was reshaped into an armored torso before two smaller vortices emerged from the torso and developed into arms with metal bands forming on the upper arms and wrists, the ends forming into three-fingered hands. The shoulders appeared like wings of flame. A head soon formed with a face of molten rock in the shape of a skull. Fire rose violently from his head. In his right hand was a glowing orange and brown spiked hammer.

He was every bit as terrifying in person as he was in Bella’s vision.

“Behold Ragnaros the Firelord!” Executus cried. “He who was ancient when this world was young! Bow before him, mortals! Bow before your ending!”

Ragnaros was slow to awaken from his slumber. Being abruptly awoken after several centuries was not how he pictured his bid for global conquest to begin. He stared at Executus for a moment then took notice of the band of mortals who were standing before him. Wait, mortals? What were mortals doing in his home? Why had his servants not taken care of this pitiful infestation?

Still, for his majordomo to awaken him in the company of mortals, he better have a good explanation since he was on the verge of taking his flame and grant him his eternal death. “Too soon! You have awakened me too soon, Executus! What is the meaning of this intrusion?”

Executus trembled before his master’s bellowing voice. Even when he was speaking normally his voice was always loud enough for everyone in the cavern to hear it. “Th-these mortal infidels, my lord! They have invaded your sanctum and seek to liberate the dwarves and steal your essence!”

That was the last thing the Firelord wanted to hear from his majordomo. His minions should have been able to handle a few pitiful mortal insects. He had to wonder why Geddon and Garr weren’t handling this mess. He reached out with his senses to find that not only were the core hounds out of place, they were the only other elementals here aside from the soon to be dead majordomo and the pests around him. The runes of warding were extinguished which was further proof that his minions were incompetent. He was going to need to fully reorganize his armies once he destroyed the filth that dared defile his sacred Core. First though…

“Fool! You allowed these insects to run rampant through the hallowed Core! Now you lead them to my very lair? You have failed me, Executus! Justice shall be met, indeed!” He then grabbed the flamewaker who flailed in his grip before the elemental lord opened his mouth wide. Waves of flame were rapidly pulled from the majordomo who begged his master not to take his flame, but the Firelord would not listen to failures. In moments, the flame of Executus’ soul was ripped from him and consumed by the cruel demigod.

Everyone readied their weapons. They knew he would soon attack so the spellcasters positioned themselves on a strip of land farther away from the Firelord.

With that unsettling business completed, Ragnaros turned his attention to the pests that have infested his lair. He raised his hammer and readied his flames to exterminate them. “Now for you, insects! Boldly, you have sought the power of Ragnaros! Now you shall see it firsthand!”

With that, the battle was joined! Ragnaros made the first move by slamming his hammer down toward Flutashe who rolled to the side. Those farther away started launching spells at the Firelord. Bella, Jaqueline and Lokosh began striking at the fiery vortex of Ragnaros’ lower body with their weapons.

Given that the Firelord was too large to properly block his hammer strikes, Lokosh started using two axes to fight while dodging hammer strikes.

It was quickly noticed that Lokosh’s weapons were starting to glow red from slashing at the magma body of the Firelord. Bella and Jaqueline noticed the same thing with their weapons. Ragnaros’ body was hotter than a forge, so melee attacks against him were damaging their weapons. Flutashe had to constantly fortify her paws in bark in order to withstand the heat enough for her to attack.

Ragnaros shouted as the melee fighters barely dodged a horizontal strike from the hammer, but the shockwave from the strike sent them flying back toward the others. Mena and Stella made sure they didn’t fall into the magma.

The party quickly recovered with Lokosh making a huge leap to Ragnaros with Flutashe leaping over the magma. Stella carried Bella back while Jaqueline followed Lokosh’s example. Stella had to duck to avoid a flying splash of magma that the Firelord threw at her.

Ragnaros began thrashing about, causing magma to fly from the molten lake around them. The magma began to rain on the land, causing burns on their skin.

Sophia had to quickly wipe away any magma that splashed on her since while she was naturally resistant to intense heat, she wasn’t an Equestrian dragon. She made a note to herself to look for one such specimen at some point so she could assimilate that trait.

Thanatas was frustrated that she had to dodge magma as well. She could have gone into her Burning Dead Mode which would have given her protection from Ragnaros’ fiery attacks but it would also make her attacks fire based which Ragnaros would be immune to. Such a scenario would be a stalemate between the two of them and Ragnaros was the type to get bored easily and run away if he saw something he couldn’t burn. On the bright side, even the Firelord’s intense heat wasn’t hot enough to heat up her special blade.

Another downward strike from Ragnaros, except this one was aimed at Zoias who didn’t dodge but held up her ax instead. To everyone’s surprise, including Ragnaros, the massive hammer’s strike was blocked and any momentum from the swing was halted. Zoias didn’t move an inch from that strike. “How is this possible!?” he asked.

Ragnaros took a closer look at the mortal before he looked at the weapon. He was visibly shocked when he recognized the weapon. “That ax, it looks just like Therazane’s ax! How did you claim her weapon?”

Zoias smirked as she reveled in the Firelord’s shock. “Not just her weapon, I also have a piece of her essence flowing through me. My power over earth is greatly amplified as a result. Just imagine how strong I will be once I have the other three, including yours.”

“Impudent insect!” Ragnaros roared. “I shall crush you and take that power for myself!” Ragnaros’ attention was focused on Zoias as the two repeatedly clashed weapons. With her control over earth, the elementalist could block the attacks from the massive hammer without getting pushed back. With her being the target of the Firelord’s aggression, the others were able to go on the offensive.

Of course, his attention wasn’t entirely focused on Zoias since he still used some of his powers to attack the others. He still caused magma to burst from the pool and shower the platform with it. He also caused a small eruption under Talia, sending her flying backwards along with Groun and Farra’jin who were next to her. Thinking quickly, Zoias caused a wall of rock to erupt from the molten lake and harden. The three slammed into the wall but were able to slide down onto solid ground. Talia’s felguard tossed her and her two comrades back into position.

Ragnaros had enough with exerting himself over a bunch of mortals. Using his power to animate flame, he called out to the caverns around him. “Come forth, my servants! Defend your master!” He then sank into the magma as a large number of fire elementals emerged from the magma.

Stella and Thanatas unleashed their frost magics to put out several elementals. Stella also conjured a water elemental to fight another fire elemental. Farra’jin summoned an earth elemental to fight another fire elemental while Talia’s demons faced three more. Zoias eliminated several fire elementals by slamming her ax onto the floor which caused the cavern to tremble. Several loose stalactites fell on two of them. Sophia slashed through the bracers of three elementals which banished them. Jaqueline, Bella and Surprise killed at least one each.

When the elementals were defeated, Ragnaros grew infuriated by the mortals’ persistence and rose from the magma. “Enough! I will finish this!” he exclaimed.

Ragnaros attempted to smash Bella with his hammer but Zoias used her earthen teleport to get in the way of the Firelord’s attack and blocked it, much to his aggravation.

Thanatas saw that the Firelord was getting frustrated and Zoias’ resistance was making it worse. They needed to finish him soon before he decided to quit the battle and withdraw, rendering their efforts in the Molten Core meaningless. “We need to hurry and finish this!” Thanatas called out to the party.

Bolstered by their hopes of victory, the party unleashed everything they had against the fiery demigod. With Zoias keeping his melee swings at bay, he was forced to rely on his power over the elements to attack the others but most of the attacks were dodged or the harm was mitigated with Groun and Bella using their magic to heal the burns.

Every now and then, Groun would cause roots to emerge from the volcanic ground to wrap around Ragnaros’ arms. Even though he easily burned through them, it still slowed his attacks to where the others could get more hits in.

It was when Lokosh’s and Jaqueline’s weapons were on the verge of melting that Ragnaros’ body had cooled enough for Thanatas to effectively summon an armory of swords imbued with frost magic before she launched them into the Firelord’s body. The elemental lord growled in pain as the blades cooled his body further. A beam of icy blue dragon magic only worsened his lowering body temperature.

Ragnaros could hardly believe that he was actually losing to a bunch of mortals. Even though he was only able to use a fraction of his true power in the mortal plane, it should have been enough for him to crush the meddlesome insects. Instead, he was beginning to feel the pull of his home realm calling to him and with each chilling blow, the call became stronger and more irresistible. He refused to let his plans end this way. He was finally free of the elemental plane after being trapped there for hundreds of thousands of years. He was finally going to reshape Azeroth in his own image.

And yet these mortals were about to ruin all of that by sending him back to the Firelands.

In one last desperate move he used the last of his power to summon a swarm of meteors to destroy the land around him and flood the chamber in magma. This would force him to slumber for a thousand years to regain what he lost in this one battle, but it was better than being sent back to that accursed plane.

The meteors crashed randomly through the area and crashed into the walls, causing more magma to come flooding into the chamber. Some impacts caused the land the party was standing on to become floating islands which were slowly sinking into the magma.

Thanatas needed this fight to end now before it was too late. She created a sphere of concentrated frost and hurled it at the Firelord. Upon impact, Ragnaros, who was out of strength at that point, felt a biting chill all over his body. The chill pushed him over the edge as his form destabilized. “NOOOOOO! I will not go back! Do you hear? I will not go back like this!” Despite his cries of protest, his form vanished into thin air, leaving his hammer, which fell into the magma pool, behind which was also slowly disintegrating.

With the Firelord banished, Zoias quickly collected what little essence of Ragnaros off the hammer that she could for later.

While Ragnaros was gone, the danger was still there as magma slowly filled the chamber. Lokosh and Jaqueline were able to leap from platform to platform to reach the chamber entrance while Mena was able to levitate over the magma to safety. Flutashe shapeshifted into a bird and flew to safety. Stella had to carry Bella to the entrance. Farra’jin had his earth elemental carry him to safety through the magma, the elemental being able to endure the heat. Groun and Talia were carried in Sophia’s psionic power with Thanatas using her skeletal wings to take flight and get to safety.

With all of them at the entrance, they quickly ran back toward the entrance of the Core. The magma continued to fill the chambers, leaving everyone to race for high ground with the magma on their tails.

The magma stopped rising once they reached a high enough elevation. The party continued toward the entrance unmolested. They breathed a sigh of relief now that the threat of the Firelord was finally over. Each of them sat on the floor catching their breath.

After a few minutes, Zoias got back on her feet. She saluted the party’s bravery before she started walking away. “Well, my job here is done. Good luck on your future adventures.”

“Wait, aren’t you going to help us defeat Nefarian?” Bella asked.

The elementalist shook her head. “Nah, you guys have this. I only came here to gain favor from Neptulon by sending Ragnaros back to the Firelands. The enemies you will face in the upper spire are powerful, but they won’t try to melt your weapons and armor. Later everyone!” A pillar of earth wrapped around Zoias before it submerged.

The party headed toward the exit of the cavern and saw the bridge that would lead them to Shadowforge City.

They considered using the rift to leave, but they were surprised when they saw Emperor Thaurissan and Moira standing outside the cavern, as if expecting something.

As they approached, the royal couple approached the party. The Horde party was confused by this since the last time they heard, the Dark Iron Clan was at war with everyone else. Seeing Thanatas, relaxed as she was, told them that something happened that they were out of the loop of. They decided to simply listen in.

Thaurissan broke the silence, “Is it done?”

Bella nodded in response, “Indeed, Ragnaros has been driven back to the Firelands. That should give you some breathing room for political reforms while you work on rooting out the cultists.”

“Aye, while we won’ be truly free from his grasp until he is dead, at least Ragnaros can’t enforce his rule effectively. It’ll be some time before we can drive out the Twilight’s Hammer, but now we can begin.

“As fer the lot of ye, I’ve commissioned one of me finest blacksmiths, who has not been converted, to forge ye some new armor and weapons out of our special dark iron as a reward. Come, I know a secret route through the city that will avoid any unwanted attention.”

The party followed the emperor to a secret shop where Thaurissan shook hands with another dwarf. He explained that the matter was to be kept top secret from the rest of the city. The blacksmith agreed to the commission fee before he started taking measurements of the party members who wore plate mail and examined their preference for weapons. Once satisfied, he grabbed all of the material that he needed before leaving.

Curious about his technique with the mineral, Bella and Lokosh asked Sophia to help them secretly follow the blacksmith so they could learn from him by watching. The templar wrapped them in her Shadow Walk before they followed the worker.

Over several hours, the blacksmith toiled away at the famous Black Anvil where Sophia fought Lord Incendius before. The two observed his technique in secret and figured how they could improve their own.

Once he was satisfied with his work, the dwarf returned to his shop where he presented the weapons and armor that he made. Those whose weapons were damaged in the fight against Ragnaros ended up replaced and their armor was of a much better quality than they imagined. Bella promised to design everyone’s armor after they returned from Blackwing Lair.

“Between the armor and learnin’ from me smith, I’d say we are even now,” Thaurissan said, shocking the two blacksmiths. Thaurissan smirked when he saw their reactions, “Ye didn’ think I’d suspect that ye’d try to spy on me smith, did ya?” Thaurissan laughed uproariously. “Anyway, off with ye now, ye got a dragon to kill.”

The party returned to the entrance of Molten Core through the secret passage before Stella started channeling her magic into the rift again, sending everyone back to the center of the mountain. They were careful to traverse the narrow paths and climb the chains back to the ringed pathway.

As intense as their adventure through the Molten Core was, they were only halfway through their adventure in the mountain. Now they would need to return to Blackrock Spire and face the leaders of the Dark Horde and the ancient master who ruled them.

Author's Note

Sorry this one took so long to get out, been fighting an illness for the past few days and I think the entire household got it. It's mostly killed my motivation to write during that time. I'm slowly getting back into the groove though.

Anyway, we conclude their adventures in Molten Core here with the defeat of Ragnaros and now they have to fight their way through the lair of the Lord of Blackrock.

Next time: Upper Blackrock Spire and their first meeting with a theatrical villain.

Warchief Dal'rend Blackhand

Several hours had passed since the party of eleven had returned to the heart of Blackrock Mountain from the Molten Core. They decided to rest in the suspended rock over the magma for a few hours after their exhausting efforts in the Firelord’s lair. They had no idea how much time had passed since their adventures in the mountain had begun but they were almost certain that at least a day had passed.

Perhaps it was because they had grown used to it but the mountain’s heat didn’t feel as oppressive as it did before.

The party ate and drank more of Stella’s conjured food and drink. Though the items were no substitute for the real thing, it was still enough for them to keep their strength going until they were able to taste real food again.

Time had passed and the party was finally rested and ready to tackle the upper levels of Blackrock Spire where the leaders of the Dark Horde resided. It would not be long before they encountered Rend Blackhand and Nefarian.

They proceeded out of the suspended rock and up the chain. Thanatas showed them a shortcut that would bypass the entrance from the ring and allow them to reach the balcony. Once they reached the end, they jumped off the chain and onto a rock platform that was within jumping distance of the balcony. Each made the jump successfully and were now at the main entrance of the fortress.

As they entered, they noticed that the entryway was still empty of orc forces, meaning that they were unable to reinforce the area with what was left of the Dark Horde.

The party quickly proceeded to the locked door which had the indent for the Seal of Ascension on Talia’s right ring finger. They looked at the undead warlock as a signal for her to use the ring. She moved toward the door and as she did so, the braziers to her left and right began to light up. She inserted the ring into the slot which caused the ring to glow for a moment. In the next moment, the door opened with a loud creak.

That creak drew a lot of attention from the enemies in the next room. Several dragonspawn along with a large number blackrock warriors and spellcasters moved in to attack. Lokosh pushed the dragonspawns back with his shield to allow the others to enter the room. Their experience in the Molten Core allowed the party members to be able to face at least one or two orcs individually.

Groun’s roots crushed the wrists of a couple of warriors and forced them to drop their weapons before the roots crushed their throats. Talia’s felguard cleaved through the armor of three warriors before the warlock set them on fire. Farra’jin caused his lightning bolts to jump to three spellcasters and two dragonspawn that Lokosh was fighting. His fire elemental made sure no enemies got too close. Flutashe was leaping around the battlefield in her cat form, shredding the armor of her adversaries with her razor-sharp claws and sharp fangs. She moved with the grace that the species was known for and showed many bleeding orcs why she was an alpha predator.

As more orcs came from around the corner, Surprise drove them back with a psychic compulsion to run away. While they were fleeing, she tapped into some of the power Violetta lent her to attack their minds. The warriors quickly fell as their mouths began to foam and their eyes rolled in the back of their heads. The spellcasters took longer because of their stronger mental fortitude, but they still fell eventually.

The strikes from Bella’s hammer, blessed with the Light, crushed the wicked orcs. Each strike hit them at the weakest point in their defenses and shattered their ribs. While she hated to see them suffer for long, the orcs would not let their fight end so quickly. She then consecrated the ground and burned them with the Light’s power until they were put out of their misery.

Stella tore through the room with her breath, using her black dragon power, to tear into the orcs’ flesh. This infuriated the black dragonspawn who were fighting Lokosh and left the warrior to attack the dracthyr. This turned into a trap when she used a spell to trap them in ice before Lokosh shattered their prisons, damaging their scales. Jaqueline quickly finished the orcs she was fighting to attack the exposed parts of the dragonspawn.

Once the room was clear, the party took a moment to inspect the room. It was a wrought stone hallway that had seven small rooms at the sides that had a few braziers burning a violet flame. On the floor of each room were a series of plates that resembled a familiar set of runes. From memory, they realized that the runes looked just like the ones in Molten Core and Shadowforge City.

“That’s strange, what are the Blackrocks and Black Dragonflight doing with elemental runes?” Stella wondered out loud.

“Ah don’t think it matters any since they all seem put out now,” Jaqueline said.

Indeed, after inspecting all seven rooms, the party quickly found that the runes were all extinguished.

“The runes were lit not long ago, but it seems that the Blackrock Orcs don’t have the extensive knowledge needed to keep the runes lit without a spellcaster constantly maintaining the rune’s magic,” Thanatas explained. “When the spellcaster died the rune was extinguished.”

“Let’s keep going, there doesn’t seem to be anything else here for us,” Lokosh said.

The party proceeded to the end of the hallway and through an open door into a smaller, narrow hallway that turned a couple of times. More orcs were in the passage but the narrow passage was perfect for Talia to use her Rain of Fire to incinerate the orcs without them being able to escape.

The passage led into what appeared to be some sort of room for rituals. In the center of the room was an elevated platform with one set of stairs leading up to it. Surrounding the platform were seven orc spellcasters standing on extinguished runes while channeling a binding spell on a fire elemental atop the platform. At the bottom of the stairs was a small altar with three stone faces on the side of the altar.

As they entered the room, they found that the orcs were too busy maintaining the binding spell to pay attention to the party. They were also protected by powerful barriers that prevented any harm from coming to them. They also found that the door to the next room was sealed.

The party also noticed a human with gray hair with a mustache and beard. He was wearing a mismatched set of armor that was composed of gunmetal shoulderplates, red gauntlets reinforced with gold, dark gray legplates and boots, a gold belt and a red and white tabard with a white heart on it.

Thanatas knew who that man was and knew that a disaster was coming. At least it would be amusing though.

Stella placed a hand on the altar. She then noticed her hand darkening. When she removed her hand it turned back to normal. “What is this altar,” she wondered.

“Maybe it has to do with opening that door?” Groun offered. He placed his hand on the altar and his hand darkened.

“Maybe more than one of us need to be touching this to get something to happen,” Talia guessed. She placed her hand on the altar and her hand darkened.

Stella placed her hand back on the altar to receive the same effect. However, something else happened when the faces on the side of the altar opened their mouths. The party waited a few moments for something to happen.

The shields protecting the orcs in the room shattered which caused the orcs to panic and attack the intruders.

Jaqueline quickly cut down two spellcasters while Bella’s blades of Light burst from the ground and cut down two more. Stella froze the last three before she shattered them with lances of ice.

The party didn’t celebrate their victory for long as the fire elemental came free from his bindings and cackled maniacally. “Free at last! Now I will char your flesh from your bones!”

The reaction the fire elemental got was not what he was expecting as everyone gave him a deadpan look. “Uhh…should you not fear me?”

“We just tore through the lair of Ragnaros and sent the Firelord himself back to the Firelands, do you honestly think we would be afraid of a little flame like you who doesn’t compare to the elementals there?” Talia asked.

The elemental tried to sense his master, only to find that the mortals were speaking the truth. He could no longer sense his master in the mortal plane. If their claim that they defeated him was also true, he soon realized that he was screwed.

To save him the humiliation of getting crushed, Sophia slashed the elemental’s bracers and sent him back to the Firelands.

Thanatas stared at the sleeping human in the corner of the room. The nagging feeling didn’t leave her. She could tell that he would cause a big hassle once he woke up. She would need to explain the next room right away.

Once the room was clear of enemies, the party noticed that the doors to the next room were open. The room beyond was another shattered room with piles of rubble creating a walkway to the second level of the room. Most concerning though were the vast number of dragon eggs within, each looked like they were ready to hatch at any moment. There were also a few dragonspawn wandering around guarding or tending the eggs.

With the human in the room, there was only one way this was going to go. Thanatas sighed. “Calling it now, things are going to turn chaotic in the next few moments.”

“Since when are you such a pessimist, Thanatas?” Sophia asked.

“It’s not pessimism because the moment I try to tell the plan, it’s going out the window because of that human over there.” She pointed at the sleeping human.

“What does that guy have to do with anything?”

“Three…two…one…”

The sleeping human suddenly woke up and jumped to his feet. “Alright chums, let’s do this…LEEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS!” He then ran recklessly into the next room.

Thanatas’ palm covered her face while everyone else stared in shock at what the human just did. “Did he seriously just run in?” Sophia asked. Nobody could answer that.

As they stared, they heard the sound of many eggs hatching as the human ran around fighting the dragonspawn and many angry hatchlings by himself.

“We need to save him!” Bella exclaimed.

The party ran in and began fighting the dragonkin within. Stella took a deep breath and left a trail of destruction that crushed numerous eggs. Lokosh and Flutashe took the attention of the dragonspawn away from Leeroy while Jaqueline and Talia started cutting down or blasting the hatchlings. Farra’jin summoned his earth elemental to start smashing the eggs in the room. Bella supported the others with her healing spells while Groun called roots to crush more eggs. Surprise used her shadow magic to make the hatchlings scatter so they didn’t overwhelm Lokosh or Flutashe.

The commotion drew the ire of an armored dragonspawn who didn’t last long because some idiot put Thanatas in a foul mood and he ended up a pin cushion for many swords.

A few moments later, Leeroy inspected the pin cushion’s corpse but was met with disappointment when he failed to find something. “Damn, no cloth shoulderpads. Maybe if I look further…”

Thanatas was not having that. She grabbed Leeroy by the tabard and dragged him out of the room. She dragged the struggling man through the rooms they went through and left the Spire before she was on the balcony overlooking the central area.

Without caring where he ended up, Thanatas tossed the idiot off the balcony, hoping that he fell in the magma.

“At least I have chickeeeeeeeeeeeeen!” he yelled as he fell.

Thanatas snorted, releasing a small blast of icy vapors. She was glad to be rid of that moron.

It took a few minutes to return to the party. By then they had climbed the rubble to the second floor and noted the two doorways which led to the next room which was guarded by a lot of elite orcs. Lokosh could tell because their equipment was in much better condition than what those in the lower spire were wearing.

The party wasn’t sure how well these orcs were going to fight but they didn’t have much choice but to stir the hornets’ nest since any attention drawn to them from any group had a good chance of drawing the attention of the whole room.

In preparation, Thanatas froze the doorway on the right to keep them from using it.

Once prepared, Lokosh banged his shield with his ax. As they expected, the entire room moved to investigate. The soldiers quickly discovered the intruders and moved to engage.

The orcs quickly found out that one doorway was frozen, likely an enemy tactic to bottleneck their forces. The more experienced warriors began smashing the ice and trying to open another venue to their enemies. Seeing this, Thanatas cast a spell through the ice where she laid a zone on the floor of dark magic. The orcs who were attacking the ice were forced to back away as they felt their flesh rotting. Two ended up being the unfortunate ones who collapsed and expired from the dark magic.

This strategy worked for a time with the orcs being forced to use one doorway only to be cut down by Jaqueline, Lokosh and Talia’s felguard. That was until some patrolling dragonspawn noticed the commotion and engaged in battle. They quickly noticed the ice wall and breathed fire on it to melt it. The rest of the orcs noticed the now open door and moved through it.

Thanatas moved away once the ice melted while Stella was prepared for what may come. A number of orcs exited first only for their path to be shattered when the mage used her black dragonflight power to breathe on it. Five orcs fell through the floor and were finished off when Stella showered them with ice shards.

The black dragonspawn stared at the scene for a moment before a pair of blades pierced their chests right where their hearts were. The two had no idea what killed them while a certain blue rabbit templar psychically scrubbed her blades of their blood.

The action soon came to an end once the last of the orcs in the room fell and the party was able to advance again.

The party proceeded up several ramps while fighting more dragonspawns and ignored a doorway to the side as they came across an overlook above what appeared to be a square-shaped arena. At the left end of where they were looking was a large portcullis and they spotted numerous eggs on the other side. The smaller opening to their right was also sealed by a portcullis.

In an effort to avoid what was obviously a trap, the party retreated to the door they ignored and explored that passage. They quickly discovered that the passage led to the smaller entrance to the arena but it also went beyond. However, that passage was also sealed.

“Looks like we have no other choice but to spring the enemy’s trap,” Stella said.

“I noticed a pair of spectators overlooking the arena from the other side of where we were, they seemed important,” Bella noted.

“Those two are your primary targets,” Thanatas pointed out.

“You mean Dal’rend and Nefarian?” Talia inquired.

“We defeated Ragnaros, we can survive this,” Mena encouraged.

“Right, let’s cut down everything they have to throw at us!” Sophia said.

The portcullis into the arena suddenly opened, inviting them inside. Once the way was opened, a deep voice spoke, “Are you all through psyching yourselves up for this? Hurry inside so that the festivities can begin.”

The party proceeded inside the arena at the command of the voice which they suspected was Nefarian’s voice since orcs’ voices were normally gravelly. Once everyone was inside, the doorway was sealed again. “Good, you are all here now, we can begin feeding my legion at last,” Nefarian said.

The party looked up at the observers to get a look at them. Rend was a grizzled old orc who sported many battle scars and an eyepatch. He wore large, red, spiked shoulder armor along with leather gauntlets and steel-toed boots. He also wore a red harness and loincloth. In his hand was a large polearm with runes on it.

Standing next to Rend was what appeared to be a human male with black hair and glowing fiery eyes. He wore a suit of black plate mail armor over a layer of scale mail. He carried a dark red, flaming scepter and a jewel floated over his head that generated flames in the shape of a crown. It was easy to tell that the “human” was Lord Victor Nefarius, also known as Nefarian.

As the large portcullis at the far end of the arena opened, Nefarian ordered the minions on the other side to leave no trace of their existence on the arena floor, not even their souls.

Entering the arena were dragonkin of unusual coloring. A dragonspawn and several whelplings who had magenta scale colors. Bella noticed that some of their scales were shifting rapidly between red, green, blue, bronze and black, but to the untrained eye they simply appeared magenta.

“Behold by creation, the Chromatic Dragonflight!” Nefarian declared. “Years of research culminated into dragons capable of using the magics of the five flights. Though in my obsession, I neglected to feed them for days. Thank you for volunteering to do so.”

The party engaged the chromatic dragonkin. The dragonspawn tried breathing fire while two whelps breathed frost and two more breathed acid at them. Lokosh blocked the fire with his shield before bashing him with it. Talia, Farra’jin and Mena shot down the whelps with bolts of shadow, lightning and light.

Despite their scales and powers of the five flights, the chromatic dragonkin were no more durable than the dragonspawn they had faced so far.

Nefarian observed the fight alongside Rend while releasing more of his creations into the arena and noted a few things. The tauren only shapeshifted into a treant form and none of the various animals like what the night elf transformed into. The human warrior fought with a style similar to what he had seen of the dark iron dwarves. The paladin was quick to adjust her strategies on the fly as the situation called for it. The forsaken warlock seemed able to use multiple demons instead of one as most warlocks were known for. The priest shifted demeanor when she switched between using light and shadow magic. Oddly enough, when she used shadow magic, he could sense a corruption similar to what afflicted his father. The shaman and orc warrior seemed typical of what he had seen of their kind.

He also noticed that the pale human and the strange rabbit-like creature stood off to the side of the fighting, content on letting the others do all the fighting. They were either deceptively non-combative, which he doubted, or they were so strong that they didn’t need to do any of the fighting and were saving their strength for later.

That was when he noticed the mage in the group. He quickly noticed the draconic horns on her head which seemed familiar and that familiarity was slowly causing his anger to rise. Her spells had an effect comparable to dragon magic which raised his anger even more. When she unleashed a pillar of flames, he sensed magic similar to that of the red dragonflight. She also used a green mist which knocked the whelps out until they were killed in their sleep.

His curiosity and ire burned, so he decided to send a large number of dragonspawn, whelps and some blackrock dragon handlers to overwhelm them.

That was when she transformed. That was when his blood began to boil.

Stella switched into her dracthyr form and unleashed a ground-shattering breath attack that sent the orcs and dragonspawn flying. A beam of azure light disintegrated one of the orcs.

“Stellaglim!” Nefarian snarled. “You dare show your face before me once more!?”

As much as he wanted to get personally involved with the group’s destruction, the arena was much too small for him to fight effectively in his dragon form.

Sophia found amusement in this turn of events. She had a feeling that Stella and Nefarian had some forgotten history, but to see his reaction was priceless. She decided to see how far she could push the ancient dragon and cause him to make a mistake.

The templar psychically transmitted to Nefarian the memory of their fight in Stormwind Keep and the resulting death of Onyxia. The male dragon’s reaction to the memory was what she expected as he struggled to maintain his visage form as his rage threatened to consume him.

“YOU DARE MURDER MY SISTER!?” he roared. He conjured a large sphere of fire and shadow and hurled it at Sophia.

While the templar could have easily destroyed the attack, that proved unnecessary as a large red wing blocked the attack. An image of Vaelan in his dragon form, Vaelastrasz, appeared in the arena and unleashed a torrent of flame at Nefarian. Rend dove to the side while Nefarian conjured a shadow barrier to block the red dragon’s attack. Some of the flames managed to reach the black dragon and leave a few burns.

“Enough of this!” Nefarian shouted. He unleashed a torrent of shadow magic at Vaelastrasz which caused the image to vanish.

“Fool, I shall hunt you to the end of days,” Vaelastrasz declared from somewhere unknown.

“Bah! My mood has soured! Rend, deal with these meddlesome insects!”

“With pleasure!” Rend gleefully acknowledged before leaving the overlook.

“If you pests survive this, you shall find me in my lair! Stellaglim, the wolves of Silverpine may have failed to finish you, but I won’t fail! You shall suffer dearly for your betrayal! You will all suffer for murdering my sister!” With that, Nefarian left the arena in a fiery flash of teleportation.

“Stella, what was he talkin’ about?” Jaqueline asked.

“I really don’t know. He seems to know me, but I don’t remember meeting him until now,” Stella answered, a hint of sadness in her voice.

“We’ll get our answers as we get closer to the summit of this fortress. For now, focus on the enemy before you,” Thanatas said.

Once the last of the dragonkin and handlers were slain by the party, they waited a few more minutes before the large portcullis opened again. This time a chromatic drake with magenta and teal scales emerged with Rend riding it.

“Let’s rip them apart together, Gyth!” Rend called out. Gyth unleashed a torrent of acid from his mouth, the splashes eating away at the stone. The party dodged the breath and ran in to counterattack.

Bella struck the drake’s head with a hammer of Light which stunned it and forced it to land while the spellcasters bombarded the drake. Jaqueline took that time to jump on the drake’s neck and spun around to deliver a kick to Rend who blocked it with his sword. The force of the kick still knocked the warchief off Gyth.

The drake was momentarily confused by what happened and why his master was no longer on his back. That moment was when Flutashe clawed one of his eyes out while a precision blow from Lokosh’s ax took out the drake’s other eye.

Lokosh used this chance to trick the blind drake into action as he positioned himself between Rend and Gyth before hitting his shield with his ax. Gyth locked on to the sound and prepared a fire breath. “No you stupid drake! Don’t!” However, Lokosh dove out of the way as Gyth unleashed his fire. Rend had no shield to block the attack and his sword was broad, but not broad enough.

Rend ended up taking the full brunt of Gyth’s breath which charred his flesh. Badly burnt, Rend survived the attack. However, Groun called on many roots to wrap around the weakened warchief before Talia rained fire and set him ablaze. With the roots Groun called being dry, it made for good kindling and aided in burning the warchief alive.

Rend screamed as his flesh blackened. The agony continued until his body couldn’t continue to function.

Once Rend’s body fell, Talia’s felguard moved to decapitate the warchief. While the warlock was moving to collect the head of their objective for Warchief Thrall, Sophia put the drake out of his misery by slicing his head off.

“That’s one part of our mission accomplished,” Lokosh noted. “If we intend on invading Blackwing, we need to establish our escape route to speed our leave of this mountain once we defeat Nefarian.”

“I could just create portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind,” Stella pointed out.

Lokosh blinked, “Yeah, that too. Regardless, taking out Drakkisath would still be depriving Nefarian of one of his commanders in case he tried recalling his forces to Blackwing.”

Everyone nodded in agreement and proceeded back through the opened doorway they entered the arena from. In the hallway, they noticed that the portcullis that was blocking their way earlier was also opened.

At the top of the flight of stairs that made up the passage, they encountered dragonspawn in full body armor along with orc soldiers in armor that seemed better than anything produced by Horde blacksmiths. It was likely that the most elite members of the Dark Horde were just ahead.

After clearing the passage, the party noticed the passage forked. To their left was a tunnel that Flutashe was barely able to discern would lead to a room with many eggs in it. To their right was a room full of more elite orcs and dragonspawn.

“The left passage is the entrance to Blackwing Lair,” Thanatas warned. “We will go there once we finish our business with Drakkisath.”

Taking note of the entrance for later, the party proceeded down the steps toward the other room.

While they were prepared to fight more elite orcs and dragonspawn, they weren’t prepared for a sudden rumbling and a crashing sound, followed by a familiar-sounding howl.

“You have to be joking, what is a core hound doing this far up the mountain?” Talia asked rhetorically.

As they pondered that, the soldiers in the next room investigated the noise. A few moments passed before shouting was heard. “The Beast has broken free! Restrain him, the master will punish him later!” one dragonspawn yelled.

While everyone else decided that this would be a good distraction to sneak into the next room, Flutashe dismissed that idea as she ran toward where the fighting was taking place. “We must help him! I can sense his suffering, help me deal with these captors!” She then shifted into her bear form and ran in.

Talia, Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun groaned as they knew they would be dragged into this by Thanatas who seemed intent on keeping the druid alive. As they lamented, the others had already followed the night elf into the room. With a few growls of frustration, the Horde group followed the others into battle.

With the orcs and dragonspawn distracted by the core hound, they were caught unaware of the small army marching up behind them until several of their number had fallen. Some had turned to face the intruders but this gave the large core hound the opportunity to bite and claw at the distracted jailors.

Between the beast and the intruders, the few remaining elite of the Dark Horde were caught in a pincer attack and lacked any commanding officer to guide their attacks. The last of the group fell within minutes.

Once the Blackrock soldiers had fallen, the core hound turned its baleful gaze at the party, only for his eyes to focus on the night elf who calmly walked toward him. He was confused by this as he sensed no aggression from her.

When Flutashe was inches from the core hound, she raised her hands and gently scratched under the chins of his two heads. She gently spoke to the core hound, “There is no need to worry, those bad people won’t hurt you anymore.” She spent a few moments stroking the beast before she asked, “Can you tell me, what were you doing here? You are pretty far from the magma caverns.”

A few grunts and growls were heard before Flutashe jumped in surprise, “I see, so you were looking for food for your mate who is expecting. You ended up captured by the bad people and they were trying to force you to obey them.” The Beast nodded in affirmation.

Flutashe thought for a moment. She figured that it would be bad for him to go back to his mate without at least getting food. She took note of the orcs and dragonspawn corpses on the floor. While this seemed like a terrible thing to do, the core hound needed meat for his mate. “You should take some of the bodies here and present them to her. Not only would you feed her, you can show her that you are a capable protector of your pups.”

The core hound nodded eagerly and moved to collect a pair of bodies off the floor. He stopped partway and suddenly began to heave. Flutashe worried about the core hound but after a few more attempts, The Beast coughed up a small figure about Mena’s size. He then pretended like nothing happened and proceeded to collect the corpses before tunneling through a hole in the wall. Before he was out of sight, he gave one last grunt to Flutashe before leaving.

“So what was that last part?” Mena asked.

“He said that if we ever decided to explore the mountain’s side chambers, that we are free to visit.”

With that out of the way, they took a look at what appeared to be a gnome in a diving suit, or a goblin since both races were of similar size. The suit had to be fireproof for it to survive the inside of a core hound.

The explorer came to and shook his head. “Finally, I thought I was going to be stuck in that beast forever!” His voice was high-pitched but masculine, giving away that he was a male gnome. “Now if you will excuse me, I need to find the nearest town with a bathtub and a therapist.” He left the way the party came from without another word.

Not wanting to know the gnome’s story, they proceeded back to the previous room and toward the next area which was on the other side of a bridge. More elite orcs and dragonspawn guarded the area but soon noticed the intruders.

One of the dragonspawn guards alerted the others to the intruders before a large number of elite troops began to cross the bridge.

As they did, Farra’jin moved to the middle of the bridge alone. The bloodthirsty orcs and dragons drew near, but a confident smirk graced the troll’s face.

When the enemies were near, Farra’jin called upon air spirits to strike his position with lightning. The spirits avoided hurting the troll, but the resulting thunderclap created a shockwave that sent several orcs and dragonkin flying over the edge of the bridge.

Mena pulled the troll back to them with her Leap of Faith spell before Lokosh moved in and bashed another orc off the bridge with his shield. He then lured the now reduced number of enemies back to their side where everyone was waiting to bombard the remaining enemies with many spells and wide-sweeping attacks.

Their armor proved strong, but against such an onslaught, they were unable to endure it for long before the orcs were incinerated and the dragonspawn had their armor shattered and their scales scattered on the floor.

Once they were ready to move forward, the party crossed the bridge into the next room which turned out to be their destination.

Standing guard in an alcove in the center of the room were two armored chromatic dragonspawn and a larger black dragonspawn who bore a banner of the Blackrock Clan and wielded a strange runed sword. Another notable feature was the pair of wings on his back.

“If I recall, wings on a dragonspawn meant that they were particularly strong, correct?” Bella asked.

“That would be correct, mortal insect,” Drakkisath answered. “I will make you pay for destroying the armies of Blackrock!”

Drakkisath didn’t give his enemies a chance to prepare as he and his guards moved in to attack. Flutashe quickly shifted into bear form and headbutted one of the guards. Bella threw a hammer of light at the other guard.

Drakkisath tried to capitalize on the initiative by breathing a torrent of flame at the others but a wall of ice from Thanatas blocked the attack while he was forced back by the force of Stella’s earth-shattering breath attack. He then tried to cast a spell but Stella was ready for that too when she countered his cast with an arcane feedback.

Stella pelted Drakkisath with a shower of ice shards and blasted him with a pillar of scarlet flames. She was determined not to allow him a chance to counterattack.

However, Drakkisath endured the attacks and unleashed a blast wave of fire around him, knocking back his attackers. He tried to unleash another breath of flame which was countered by Stella’s beam of disintegration. The two were locked in a stalemate for the moment which gave Mena, Talia and Jaqueline enough time to finish off the guards and focus on Drakkisath.

While the struggle continued, Jaqueline managed to get behind the draconic general and grab one of his wings. He pointed an arm at the warrior and prepared to unleash a blast of fire at her before she thrust her sword into his hand. Drakkisath did his best not to lose focus as he was still trying to blast the dracthyr. However, he was greatly outnumbered and he was facing a group that defeated Ragnaros. He had considered retreat but that would only ensure that the mortals got the brand while he would be slain by his master anyway for his failure. He realized that he was doomed regardless of what happened.

He cursed himself as he allowed his will to falter, He did his best to push Stella’s beam back at her but he soon found his mind assaulted by the gnome with a crazed look in her eye. Jaqueline and Lokosh each grabbed a wing and used a blade of a sword and ax respectively to slice off his wings.

The pain became too much to bear and the beam was pushed back to his face. He felt his scales burn off and his snout sear away. He was unable to cry out in agony as the beam proceeded to utterly destroy his head.

In moments, the beam struggle ended and Drakkisath collapsed as a headless and wingless corpse.

Once the battle was finished, the party put their weapons away and stared at a strange glowing pedestal in the center of the room that the general was once guarding. The pedestal held what appeared to be an orb of blue light. Moving near it gave the party a sense of warmth.

If the note from earlier meant anything, then this might be the brand that would allow them to use the orb of translocation that would take them directly to Blackwing.

Lokosh went first. He placed a hand on the blue orb which was warm to the touch. A moment later, a mark appeared on his hand before it vanished. He inspected his hand to see if there was anything different. Finding nothing, he nodded to the others who placed their hands on the orb for the same effect.

“So, I guess this means that it’s time for us to invade Nefarian’s lair?” Stella asked.

Thanatas nodded, “All of you had best be ready for what we find inside. He is a mad scientist type like myself, which means that you will find signs of depravity there. Nefarian holds no sense of ethics and his cruelty is legendary. I hope you all have strong stomachs.”

The party gulped while Sophia raised an eyebrow at her cousin. “Is he really as bad as you described?” She asked through the link.

“What they will find there is almost as bad as some of the other things that they will discover in a few years. Nefarian twists flesh as a hobby. It’s a shame that I can’t recruit him for my science team.”

With that warning, the party retraced their steps and prepared themselves for the horrors to come.

Author's Note

I hope you guys enjoyed that bit with Leeroy. I got a good laugh as I wrote that.

The next raid is going to be a 2 part series to wrap up their adventures in Blackrock Mountain.

Fair warning: When I wrote the fight against the first boss of Blackwing Lair, my darker thoughts kicked in so expect some messed up stuff from that fight.

Also, I went back through the Molten Core chapters and added some images of the bosses.

Blackwing Lair, Part 1: Halls of Strife

With the Mark of Drakkisath acquired, the party of Alliance and Horde members backtracked their steps across the bridge to the previous room before returning to the narrow corridor. They proceeded across the intersection and headed towards the room where they discovered the eggs from earlier.

Tensions ran high as the party moved ever closer to their final objective on Blackrock Mountain. They had no doubt that Nefarian wasn’t going to be caught in a disadvantageous position like Onyxia was. They were sure that they would have no choice but to fight the ancient dragon on a battlefield of his choosing.

While they were moving down the corridor, Thanatas decided to give a brief rundown on what to expect beyond this point. “Blackwing Lair is much smaller than Molten Core, but there will be some obstacles that Nefarian will have put in place to deter intruders.

“Up ahead is the Dragonmaw Garrison where the black dragon eggs are stored. Nefarian will have entrusted their protection to a winged dragonspawn named Razorgore. He also knows a spell that he will use as a last resort if his body takes too much damage which will wipe out everyone in the room. Even we wouldn’t be able to save you if he uses that spell.”

“So how do we keep him from usin’ that spell?” Jaqueline asked.

“The spell is tied to his protective instincts. As long as there is one egg to protect, he will be able to use the spell.”

“So we need to destroy all of the eggs in the room?” Stella asked.

“Yes, but none of you are strong enough to damage the eggs. Those shells are tough. Meanwhile, I doubt the Blackrock Orcs nor the Black Dragonflight are going to just let us break them without a fight. Unfortunately, Sophia and I will be too busy keeping the defenders busy to help you with the eggs.”

“So what do we do?” Mena wondered. “It’s not like we can ask Razorgore to smash the eggs for us…right?”

Thantas chuckled, “That’s just what you’re going to do.”

“Huh?!” everyone exclaimed at once. Several jaws dropped.

Thanatas’ chuckles turned to laughter, “That was a priceless reaction!” The laughter continued for a few more seconds. “But seriously, you are going to make him smash his own eggs. There’s a control orb in the room guarded by a few orcs. Kill them and secure the orb. Once you do, one of you is to touch the orb and focus on Razorgore. Your mind will connect to his and you can use his impressive strength to smash the eggs. He will get pissed off about it but once all the eggs are smashed, you just finish him like usual.”

The party neared the garrison, feeling more confident that they knew the battle plan now. They passed an orb that stood to the side that bore a similar appearance to the one just outside Blackrock Spire. They guessed that it would transport them back to the first orb.

The party soon reached the doorway into the garrison and peered inside. They saw the numerous eggs they were warned about along with a much larger egg about twice the size of the others. The group stared at the death knight to ask the unvoiced question. Thanatas shrugged, she wasn’t sure about the egg either.

On the left side of the room was a platform with three orcs near another orb on a pedestal. One wore blue and purple robes with blue shoulderguards. He had a silver staff with a sapphire crystal on top.

On the right side was another platform with a winged dragonspawn who looked a lot like General Drakkisath but smaller. He even had the Blackrock banner on his back.

Once they entered the room the orc in the robes took notice of the party. “Intruders have breached the hatchery! Sound the alarm! Protect the eggs at all costs!” he yelled.

Razorgore immediately turned his head toward the intruders and moved to engage. Sophia rushed the dragon and slammed him in the upper torso to gain his attention.

Meanwhile, the party attacked the orcs near the orb. They had to act quickly since the orc’s yell had likely alerted the entire garrison and they would be ready to engage within a minute. Jaqueline and Lokosh attacked the two guards while Stella buffeted the spellcaster with ice shards.

It didn’t take long to overpower the orcs so they could focus on using the orb.

The orc mage was crafty though, as he realized that he was on the losing side of this fight he thought about the potential harm the intruders could cause if they gained control of the orb. Acting quickly, he bombarded the control orb with bolts of arcane energy which caused the party to panic as the crystalline sphere was sent flying. Sophia was too busy with Razorgore to notice and Thanatas was preparing for the onslaught of soldiers so they failed to notice the flying orb. With one final wave, the orc knocked the sphere into a wall where it shattered.

Thanatas looked back at where the orb shattered. She saw the shards fall to the floor and left her in a panic. With the orb broken they had no way of controlling Razorgore. She doubted that Mena was strong enough to control him on her own. She didn’t have much time to worry about that as the first wave of defenders started pouring into the room, forcing her to focus on killing them.

“What’re we gonna do now?” Jaqueline asked.

“Maybe we can get our priest to take control of him?” Talia suggested.

“I can give it a shot,” Mena offered. She switched off with Surprise and attempted a Mind Control spell. She pressed hard into Razorgore’s mind but his will was strong. His mental defenses pushed back against the priest’s mental assault with ease. Sophia would have tried as well if Razorgore wasn’t forcing her to stay focused on the fight.

It was then that Surprise received assistance from an unexpected ally. As she tried to press into Razorgore’s mind, an evil presence took advantage of the mental combat to bypass his defenses. The wicked horror invaded every aspect of the dragonspawn’s mind and quickly took control of his body while slowly corrupting his mind.

Most black dragonkin nowadays had some levels of void corruption within them which made them exhibit evil behavior. Because of this, most believed that the entire flight was lost to madness. This also made them vulnerable to being controlled by eldritch horrors like Violetta.

"̵̪̞͍͉̦͙̅̋̂̐͑Ň̷͖̮͌͗͊̂o̶̫̱̯͊͊̉̓̂͠w̸̧̱̗̞̙̦̿̊͑͋ ̷͎̠̘͈͌̽̈́̚͜m̴̯̬͇͕̯̰̆̿͛̐͋͘y̵̭̹͈͇͗̆̏͝ ̶̰̙͈̫̱̈́̒͂͂͋͘l̴͚̈͛̈͒̚͝î̶̩́̉̓̇̄ṫ̴̪̹͍̟̮̔t̸̡̄̿͠l̵̮̝̱͈̎̃̂̒̕e̶̳̎̀ ̵̧͖̳͊͆̈́̾̒t̷̡̙̀̐̾͂͝ͅȍ̸͕̙̘̩̦̫̊́̌͌ŷ̴̙̻̥͔̥͋̒̔͠,̸̢̻͉͈̣̔͋̔͜ ̵̡̺͕̓̐i̸̯͓̲̾ẗ̵̨̼͎̫́͌'̸̧̺͖̲̦͆s̸̢͖̥͉̊͆̈̑̚̕ ̴̬̞͎̙́͗͊̏t̸̤̏͗͂̽̉̔ȉ̸̫̣̿̃͝m̸͍̒̏̚e̸̢̝̿̎̈́ ̶̡̠̜͈̱̦̽̿̒͗͗f̵̢̯̮̘͊̅̍͜ǫ̵̧͉͖̼͖̃r̴͚̹͚͙͇̳͋ ̵̧̨͉̻̹̹͛̾̄s̴̤͔̍͆͠͠ở̸̲m̸̘͈̬͑ȩ̸͎͇̒̀ ̸̺̥̠̖̹̮̽̀̀͌́́s̵͔͍͙̱̾͊́ͅḿ̷̧͕̹͇̓͆a̷̡͐̔̃̚͝s̴̨̢̮̻̓̀h̶̡̘̲̠̄̇͋ŷ̶͇̿̀̿̇ ̷̖̘͙̳̍͐̽̋̓́ś̴̲̩̍̍͜͝m̴̛̯̤͙͔̊̃̾̀a̷̲̻͋s̷͔̙̙͕̫̝̽͌̈́͘h̴̖̥̃̀y̷̡̮̰̦͛̒!̷̪̜͈͂͛̾̈͛"̶̫̼̠̪̠́̎̈́̚͝͝

Razorgore started twitching in unnatural ways and his draconic eyes rolled into the back of his head. Sophia noticed his weird movements and backed away slowly. She then hurried to assist her cousin.

“Did Mena do it?” Thanatas asked.

Sophia shook her head, “No, but our friends are about to learn why your daughter is a very scary person.”

“This is gonna get messy…” Thanatas groaned.

Razorgore chuckled for a second. The next was giggling, then laughter, then maniacal laughter. He then went on a rampage on the eggs, unleashing powerful blasts of flame that damaged a few eggs and destroyed others. His maniacal laughter was unending as he gleefully smashed egg after egg while unleashing volleys of fireballs all over the room chaotically. The party, Sophia and Thanatas had to dodge a few balls of fire. Many orcs burned in the chaotic fire while incoming dragonspawn received concussive blows to the head which the two cousins took advantage of.

By the time the maddened Razorgore had shattered a third of the eggs, the large egg in the room hatched, revealing a chromatic drake like the one Rend Blackhand was riding. The drake immediately began unleashing bolts of acid, frost, fire, time, and magma all over the room.

Razorgore refused to be outdone in the game of chaos so he ran for the newborn drake, grabbed his neck and used his head like a cannon to blast more eggs. The drake struggled to free himself but Razorgore held tighter, restricting his respiratory tract. He relaxed his grip somewhat when the drake relaxed after it realized it wasn’t getting free of the dragonspawn’s grip so he could have more fun with his new toy. He also blasted more orcs and dragonspawn with the drake’s breaths.

The party could only watch in horror as the mad dragonspawn continued his maniacal cackle as he attacked everything around him. They had a feeling that Violetta was behind this and they now understood what the horrific woman could do to them at any time. They moved to places in the room that were as far away from the rest of the eggs as they could be while he finished his work.

Once the last of the eggs were destroyed, he looked down at the drake’s head that he had in a headlock. "̵̨̢̰̼͠F̸̪̭̩͈̠͉̈́̿͆̍̾u̷̫͂͛̈́͒̀n̵̦̬̈́̊̔͑͝ͅ'̴̧̢͇̪̓̉͋̕ŝ̶̯̳̥͠ ̸̙̱̬̲̻̇́o̶͕̝͛v̶͕̣̾̈́̾e̷̡̠̪͇̙̰̍͝ȑ̷̫̩̯͛,̴͔̇̀͘ ̶̥̉̒̈̃t̸͇̮̤̘̍͂̐̃̅̾i̷̢̳̺̥͐̈́m̸̉͌͜͝è̶̢̧̖͈͕ ̶͖͑͗̉̌t̷̡͒̏̏̑ͅŏ̵̲̬̺͍̩̃͘̚ ̵̧͉̌̍͘s̷̨̻͈̦͚̟̽̂̾̆̏̏ĺ̴͚̲̉͒̐̅̃e̸̡̫̤̟̹͓͑̆̔̊e̶̯̰̼̳͗̓͂̔͘p̴͓͉̲͍͛̏̃͝͝ ̸̝̥͎̳̩̼̀͊͋͆ÿ̴̺̜̘͝õ̴͔̺̠̊ṵ̶̈́̓̒̉ ̶͕͎̂͝ț̷͎͍͕͐̇͆̅̑̋ẅ̴̘́͐͝o̷̡̤̰̍́͘͠ͅ.̵̛͈͆̔"̶͖͇̋ With that, he twisted the drake’s neck until it snapped. When the rest of the garrison forces noticed that the eggs were gone and the drake was dead, they fled back into their barracks to hide.

With Razorgore being the final loose end of this act of insanity, he removed the banner that he was carrying on his back before removing the horned skull from on top of it and laying it on the floor.

As one last act of depravity, Violetta gave Razorgore his consciousness back. While he was unable to control himself, he was still taking a back seat as he watched himself go on a murder spree on his allies and the eggs. Though his consciousness had returned, his body was still not his. He could feel his front legs wobbling and he immediately knew what the evil in his mind wanted him to do. He begged Violetta not to do it, but his vision was clouded by a dark image of Violetta’s face with a wicked smile and a nod to tell him that she was going to do it. "̷̧̱̝͈͂̿̒D̶͓͐o̵͍͌̀̓̌͊ͅn̶̖͇̣̙͕͇̽́'̸̛̟̙̰͉̭͊̏̈́͝t̷̰͇̟͊ ̸̧̺̜͕̯̃̚f̵̟̼̰̺͠o̵̧̲̳͌̏r̴͚̆͑̔͒̓͠g̵͇̩̽̓̆͋͝è̸͉͓̼̠̆́͑͝͠t̷͇̩̟̦̤̗̏̆̅̈́͝ ̴̗͔̯͆̚t̶̝͎̞͔͕̝͑̎ô̴̻͚̭͎̞̬̈̈́̐͝ ̵̝͓̥̘̱̽̋͛́̓s̵̫̫͉̬̞͒̏͋m̵̙̠̓̊̋͑̄̆í̷̼̩͕l̵̞̠̄̈̍̾͜ȇ̸͕̗̝̼͓͠.̷̦̋̀̿̾.̴̦͑̄͗.̸̧̘͉̘̘̀̓"̷̰̉̈͑

Terror consumed his every thought. “No! No! Don’t!” he screamed. He felt his mouth twist upward higher than his species was capable of. The smile on his face was disturbingly unnatural. He continued to beg until his front legs collapsed and he toppled to the floor with his head falling on the horns of the skull on the floor. The hard horns impaled his skull and went through his brain.

As his life left his body, the smile on his face never faded.

The Alliance and Horde parties were in complete shock from what they had witnessed. They knew that Violetta was a depraved individual, but in this instance, they couldn’t help but feel sorry for the dragonspawn who had to suffer something so unspeakable. They could only hope that they were never her enemy.

“And that’s why she’s like a figure out of a horror story,” Thanatas quipped.

Before anyone else could demand more information on the eldritch horror, a pained roar was heard in the next room followed by a heavy thud. While Violetta settled back into Mena’s mind, everyone else ran into the next room.

As they entered, they were spotted by a number of goblins who began fleeing from them. “Run! They are coming!” one yelled.

The party spotted Vaelastrasz lying on the ground and Lord Victor Nefarius was channeling dark energy into him. He ignored the party until he finished with his spell. Once finished, he grinned triumphantly.

“Ah, the heroes and the traitor. You are persistent, aren’t you?”

“What are you talking about? I’ve never even met you until today!” Stella shouted.

Nefarius chuckled, “I see, so the seal that I placed on your memory remains. I had hoped to seal your draconic instincts as well but it seems that that part of the seal weakened.”

“Seal? What are you talking about?”

“When you betrayed me, I used one of that worthless alchemist’s concoctions to revert you into a hatchling before placing a series of spells on you that sealed your memories, instincts and locked you into a visage form. I then left you to be eaten by those worgen in Silverpine. It would seem that they couldn’t even do that right.”

“Okay…but why so far north? Why not toss me off a mountain or something?” Stella was beginning to think that Nefarian was a little warped.

“I had many ideas on how to kill you; so many that I decided to make a wheel and write each method on it. I went with whatever the wheel landed on.”

Yep. Definitely warped.

Victor continued, “This conversation has come to an end, Stellaglim. Now this little red wyrm shall be your unmaking. Destroy them!” He then teleported away.

As the party approached, Vaelastrasz looked like he was in pain for some reason.

“Looks like he had void corruption injected into him,” Violetta said as she manifested.

Vaelastrasz groaned in pain again before looking at the others. “I…I have failed, my friends. The Lord of Bla…” He grunted in pain again. “The Lord of Blackrock is too powerful. He consumed my energy with…” Another grunt. “with ease. I turn…I…kill me…you must…you must kill me!”

“Vaelastrasz, let us try to heal you,” Flutashe begged.

“If only you could, little one. I perform one last service. I pray it is sufficient…”

Violetta rolled her eyes, “You are such a drama queen. It’s only a little void energy, you lightweight.”

Thanatas rolled her eyes at her daughter, “Just get it out of his system while we keep him busy…” She giggled softly at her daughter’s antics before turning to the others. “As for the rest of you, if you have a heal spell, use it on him.”

Vaelastrasz looked at the party in shock. He couldn’t help but wonder if the heat from the mountain had driven them mad finally. “Are you insane?! I’m about to kill you all and you want to heal me?”

“Stop struggling and let’s get this done, I’d like to be out of this mountain by the end of the day,” Violetta said. The sooner they were done with their business in Blackrock Mountain, the sooner she could guide them toward Ahn’Qiraj.

At that point, Vaelastrasz began to lose his grip on his sanity. “You should have fled, now you will taste the wrath of Lord Nefarian!” The injured dragon walked toward the party with his claws raised. The party dodged his swipe before a bolt of death magic struck him. Vaelastrasz turned his attention to Thanatas.

Meanwhile, Groun, Bella, Mena, Stella, Farra’jin, and Flutashe began using the healing spells they knew to restore the wounds on the dragon’s body. However, the shadowy energy coursing through him began to eat away at his flesh and scales.

Violetta locked onto that energy and turned into a cloud of shadows before manifesting on top of Vaelastrasz.

While Violetta’s attacks were primarily psychological in nature, she did have one ability that required her to make physical contact. In order to cleanse the recently corrupted of their affliction, she needed to drain it directly from the host.

Once atop the dragon, her mouth grew wide and her razor-sharp fangs grew harder and sharper. Vaelastrasz began to notice the intruder on his back and attempted to shake her off but Lokosh jumped up and slammed his shield into the dragon’s face to make it settle down for a moment. That was all she needed as she bit into the base of the dragon’s neck, piercing the scales and sinking into the flesh beneath. Once she was secured, she began drawing the corruption to her.

While the healers were attempting to heal the dragon’s wounds, the corruption continued to act against them by burning the dragon from the inside out, but that only aided Violetta in sucking out the corruption like a leech.

In retaliation, Vaelastrasz placed a double-edged blessing on Lokosh which gave him an adrenaline rush but was too much for his body to take as the spell burned him from the inside out. Thanatas was prepared for this as she synthesized a batch of her antidote to the burning adrenaline with a dose of icy sedative. The medicine alone would have caused the subject to fall asleep and suffer a lethal case of hypothermia which was why she waited until someone was struck by the burning adrenaline to cancel out the two chemicals.

The fight continued for a few more minutes with the healers pushing back against the corruption which was being drained by Violetta. Farra’jin’s water totem and Bella’s Fire Resistance Aura provided protection from Vaelastrasz’s fiery attacks.

“Enough!” Vaelastrasz yelled. “I…I am in control once more.” Violetta detached herself from the dragon and returned to Mena’s mind. At the same time, Vaelastrasz returned to his visage form. “I don’t know how you did it, but you managed to save me from a tragic fate. I no longer feel Nefarius’ corruption in my body. Thank you, mortals!”

“I’m glad we were able to help,” Flutashe said.

Vaelan took a moment to look at the young night elf druid. In that moment a memory came back to him. He recalled a conversation he had with Anachronos a thousand ago. The elder bronze dragon told him of a night elf with long pink hair wearing the garb of a druid who was destined to unite the fragments of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands which would open the Scarab wall that separated the Silithid city of Ahn’Qiraj. Vaelan was supposed to meet her in a dwarven fortress and tell her about the shard that Nefarian had stolen from him minutes ago. This meeting was a sign that the time had come for the three shards to be reunited and the wall to be opened once more.

As much as he would have preferred the Scarab Wall to forever remain sealed, he knew better than to question the wisdom of the Bronze Dragonflight. “Excuse me young night elf, but would you happen to be Flutashe Lunarwind?”

Flutashe was a little startled that the dragon knew her name but answered, “I am.”

Vaelan sighed in resignation. Things were going to get ugly in the near future. “Nefarian stole something important, a red shard that was part of an ancient artifact called the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. You must get it back from him and bring it to Anachronos in the Tanaris Desert.”

“The Scepter of the Shifting Sands? What is that?” Flutashe asked.

“It’s an ornate mallet that’s designed to hit a certain gong in the Silithus Desert,” Thanatas explained. “Once the scepter strikes the gong, the Scarab Wall that separated the city of Ahn’Qiraj from the world will open and the horrors within will be unleashed.”

“Why would anyone want that place opened?”

“Several reasons. For one, that wall isn’t going to stop them for much longer. There are Silithid nests all over Kalimdor and they are an extension of the forces of Ahn’Qiraj, meaning that their forces are already prepared to begin their invasion. By now, the Alliance and the Horde are scrounging war supplies from all over the world in preparation for this and we wouldn’t want to make the Bronze Dragonflight look like fools. Finally, the reason that pertains to us, is the fact that we need to get my daughter to the Old God who rules the Silithid and the Qiraji.”

“Oh, right, so she can eat him,” Flutashe said dejectedly. “Many are going to die in the coming war, you know.”

“Then I suggest you not let their deaths be in vain. Now let’s move onward, we’re on the clock now since Nefarian will try to destroy the shard.”

The party left Vaelan behind to recover from his ordeal while they headed up a flight of stairs to the second floor of the room. They encountered no further resistance in the room which was strange since enemies liked to try and stop them every step of the way. They counted their blessings and continued to a doorway at the other side of the room.

Once through the doorway they saw two groups of six dragonspawn of various types: hooded, ones with shoulder armor, a couple in full armor and two winged.

The party focused their efforts on the hooded and mostly unarmored dragonspawns while Lokosh and Flutashe kept the armored ones and the winged ones. The hooded ones tried to cast fire spells at Farra’jin and Mena but Stella hit them with an arcane feedback and breathed enough frost on them to freeze them. She conjured a large icicle which shattered the frozen dragonspawn.

Surprise managed to control one of the dragonspawn with shoulder armor and forced him to battle with his similarly armored companions. Ultimately, the ones who weren't controlled won and killed their companion but were wounded to the point that Jaqueline easily finished them off.

Farra’jin with his earth elemental and Talia and her demons moved to assist the druid and warrior with their opponents. The shaman called on his fire elemental to support his warlock companion’s attack. The armored dragonspawn were overwhelmed by the assault and soon fell.

With their companions defeated, the winged dragonspawns soon found themselves in a bad position as the party attacked them all at once. They didn’t last long.

With the enemy groups dead, the party moved up a flight of stairs that turned twice to the left before they ended up on the next floor.

What they encountered next was not what they were expecting. Orc spellcasters wandered the room along with numerous hooded dragonspawn. There were also many red, green, blue and bronze whelps fluttering around.

However, the proverbial elephant in the room were the many strange devices that were planted all over the room. They were metallic gray cylinders that were periodically spraying some strange mist around it.

“This room is going to be a pain,” Thanatas said. “Those cylinders are periodically spraying a mist that acts as a sedative to slow your physical and mental capabilities. The enemies in the room likely have developed an immunity to the mist so we would be at a disadvantage.”

“So what’s it going to be?” Sophia asked through the link. “Create the vaccine or overload the dispensers?”

“Ideally, we would want to disable the traps one by one to avoid showing the cards in our hand, but we don’t have the time to do that since Nefarian is trying to destroy the shard as we speak,” Thanatas said. “Time for the blitzkrieg, light ‘em up!”

“Everyone, you might want to look away,” Sophia warned. “We need to get to Nefarian fast and we don’t have time to delay.”

Talia and the Horde group had a good idea on what Sophia was planning and looked away. The Alliance group wondered what was about to happen but the Horde group forced them to turn away.

Sophia’s eyes lit a brilliant bluish white as psionic sparks started dancing in her hands. Blue clouds formed over the room and coalesced into a larger system. Lightning raced along the growing cloud.

The orcs and dragonkin noticed the dangerous-looking cloud over their heads before noticing the behavior of the blue rabbit-like creature and quickly put two and two together. However, they realized too late as they began to rush through the field of cylinders.

Sophia’s attack came instantaneously as psionic lightning rained upon the room, blasting the cylinders with countless psionic lightning bolts. The metal cylinders played against the orcs and dragons as the lightning jumped to nearby targets, electrocuting everyone who stood near a device. Countless whelps were burnt to a crisp, their young scales unable to handle the indoor lightning storm.

The party was far enough away from the devices to avoid the effects of the overcharged Psionic Storm so they only saw their shadows as the light from the storms was cast over them. They could only imagine the devastation being wrought behind them.

The light show was followed by a series of explosions that rang throughout the room. The devices exploded one by one, blasting the surviving orcs and dragonspawn and burying shrapnel in their flesh and scales.

The explosions continued for a few minutes until everything became quiet. The party noticed that the lights stopped. Flutashe was the first to turn to see the devastation. It was as bad as she imagined it would be.

Blackened machine parts were strewn all over the floor, bodies of orcs and dragonkin were laying around, some in pieces. Countless whelps, who Thanatas informed were corrupted much the same as Vaelastrasz, were lying on the floor as charred husks.

“Why couldn’t Violetta cure them like she did Vaelawhatever?” Jaqueline asked.

Violetta manifested to answer the question, “Even if I tried, they were too young to survive the process. Their personalities hadn’t even developed yet when they were corrupted so there would have been nothing to save either way. Sophia’s actions were the greatest mercy she could give them.” She then returned to Mena’s mind.

Sophia led the way forward through the mess of metal and burnt flesh as they made it to the other end of the room which had a few more of the devices placed midway up a flight of stairs. Thanatas plunged her sword into the ground and a trio of icicles erupted from the floor beneath the three devices, causing them to explode and blast a few orc mages and corrupted whelps near them. The whelps didn’t survive, but the orcs regrouped and attacked long enough to get a spell off before Stella set the stairs ablaze with ruby fire, incinerating them.

Beyond the stairs was another room with a large number of dragonspawn, orc mages, corrupted whelps, and another array of devices. At the end was a creature they had never seen before. He appeared like an anthropomorphic variant of a dragon like Stella, but this one was bulkier and wingless. He wore armor on his arms, shoulders and chest with a purple loincloth. His scales were black and he carried a polearm in his three-clawed hands.

Lokosh was the one to ask Thanatas, “What is that creature at the end?”

“That is a drakonid, a mortal who has ascended to become a dragon-like being.”

“Could he be like me?” Stella asked.

“No, drakonid are mortals who became dragons, dracthyr are born that way and unlike drakonid and dragonspawn, dracthyr are capable of flight. Also, as far as I’m aware, you’re the only dracthyr who isn’t imprisoned in stasis on the Dragon Isles.”

“Wait, I’m not the only one of my kind?!”

“Not the time nor place, Stellaglim,” Thanatas dismissed before she turned everyone’s attention to the drakonid. “That drakonid is Broodlord Lashlayer. He guards the inner sanctum of Blackwing Lair where Nefarian’s magical researchers develop his army of artificial dragons.”

“Broodlord Lashlayer? He’s the one Mena and I were sent to kill!” Flutashe pointed out.

“You could claim his head, but I think we should aim bigger,” Thanatas countered. The druid quickly understood what the death knight meant. Why show Anachronos the head of a drakonid when she could show him the head of one of Deathwing’s spawn?

“I can make another storm to overload the devices in this room as well,” Sophia offered. “But I won’t be able to assist much for some time afterward. Those overcharged psionic storms really take a lot out of me.”

Thanatas took a few moments to consider her options. She knew what was beyond the door that Lashlayer was guarding and what they would face to reach Nefarian’s lair. Sophia would be forced to recover but should be ready again once they reach Nefarian. She doubted that Violetta was going to help for a while which left herself as the only heavy hitter left to make sure everyone reached the end of this place.

On the other hand, having to deal with Lashlayer while having everyone’s minds addled by sedatives was not ideal.

After weighing the options, Thanatas made her decision, “Do it.” she ordered.

Once again the party turned around and once again Sophia conjured a powerful storm of psionic electricity. The enemies caught on faster than the ones in the previous room but Thanatas raised an ice wall to keep the orcs and dragonkin out. To make sure the dragonspawn couldn’t melt the ice, Bella and Mena fortified the wall with a barrier of light. This gave Sophia enough time to charge up her storm and unleash it on the room.

Lashlayer saw the attack coming since the room had windows to view the lower floor and he saw the first use of the attack from there. He quickly moved to an alcove away from the devices and hid there while his foolish minions broke themselves upon the enemy barrier.

Once more the resulting flash of light came and electrocuted everything in the room and once more a series of explosions rang through the area. The orcs and dragonkin were seared to a crisp and metal debris littered the room.

Sophia started panting and fell to one knee as exhaustion settled over her. “Give me…a few minutes…and I’ll be…good to go.”

“Take all the time you need, cousin. We can handle things from here.” Thanatas said.

With the obstacles out of the way, Thanatas, Bella and Mena lowered their barriers and entered the room. Lashlayer noticed that the destruction died down and took this as a chance to move in and attack the intruders.

Lashlayer used his impressive strength combined with his fire magic to unleash a fiery shockwave that sent the metal debris flying at the party. The fire turned the metal red hot. Some of the party blocked the debris with shields while others dove out of the way while others still protected themselves with barriers.

Jaqueline was the first to charge in with both blades out. She attacked Lashlayer’s polearm relentlessly and not letting him get a chance to counterattack. However, Lashlayer was still strong with his draconic strength and all the training in the world wasn’t going to allow her to overpower someone who was bigger, more muscular and more magically enhanced than her.

Lashlayer kicked Jaqueline into a wall before he charged toward the others. Lokosh stuck to his defensive stance and blocked the attacks from the drakonid’s spear. He knocked the warrior away with a swing of his tail before he swung his spear at Bella who blocked it with her own shield. Surprise and Talia assaulted Lashlayer’s mind and body with shadow magic while Talia’s felguard cut into his legs with his battle ax. The drakonid unleashed a shockwave of fire that knocked everyone away and burnt them a little.

His next target was Thanatas who parried his spear strike with her sword. The two clashed blades for a few minutes but to Lashlayer’s surprise, he found that he was being pushed back as the death knight’s sword swings were overpowering his attacks.

While the drakonid had enhanced strength thanks to his master’s power, Thanatas had nothing restraining her strength due to her undead state. She was also a much more experienced fighter than he was so any trick he tried to pull to overturn the odds was seen through and countered.

The party regrouped and began attacking Lashlayer from all sides. The drakonid was not having that and tried going after other people. This attempt backfired as dark magic gripped his throat and left him gasping for air.

“I really hate people who don’t finish what they start, it’s so lazy and a waste of time,” Thanatas said. When the drakonid turned to attack Thanatas again, she smiled as she released the dark energy around his neck before defending herself with her sword again.

With the party once more attacking Lashlayer and the drakonid unable to do anything about it without the death knight using one of her dark spells, he was out of options and out of luck as his body finally gave out. He succumbed to his wounds and the damage done to his psyche and fell lifeless on the floor.

Everyone took a few minutes to recover their strength. Sophia would still need a lot more time to recover though.

Only Thanatas knew what lay ahead. The inner sanctum of Blackwing Lair was filled with horrors that would make most cringe.

Author's Note

Every now and then I like to express my dark thoughts, just like I did in this story.

Next time: The epic conclusion of the Blackrock Mountain series.

Blackwing Lair, Part 2: Crimson Laboratory

The party proceeded deeper into Blackwing Lair. They had to be more careful with how they attacked enemies further in since Sophia was still recovering from unleashing enough psionic energy to blow up two rooms worth of devices.

Thanatas knew that the next part of the area was going to be unpleasant for the party. What they had seen so far were dragon eggs that they had to destroy as well as the nests and shells of dragon eggs in the room they were in. The next room would show the true depths of Nefarian’s depravity.

The next room was occupied by a large number of goblin engineers and orc spellcasters. Strangely enough, they also saw a few blood elf spellcasters. All of them seemed to be working at lab tables. Overseeing the operations were a number of black drakonid like Lashlayer.

The inside of the room looked like a large laboratory. A large variety of scientific instruments could be seen, including alchemy labs, operating tables, hanging cauldrons, tesla coils and huge centrifuges which seemed to be spinning around containers of a red substance that looked like blood.

Their curiosity was put on the back burner when the party was noticed by the lab workers who drew their staves or began channeling their magic. The goblins pulled out a number of small bombs.

Using the doorway to their advantage, the workers were lured toward the previous room. However, this only worked partially because the goblins began tossing primed bombs. The explosive blasts forced the party to back away from the door and allow the spellcasters inside.

They still had trouble getting into the room though as Talia began raining fire on the entrance which set a few robes on fire. What was unusual was that the blood elves ran through the fire like it was nothing. Talia, Farra’jin and Mena began unleashing their magic on the elves only to realize nothing was working on him.

“The elves are immune to magic, cut them down with your blades!” Thanatas ordered.

As she said that a pair of drakonid entered the room, their bulky bodies easily enduring Talia’s magic. Lokosh and Flutashe engaged the drakonid while Jaqueline was left to cut down the elves with her swords. Groun grew some vines in the doorway behind the last of the defenders and had them coil like springs. The next few bombs the goblins threw ended up sent back to them when the vines bounced them back. The explosions occurred near an alchemy table which caused some of the chemicals to become unstable and violently explode, ensuring the goblins died in their favorite way.

The explosion also shattered the containers attached to a nearby centrifuge, spilling the crimson vital fluid all over the floor.

The spellcasters soon fell which allowed Talia, Mena, Farra’jin, Bella and Stella to focus their attacks on the drakonid who were cut down not long after.

The party moved forward into the laboratory, taking care to watch their steps as they walked over the huge puddle of dragon’s blood that spilled earlier. Those with more sensitive noses like Flutashe wrinkled them as their senses were assaulted by the metallic scent. Once they left the puddle, their shoes and feet left bloody tracks as they moved into the laboratory.

They soon found a trio of chromatic drakonid at the end of the room though Thanatas seemed distracted by something that was supposed to be here but wasn’t. She listened for any kind of wind movement caused by flapping wings but heard none.

“Where is he?” She wondered.

The other party members focused on the trio of drakonid who moved to attack. Strangely, the spellcasters in the party found that their magic had little effect on them as their scales greatly mitigated their attacks. The attacks from the warriors, Bella and her holy magic and Flutashe’s claws still harmed them like normal.

“Their scales resist most forms of magic but it makes them vulnerable to one type, you have to find it!” Thanatas called out.

The magic users quickly began experimenting on the drakonid while Lokosh, Flutashe and Bella kept their attention. Surprise found that all three resisted her spells so she let Mena handle them with her offensive holy spells since their scales didn’t seem to affect holy magic. Talia struck one with fire magic which caused him to stagger back, leading her to conclude that he had a fire weakness. Farra’jin and Stella assisted Talia with that one. Stella’s ice magic was effective on another which prompted Thanatas to assist her with bringing that one down. Farra’jin struck the last one with lightning and prompted Groun to assist with his nature magic.

The party moved up a staircase and faced more orcs, blood elves and drakonid. They had to experiment with each drakonid that they came across to find its vulnerability.

As they rose to the upper floor, Thanatas’ concerns increased. Bella noticed the death knight’s furrowed brow and asked, “Is something on your mind, darling?”

“Yeah, this lab is supposed to be under the protection of three powerful drakes: Firemaw, Ebonroc and Flamegor. We were supposed to find Firemaw on the lower floor here being charged up by tesla coils.”

“You suspect that he moved elsewhere?” Lokosh guessed.

“Maybe he flew the coop?” Mena offered.

“No, Nefarian would have ripped his head off if he tried a stunt like that. He’s here.” As they reached the second level of the lab filled with numerous vats of dragon blood, Thanatas closed her eyes and focused as she heard the faint yet rapid sound of wings flapping. She knew that the top level of the lab would be guarded by Flamegor and Ebonroc, though she had a feeling that their upcoming fight was going to be more complicated than that. If Firemaw was with those two, they were in for a tough battle. With Sophia still recovering, it was up to her to make sure everyone stayed alive.

The party proceeded to eliminate more of the orc warlocks, blood elf mages, goblin technicians and drakonid overseers on the second level. A few stray attacks from both sides ended up smashing a few containers of blood and spilled it on the laboratory floor. One goblin among the enemies carried a book about how to make use of a mysterious mineral called elementium. Bella and Lokosh agreed to share the knowledge between them later to improve their skills in metallurgy.

As they reached a ramp that would lead up to the third level of the laboratory, they looked up to see that Thanatas’ concerns were founded. Firemaw, Flamegor and Ebonroc were indeed together and waiting for their enemies to come to them. Facing two of them was already a challenge, facing all three and without Sophia was going to make things much more difficult.

“Looks like we need to separate them,” Lokosh suggested. “Me, Bella and Flutashe each take one and move it away from the others.

“Very well,” Bella said. “Anything about these drakes that we need to know?”

“They all breathe a corrupted variant of their flame breaths. Nefarian has this type of breath attack too,” Thanatas said.

“There are drakonid guards up there with them guarding the door to the next room. Let’s hope they prioritize guarding the door over assisting the drakes. If they do, we take them out first,” Flutashe suggested.

Thanatas was impressed with how everyone was able to come up with a strategy. Their teamwork was coming along nicely. Such a sight made her feel better about leaving them to their adventures when the time came. It would give her time to improve her relations with the Horde leaders and Sophia with the Alliance leaders.

Sophia came up to Thanatas which broke her from her thoughts. The death knight glanced at her cousin and whispered, “How are you holding up?”

“Just need a few more minutes and my psionic powers should be recharged,” Sophia whispered back.

“What about your other abilities?”

“I don’t think I should use my infested abilities without enough psionic power to keep them under control.”

“Alright, keep resting and we will tear up these drakes.”

Once their strategy was ironed out, Bella, Lokosh and Flutashe moved to the base of the ramp while everyone else moved into position. They decided to split into groups of three to face the drakes. Flutashe was grouped with Farra’jin and Jaqueline, Lokosh was grouped with Groun and Stella while Bella was grouped with Mena and Talia. Thanatas would move between battles and assist where needed.

Flutashe shifted into her bear form and let out a bestial roar that echoed through the lab. This roar was in challenge to the drakes who began to move toward the source of the noise. Flutashe ran toward the back of the lab floor with the three drakes in pursuit. Lokosh hurled a throwing ax at Ebonroc before leaping to a wall in the center of the room where he intended on facing him. The ax dug into a gap in the scales on his neck which angered him and made him change the target of his attention to the warrior. Bella hurled a hammer of light at Flamegor but stayed around the base of the ramp. The hammer struck the drake’s head and left him momentarily dazed before turning his ireful gaze at the paladin. Firemaw was left as the only one to pursue the druid.

Farra’jin kept up with Flutashe’s sprint to her position by transforming into a ghostly wolf while Jaqueline’s impressive physique allowed her to sprint and leap into position. Once Firemaw reached Flutashe, he immediately received a slash to his face by one of the druid’s paws which angered him. Flutashe rolled to the side to avoid the retaliation in the form of a torrent of corrupted fire.

Battle soon began between Lokosh’s group and Ebonroc. The drake began his attack like Firemaw and attempted to breathe shadowflame on the warrior. Lokosh wasn’t an idiot who would stand and endure that attack though, he rolled to the side to avoid it. Stella blasted his left forearm with a disintegration beam which damaged some of his scales. She then struck him with several icicles which shattered on his scaly body. Before Ebonroc turned his attention to the dracthyr, Lokosh slapped his face with his shield and followed up with a slash from his ax that would have taken his right eye if he hadn’t lifted his head.

Bella was not having a good time. She ended up facing the most intense of the three drakes who went into a frenzy whenever he could. A magical enhancement from Surprise made her more resistant to the shadowy energies laced into his flame breath and she radiated an aura that repelled most flames to make herself more resilient to the drake’s shadowflame breath. Talia unleashed shadow magic and fire magic alike at Flamegor who ignored the harm he was receiving in favor of attacking with more intensity.

“Groun, would you be a dear and get this one to calm down?” Bella called out. Groun turned around and shifted into his tree form before releasing a relaxing herbal aroma in the vicinity of Flamegor. The herbal aroma took effect immediately as Bella noticed that Flamegor’s attacks slowed. She used the slight respite to use the Light to refresh herself before continuing her attack.

Flutashe soon found her fur standing on end as her body absorbed electricity somehow. She noticed Jaqueline’s hair was looking puffy as well. As she dodged another shadowflame breath, she took that brief moment to remember what Thanatas said earlier. She mentioned that Firemaw should have been on the lower level being zapped by tesla coils but wasn’t. She could only guess that Firemaw was still charged up with electricity.

One more strike from the druid’s claws resulted in her body discharging the electricity from her body. Unfortunately, Jaqueline was nearby and was electrocuted. While the warrior was badly wounded from the electricity, it was nothing that Farra’jin couldn’t heal. As he did so, he set his air totem on the ground and set it to grounding. Eventually, one of Jaqueline’s attacks caused her body to discharge except this time the energy was sent into the totem where it was distributed harmlessly along the stone floor.

Stella discovered that Ebonroc’s scales were slowly mending in places whenever he managed to graze Lokosh. “Thanatas, can you do something about his regeneration?” she called out. Thanatas responded by pointing her sword at Ebonroc and unleashed a stream of sickly green substance on his body from the tip of her sword. Once her disease started taking effect, Ebonroc’s regenerative abilities worked against him as his wounds began to necrotize. Every blow he dealt to Lokosh that should have healed him was instead damage to his own body.

Flamegor was unable to work himself into a frenzy because of Groun’s soothing pollen. In an attempt to blow it away with his wings, Bella struck him in the head with a hammer of light which left him momentarily stunned. Talia’s assault continued without consequence while Surprise’s shadow magic tore at his mind.

One by one the drakes fell. Ebonroc fell first with his own attacks adding to his pain until the disease spread in his body and eventually shut his heart down. Flamegor’s body was battered but the killing blow was the brain damage that Surprise was inflicting. Flutashe found an opening and bit into Firemaw’s throat, her teeth biting through the scales until she bit into flesh and ripped his throat out. The drake’s blood sprayed onto Flutashe while the drake realized that his enemy bit into his trachea, damaging his ability to breathe. Firemaw began to suffocate from lack of air but the druid finished him to prevent any prolonged suffering by shifting into a form that was a mix between a bear and an owl with antlers. With her paws now bulky arms, she was able to twist the drake’s head and snap it. Farra’jin called on water spirits to wash the blood off Flutashe.

The party regrouped once they were sure their targets were dead. Thanatas could tell that they were showing signs of fatigue from their many battles in Blackrock Mountain. It was Talia who asked the important question, “Just how much more is there left to this place?”

“We are very close to the end actually,” Thanatas said. “The next room is where Nefarian keeps his most prized experiment, a two-headed chromatic drakeadon.”

“A drake-a-what now?” Jaqueline asked in confusion.

“It’s like a core hound except draconic. Like with Magmadar, Chromaggus is too loyal for Flutashe to tame. It’s not that that loyalty was earned though, he keeps all of his minions under his control through corruption.”

“So what insanity are we expecting from this creature?” Lokosh asked.

“He’s a beast that’s been infused with some twisted version of the five dragonflights’ magic. If you have kept track of what each type of dragon can do then you know what to expect.”

“And what lies beyond Chromaggus?” Talia asked.

“Nefarian.”

The party felt slightly reinvigorated at that declaration. They could finally see the end to their adventures in Blackrock Mountain. All they had to do was get past his guard dog and they would soon be facing the self-proclaimed master of the mountain.

They proceeded up the ramp to the top level of the laboratory, but as they got there, they beheld a disturbing sight. Numerous holding pens lined the walls and each one looked like they once held a dragon. They were all dead and their bodies were left to rot in their cells. Blood, viscera and chunks of flesh along with dragon skeletons were seen in each cell. The stench of rot and decay invaded their nostrils.

“By the Light, what madness has happened here!?” Bella exclaimed.

“Every mad science experiment needs test subjects and material,” Thanatas explained nonchalantly. “This really is no different than how the Scourge conducts their experiments. Subjects are placed into holding pens and are either subjected to experimental substances or their organs are harvested for the sake of science.”

As Stella witnessed such depravity, the shock jarred something in her mind. She saw brief flashes of herself holding a clipboard and staring at live dragons in the holding pens. The last thing she saw was Victor Nefarius standing next to her with a thoughtful look on his face as he stared at the captive dragons.

The headache that came with the visions came and went, but it was enough for the others to catch her behavior. “Is something wrong, darling?” Bella asked.

“I…I’m not sure,” Stella replied. “I feel like these pens are familiar somehow.”

“Maybe the seal on your memories is weakening?” Mena offered.

“We can worry about that later, we’re almost to the end,” Jaqueline said.

The party prepared to face the trio of drakonid guards, who had surprisingly not followed the drakes into battle, but to their surprise the three were quickly decapitated within a second. Sophia stood in front of the now headless guards with a victorious look on her face. “Guess who’s back in the saddle…”

Thanatas breathed a sigh of relief knowing that her cousin was back at full strength. She would be needed for the next fight.

She then turned to Stella, “This next fight may test your level of mastery over the five flight powers. Chromaggus will throw every type of affliction known at us, but you will need to remember the source of your bronze powers.”

Stella nodded, “I might have an idea on how to access those powers.”

Thanatas decided to trust that she knew what she was doing. She then looked at the others. “I’m pretty sure Chromaggus will have adaptive scales which means that its magical weakness will periodically change. Its scales can’t cover all of its weaknesses at once so where one type is suddenly resisted, another becomes a vulnerability.”

“What about light magic?” Bella asked.

“Light magic was beyond the ability of the five flights to control. Life, dreams, arcane, time and earth have nothing to do with that element and Chromaggus will have no answer to that. However, it’s not a vulnerability either.”

With their questions answered, Sophia entered the next room which was mostly empty save for the massive cell where Chromaggus was and a huge lever which likely opened the way forward and the cell.

The rest of the party looked inside and beheld something very disturbing and horrifying. Several drake corpses were bound in chains hung from the ceiling. Their coloring was nearly gone which made them nearly indistinguishable from any of the five flights. The sinew from their wings was torn off leaving what looked like arms with disturbingly long fingers.

Jaqueline’s face contorted to one of blind rage, “Do you remember somethin’ about this, Stella?” she demanded. “Did you serve Nefarian knowin’ that he was doin’ this ta other dragons?”

“I…I…I can’t remember.” Panic settled in as Stella struggled to remember something while being the target of Jaqueline’s rage-filled gaze.

Jaqueline moved closer to grab the robes of the one she thought was a friend to force something out of her to help her make sense of this but Sophia grabbed her wrist and forced her away from the dracthyr. The warrior struggled to get out of the dark templar’s grip but it was too strong. Jaqueline tried to punch her in the face but Sophia’s other hand caught the attack. She then looked defiantly at Sophia only to be met with a gaze of disappointment, like a mother disciplining her child. Jaqueline withered under her gaze.

“This is pointless,” Sophia scolded. “We will get our answers when we confront Nefarian, and not before. Now calm down and get ready to fight a drakeadon.”

Jaqueline nodded while bitterly muttering something under her breath.

Sophia returned to the room. Once she was sure everyone was ready for a fight, she pulled the huge lever. Both portcullises opened and Chromaggus emerged from one.

The drakeadon resembled a core hound in shape as well as two heads. The heads were narrower than a core hound’s and resembled a pair of drakes. A row of horns lined the top of both heads with larger horns on its back. Its armor was similar to that of a core hound but made of a different metal. Multi-colored scales covered its entire body.

The beast roared in fury while Sophia fled back into the other room. Chromaggus chased after her and the battle began. Lokosh and Flutashe faced one head each while the others repeatedly experimented on the drakeadon’s current vulnerability. Every few seconds its scales shimmered to alter its weak point. It would randomly go between nature magic, which was handled by Farra’jin and Groun, fire magic by Talia and Farra’jin, frost magic by Stella and Thanatas, shadow magic by Talia and Surprise or arcane which was handed by Stella.

Shortly after the fight began, people began to get randomly affected by ailments. Some would suffer a deadly fever as their skin turned red. Mena used her light magic to cleanse the disease. Some suffered a poison that made their skin turn green. Farra’jin’s water totem cleansed them of that. Some ended up with a magical affliction that made their skin turn blue and their movements slowed as they felt a chill course through their bodies. Talia’s felhound devoured the magic with Mena assisting with a Mass Dispel. Some suffered a curse that made their skin turn black but they didn’t feel any different. Groun’s remedies purged them of the corruption.

The affliction that Stella was watching for as she fought the drakeadon was one where their skin turned a bronze color. She sensed that their time was distorted as if time itself couldn’t decide where their current time was supposed to be. This led to their bodies becoming temporarily frozen in time as time attempted to correct the distortion.

Stella thought back to how she found her bronze essence and recalled channeling arcane magic. The refined version was usually channeled into her fire and frost spells. When she focused on the raw variation that was not altered, she found that the energies could affect space and time.

She maintained her focus on the raw energies and channeled them through others. The warp in spacetime ended up driving away the affliction.

However, their actions on cleansing their allies had consequences. Removing the corrupted red essence caused the essence to land somewhere and start a fire, the purged poison left toxic clouds in places, the dispelled magic fled the body and solidified into blocks of ice, the cleansed curse took the form of a tar-like substance that caused the flames to spread, the fixed distortions in time exploded in a dazzling display that temporarily blinded those who were too close to it.

They also had to contend with other issues such as the various breaths that Chromaggus unleashed. It was smart enough to unleash its breath all over the room to attack all of its enemies but the party was able to use the ice that formed in the room to shield themselves. There was also the fact that the beast would whip itself into a frenzy like Flamegor did but Sophia’s psychic waves made sure that the frenzy wasn’t an issue.

Every now and then, and in increasing frequency, some members of the party had their skin becoming a kaleidoscope of different colors. Thanatas warned that the situation would turn grave if anyone was afflicted with all five types of afflictions at the same time. Nobody wanted to know what the death knight meant so the healers of the group worked harder to cleanse their allies of their afflictions.

The fight took some time but the repeated exploitation of the drakeadon’s shifting vulnerability eventually damaged its scales to the point where they were shed from the beast, exposing its soft interior. Jaqueline used her swords to widen its exposed spot by slashing more scales off the right side of the beast until she exposed what she hoped was a vital area. She plunged her swords into the exposed hide and stabbed a couple of internal organs. Chromaggus roared in pain up until the warrior removed the blades and caused blood to spray from the wound. Stella was able to call on her black dragon magic to cause the stone floor to reshape and erupt as a spike of stone that impaled Chromaggus. The pillar pierced its stomach and left lung. Chromaggus could feel its strength leaving it as breathing became difficult and the stone spear only damaged its insides further as it struggled.

The drakeadon let out one last weak breath of flame before the light in its eyes went out.

The party fled into the next room as the lab was now on fire and poison was spreading through the area, contaminating the blood samples as the acid ate through the containers.

The room with the drake corpses was a disturbing sight but they were still safe for the moment from the spreading chaos. They took a break and restored their energy before their fight with Nefarian.

Jaqueline, who had calmed down from earlier, gave Stella an apologetic look. “Listen Stella, ah’m sorry about snappin’ at ya earlier. Seein’ these drake corpses brought up some bad memories fer me. As mah family escaped from the Northlands, ah saw corpses impaled on pikes, corpses hung from trees, and corpses in Darrowmere Lake. Ah saw how depraved the Scourge could be, an’ yet ah saw nothin’. Seein’ these corpses around us reminded me of the terror of the undead. It reminded me of the family ah lost to them and how powerless ah was to stop it. Ah just couldn’t think straight no more…”

Stella placed a talon on Jaqueline’s shoulder and gently spoke to the warrior, “I accept your apology. I also understand that what we’ve seen here is madness. This depravity crosses a line that should never have been crossed. We will end Nefarian once and for all and make him pay for every drake he’s tortured and every whelp he’s corrupted.”

Jaqueline gave the dracthyr a smile and a determined nod while everyone turned their attention to the way forward. They could see a red light filtering through the corridor ahead. What this meant, they had no idea but they had a feeling that Lord Victor Nefarius was in the next room.

The party proceeded through the narrow and short corridor and emerged into a ruined area. The dim red light of the ashen sky greeted their faces which told them that they were entering an outdoor area. The place appeared to be an overlook that faced the east side of Blackrock Mountain. A pair of damaged stone and iron pillars held the ceiling in place. Parts of the floor looked torn up. The overlook was a large rectangular arena that was even larger than the one where they fought Rend Blackhand. To their right were two mysterious doorways that appeared sealed with thick iron doors. A lot of deep growling could be heard inside.

About half a minute passed as they explored the overlook that they spotted an alcove that was decorated with weapons but also had a stone throne. More importantly was the disguised form of a certain psychotic dragon sitting on it.

Lord Victor Nefarius appeared deep in thought but the party was fairly certain that he knew they were looking his way.

In the style of a stereotypical villain, he waited until his enemies were within earshot of him before he began his monologue.

“I spent years shaping that ragtag Horde into something halfway decent. I saw their potential during the First War when they burned Stormwind to the ground. The Alliance showed their tenacity in the Second War, even when my father wore away at their unity from within they still emerged victorious and drove the Horde back to Draenor while my father went with them.

“I took what was left of them and created an army that would destroy the last true bastion of humanity. With my flight and my experiments, we would have been unstoppable. Stellaglim’s breakthroughs advanced my research by leaps and bounds. In two years, my coming wrath upon humanity had been pushed forward from several generations from now to one. My invasion should have started a few years ago while Lordaeron was busy fighting their losing war with the Scourge and the Burning Legion.”

Victor raised his head and turned his glare toward Stella. “But then my invasion was pushed back, all because you decided to favor the mortals. When I brought you test subjects, you objected to their treatment even when they promised to kill you the first chance they got. You abandoned the research and planned on destroying all your work. You would choose the mortals over dragonkind. I had to dispose of you and because of your treason, I was left with nothing but faulty specimens; specimens who couldn’t even dispose of a few meager insects.

“My plans were brought to ruin within days. Those worthless orcs, my own minions, my specimens were brought low by a handful of mortal insects.” Victor rose from his seat and his expression of rage was made obvious as he bellowed, “AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT, STELLAGLIM! BEFORE I SLAUGHTER YOU IN THE MOST PAINFUL AND SLOWEST WAY IMAGINABLE, I DEMAND TO KNOW WHY YOU WOULD BETRAY THE SON OF YOUR LORD AND MASTER!”

“How am I supposed to know why I did that? How can you expect me to give an answer while your seal on my memories remains?” Stella shot back.

“Then perhaps you need a reminder of your sins…” Victor raised a hand toward Stella. Shadowy energy gathered around his palm before an arcane sigil formed in front of him. The energy struck key points on the sigil and caused it to shatter. The shadow and arcane energies dissipated.

In that moment, Stella clutched her head as her mind became flooded with memories. She remembered many things in the span of seconds. She remembered twenty thousand years ago when she and her kin were the ultimate soldiers trained by Neltharion himself. He kept them united using a Titan artifact that was shattered by a powerful proto dragon. She remembered Neltharion betraying them by having Malygos leave them in stasis for eternity.

She then remembered waking up in this very laboratory somehow. Nefarian asked her for her assistance in recreating the dracthyr that Neltharion created. At the time she had assumed that he wanted to create more dracthyr to serve as protectors of Azeroth like the Black Dragonflight was charged with. Her talent in alchemy made her a prodigy. She picked up on the modern techniques within a week. She also remembered that he assigned her an assistant who seemed clumsy and incompetent and she was expected to teach him what she knew. Of course, she could only teach so much when the apprentice lacked any potential whatsoever.

Finally, she remembered why she betrayed Nefarian. She eventually discovered the purpose of the experiments and the depravity of the treatment of the captured whelps and drakes. She examined the blood of the black dragonkin and found that their blood had been corrupted by void energies. She learned that Nefarian intended to use the army she helped him create to commit acts of genocide against the mortal races.

She confronted Nefarian about this and he attempted to use his profane magic to corrupt her but a mysterious rainbow-colored barrier drove away all of Nefarian’s attempts to control her. However, this didn’t stop him from placing his seals on her mind and held her down while he forced her to drink one of her apprentice’s failed potions, regressing her to that of a hatchling. The last thing she remembered was the spell that locked her form into that of a high elf infant.

Her consciousness returned to the present. Bella, Mena, Jaqueline and Flutashe were all around her with concern in their eyes. “Stella dear, what happened?” Bella asked.

“I…I remember…everything…!” Stella’s expression turned to one of fury as she got up from the floor and turned her glare to Victor. “You! How could you betray the charge of the Black Dragonflight?! Your kind were supposed to be the protectors of the world and what lay below! The mortal races are a part of this world like all of us and you wish to wipe them out? You dare to call me a traitor when you and your kind have betrayed the charge given to you by the Titans!?”

Nefarian was stunned for a moment. The next was the bellowing laughter of the black dragon. “In the end your excuse is the same spiel that the other flights spout. They adhere to the duties placed upon them by the ones who usurped the order of this world. My father serves the true masters of Azeroth and one day they shall be free. You disappoint me Stellaglim, I would have hoped that you would have the vision to see that the return of the old empire is inevitable.”

“I saw the visions you tried to force on me,” Stella said. “You forsook your duties and sided with the corruption of the void. I can see the mistake the Titans made when they empowered a flight of weak-minded whelps who gave up hope so easily. You prove how weak you, your father and your entire flight really are!”

It took all of Victor’s willpower to avoid snapping at that point. He decided that the time for talk was over. “I grow bored of this conversation. It’s time for you to play my little game.” Bits of shadow magic gathered in his left hand. Everyone drew their weapons to prepare for what came next. Nefarius released the energies into a pair of bolts that flew to the sealed doors, opening them. “Let the games begin!” He then wrapped himself in shadow and teleported to a different location in the room.

In the meantime, a horde of drakonid emerged from the two entrances and moved to engage the party. Lokosh, and Bella engaged the drakonid while Bella attempted to fight Victor. The rest focused their energy on slaying the drakonid.

Thanatas saw what Bella was doing and moved to grab her shoulder, turning her toward the drakonid. “The figure is nothing but an illusion casting spells. He’s intangible so focus your attacks on the drakonid.” Bella glanced at the death knight and nodded before rushing toward the draconic horde.

The drakonid were nowhere near as tough as the ones they fought before. It was apparent that each of them could take a drakonid by themselves. Jaqueline cut down several drakonid using her spinning Bladestorm technique while Flutashe switched to her cat form and swiped her claws wide and slashed through the fragile flesh of her enemies. Bella consecrated the ground around her while summoning a number of light hammers to spin around her which slammed into any nearby drakonid. Talia planted a number of shadow seeds on any drakonid that weren’t black scaled before she made it rain fire on them. The flames detonated the seeds and blew up many enemies. Mena used every light attack spell she knew while switching between herself and Surprise to cause a number of the enemies to suffer brain damage. Farra’jin’s elementals were wreaking havoc on the enemy numbers.

With her memories restored, Stella remembered how to use her draconic abilities to their full extent. She charged up a disintegration beam that tore through the chests of every drakonid that was in her line of fire while avoiding her friends. Lokosh ended up overpowered by a large chromatic drakonid and suffered several cuts because he got careless. He was relieved when a burst of red flame from the dracthyr enveloped him and healed his wounds. The remaining enemy drakonid ended up lined up with their backs to each other which gave her an opportunity to take a deep breath, take to the air and unleash a powerful earth-rending blast that tore the floor under the drakonid and sent them flying. She did some quick mental calculations and conjured ice spikes at their estimated landing location. The last of the drakonid ended up impaled on the ice.

“Quick, gather behind me!” Thanatas ordered.

“I have had enough of hiding behind minions, time for you to face the true lord of Blackrock Spire!” The image disappeared before the real Victor Nefarius appeared at the edge of the balcony. He then jumped off before he transformed into his true form. His wings extended and with several flaps he was hovering over the overlook.

Nefarian bore some resemblance to Onyxia with the curved horns except his were bright orange. His frills on his head and behind his horns were bright orange with black sinew. He had bright orange spines coming out the back of his arms and his tail spread like a fan with three spines on each side. The tendrils under his chin each had a silver ring on them.

The dragon took a deep breath and prepared to unleash a huge blast of shadowfire. Thanatas anticipated this and raised a barrier of bones to block it. “Burn you wretches! Burn!” Nefarian bellowed as he bathed the overlook in corrupted fire. He breathed until he ran out of breath in his anger-fueled attempt to incinerate those who stood against him. To his surprise, the barrier held and lowered to find that his enemies were unscathed.

Nefarian took a moment to calm himself as he prepared to engage his foes directly. “I will not fall so easily like my sister did. Back in Stormwind, you had the advantage of restricting her movements due to her size and you had many allies helping you. Now we are in my lair and the advantage is mine.” He landed, prepared for the final confrontation.

Lokosh charged in and lured Nefarian into turning away from the others. Everyone knew better than to be in front of or behind an elder dragon so they attacked him from his flank. The orc had to move back to avoid any swipes from his claws while rolling to the side to avoid his breath attacks. Occasionally someone in the party would end up enveloped in shadow. They quickly discovered that it was a curse to Groun was able to handle it.

That was when the battle became more chaotic. Nefarian began calling on more of his dark sorcery to affect the battlefield, tailored to each of their classes.

He looked at his current target, Lokosh and decided to ruin his day. “Warriors, I know you can hit harder than that! Let’s see it!”

Lokosh suddenly found that his shield had been replaced by his other ax while shadows clung to his fists. He also felt compelled to fight recklessly. Nefarian’s claw slapped him away and sent him flying into a wall. Jaqueline felt the same feeling that Lokosh felt but this didn’t affect her as much since she wasn’t Nefarian’s target. Flutashe shifted into bear form and drew the dragon’s attention.

At the same time phantasmal weapons manifested. One flew straight for Jaqueline and slammed the ground, sending her flying into a wall next to Lokosh. Another weapon flew at Thanatas but she shattered it with her sword.

With the target of his aggression focused on the druid, he decided to get her out of the way as well. “Druids and your silly shapeshifting. Let’s see it in action!”

Flutashe felt the shadow magics compel her to shift into her cat form, greatly weakening her defenses. Bella saw this and slammed a large hammer of light at Nefarian. The dragon tried to ignore this in favor of getting his first kill for the fight only for a sword of light to emerge from under his chin and nearly impaling his skull. Knowing what she could do if left alone, he was unable to ignore the paladin anymore. He also noticed that the tauren druid was unaffected by his ability. He had no idea why but decided on an alternative punishment by turning him into an immobile tree for a brief time.

Meanwhile, brambles glowing a sickly green energy started roaming the area. Not wanting to know what they did, the party took care to avoid them.

Nefarian glared at Bella and would have considered using the paladin version of his “Call Outs” but the majority of his attackers were spellcasters and this one would only protect him from physical attacks.

A searing pain throughout Nefarian’s body burned many of his scales. He sensed the power coming from the rabbit girl. The psionic power hurt him more than anything the others did. He wasn’t sure what the girl was so he used his shadows to gather data on her. A few moments later he got his info. A wicked smirk formed on his face as he called her out, “Dark Templars, masters of psychic power. You shouldn’t be giving others a piece of your mind so easily, you never know when they will give it right back!”

Sophia suffered a huge migraine from a psychic feedback thanks to the shadows on the field. She clutched her head in agony and lost her focus on her environment. She did not like that at all and became infuriated. She punched the ground and in the next moment, a spire of Zerg chitin pierced Nefarian’s belly and stabbed several of his internal organs, causing him to cough up blood. The bunny templar regained her senses and forced the spike to retract before anyone realized how he was injured.

The templar drove the point home when she gave Nefarian a menacing look that filled the dragon with a sense of primal dread. He had a feeling that he would suffer a fate worse than death if he tried that again.

Nefarian then turned his gaze toward Thanatas, but the death knight made him think twice when she impaled dozens of phantom swords into his flank all at once, causing him to roar in agony.

“Try that with me and I’ll mess you up so badly not even your father will be able to reanimate you,” Thanatas threatened. She was already furious with Nefarian for what he did to her cousin and she would be willing to prevent a future event from occurring if he pushed her too far. Thankfully the others were too busy fighting Nefarian to consider her words.

Nefarian did hear the word “reanimate” and had an idea. He then channeled the shadows into the fallen army of drakonid and dissolved the flesh, leaving behind the bones. The bones then started moving and assembled into an army of skeletons. With the army of the dead assembled, he ordered them to serve him by slaughtering his enemies.

This plan backfired spectacularly. Nefarian had underestimated Thanatas’ ability to control the dead and the dragon was not well versed enough in the art of necromancy to prevent the death knight from hijacking his army and turning it on him. His eyes shrank in horror as the army of bone that he rose ignored the mortals and began tearing into his scales. Nefarian swiped and bashed the skeletons with his tail and claws until they were piles of inanimate bones once again.

The party didn’t stay idle, Jaqueline and Lokosh recovered from their hard hits and ran back in. They noticed the skeletons ripping into Nefarian’s flesh and though the female warrior felt unsettled about that, she decided that she wouldn’t let this opportunity pass. She noticed that a few deep gashes were left in Nefarian’s hide from the skeletons and moved to plunge her swords into the wounds to deepen them.

Another roar of agony was heard before the dragon shook Jaqueline off without her blades. He could sense that his consciousness was beginning to fade, so he unleashed what power he had left to stay alive long enough for him to at least have his revenge. He then turned his glare toward Stella and focused his attacks on her. He breathed a wave of shadowflame toward her but Stella lifted off with her wings before hurling several bolts of red dragon magic at Nefarian’s face. He flinched from the attack then spread his wings and lifted off to pursue the object of his ire.

The two left the overlook to fight one another in the open air. Nefarian released wave after wave of shadowflame but Stella’s size and speed played in her favor while her disintegration beams tore more holes in the dragon’s hide. His large size played against him in this battle.

Stella’s training as one of Neltharion’s former soldiers and as a Dalaran combat mage kicked in as she unleashed corrosive globs of acid on his wounds while a well timed huge icicle was launched at Nefarian’s head while he opened his mouth to unleash another wave of shadowflame, only for the ice shard to get stuck in his maw.

As they fought, Stella noticed the mysterious wound in her adversary’s belly. She conjured more acid and hurled it into the gaping wound, reopening it and causing his blood and entrails to spill out. With the acid exacerbating the symptoms, his natural healing was not enough and with his fatigue from the battle, he was at his limit.

Nefarian fell down the side of a lower mountain and landed in the Burning Steppes. She watched as the dragon’s life came to an end with a look of sadness. She was saddened that one who could have been a great protector of Azeroth was reduced to a minion of the Old Gods, saddened that the entire flight was potentially lost, saddened that he threw his duty away.

With the last of his energy, Nefarian looked at Stella. It was not one of anger or hatred, but one of desperation. Desperation to know of something that he truly desired to know. “How can you have hope when there is none? How can you hope to stop the inevitable?”

Stella sighed. She walked up to the dying dragon and looked into his desperate eyes. “Someone has to have it. Even if the chance to change the inevitable outcome is a negligible number, it still exists and is still worth placing my bet on. I have to do my part to make it happen as well.”

Nefarian didn’t respond any further. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he closed his eyes, embracing his death at last.

Despite all that he had done, Stella still wept for him. The Old Gods had twisted such a noble soul into their agent of madness. In that moment, she vowed to finish what the Titans failed to do and purge her home of the menace that corrupted an entire flight.

Meanwhile, the others watched the fight come to an end. Flutashe had a strange feeling that something was hidden behind Nefarian’s throne. She looked around until she eventually found a small red object that appeared to be a part of something. She could only hope that it was the fragment of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands that Vaelastrasz told her about. Returning to her night elf form, she placed the shard in a pocket before rejoining the others.

The others began to relax. Their adventure in Blackrock Mountain had come to an end. All that remained was to return to their respective leaders and inform them of what transpired.

Though as two threats had been removed from the face of Azeroth, another, more dangerous foe loomed over the horizon.

Author's Note

2 raids down and 3 to go. The last 3 will be back to back, sort of. Hopefully my readers have enjoyed how I wrote out the fights and the changes I made to some of them. I even added a "Call Out" ability tailored to dark templars. Maybe I could have added a raid effect to it, but I didn't feel like it.

Also, just to make sure you know, I added images to previous chapters, particularly the Molten Core and Blackwing Lair chapters as well as "The Great Masquerade" (I only added 1 drake to the drake trio fight since Blizzard never gave any of them a physical feature that distinguished them from each other).

Next time: The continuation of the quest to reunite the pieces of a nice-looking hammer that only exists to ring a gong. We may even see a certain eccentric blue dragon who wanders around the Azshara region.

The War of the Shifting Sands

Stella continued to stare at Nefarian’s lifeless body for several minutes. A part of her hoped that what he said about Neltharion wasn’t true, but another part knew better. She couldn’t help but hope that at least some of the Black Dragonflight managed to escape the grasp of the Old Gods.

A few minutes later, Thanatas, Flutashe and Sophia flew down from the overlook to find the dracthyr. The others were floated down via Sophia’s telekinesis. Stella noticed Thanatas’ skeletal wings looked draconic in nature and raised an eyebrow at her. “You’re certainly full of surprises. I never thought I would meet an undead dragon who used a visage form.”

Thanatas chuckled, “I’ve been told that I’m unique.” She then looked at Nefarian’s corpse. “We’re going to need the head to show to Anachronos.”

Stella nodded and moved out of the way for Sophia to begin slicing the head off before she deposited the cranium in a pocket dimension with Onyxia’s head.

With their business in Blackrock Mountain complete, it was time to head home. Since Stella didn’t know the proper spatial coordinates for Orgrimmar’s anchor point, the Horde group was forced to make the journey back to Stonard outpost and pay a Horde mage to send them back to Orgrimmar. There was no way they were going to use Thanatas’ transportation method if they could help it.

Stella opened a portal to Stormwind for herself and her friends. Once they were back in the mage tower of the Mage Quarter they proceeded through the streets of the bustling city which seemed livelier than before, likely because news of King Wrynn’s return spread like wildfire.

While they would like to find a room to rest their weary souls, they had one last thing to do before they could.

The group proceeded through the streets and toward Stormwind Keep. The guards let them pass as they entered the throne room where they saw Varian and his son.

The king was now wearing grayish blue plate mail armor with his left pauldron bearing the image of a lion and his right pauldron a gryphon. His cape clasps, belt buckle and sabatons bore lion reliefs. Around his neck, his gauntlets and his belt were thick layers of fur. His red cape contrasted with his armor. The scars under his eyes and down his left eye were on full display.

At first, Varian had a worried look on his face but upon seeing the people he sent to Blackrock Mountain, that worry vanished instantly. The party moved before the throne and knelt down to him.

“Is it done?” Varian asked. “Has the Lord of Blackrock met his end?”

Bella nodded, “Nefarian and his Dark Horde will never trouble Stormwind again, Your Majesty.”

Varian smiled at the news, “We could never fully repay you for your deeds. Countless lives were saved from the onslaught of the Black Dragonflight. The Kingdom of Stormwind is in your debt.”

“We thank you for your words of gratitude, Your Majesty. We are happy to be of service to the kingdom and the Alliance. By your leave, we must rest. As one adventure closes, another looms over the horizon.”

“Then perhaps you are aware that other adventurers have been traveling the world gathering supplies for an imminent threat that looms over Kalimdor. The Horde has been doing the same.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Flutashe said. “I believe that the Bronze Dragonflight may be working on assembling an artifact from thousands of years ago that will spark the coming conflict. I think they are using me as their agent in this task.”

Varian raised an eyebrow, “Why do we need something to start the battle? Would they not attack regardless?”

“I think so, but this artifact appears to be the key to attacking their stronghold as well.”

Varian nodded in understanding. “I see, so while my forces and the Horde hold back the enemy, your group will be looking for a way to infiltrate the enemy stronghold.”

“You may also want to send forces to the other silithid hives around Kalimdor,” Sophia said. “Those bugs are part of the invading army. I have a contact within the Horde who will inform Warchief Thrall about the hives.”

“Very well, I will direct any able-bodied heroes to cull the hives. Get some rest, you have quite a journey ahead of you.”

Once Varian dismissed them, the party headed back to the Trade District to rent a room at the inn. They would savor nights like these since it wouldn’t be often that they were able to sleep in a proper bed.

While the Alliance party was making their report, the Horde party returned from the way they came from. They crossed the length of Burning Steppes and walked through the unguarded pass in eastern Redridge and entered the murky Swamp of Sorrows. Once they reached Stonard, they paid a mage to send them back to Orgrimmar.

While they waited for the mage to prepare, Lokosh, Talia, Groun and Farra’jin mumbled their complaints about how the Alliance were able to return home the easy way but there was nothing they could do about it since none of them knew portal magic, not even Talia who knew all sorts of Equestrian magic.

Once the mage opened the portal, they stepped inside and emerged in the Cleft of Shadows beneath Orgrimmar.

Knowing the route by now, the party headed straight for Thrall’s throne room with Thanatas behind them. After all, this was their glory that they would share with the warchief.

Inside the throne room, the four stood before Thrall while Thanatas walked off to the side to listen in.

“Is it done? Have you brought proof of Rend Blackhand’s demise?” Thrall asked.

Talia presented the former warchief’s head to the orc leader. “We present you with the head of the Warchief of the Dark Horde,” Lokosh announced. “He, his whole Dark Horde and the Black Dragonflight who supported him are finished.”

“Lok’tar!” Thrall shouted, then returned to his normal tone. “You have pleased your warchief this day! With the threat of Blackrock Mountain neutralized, we can now focus our efforts on the coming battle in Silithus.”

“What would you have us do, Warchief?”

“Rest for now, then you may join your fellow heroes of the Horde in gathering supplies needed for the war.”

This brought a sigh of relief from them. After all they went through they needed something easy to do for a change of pace. It would also give them a chance to explore the world in their search for the Epitaph Fragments.

Once Thrall dismissed them, they went straight for an inn for some needed rest and relaxation.

Meanwhile, Thanatas was left to give Thrall and his advisors the detailed report. She left out some details like Stella’s draconic powers though. She knew that Thrall had no significant ill will toward the Alliance so she knew that he didn’t mind that his people cooperated with them for the mission.

It was the next morning when the Alliance party rose from their beds and prepared for their next journey. They had a feeling that they were going to be traveling great distances this time.

Once everyone was ready and they had restocked their supplies, Stella opened a portal to Theramore Isle, an island city just off the coast of the swampy Dustwallow Marsh. The mage was asked why she couldn’t open a portal directly to Tanaris but she countered that she had to create anchor points at locations to create a portal there like she did at Blackrock Mountain and doing that required her to actually get there. Theramore had a publicly used anchor point for Alliance mages so that was the closest she could get everyone.

Thankfully, the seas were calm enough that they could charter a ship to Steamwheedle Port in Tanaris. After paying the captain the fee for everyone, they soon set sail. It was only a few hours before they reached the goblin-run port.

Once they disembarked, the ship sailed back to Theramore since goblins charged an obscene docking fee on a per hour basis.

The party traveled west through the desert while dealing with the wildlife and bandits on their way to Gadgetzan. Once they neared the town’s walls, Stella established an anchor point in a hidden area out of view of the goblin cartel. Last thing she wanted was for the little green money-grubbers to charge her for the anchor.

Not wanting to waste time talking to the living symbols of greed, the party immediately headed south toward the Caverns of Time. They fought off more desert predators and bandits on their way there.

After an hour's walk, they reached the caverns with the out of place buildings tucked in the small valley. Anachronos was still guarding the door. They also spotted Baristolth at the foot of the mountains, waiting for them. They approached the night elf who had an expectant look in his eyes. “Did you bring the head of Broodlord Lashlayer?”

Sophia gave the elf a disappointed stare. “You can drop the bit, Baristolth. I think you and I both know that you are waiting to see the heads of Deathwing’s children.” She then opened a pair of rifts into her dimensional pockets just large enough for Baristolth to gaze at the faces of Nefarian and Onyxia.

A bit of sorrow rose within Stella as she remembered that name. She recalled reading about Deathwing in Dalaran’s archives. For the great Aspect of Earth to be so far gone as to change his name to reflect his genocidal madness, it was an utter waste of a gift from the Titans.

“I-I see,” Baristolth muttered. Seeing as Nefarian was now dead by their hands, that had to mean that they had an encounter with Vaelastrasz, based on what his master told him. He then turned to Flutashe. “So does that mean that you have it? The shard?”

“Yes, I have it right here,” Flutashe said. She turned her pockets and pulled out the red shard that Nefarian had taken.

“Then it is time for you to meet my master.” Baristolth led the party into the valley toward the entrance to the Caverns of Time and toward the large bronze dragon who guarded it. “My master, the young druid has come bearing the heads of Deathwing’s children and the red shard of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands.”

Anachronos looked down at the visitors. Upon hearing his servant’s words, he transformed into a human with gray hair and ornate bronze plate armor. He looked upon the group of mortals gathered, his gaze locked on the strange rabbit girl longer than the others. There was something odd about her. Regardless, he addressed the others, “Greetings mortals, I thank you for providing your assistance in this dire time. Before we proceed, I would like to provide you with the knowledge of the enemy that you shall soon face.” He then pulled out a book for them to read.

Twilight, who had been observing all of the events transpire from the observation room in the Sphere Institute, zoomed her camera in on the tome and eagerly awaited them to open it. A thousand years had passed but she was still as much of a book lover as ever. Once the tome opened, she read along with the others.

From what they read, the War of the Shifting Sands occurred nearly a thousand years ago on Kalimdor. The night elves, led by Fandral Staghelm, defended the Silithus desert from a race of giant insects called the Silithid and a race of insectoid people called the Qiraji. While many elves defended the desert, it would prove meaningless before the seemingly infinite swarm that poured from the fortress city of Ahn’Qiraj.

Staghelm’s arrogance proved costly as he had his son, Valstann Staghelm, defend a nearby village in the eastern part of the desert. The defense was futile and the village was overrun and Valstann was captured and slain before Fandral’s eyes. While his son’s death hit Fandral hard, the Qiraji were not finished tearing his pride to shreds as they eventually pushed the night elves out of Silithus and back to Tanaris, rendering his son’s valiant sacrifice meaningless.

Fandral pleaded with Anachronos to lend his aid to protecting Kalimdor. At first the bronze dragon refused, but when the Caverns of Time were attacked by the legion of insects, they became involved. It was still not enough though so Anachronos had to call on the other flights to help.

It was through the combined efforts of Anachronos, Merithra, Caelestrasz and Arygos, the children of Nozdormu, Ysera, Alexstrasza and Malygos respectively, that they found a solution to stem the infinite tide of chitin.

As they exected their plan, Arygos sensed a dim magic coming from the temple in the southern quadrant of the city of Ahn’Qiraj but was unable to identify it at the time.

In the end, they used their own walls to imprison the Qiraji within their city for all eternity.

Once they finished reading the book, they gave it back to Anachronos. “So this wall was used to imprison the Qiraji, the forces of the Old God?” Mena asked.

Anachronos turned his head toward the gnome. “Yes, we didn’t know at the time, but we would later find out that the city once housed the prison of C’thun.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Mena said, her curiosity satisfied.

Anachronos sighed and rubbed his temple, sensing a headache coming. “You already know about the existence of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands, so I will fill in the parts about what happened that ended the war.

“In one final desperate defense, the night elves with the aid of myself, Merithra, Caelestrasz and Arygos, pushed the Qiraji back to their fortress. We needed to hold them back long enough for me and Fandral to seal the gate into their city. Merithra, Caelestrasz and Arygos sacrificed themselves to give us the time we needed. We succeeded and the wall was sealed with the Qiraji within.

“I gave the Scepter to Fandral for a time in the future when it would be needed to gain entry into the fortress. However, I underestimated his grief. He shattered the Scepter on the wall and shattered his bond with the dragonflights, vowing to find a way to bring his son back from the dead.”

“So that’s why he’s been so disconnected from his people? Because he’s under some delusion that he can bring his son back to life?” Flutashe asked.

Anachronos nodded, “I fear that his grief has driven him to madness. His future looks very bleak.”

“No, we’re not changing the guy’s future,” Thanatas told Sophia through the link. “I’m not even sure we can at this point. His psyche has been affected by not only his son’s death, but also his obsession to return him to life and the fact that his mind has been further addled by the Emerald Nightmare. Long story short, he’s just about right to be a snack for Violetta. Only reason he isn’t is because I forbade her from eating his mind because I need him alive for a few more years.”

Anachronos continued with the story, “After the Scepter was shattered, I gathered the pieces and returned here. Intending on keeping the Scepter from those who would seek to cause chaos to our world, such as the Twilight’s Hammer, I gave three shards to three powerful members of their respective flights and kept the rest to myself. Unfortunately, those three have fallen to tragedy. I gave one shard to Vaelastrasz, however in his zeal to eliminate the children of Deathwing he fell into their trap.”

“Are you referring to the moment when Nefarian corrupted Vaelastrasz?” Flutashe asked. “If that’s the case then we already saved him thanks to Violetta consuming his corruption.”

Anachronos was taken aback, he didn’t imagine a timeline where Vaelastrasz would be cleansed of his corruption. Granted, he was glad that the red dragon was saved. Of course, it appeared that the Bronze Dragonflight would be unable to properly follow the timeline in areas where Violetta was concerned, likely Sophia and Thanatas as well. He had brought up the matter with Nozdormu but he said that interfering with their missions would “anger powers that Azeroth was not prepared to face” and that it would be in their best interest to stay on their good side.

“I…I see.” Anachronos shook his head and resumed his explanation. “Anyway, another shard is in the possession of Azuregos who has been wandering the lands of Azshara for years. He’s a very eccentric dragon who has had one too many run-ins with treasure hunters. Sometimes you see him as a ghost and sometimes he is alive and wandering around until another greedy treasure hunter comes to slay him. Don’t ask how he keeps coming back to life, even I have a hard time believing it.

“The third fragment was entrusted to Eranikus.” Flutashe gasped as she heard the name. She recognized Ysera’s consort and one of the most powerful green dragons out there, second only to the Aspect of Dreams.

He was also twisted by the corruption in the Emerald Dream, the Emerald Nightmare.

Flutashe was the one who explained the fate of the dragon to the others.

“Do you know where he is, Flutashe?” Stella asked. “Is he in the Emerald Dream?”

“He is, but it would be suicidal to face him there. Ragnaros and Nefarian were powerful, but only Ysera would have any chance against him in the Emerald Dream. Sadly, she has been out of contact with everyone recently.”

“You may find clues to Eranikus’ whereabouts at the place where he was corrupted, young druid,” Anachronos offered.

“You mean the Temple of Atal’Hakkar?” Flutashe asked. “It’s worth a shot.”

As Thanatas fed Sophia information through the link, the bunny templar relayed it to everyone. “The Temple of Atal’Hakkar is an ancient place that belongs to a dark faction of the Gurubashi Troll Empire. The faction is known as the Atal’ai or Devoted Ones. This group of fanatics are worshippers of an evil loa named Hakkar the Soulflayer. The temple was sunken beneath the swamp by Ysera but some of the trolls survived and are working to bring their loa into this world. A number of green dragons were sent to guard the place but they were all overtaken by the Nightmare. The dragons leave the trolls alone while they conduct their foul rituals. It is also said that a shadow of Eranikus’ power slumbers there.”

“Then we will need to go there. But first, I would like to try to get Azuregos’ shard. I have a feeling that getting that is going to be a lot easier than getting Eranikus’ shard.”

“Then your course is set,” Anachronos said. “Once you bring me the other two shards I will reassemble the Scepter. I pray that you mortals will be able to face the horrors that will emerge from that place. C’thun’s power shields his minions from our ability to sense them so I could not tell you about what lies within.”

“No need to worry about that,” Sophia assured. “We have our own source of information who can give us a heads up on what to expect.”

The party then said their goodbyes to the elder bronze dragon before Stella created a portal to the night elven city of Darnassus. That still put them far from their destination but it was the closest she could get them.

Not wanting to be in the same city as Fandral Staghelm longer than necessary, they quickly left Darnassus and took a ferry to Auberdine where they spent a night at its inn before they continued their journey.

From there the journey lasted several days as they traveled the roads of Darkshore and Ashenvale Forest.

On their way, the party spotted numerous adventurers gathering supplies in the form of clothing scraps that could be weaved into robes, animal skins that were processed into leather for use in crafting leather armor, ore mined from the hills to be smelted into metal and forged into armor and weapons and herbs that would be used as reagents for various alchemical concoctions. This was one of those rare times where the Horde and Alliance worked together for a common cause as the war against the Qiraji drew near.

After several days of travel through the forest, the party finally arrived in the eternal autumn lands of Azshara. Everyone but Flutashe stared in awe at the red, gold, and orange colors that made up the grasslands and tree leaves of the region. Few places displayed trees of white bark. Flutashe had been to this region a few times in the past so the novelty had worn off by that point.

Azshara was a large place and despite the fact that they were looking for a blue elder dragon as large as Nefarian and Anachronos, it would not be easy. To shorten their search time, Flutashe shifted into her bird form and Stella took to the skies. Stella searched along the northern peninsula while Flutashe searched along the southern peninsula.

It took a few hours but Flutashe finally located the blue dragon they were looking for. She returned to her friends while they waited for Stella to return from her search. Stella returned half an hour after Flutashe did.

“Any luck?” Stella asked.

Flutashe nodded, “He’s wandering around the southern peninsula, follow me.”

It took an hour on foot to reach the southern Peninsula of Azshara and find Azuregos. The dragon paid no mind to his surroundings until a large purple bird with a pink crest started pecking him between the eyes.

“Ow! What did I ever do to you?” Azuregos asked.

Flutashe lowered herself to the ground and shifted into her night elf form. “I’m sorry Mister Azuregos, but I needed to get your attention.” The others soon joined her with Stella returning to her elf form.

“I don’t need a reminder that I’m older than the hills, just Azuregos will do.” He then examined the people among her before his eyes locked on to Stella. He narrowed his eyes, “Playing hero with a bunch of mortals? To each their own, I guess.” He returned his gaze to Flutashe, “So I take it that you are here for the shard that was given to me?”

“Yes, do you have it?”

“Of course not! That would be asinine. I’m not going to walk around with a proverbial villain magnet. This place is full of savages! I can’t take five steps without some orc or human trying to poke my flank with a stick trying to rob me! Anyhow…I hid it. Go on! Ask me where.”

“I could just pluck it from your memories and save us the vocal exercise,” Sophia offered jokingly.

“And then we would miss a perfect bonding opportunity which would be your loss,” Azuregos countered. “I get lonely sometimes, you know! Moving on, that shard was going to be nothing but a headache. I knew it even back then. All I wanted was to study the magic in this area and its magical artifacts. But what do I get? Nothing but a bunch of glory-seeking wannabe heroes who want to reassemble that blasted Scepter and try their luck with Bug City. I got tired of babysitting the thing so…I gave it to a fish.”

“A fish?” Flutashe repeated.

“Not just any fish, it was a minnow! It’s a very special minnow!”

While Flutashe, Mena and Jaqueline were concerned that they would have to hunt for a specific fish out of billions, Stella and Sophia were not thrown off by this. “Certainly you have a means of getting this ‘minnow’ to return to you in case of emergencies,” Stella figured. “I would think that Malygos would entrust the shard to a dragon who was at least somewhat responsible. It would be a major embarrassment to him if everyone found out that he entrusted an artifact that could potentially destroy the world in the claws of a lazy and irresponsible dragon.”

“Ha! You must be out of the loop if you think that would work,” Azuregos scoffed. “Malygos lost his mind millennia ago after our flight was decimated during the War of the Ancients ten thousand years ago.”

Stella made a point to read up on the War of the Ancients and other major events she missed out on while in stasis when she returned to Dalaran. At this point her knowledge of history spanned back several centuries. She was planning on looking further back but her magic lessons were taking up most of her reading time.

Azuregos continued, “Anyway, I do have a means of drawing the minnow back to me. Two words: Arcanite. Buoy. You want the shard, you have to make one yourself.” He then opened a rift and a small book flew out. “If you do end up making the lure, it’s fair to warn you that I gave the minnow some special powers.”

“So you made a dangerous fish and gave him the shard…what part of what you said so far isn’t irresponsible?” Stella deadpanned.

“You try guarding the thing for five hundred years from loot-crazed idiots and tell me how you feel after that!” Azuregos snapped.

“Have you ever tried spreading false rumors or misleading adventurers with false leads while concealing the shard in a pocket dimension where they can’t get to it?” Stella countered.

Azuregos narrowed his eyes at the elf mage that he knew was a visage form. “You know, for a dragon you think a lot like a mortal. By the way, do they even know you’re a dragon?”

“Of course they do.” When Stella transformed into her dracthyr form Azuregos’ eyes widened in surprise, though oddly the reaction was not quite what she expected.

Azuregos looked at her with curiosity. “That’s a strange shape for a dragon. You resemble a drakonid but they don’t have wings and they’re larger and bulkier. Some sort of new variant?”

“I’m a dracthyr, didn’t Malygos tell you about my kind?”

“He only tells us what we need to know, though he did briefly mention some dangerous creatures Neltharion made that he put into eternal stasis.”

While the two continued their conversation, Mena picked up the book that Azuregos dropped. She picked it up and looked through the contents. It only took a moment to realize that she couldn’t read any of the writing in the book. It was written in what she figured was draconic since Azuregos was the one who wrote it.

Mena interrupted the conversation to ask Stella to see if she could read it. The mage took the book and looked through it before she conjured a piece of paper and a writing quill. She then wrote the translations and schematics on the paper and gave it to Mena before she continued her conversation.

As she read the translated schematic, she suddenly remembered something important. She ran toward a nearby tree and urged her dark counterpart, Surprise, to help her up the tree. When Surprise took over she conjured shadowy claws over her fingers and shoes. She then climbed the tree and entered the canopy. After a few minutes of searching, she dropped a gem-studded buoy onto the ground and climbed back down.

“What the heck is that?” Jaqueline asked.

“It’s an Arcanite Buoy, silly,” Mena answered.

“What was one of those doin’ in that tree?”

“I stashed one there a long time ago, just in case of Arcanite Buoy emergencies.”

While the party and Azuregos stared at the gnome priest with their jaws wide open, Twilight looked at the monitor as nostalgic memories of a bygone era filled her mind. She never could figure out how Pinkie was always prepared for every contingency. She even made her own funeral one filled with laughter; her final joke that she prepared years in advance.

While everyone else was dumbstruck and left with nothing to say, Azuregos looked at the gnome in awe as he said, “Genius! I thought my idea of a minnow guarding the shard was brilliant, but you prepared for that contingency in advance? You are a true genius!”

Mena blushed from the dragon’s praise.

“How did you even get here in the first place?” Stella asked. “It doesn’t even make sense how you could have made an Arcanite Buoy and stashed it here years ago.”

“Stella, drop it,” Sophia warned. “Trust me, you don’t want to go down that road. Only madness awaits there and you do not want to give Violetta an excuse to eat your mind. For your own sake, anytime in the future that Mena breaks reality, just leave it be and chalk it up to this being normal for her.”

Stella wanted to argue but the threat of being a victim of the eldritch horror’s insatiable hunger made her decide it wasn’t worth it.

Azuregos continued, “Now that you have an Arcanite Buoy, place it in the ocean and my minnow will be attracted to its magical emanations. Once he comes near the buoy- BLAMMO! It will explode in a glorious pulse of arcane energy, revealing its true form. Also, you may or may not incur the wrath of Neptulon. A fifty-fifty chance I would say.”

“We’ll take our chances,” Sophia said.

With the buoy in hand, the party left the eccentric dragon and headed to the bay. As they were wondering where they were supposed to place the magical device, Mena looked at the schematic again. “It says that for maximum effectiveness, the buoy must be placed in open waters in a swirling maelstrom.”

The others groaned as they heard that. Once they were prepared, they jumped into the bay and swam around. Flutashe used her bird form to look around the bay to find something like what Mena described. After a few minutes, she spotted an area that was cluttered with wreckage spinning around in a small area. She flew to the others and led them to the spot. Sure enough, the wreckage was moving in a maelstrom.

Once they were ready, Mena deployed the buoy into the middle of the wreckage. Uncertain as to when the “minnow” was going to show up, the party considered moving back to dry land so they could keep their strength up for when they dealt with the fish.

They didn’t wait long, however, as the buoy sent out a pulse of magic that transformed a harmless-looking fish into a giant shark.

As they stared at the shark and floated around in what seemed like a cliche reenactment of a certain shark movie, Azuregos hovered over the party for a moment to tell them something, “By the way, I named him Maws. Isn’t he an adorable little fish? Ta ta now, have fun playing with him.”

The minnow turned shark swam lazy circles around the party. He could practically taste the anxiety of his prey as he drifted closer to his latest meal.

Sophia was having none of that. She dove underwater so that she would be obscured by the dark waves. She then transformed her legs into a chitinous fish tail so she would have mobility underwater and mutated gills for underwater breathing.

She then sent a jolt of electricity at the shark to gain his attention. Enraged, Maws swam rapidly toward the mermaid-like bunny templar. This only resulted in a well-timed punch to the shark’s snout which stunned it. She then wrapped her arms around Maws and dove fast for the sea floor where she suplexed him into the ground.

Now with a bloody snout, Maws freed himself from the ground and looked for his prey, which was seeming like she was more adversary than prey at this point.

Without warning, Maws felt a sharp pain in his right flipper…except that it wasn’t there anymore. His blood began pouring out of the gaping wound where his flipper used to be. He turned around and saw Sophia with his missing flipper in her mouth. She spat it out and gave him a fanged grin, revealing rows of sharp, pointy teeth.

As her fingers mutated into sharp claws, Maws realized that he was the prey in this case and that he was fighting a monster he was not prepared to fight. Sophia drove the point home when she swam past Maws slow enough for him to bite her only to find his teeth not up to the task of piercing her chitinous tail. Some of his teeth cracked and others broke off.

The others dove into the water after Sophia but they were unable to get any idea of what was going on since Maws’ blood was obscuring everything. Of course, the party also feared that the blood might be Sophia’s. Without any idea of what was going on, the party had no choice but to wait and see who emerged from the blood cloud.

They got their answer ten seconds later when Sophia swam out of the cloud in her usual form and unscathed. She had a satisfied look on her face and a blue shard in her right hand.

Even as the party returned to land, Sophia was not about to tell them what happened during that fight and that all they needed to know was that she thrashed the shark and took the shard.

While the party wasn’t looking, she looked back at the bay to see a shark skeleton floating in the water. She also rubbed her belly in satisfaction of the seafood dinner she just ate.

At the moment, the sands of Silithus were the same as usual, tall sand tornadoes roamed the desert, red crystals jutted out all over the place and silithid buzzed around everywhere.

In the northwestern corner of the desert, Zoias stood before a cowering old man who was part of the Twilight’s Hammer cult.

She had been nice to him at first as she presented the whole talisman, the enchanted elementium and the essence of Ragnaros. The old man celebrated in triumph as he forged the vessel of his master’s rebirth and released Thunderaan the Windseeker from his prison. He then witnessed the Prince of Air, who was a giant armored air elemental armed with a weapon that looked like a cross between a sword and a jacob’s ladder, attack Zoias.

Using her mastery over earth, Zoias was able to quickly overpower and subdue him and trap his essence in the blade. She took the blade and pointed it at the old man who cowered before her but decided to let him live with his humiliation. With her prize in hand, Zoias teleported away using her earthen technique.

Author's Note

I had fun writing this chapter. I love how Azuregos trolls the player in game whether it's the Scepter questline or during the Azshara zone questline during Cata.

Next time: The hunt for the green shard begins in the last non-raid dungeon I will be showcasing in Season 1.

The Sunken Temple

Questions filled the minds of the group as they wondered how Sophia was able to single-handedly defeat a giant shark that was powered up by a blue dragon, but they also knew that she was a powerhouse when she wanted to be and let the matter slide.

With the shard of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands acquired, Stella began channeling her magic to open another portal. “There’s a keep that was established by the Kirin Tor after the Second War after the Dark Portal imploded and turned most of the swampy region known as the Black Morass into a barren wasteland. Have any of you heard of it?”

“I’ve heard of it, darling,” Bella responded. “You’re talking about Nethergarde Keep which stands in a place known today as the Blasted Lands. While expensive, the threat of another invasion from the Horde made the costs worth the expenditure. Though nowadays, with the Portal silent, the Kirin Tor studies the residual effects it had on the land.”

Stella nodded, “I can take us to Nethergarde since Dalaran keeps records of its anchor points. It’s not far from the Swamp of Sorrows to the north of it, but we need to be careful not to wander too close to the Horde outpost of Stonard since I doubt they will be friendly toward us.”

With the final incantation, Stella opened the portal to the keep and everyone traveled through. They emerged inside the mage tower on the bottom floor which was likely established that way so any Dalaran workers would be able to get to work faster.

The group emerged from the tower to witness the keep with their own eyes. They saw two barracks to house a decently sized garrison along with a blacksmith and a stable that was filled with horses. The soldiers wore purple tabards with the Kirin Tor eye symbol. The entire keep was surrounded by stone walls to keep out intruders on the ground.

Beyond the walls, the barren wasteland of the Blasted Lands featured nothing but red rocks and soil but unlike Durotar this was unnatural. The land was forever scarred by nether energies because of the implosion of the Dark Portal in the center of the region. Demonic cultists and ogres made their homes in these lands .

Due to the harsh conditions of the region and the threats they faced, the party noticed that the denizens of Nethergarde were wary of their arrival. Stella paid them no mind as she led the party out of the gates.

For some reason though, Mena felt like she couldn’t leave the grim-faced defenders like they were. She always had a stash of supplies hidden somewhere for whenever someone needed cheering up and the people of Nethergarde needed it badly.

Within minutes, the whole keep of Nethergarde erupted in merriment as the mages and soldiers drank ale and socialized, mostly voicing their complaints about how awful being assigned to Nethergarde was.

The uproarious cheer drew the attention of a warband of nearby ogres who tried to take advantage of their distraction to siege the keep. They were cut down and blasted by the guards who treated the defense of the keep like a game of how many ogres they could kill. Humiliated and down to a third of their number, the ogres retreated.

The party lasted for several hours but Stella and the group left the keep once the ogres retreated. They didn’t travel very far before they reached the border to the region to their north.

The Swamp of Sorrows was almost the exact opposite of the Blasted Lands. While the boggy swamp and the wasteland were once the same region, the Dark Portal implosion ultimately divided the region in two. The swamp was a grim reminder of what the Blasted Lands used to be.

The group had to be careful in this region, the Swamp of Sorrows had no Alliance presence here and nothing but enemies in the form of predators and Horde. There were also rumors of a mysterious tribe of creatures that appeared humanoid but behaved like feral creatures.

Taking extra care not to encounter any Horde patrols on the road, the group navigated through the swamp in search of what they were looking for. Flutashe shifted into her bird form and flew around the swamp looking for their destination.

It wasn’t long before she spotted what appeared to be a huge lake with a sunken building in the center of it. She flew back to her friends and led them there.

As they started at the temple in the middle of the lake, Jaqueline asked Flutashe a question, “Any idea what’s in that temple?”

“I can’t say for certain, nothing has been reported from this place for centuries, so if there are green dragons in there they may either be dead or have been corrupted by the Nightmare. It’s also possible that the Atal’ai survived Ysera’s wrath and have regrouped in the temple.”

“Sophia mentioned that these Atal’ai worshipped Hakkar the Soulflayer, but how dangerous is he?” Bella asked.

Flutashe sighed, “There’s a lot we don’t know about the loa since that is part of the trolls’ history. Though this particular loa was so evil that even the original tribe, the Zandalari, feared that his return would be the doom of the whole world.”

They looked at the huge structure in the center of the lake. The building itself was of troll design and shaped like a pyramid with each layer of dark stone able to be walked on like a platform. A large staircase extended up to the top of the temple. Each layer had carvings along its face that have faded due to the swamp’s murky atmosphere. Atop the structure was a massive stone square with the corners extending outward and held up by four pillars. The unsunken parts of the temple were covered in vines and moss.

Not wanting to waste time, Stella wove a group teleport spell and brought everyone to the entrance of the temple atop the structure. Once they were ready, they entered the building and immediately proceeded down three flights of stairs.

They soon came upon a flooded area that was completely submerged. Unsure about how far they would have to swim to find breathable air again, they let Flutashe scout ahead as she dove in and shifted into her sea lion form. She swam a short distance to find a chamber that was mostly flooded but the water didn’t reach high enough to reach the chamber exit. She returned to her friends and led them forward, surfacing once they entered the chamber and swam toward the other end of the chamber.

The interior had vines growing all over the ceiling showing that the place had fallen into a state of disrepair. There were also a quiver of giant cobras who had taken up residence in the temple which they were forced to fight because they were being affected by dark magic and Flutashe’s ability wasn’t getting through to them.

“Dang trolls and their voodoo…” Jaqueline muttered.

Dealing with the cobras was no problem for the group and they were able to proceed.

They entered another chamber that featured a pit full of bones where they found more cobras and a slime monster that Stella incinerated with her fire magic. They continued down a hallway fighting more of the same.

It was easy to get lost in the temple passages so Thanatas had to guide Sophia through the correct passages using the psychic link in order to reach the main part of the temple.

Adding to the cobras and slimes, they soon encountered the fanatical survivors of the Atal’ai trolls who had, from what they saw, been practicing necromancy due to the mummified trolls wandering around.

Bella’s light magic quickly incinerated the unholy abominations while Jaqueline deflected the Shadow Bolts being fired at them by Atal’ai priests while Surprise’s shadow magic destroyed what was left of their minds.

Their path continued while dealing with zealous trolls and their risen minions until they came across a square chamber several floors in depth with a bottom floor that appeared to house some sort of eggs.

Sophia led the group down a flight of stairs to the middle level before entering another doorway leading downstairs into another area.

It was then that Sophia felt a strange sensation, as if the world had become distorted for a moment. When she asked about the strange distorted feeling to Thanatas through the psychic link, Thanatas sighed in exasperation.

“Another one of these? Yeah I felt it before too when I was exploring a keep in Silverpine Forest with Crystal and the others. It seems to be a glitch in the data that takes the form of a temporal distortion. In other words, the present and the future versions of that place have temporarily swapped places in the timeline.

“Thankfully, this can work to our benefit since the old version had a lot of twists, turns and side passages that made navigation a real hassle. In the version you’re in, many of the passages had collapsed at some point and the lower levels were completely submerged in water that drowned anything that lived down there. This made exploration a simple process of exploring three rooms instead of looking through every nook and cranny for what you’re looking for.”

“Don’t worry you two, the software patch is nearly finished and should be ready to deploy after this latest adventure,” Twilight said. “It should make sure the distortions won’t appear anymore.”

“So how bad did the distortions get?” Lyra asked.

“The worst was probably facing one guy at Shadowfang Keep,” Thanatas replied. “Somehow, one of the bosses there got switched up to a higher difficulty variant that could have easily wiped out my party members.”

At the bottom of the stairs, they entered a long, empty hallway that featured rubble blocking several side passages. The overgrowth of vines and moss covered much of the stone interior. Reliefs of troll faces lined the walls.

At the end of the hallway they entered a huge circular chamber that featured a pit that contained several piles of giant bones, possibly draconic in origin. Wandering the chamber were numerous groups of green dragonspawn and green whelps. Sophia could tell that their minds were clouded so there was a fair chance that they were hostile.

“I have a feeling that they are in a ‘kill first and ask questions later’ state of mind,” Sophia warned.

Flutashe nodded, “The stench of the Nightmare permeates throughout the temple. They’ve been down here too long, there’s only one mercy we can grant them.” She then shifted into her bear form while Bella and Jaqueline drew their weapons. Stella quickly went through any spells she knew that would be useful here. Her Sleep Mist ability wouldn’t work on green dragons.

Once they began to engage the Nightmare-crazed dragons, they had to quickly dodge the globs of acid the green whelps were spitting at them while the hooded dragonspawn threw bolts of Nightmare-infused natural energy at them.

Other than the acid and corrupted nature being thrown at them though, the group’s experiences in Blackrock Spire made them quite adept at dealing with dragonspawn. Even as more groups came to reinforce their brethren, Stella made sure they weren’t facing overwhelming numbers by flying around setting up barriers of flame which forced the dragonkin to look for a way around while their brethren were cut down with ease.

This continued for a while until all crazed dragonkin were pulled into the fray and soon put down.

Once the chamber was cleared, the group took a breather while they figured out where they would go next. Counting the hallway they emerged from, there were five passages they could check; a would-be sixth was blocked by rubble. If their sense of direction was correct, the western part of the chamber had two passages, the southern part had one that was blocked off by a barrier of dark magic and the eastern part had one passage.

Since either the left or the right seemed like viable choices, Bella took out a gold coin and had Jaqueline call it; she called heads for east. Bella flipped the coin, caught it and saw that it landed heads.

They then proceeded down the hallway and turned a corner to find a chapel of sorts with a number of Atal’ai cultists in attendance. A troll with a navy blue mohawk and wearing purple and blue robes was preaching something about immortality to the Atal’ai in exchange for bringing Hakkar into the world. Standing next to the preacher was a withered looking troll, likely a zombie, carrying a jagged green shortsword.

However, what the preacher said filled the group with concern, “Soon, me brethren, soon we will have all that we need to fully bring Hakkar into Azeroth. Our chosen harbinger has traveled de world seeking de tools and reagents needed to construct his vessel of rebirth. He goes now to summon de avatar of our master who shall fill de vessel with his essence and bring it to Zul’Gurub where de loa will give their power to finish his rebirth!”

If what the preacher said was true, then the situation was more dire than they thought. It sounded like they were on the verge of summoning Hakkar the Soulflayer and this was trouble they didn’t need right now given that the Alliance and Horde were focused on preparing for the war in Silithus.

As they prepared to leave the area, the group had a bad stroke of luck when one of the cultists decided to get up from a pew and turned around in time to spot the party. His eyes widened before he shouted “Intrudahs!” and drew the attention of every troll in the chapel. It wasn’t long before they were beset upon by a small army of trolls carrying axes or preparing to cast dark magic.

This wasn’t anything they hadn’t faced before so Flutashe’s claws and Jaqueline’s blades tore through the flesh of the melee attackers while Surprise countered the casters’ magic with her own. Bella’s hammer and light magic crushed the dead among their enemies and Stella burned the rest.

As the cultists began to fall, some of them manifested a spectral apparition that creeped toward the party members. Bella attempted to blast the spirit with Light but nothing happened. The warrior’s blades passed through them as well. The spirit lashed out at Jaqueline who blocked the attack with her swords but was thrown back a fair distance.

“What in the sam hill is that thing?” Jaqueline demanded.

“You can’t attack that,” Thanatas said through the link. “Just stay away from it long enough and the apparition will go away on its own.” Sophia relayed this information.

Just as Sophia said, after a few moments of avoiding the ghost it faded out of existence.

The fighting continued for another minute before the preacher, Jammal’an, joined the fray with his undead servant. Stella unleashed a torrent of red flames that quickly incinerated the rotten troll and left Jammal’an to fight. The prophet managed to cast a few Flamestrikes on the ground around the group before Jaqueline overpowered the prophet’s defenses and rushed him with a flurry of attacks. He didn’t last long.

With that distraction dealt with, the group hurried back to the central chamber where they found the southern path now opened.

“Which way do we go now?” Bella asked.

“The western path leads to the chamber where the Atal’ai summon the Avatar of Hakkar, we might be able to stop him in time if we hurry!” Sophia relayed.

Not questioning how Sophia knew where the chamber was, the group hurried across the central chamber and into a corridor on the western side.

On their way to the chamber, they ran into a number of winged serpents. The creatures lashed out at the group with one trying to bite Jaqueline only to get a mouthful of sword. Flutashe had considered trying to calm the creatures but realized that it would be a futile attempt when she discovered that the serpents were the children of Hakkar and they would never turn on their father.

Once the serpents were cut down, the group proceeded into what appeared to be a ritual chamber with a pile of bones in the center. The bones were configured to appear as a winged serpent with a circle of candles around the skeleton. Four taller candles and four braziers adorned the corners of the room.

A pair of giant portcullis sealed the room the moment the group entered with a single troll wearing black robes with a red outer layer along with a sand-colored vest standing near the bones.

The troll cheered as they came inside. “Haha! I was hopin’ for some sacrifices to come wanderin’ in here. You be helpin’ me or ya corpses shall be used to feed de Blood God. You will aid in de ritual by slaying de bloodkeepers as they come.”

“And why would we do that?” Stella asked.

“Either ya help or de snakes eventually wear ya down. De choice be your own!” He then raised what appeared to be an egg over the pile of bones before it began to glow. A series of glowing green magic circles appeared around the ritual area. “My masta, I am Yeh’kinya, your humble servant. I present de vessel of your rebirth and beseech you for de presence of your avatar.”

Once the ritual began, Yeh’kinya vanished in a puff of dark smoke, leaving the group to deal with whatever came.

A quiver of cobras emerged from the magic circles along with a winged serpent. Neither were tough opponents but it annoyed the group that they had to help with the ritual to avoid being overwhelmed.

Jaqueline cut down the serpent who began to spill blood on the floor. Sophia collected the blood with her psychic power and used it to douse one of the braziers. This caused a transparent image of a skeletal winged serpent to appear over the bones.

“I taste the blood of life!” a voice rumbled. The group didn’t have time to consider where that voice came from as more cobras appeared. After some time, another bloodkeeper serpent appeared and was brought down where its blood was used to douse another brazier.

The process was repeated two more times before the magic circles faded and the skeletal serpent fully manifested. “Hakkar lives!” the skeleton proclaimed before he began attacking everyone around him.

Flutashe’s hide absorbed the blows inflicted by the serpentine avatar while Jaqueline’s attacks smashed the bones that composed its frame. Stella bombarded the creature with arcane magic while Mena and Bella worked their light magic to banish the dark magic that composed the loa avatar. At one point did the avatar attempt to take control of Jaqueline’s mind but Sophia’s psychic protection prevented such an attempt.

It wasn’t long before the avatar collapsed back into the heap of bones that it once was. The group looked around for any sign that Yeh’kinya might return but showed no signs of doing so.

With no other option than to leave the giant pile of bones alone, the group left the chamber and returned to the central chamber.

As they entered, a pair of green drakes flew into the temple from a hole in the ceiling. Flutashe gasped when she recognized the pair. “I know who they are, they’re two of the young drakes who were put under Eranikus’ command: Dreamscythe and Weaver! There should be two others nearby, Hazzas and Morphaz.” She would have gone to greet them but quickly remembered that the dragons here have likely succumbed to the Nightmare like their master.

Her fears were confirmed when Dreamscythe spoke, “You know not what you do! We must destroy you for your own good!”

“Those who would disturb our master must be eliminated!” Weaver cried.

Stella shook her head in disappointment, “They defend a phantom of their master. It’s sad to see such potential lost at their young age.”

Sophia personally attacked Weaver while the others focused their attacks on Dreamscythe, making sure to avoid the green dragon’s acidic breath. Stella’s ice magic froze Dreamscythe’s wings while a unified strike from Jaqueline’s swords and Bella’s hammer shattered them.

Flutashe and Sophia each grabbed their drakes by the neck and twisted them until they snapped.

Once the drakes were no longer breathing, the party proceeded down the southern passage where they faced a few more corrupted dragonspawn and whelps along with Hazzas and Morphaz who weren’t any tougher than Dreamscythe or Weaver. Flutashe felt guilty for having to eliminate them but she couldn’t think of any way to save them from the corruption of the Nightmare.

As they turned a corner and entered the next chamber, they saw a transparent sleeping dragon along with one other transparent figure. The second one Flutashe recognized right away as he was a night elf with a pair of antlers, a huge beard and wearing the brown and green garb of an archdruid.

Against everyone advising her on the side of caution, Flutashe rushed over to the druid while reverting back to her night elf form. “Shan’do Stormrage!” she cried out.

The image gave a small smile toward his student. “It is good to see you again, my thero’shan. I know you would desire to see me in the waking world once more, but that will have to wait. I know you are here seeking a clue about how to retrieve the green shard of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. Eranikus will not part with it easily. You already know that he has been corrupted by the Nightmare, a force not unlike the one buried deep within Ahn’Qiraj.”

“A similar force? You mean that the Nightmare and the corruption of the Old Gods may be similar?”

Malfurion nodded, “Eranikus, Tyrant of the Dream, wages a war against us all. The Nightmare follows in his wake of destruction. He wants nothing more than to be brought to Azeroth from the Dream. Once he is out, he will do everything he can to destroy my physical body. However, it is also the only way you can recover the scepter shard. You must bring him into our world.”

“This is a risky plan, shan’do, how do we even stop him once he does manifest in our world?”

“Tyrande and I came up with a plan in case it became necessary to bring Eranikus to our world. He must be cleansed of his corruption and Tyrande will have the power to do so.”

“What would you have me do?” Flutashe asked.

“Return to Darnassus, there is an agent, a wisp, who has been given instructions to set events in motion once he is given word. He will inform Tyrande of our plans without alerting Staghelm.”

“Then you know that Staghelm can’t be trusted? Anachronos told me about how he is blinded by delusions of returning his son to life.”

“It’s worse than that my dear thero’shan. He is the reason I am trapped in the Dream. But do not fret over my fate, I shall find my way back in time. For now, don’t let on that you know of his treachery. He will receive justice soon enough.”

The image of Malfurion faded away, leaving the party alone with the transparent simulacrum of Eranikus. However, since they got the information they came for and the shade was no threat outside the temple, they decided to leave the image be while Stella opened a portal to Darnassus.

Meanwhile, back in the chamber where Hakkar’s bones lie, Yeh’kinya appeared in the chamber and stood over the fallen avatar of his master. He sifted through the bones looking for something until he noticed a glowing orb of light. A huge smile graced his face before he gave a triumphant cheer. He then collected the orb and infused it with the egg.

Everything was ready. By now the meddlesome Zandalari tribe will have caught wind of his master’s imminent return and will send several of their high priests to stop them. They will have no idea that they will be wandering into a trap and their loa’s power will be used to complete Hakkar’s resurrection.

Soon the world will feel the might of the Blood God and tremble. They shall bow down to the mighty troll empires like they did in the days of old.

Author's Note

2 days late, but it could be worse. This chapter sets things up for the rest of this season. After the next chapter, our heroes will be facing the last 3 raid dungeons in Season 1.

Next time: Summoning a dragon and beating it up until it decides to be a good guy.

Redemption

Following the instructions given to them by Malfurion Stormrage in the Temple of Atal’Hakkar, the group used a portal conjured by Stella to take them to Darnassus. Through the portal they entered the Temple of the Moon where Tyrande Whisperwind, leader of the night elves, led her people from.

While logically they could have told her directly about Malfurion’s plan, they didn’t want to take the chance that Fandral Staghelm’s agents were listening in. Matters would become troublesome if the compromised archdruid interfered.

Instead, the group quietly left the temple as if their business was somewhere else in the city and to throw off any would-be eavesdroppers.

Before they left, Malfurion mentioned that his wisp agent was floating around north of the road just outside the city. Following instructions, the group left the city and prying eyes before leaving the road northward along the hills.

Eventually their small hike through the woods led them to a lone wisp, a glowing disembodied spirit of nature that resembled a night elf’s head. It minded its own business up until the group walked up to it.

“Y’all think this little fella is that agent that guy was talkin’ about?” Jaqueline asked. “Looks kinda inconspicuous.”

The wisp suddenly became nervous. It was beginning to wonder if the plans made between it and Malfurion were compromised. However, looking at the pink-haired druid among them made it second guess that idea since it recognized her as one of his students.

Flutashe knelt down to the wisp so she was eye level with it. “Excuse me, I was told by my master to meet someone here about setting the plan into motion?”

The wisp quickly realized that the time had come to execute Malfurion’s plan. It bounced around excitedly for a few moments before it remembered that it had something important to tell the messenger. It transmitted its thoughts to the young druid, “Tyrande will be notified, Shan’do Stormrage has prepared me for this contingency. Now you must venture to Moonglade and speak with Remulos. He will have further instruction for the summoning of Eranikus. Good luck.”

The wisp then began floating its way south toward the entrance to Darnassus, leaving the group to decide on their next course of action. Flutashe told everyone what the wisp told her and made it clear that they needed to travel to Moonglade next. Flutashe explained how they were to get there, “All druids are taught a spell to get to Moonglade using an arcane anchor that is tied exclusively to druids. I can create a portal to get us there, though I hope that Master Remulos will forgive me for using such a spell to bring non-druids to Nighthaven.

Remembering the incantation, Flutashe began invoking a portal spell that would open the way to Moonglade. A few moments later, the portal opened and everyone stepped through.

Upon emerging from the portal, the group was greeted by guards with spears pointed at them. Once Flutashe emerged from the portal, one of the guards walked up to the druid demanding an explanation. “You know that using that spell to bring non-druids here is forbidden, Miss Lunarwind. Unless the circumstances are truly dire, you know the consequences of this act.”

“They are,” Flutashe responded. “We need to see Master Remulos immediately.”

“May I ask what this is about?”

“We are on a task from Shan’do Stormrage to summon the Tyrant of the Dream. The time has come for his redemption.”

“If this is true, then time is of the essence.” The guard barked orders to his subordinates to stand down and begin preparations for an imminent attack on Moonglade. He then looked back at the group. “I will take you to Master Remulos.”

Several minutes passed as the guard escorted the group to the western side of the grove where they spotted a Son of Cenarius speaking with his attendants. Remulos was a centaur-like creature with the lower body of a stag deer and arms made of branches and vines. Vines decorated his long hair and stag antlers grew from his forehead. A belt with a loincloth was his only piece of clothing, even if it only covered his barrel.

Remulos smiled as he spotted Malfurion’s protege approaching him along with the friends she made over the past year. He had hoped that her journey would benefit her well being.

He quickly pushed aside his feelings and wondered what would bring her and her friends to Moonglade. Usually few would ever visit the grove unless it was urgent business.

Once the group arrived, he addressed the group as needed, “Hail young Lunarwind and company. What brings you to Moonglade?”

Flutashe briefed Remulos about Malfurion’s plan to summon Eranikus to Azeroth to redeem him and that High Priestess Tyrande was informed of the situation. Remulos frowned as he heard everything. He had the means to summon the Tyrant of the Dream, but he needed a few more ingredients to perform the ritual.

He also knew that this was a dangerous plan that Malfurion had thought up, but it was also necessary to obtain the fragment of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands. Remulos really didn’t want to see the horrors of Ahn’Qiraj unleashed on the world again, but it seemed that fate had once more called for the Qiraji to return.

“It would be impossible to pull Eranikus from the Dream should he refuse. His intentions, however, require him to enter our world,” Remulos explained. “He seeks to destroy Malfurion’s physical body. His success would mean the end to one of the most powerful allies of the Dream. The Nightmare would wholly consume all that would remain should Malfurion fall.”

“We understand,” Flutashe said. “The risks are great and we would need to take them to ensure the fall of the madness that spawned the Nightmare in the first place. We shall not fail.”

Remulos stared at Flutashe for a few moments before he gave a nod, “Very well, you must travel to the four dream portals of Azeroth. From each you must draw a fragment of the Nightmare’s corruption. The dragonkin who inhabit these areas will hold such fragments.

“Just where are these dream portals you speak of?” Stella asked.

Flutashe gave a questioning look at the Son of Cenarius who nodded to her, silently giving her permission. She then turned to her friends. “There are four dream portals scattered between Kalimdor and the Eastern Kingdoms. There are two on each continent in places with strong connections to the Emerald Dream.

“One is located in Ashenvale Forest, in the northeastern corner of the forest near the border to Azshara. Bough Shadow is hidden north of the road, north of where the Horde have been conducting their logging operations.

“The next portal is located in the verdant wildlands of Feralas in south central Kalimdor. The closest way there is to enter from Desolace. The portal is on a small island in northeastern Feralas called Dream Bough.

“The third portal is in the night elven ruins of Seradane located near the east coast of the Hinterlands, near the territory of the Revantusk and Witherbark troll tribes.”

“Ah remember that region!” Jaqueline exclaimed. “The Wildhammer Clan have their capital city of Aerie Peak in the same region. Took down a fair good number of trolls during mah trainin’.”

Flutashe nodded, “The final portal is in a region called Brightwood, in a long dormant volcano in the center of the region. The Twilight Grove is what the area is called.”

This left the others scratching their heads since they haven’t heard of a region called Brightwood until Stella recalled her geographical research during her time as a student in Dalaran and remembered something.

“Flutashe, your information is slightly out of date. That region went through a name change ever since dark forces took over the place. Ever since a night elf artifact called the Scythe of Elune was abandoned there, the region has been plagued by all manner of dark creatures from feral worgen to the undead to a band of malevolent artifact collectors called the Dark Riders. These days the region is called Duskwood.”

“Oh…” the others said simultaneously.

“Perhaps we should split up?” Bella offered.

“Are you sure?” Flutashe asked with concern in her voice. “The corrupted guardians around those portals are no pushovers.”

“Ah’ll handle the Hinterlands portal mahself,” Jaqueline offered. “Ah’m pretty familiar with the region and ah can handle a few rowdy dragonspawn.”

“If you guys are splitting up, I highly suggest tackling the Duskwood portal yourself,” Thanatas told Sophia through the psychic link. “Trust me, there’s something there that you will want to handle personally.”

“If we’re splitting up, then I’ll take the Duskwood portal,” Sophia offered.

“In that case, that leaves me, Stella, Bella and Mena to handle the Ashenvale and Feralas portals.” Flutashe said.

“Me and Flutters have been to Feralas before, we know how to get there,” Mena offered.

“Flutters?” Flutashe questioned. She was ignored.

“So that leaves me and Bella to handle the Ashenvale portal,” Stella concluded. “It’s a good thing I have an anchor point in Azshara.”

“How close can you get each of us, Stella?” Bella asked.

“Aside from Aszhara, I can get Jaqueline near Dalaran but she will have to travel south to Hillsbrad and avoid the Forsaken town of Tarren Mill to get to the Hinterlands. I can send Sophia to Stormwind where she can travel on foot to Duskwood. Unfortunately, I don’t have any anchor points near Feralas so Flutashe and Mena will be on their own.”

“That’s okay, I can fly to Feralas on my own power, though doing so while carrying Mena will make things a little more difficult,” Flutashe said.

“If I maintain my Levitate spell I can make myself light as a feather,” Mena offered.

With the plan decided, Stella opened three portals to Stormwind, Dalaran and Aszhara. The assigned groups went through their respective portals to begin their journeys. Flutashe shifted into her bird form while Mena activated her Levitate spell before the druid grabbed her in her talons and flew south.

Stella and Bella emerged from a portal near a bridge that connected Azshara and Ashenvale. Once they got their bearings, they proceeded across the bridge and into the dark forest.

As they walked through the forest, Bella voiced a concern to her draconic companion. “Do we even have a means of capturing Nightmare essence? Do we know what it looks like?”

“Don’t worry, I will be able to tell Nightmare essence. I am part green dragon, after all,” Stella assured. “As for how we obtain it, we are looking for Nightmare essence that has crystallized on the scales of the corrupted.”

“What about the others? I know that Mena has Flutashe with her but Jaqueline is handling her task alone and so is Sophia.”

“Sophia can hold her own against just about anything the world can throw at her, but I do agree that Jaqueline might be our bigger concern since she is facing corrupted dragons on her own. There’s nothing we can do for her though so let’s focus on our task.”

The duo traveled west down the road, taking care to avoid any Horde patrols since the area was held by the opposing faction.

Eventually, the duo moved off the road and took an unpaved path to the north, walking around a tall hill until a huge tree came into view. Some ruins were built into the tree including a set of stairs that led up to a portal. Wandering around the portal were patrols of green dragonspawn.

With no significant threat in the area, the duo engaged the corrupt dragons. Bella’s hammer smashed the skulls of several unsuspecting dragonspawn while Stella set the area ablaze with her fire magic. Thankfully for nature, the fire magic didn’t burn the grass since it was imbued with red dragon magic. This meant that Stella’s flames could harm or heal what she wanted harmed or healed with the incinerated dragonspawn collapsing in charred heaps on the ground.

Eventually, one of Bella’s hammer swings knocked loose a few crystallized fragments from the scales of one dragonspawn. As the paladin picked it up, Stella quickly identified it as what they came for.

Once the dragonspawn in the area were dealt with, Stella used her green dragon magic to conjure a portal through the safe parts of the Emerald Dream which would bring herself and Bella back to Moonglade.

Jaqueline arrived on the outskirts of a town in the shadow of a massive arcane dome. She had heard that the people of the magical kingdom were still rebuilding after what happened years ago.

Ignoring the dome, the warrior began her journey south through the Alterac Mountains, cutting down any ravenous predators that she encountered.

She traveled south along the foothills and went through the township of Hillsbrad, a small farming community that was often under attack by the Forsaken. Unfortunately, she didn’t have much time to assist the beleaguered farmers but she stayed in town long enough to eliminate a few forsaken who were slaughtering farmers.

Jaqueline exited the township and walked along the road which was still somewhat safe since it was a contested point between the undead of Tarren Mill and the human town of Southshore.

She soon crossed a bridge over a river that separated western and eastern Hillsbrad Foothills and came across the ruins of an old keep that had some dark history behind it. Nowadays the keep was being used as a hideout for assassins and thugs.

Jaqueline walked around the keep and proceeded north until she found a narrow pass in the mountains that was guarded by two gryphons whom she was familiar with: Kurdros and Granistad. The two were assigned to guard the pass to prevent any forsaken from planning an attack on Aerie Peak since the Wildhammer city was just beyond the pass.

The gryphons acknowledged the warrior and recognized her scent, recalling her as one who lived among them for several years. Kurdros flew over to Jaqueline and nuzzled her, earning a few delighted chuckles from the warrior.

“Glad ta see you two remember me,” Jaqueline said. “Think y’all can let me through? Ah need ta speak with Falstad.”

The two gryphons looked at each other before Granistad let out a low trill as he lowered his head and moved his right wing aside, offering permission for the warrior to ride him. She moved to the creature’s flank before she mounted him.

As the gryphon began to spread his wings, Jaqueline held on tightly to his feathered mane. The first flap of his wings was strong and led to Jaqueline getting buffeted by a gust of wind, but the warrior held strong as the gryphon flew through the pass to Aerie Peak.

The flight lasted only a few minutes before Granistad landed just outside the gryphon roost.

With a sense of urgency, Jaqueline quickly dismounted the gryphon and entered the roost where she spotted a red-bearded dwarf sporting tattoos that were visible on his shoulders and his bald head that would be completely bald if it weren’t for the ponytail on the back of his head. At his waist was a silvery hammer with a depiction of a gryphon on it.

Falstad heard someone approach and turned around only to smile as he saw his former protege. “Welcome back ta Aerie Peak, lass. What brings ye back here?”

“Good ta be back Falstad, ah wish it were a social visit but ah need ta get to the night elf ruins of Seradane over near troll territory,” Jaqueline explained.

Falstad frowned as he heard that, “Ye know that place is crawlin’ with hostile green dragonspawn, why would ye need to go there?”

“Ah’m on a quest to help mah friends get some stuff to summon some huge green dragon so them night elves can try ta save him. Ah need somethin’ called Nightmare Essence from the dragonspawn there.”

“Ah, say no more lass, as it happens, yer little hatchling friend has finally grown strong enough to bear a rider. She’s completed the trainin’ and is ready to see ye again.”

Jaqueline’s mood raised significantly as she heard that. It had been years since she last saw the gryphon hatchling that she raised when she was younger. When she wasn’t training to avenge her farm, she was playing with her hatchling.

“Ya mean ah can finally go flyin’ with Winona?”

Falstad nodded, “Aye, she’s a fast one though so ye better hold tight to the reins.” He then handed Jaqueline a wooden whistle carved to look like a gryphon’s head. “We give these out to new riders. These are enchanted to call yer gryphon whenever ye need a lift. By now, Winona should be waitin’ fer ye outside.”

Jaqueline bowed to the high thane, “Thank ya kindly for everything you’ve done fer me, Falstad!” She then walked out of the gryphon roost.

Falstad chuckled as she left, “Think nothin’ of it lass, yer practically one of the clan now.”

As she hoped, Jaqueline spotted her old friend standing near the entrance of the roost. Winona had a darker brown coat of fur than most gryphons with snow white feathers around her mane. Her beak was also dark brown along with the feathers around her eyes. She wasn’t fully grown just yet, but she had grown strong enough to carry a rider over great distances.

Jaqueline stroked Winona’s feathery mane while the gryphon gave the warrior an affectionate nuzzle. “Hey there Winona, ya ready for our first flight together?” Winona cooed happily in response, bouncing around in excitement.

Once she remembered her training, she calmed down and moved a wing aside, fully displaying a simple saddle over a soft-looking blanket with apples along the border.

The same blanket Jaqueline slept with every night when she was a baby.

Jaqueline was glad that the old blanket was being put to good use since her little sister was now too old to be sleeping with baby blankets.

Dismissing the thought, Jaqueline mounted her old companion. Winona stretched out her wings and they were soon off, flying eastward through the Hinterlands.

During their flight, Jaqueline took in the landscape below her. Trees were dense in the western part of the region but became more sparse the further east she was. Troll ruins, most of which were occupied by the Witherbark Tribe, covered much of the south. Most of the region was occupied by wildlife in the form of wildkin, wolves, wild gryphons and spiders. One particular hill was overtaken by a species of slime monsters that weren’t causing any harm to the land around them so they were largely ignored.

After a twenty minute flight, Jaqueline directed Winona toward the elven ruins north of the slime-infested Skulk Rock. Winona came down near the edge of the ruins across a long rope bridge and landed behind some trees where they were sure that the green dragonspawn wouldn’t notice.

As she dismounted, she stroked her companion’s mane once again, “Once ah get what ah came for, ah’ll whistle for ya.” Winona nodded to her companion and few off, leaving Jaqueline to draw her swords.

Jaqueline ambushed a hooded dragonspawn from behind and stabbed them in the back with one sword before decapitating them with the other. As the other dragons noticed they were under attack, the warrior grinned wildly before she charged in.

She fought fiercely against the numerous green dragonspawn, using some of them as shields whenever they tried to thrust a spear at her or fling acid at her. Jaqueline’s fighting skills proved too much for the dragonkin as she cut down one after another in her search for a Nightmare Fragment.

Eventually, she found a dragonspawn that had sickly green crystals growing on their scales. As she ended that one, she sliced off the crystals growing on it and grabbed one. She wasn’t sure if it was what she came for but she didn’t have a lot of time to guess on what she was looking for. The Dream portal in the middle of the ruins began sending in more dragonspawn to fortify the area and the last thing she wanted was to get overwhelmed and suffer battle fatigue.

Jaqueline retreated from the area to escape the coming horde of dragons while blowing her new whistle to summon Winona. The gryphon quickly swooped in and scooped the warrior onto her back before flying back toward Aerie Peak. With the dragonspawn unable to fly they had to quickly give up the pursuit.

With the fragment in hand, she hoped, Jaqueline continued her course to the Wildhammer home to find a dwarven mage who would conjure her a portal to Darnassus where she could ask a druid to take her to Moonglade.

Flutashe flew a great distance through numerous regions from demon-corrupted forests to familiar forests, through the high mountains and through the desolate wastelands.

The druid took breaks as she went as long-distance flying was not her strong point neither was it such for most other druids as well. Mena had to reapply her Levitate spell each time Flutashe landed to rest.

As they flew over Desolace, Flutashe noticed that the land was starting to show signs of recovery. The Cenarion Circle never discovered the cause of the region’s fall to decay but she could only guess that whatever the cause was, it had been removed.

After twelve hours of flight, the duo finally arrived in Feralas and began their descent toward Dream Bough. The island in the middle of the lake was crawling with Nightmare-corrupted dragonspawn.

Mena decided to try something, requesting that Flutashe drop her from above, the druid decided to trust that the gnome wasn’t acting suicidal and let her go.

With her Levitate still active, Mena let Surprise take over before she unleashed waves of shadow magic that sliced holes into the ground and cut several dragonspawn in two. The dragonspawn charged at the priest as she landed only for several attackers to get pounced on by Flutashe in her cat form. Her claws slashed through their scales while her fangs pierced their vital organs for quick, merciful kills.

Surprise disrupted the dragons’ organization by placing compulsions on them that forced several of them to flee from their enemies and confused others. Flutashe capitalized on this by leaping from dragon to dragon, tearing through their throats with her fangs.

Eventually they found a dragonspawn who had Nightmare Essence growing on their scales which the druid clawed off and handed to Mena for safekeeping. She then shifted into her bird form and carried the gnome to safety.

Once they were away from the corrupted guardians, the duo took some time to rest before Surprise made a comment, “You know that we could have easily killed them all, right?”

“What would be the point in that?” Flutashe responded. “We’re not trying to wipe out the entire flight, we just needed to find an enemy who had a significant amount of corruption on them.”

Surprise huffed, “Yeah, yeah…at least I got to kill things.”

Flutashe shook her head in disappointment but silently accepted that this was who Surprise was.

Once they were rested enough, Flutashe opened a portal to Moonglade for herself and her friend.

Sophia quietly left the mage tower in Stormwind before she floated her way above the city walls and out of the city, headed south toward Duskwood.

Using her psionic powers, she made sure the city guards who were patrolling the skies on gryphons didn’t notice her. She didn’t need the guards being distracted by her.

It wasn’t long before she floated over the river that separated Elwynn Forest and Duskwood, and then she floated over the hills and into the volcanic crater in the center of the region.

The Twilight Grove was as verdant as Ashenvale with its trees, grass and shrubbery in shades of green, purple and blue. There were also night elven archways to decorate the entrance to the grove along with natural light poles that resembled small trees that carried a bulb that constantly gave off light. Several night elf structures stood in the area including a moonwell, a basin that contained the moon’s blessed light in liquid form.

As she landed in the grove, a sinister voice called out to her, “I can sense your presence and your power. Come, let us find out which is greater, your power or the Nightmare.”

“Gladly!” Sophia cheerfully replied as she looked around the grove for her target. She quickly spotted a fairly large specimen of satyr channeling some twisted green energies into the moonwell.

As she drew near to him, he stopped channeling and turned to face his foe. “The Nightmare cannot be stopped,” the satyr called out before he charged forward with his claws at the ready.

Sophia sensed his power and was not impressed. Instead, she gave the satyr a gentle smile as her arms were wrapped behind her back. The satyr took such a posture as an insult and attempted to swipe at the templar only for her to jump up and dodge the swipe and counter with a bicycle kick to his chin, sending him flying backward.

The satyr quickly recovered and channeled dark magic. He managed to strike the templar while she felt like her very soul was attacked. However, the pain was minor and she maintained her posture. Using her speed, Sophia countered by delivering a series of devastating kicks to the satyr’s arms, torso, legs and head in the span of a split second. The satyr coughed up blood another split second later.

Sophia was not underestimating her opponent, she knew that the satyr was a tough adversary, at least it would be if it were any of her friends facing him, but since it was herself alone with the demon, she decided that she wanted to play with him. She estimated the satyr to be about as tough as one of Ragnaros’ flamewakers.

Now frustrated, the satyr called on twisted illusions made of Nightmare energies who casted Shadow Bolts at her. Sophia dodged those with ease for a few seconds until she saw an opening and stomped the ground. Solid, chitinous spikes burst from the ground beneath the illusions and impaled them, causing them to shatter. She then appeared in front of the satyr and delivered a roundhouse kick to the side of his head, sending him flying into the tree that housed the Dream Portal.

The bunny templar gave a look of disappointment at her foe. She added a head shake to add to that feeling. “Is that all you got? If so then I’m going to go ahead and end this sad excuse of a fight.”

The satyr’s eyes widened in horror. He had vastly underestimated his enemy. In fact, he picked a fight he had no business picking and now he was going to pay the price for his hubris. He attempted to flee into the portal but Sophia cut off his path while reshaping her right leg into that of a blade before she ax kicked him, slicing him in half.

As the two halves fell to the floor, Sophia quickly searched his person until she found a fragment of the Nightmare on his person. She pocketed the fragment as she watched the horrified expression on the demon’s face as he fell.

“You are one scary person,” Sweetie Drops commented over the link.

“You or Lyra could have handed someone like that just as easily,” Sophia countered. “Threats at this point are hardly considered a challenge, but the tougher ones won’t rear their ugly heads until years from now.”

“Just don’t get complacent, we can’t afford mistakes,” Midnight warned.

With the fragment collected, Sophia opened a rift that would take her to Moonglade, being careful to choose a spot where nobody was looking.

Stella and Bella were the first to return to Nighthaven, given that their travel time was the shortest among the other groups. The guards were curious as to how the mage was able to teleport to Moonglade since the teleportation anchors were exclusively designed for those tied to nature. Stella revealed her dracthyr form and explained that her body contained essence from all dragonflights, including the Green Dragonflight. This meant that she could use the Dream to travel to Moonglade. This led to a number of questions being asked of her which made her uncomfortable and prompted the paladin to chide the guards for asking questions that they were not authorized to ask.

As the guards walked away, Stella sat with Bella at an outdoor table to enjoy some herbal tea that the local innkeeper served them. “Thanks, they were making me uncomfortable,” Stella said.

“Think nothing of it, darling. Sometimes guards need to be reminded that their duties do not involve asking questions they shouldn’t be asking.”

After a few minutes of enjoying their tea in silence, Sophia walked up to the table and sat in an empty chair. “Hey you two, I take it your venture was fruitful?”

Stella pulled out the Nightmare fragment while Sophia pulled out her’s. Both put their fragments away while Stella asked, “I take it that you had to fight some dragonspawns for your shard?”

“Nah, truth be told I ended up fighting a powerful satyr who seemed to be about as strong as some of Ragnaros’ lieutenants. I enjoyed a good one on one with him.”

Neither the paladin nor the mage were surprised at this point, given what they had seen of Sophia’s abilities so far.

Hours passed and the trio became curious as to how the others were doing which prompted Stella to cast a scrying spell to check on them. At this time they were still traveling to their destinations which made sense since they had the longest distance to travel out of all of them.

Since the others’ journeys were going to take much longer, Stella, Bella and Sophia decided to rent a room at the inn for the night.

The next day the trio left the inn to find that Flutashe and Mena had just returned from their journey which left Jaqueline as the one missing.

That changed a few minutes later as the warrior emerged from a portal. Once she crossed, the portal quickly closed behind her. “Hoo wee, that was some adventure ah had. Ah had to show a druid the thing ah nabbed to get them to take me to Moonglade.” Jaqueline then noticed all of her friends were together before her. She chuckled awkwardly, “Guess ah’m the last one to get here?”

“Don’t worry about it darling, Flutashe and Mena got here not long before you did,” Bella assured. “So, do we have the shards?” Four shards of Nightmare energy were displayed to the others. “Excellent, then let us proceed to Keeper Remulos and prepare to fight that dreadful Eranikus.”

The group proceeded to the grove where they last saw Remulos. The Son of Cenarius had not moved from his original spot since they last met him. As they approached him, they noticed that he appeared to be meditating. He awoke from his meditation as they drew closer. He sensed the Nightmare corruption in their possession and knew that the time had come.

“Are you prepared? Is the world prepared for what we are about to invoke? I do not know…yet I am bound by duty to Malfurion.” Remulos sighed. “We must use restraint against Eranikus, we are to redeem him, not destroy him. Tyrande is already en route to assist us in this task. We must weather the dragon’s blows and save Nighthaven from certain destruction. Be on your guard, everyone!”

As the four corrupted fragments of the Nightmare were given to Remulos, he sighed once more as he stared at them for a few moments. “We will locate the origin of the Nightmare through the fragments you collected. From there, we will pull Eranikus through a rift in the Dream. Steel yourselves, we are inviting the embodiment of the Nightmare into our world.”

Remulos proceeded down the road to Nighthaven. On the way he had to run through the inn to get to his destination, lowering his head to avoid hitting his antlers on a wooden beam.

His walk ended on a platform overlooking the lake. He took a moment to stare at the lake, hoping that the sight remained unchanged a few hours from now. He turned to face the group who followed him. In the distance, he saw the guards preparing for battle. “The rift will be opened above Lake Elun’ara. Eranikus’ entry into our world will be wrought with chaos and strife. He will stop at nothing to get to Malfurion’s body. That must not happen, we must keep the beast occupied long enough for Tyrande to arrive.”

With that, Remulos began opening a rift over the lake into the Dream. Within moments a huge green dragon emerged from the rift. Once completely through, Eranikus gave a sinister chuckle, “Pitiful, predictable mortals, you know not what you have done! The master’s will shall be fulfilled. Moonglade shall be destroyed and Malfurion along with it!”

“Fiend! Face the might of Cenarius!” Remulos taunted.

Eranikus simply laughed as he heard that, “You are not your father, insect. My claws alone would crush you. I will give you and your allies one chance to survive this encounter, turn over Malfurion Stormrage to me.”

“How about we skip the banter and move on to the fighting,” Sophia taunted. “You speak of crushing Remulos whereas if I wanted, I’d rip your head off with my bare hands and add it to my growing trophy collection alongside the heads of Deathwing’s children.”

“We are not here to kill him, you know,” Remulos softly told the templar.

“Oh I know, but either way he’s no match for me.”

“Impudent mortal!” Eranikus roared. “You think yourself my superior? I shall crush you with the full might of the Nightmare!”

“Now you did it, I hope you can back your words because he will be targeting you now,” Remulos said. The Keeper of the Grove retreated into town and took shelter in a building overlooking the lake. The others followed Remulos into the building as they prepared for Eranikus’ onslaught.

The corrupted dragon flew over the town and summoned a horde of Nightmare shades who began to attack the guards. The guards were able to hold their own against the Nightmare creatures while the majority of the shades tried to attack Remulos. Bella’s Light burned away some of the shades while the others moved to attack them. Stella bombarded several shades with arcane bolts and Mena burned away a few with her own light magic. Flutashe kept her eyes on Remulos in case he became overwhelmed.

Eventually, Eranikus became tired of fighting behind minions and landed. He roared before delivering his challenge, “Face me rabbit-like creature, or is your bravado hollow!”

Sophia cracked her knuckles and put on a wicked grin as she ran up to the front of the dragon. “For the record dragon, I don’t bluff. I am going to make this really painful.”

Eranikus swiped his left claw at Sophia only for her to block his swipe with her right hand, much to his surprise. She then jumped onto his talon and up to his head where she delivered a powerful kick to his head, causing him to fall on his side.

Remulos was stunned by what he saw. He never expected a mere mortal to deliver such a heavy blow to an ancient dragon. He then witnessed the templar charging up her fist with electricity before slamming it into his chest, causing Eranikus to convulse as the energy coursed through his body. It was at this point that he hoped Tyrande would arrive soon if only to save Eranikus from Sophia.

The dragon got up and roared at his enemy. He then reared up and took a deep breath; acid filled his maw. Seeing this, Sophia delivered a bicycle kick to the dragon’s jaw and forced it shut, forcing the dragon to swallow his own acid. His body could take such a thing but not too much.

Eranikus attempted to devour the templar whole but she saw the attack coming and slammed a fist into his upper jaw, breaking several teeth. The dragon roared in agony while the templar ran around him to his left flank where she delivered a powerful kick to his left foreleg which dislocated it from his shoulder socket.

Remulos heard the pop and cringed. At this point he began to feel sorry for Eranikus. Thankfully the torment would soon end as he heard the approach of several nightsabers. He turned to see Tyrande and several of her priestesses dismounting from their feline mounts.

Tyrande walked up to Remulos with a questioning look on her face, “What is going on? Why is everyone staring at Eranikus?”

“Please priestess, work fast!” Remulos begged “The one who Eranikus is fighting is proving too much for him! With each second that passes his injuries become more grievous.”

“He’s right,” Flutashe added. “Sophia is doing her best to not kill Eranikus but the fight is becoming painful to watch with each blow she deals him.”

Tyrande looked at Eranikus in time to witness the templar bending his tail the wrong way. Even with her ten thousand years of hardening her heart to become the leader of her people, this was hard to watch. “We will work as fast as we can.” She moved toward the dragon and began making prayers to Elune. “Seek absolution, Eranikus. All will be forgiven…”

The dragon continued to struggle against his leoprine foe, only receiving more painful injuries in return. He heard Tyrande call out to him. He began to feel the light of the moon burn away his dark thoughts but he continued to fight.

“You will be forgiven, Eranikus! Elune will always love you! Break free of the bonds that command you!” Tyrande cried. She and her priestesses prayed harder and the moon’s light burned the darkness within him more fiercely.

At this point, Eranikus couldn’t tell what hurt worse, the light of Elune or the numerous blows that Sophia had dealt him. Pain coursed through his entire being and it didn’t matter if it was physical or spiritual, he felt the pain all the same.

Whether because of Elune’s light winning out or because Eranikus decided that being tortured by a rabbit person was too humiliating, he finally allowed the light to consume his entire being, purifying him. Tyrande fell to one knee while Sophia halted her ruthless assault. Eranikus collapsed onto the ground before he transformed into his night elf visage form.

Even in visage form, the dragon looked like he got into a bad fight and ended up horribly injured. His face was bloodied and bruised and his left arm was broken. He wasn’t certain but he felt like he had several broken ribs and a few cracked ones. He was looking at weeks, possibly months, of medical treatment.

Remulos walked over to Sophia and sighed, “I thank you for not killing him, though I hope that he doesn’t die from his injuries later.”

“I avoided causing any permanent damage,” Sophia replied. “I was aiming to disable him so he couldn’t cause any damage to the town in case Tyrande was too slow. Say what you will about me, but I can be careful about where I injure someone.”

With the fighting ended, Flutashe moved to cast a few healing spells on Eranikus to aid in his recovery. Before she could, the illusory elf grabbed her right wrist to stop her. “Save your energy, young druid. The healers of Nighthaven will aid in my recovery. You have a more important task ahead.” He then placed a green shard into her hand.

The final shard of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands.

“With this, you will be the one to bear the scepter that will unleash the horrors of that place. That time draws near.”

With that, Eranikus passed out from his injuries. The druids placed him on a stretcher and carried him away.

Remulos congratulated the group for their assistance. He then looked at Malfurion’s student. “Take the shard to Anachronos, complete the scepter. When the time comes to strike the Scarab Gong, the world will be ready.”

With the final shard secure, Stella opened a portal to Tanaris.

Author's Note

This chapter is pretty much putting Sophia's brutality on display. Hope you were entertained by that.

Next time: A two-part detour before Ahn'Qiraj. 3 more dungeons until the end of the season.

Rise of the Blood Loa, Part 1

With Eranikus saved from the clutches of the Nightmare and the green shard of the Scepter of the Shifting Sands secured, the group proceeded to Tanaris to give Anachronos the shard.

Traveling by their previous route, they soon arrived at the Caverns of Time where they presented the shard to the elder dragon.

“I am glad to know that Eranikus has also survived his tragedy. With all shards united once more, I will be able to reform the Scepter,” Anachronos said. “A thousand years have passed and just as it was fated, those who shall lead their people to a new age now stand before me. The Old God trembles, young ones, it fears your coming. It fears the coming of the Huntress of the Void, the fiend who is using your gnome friend as a vessel.

“When the time comes and your people are ready, come to me once more and I shall grant you the Scepter of the Shifting Sands.” Using his magic, Anachronos aligned the shards together and with one sandy blast of his breath, undid the damage that Fandral Staghelm inflicted upon it, rendering the Scepter whole once more. “For now, return to your people and aid them in their preparations, we shall speak again soon.”

With that, Stella opened a portal to Stormwind. Once everyone was through, the portal closed and the group proceeded to the inn in the Trade District where they rented a few rooms for the night.

That night, Flutashe quickly rose from her bed gasping loudly, a cold sweat trickling down her body. She panted for a minute before Stella, who was sharing the room with her, rose from her slumber.

“Bad dream?” the mage asked.

The druid remained quiet for a few moments while she regained her wits. “I…I don’t know. I saw faces I’ve never seen before. They were animal-like and they were all crying out in agony. A bat, a snake, a spider, a tiger and a panther. It almost felt like they were calling out to me.”

“How unusual,” Stella mused. “Maybe there might be something to your dream. Would you mind if I peered into your dream? If these animals are calling out to you, maybe I can use the Emerald Dream to locate them.”

“It’s worth a shot.” Flutashe then lied back down in her bed. Sleep came with difficulty after she was woken so abruptly so Stella had to assist her with a sleep spell.

Flutashe had the same dream again. The five animals were screaming in pain. In an effort to gain more information, the druid tuned out the cries and looked around the dreamscape. She noticed a lush jungle filled with exotic plants, the stone ruins that appeared of troll design and in the distance, she noticed a pyramid with a massive scarlet serpent with wings and scythes for arms.

Before she could learn anything else, the vision blurred and faded to black.

Flutashe woke up again to find Stella sitting at the foot of the bed with a tranced look on her face. This trance broke a second later as she shook her head. “Do you know where it’s coming from?” Flutashe asked.

Stella nodded, “I was able to glance through the Dream to find the source. There appears to be a jungle south of Duskwood.”

“You mean Stranglethorn? That place is crawling with trolls.”

“Yes, I also noticed that creature on the pyramid. I could feel his power and it was terrifying.”

“There’s only one place that could have a pyramid in Stranglethorn, the Gurubashi capital city of Zul’Gurub. Explorers mapped out the whole jungle except for that place.”

“From the malice I could sense from it, I don’t think we can afford to let the matter be. With the Alliance and Horde preparing for the war in Silithus, they can ill afford this complication. For now though, get some rest, Flutashe. If we’re invading a troll capital city, we’re going to need all the rest we can get.”

Flutashe nodded and returned to sleep. Thankfully, the dream didn’t haunt her again that night.

The next morning, Stella and Flutashe explained the dream to the others. They also made sure they understood the danger such a creature could have on the world, especially with the ongoing efforts to prepare for the war in Silithus distracting the Alliance and the Horde.

“So you’re sayin’ that we gotta take this critter out before he becomes a problem?” Jaqueline asked.

Flutashe nodded, “We believe he is somewhere in the Gurubashi capital city of Zul’Gurub in Stranglethorn.”

Mena put on a plinth helmet that nobody knew where she got it from. “It’s off to the jungle!” she declared.

Once they were stocked up on supplies, Stella opened a portal to Lakeshire since that was the closest anchor Stella had available for their trip south. They followed the road south across the Everstill Bridge and traveled south at the fork toward Duskwood. As they entered the evil-infested woods, Bella and Mena used their light magic to not only help them see the roads but to give them a bit of warding from the dark forces that creeped around in the woods.

They passed through the wary town of Darkshire full of citizens brave enough to live there while on the lookout for feral worgen and other things that went bump in the night. Stella set up an anchor there in case she needed to come to this town in the future.

The group continued to follow the road past undead haunts and worgen dens. Some tried to attack them but were quickly crushed by the party.

Once they reached a fork in the road that led south, they took it and followed a mountain pass until the landscape became brighter and the humidity began to spike, informing them that they were entering the Stranglethorn Jungle.

It was difficult to tell which was worse, the volcanic environment of Blackrock Mountain or the sweltering jungle of Stranglethorn. This didn’t matter to the party as they proceeded with their mission.

It was known that Zul’Gurub was off the main road to the east so they had to proceed through the unpaved jungle to reach their destination. On the way they encountered numerous tigers and panthers, but Flutashe’s skills with animals prevented any unnecessary combat.

They soon reached a narrow mountain pass with a large troll-made structure built around it. The structure was defended by a few guards and also served as the only entrance to Zul’Gurub making entry difficult.

As the group moved closer to the guards, they began pointing their swords at them while taking up combat stances. “Ya best be movin’ along strangers, if ya know what’s good for ya,” one guard warned.

“Is this the entrance to Zul’Gurub?” Bella asked, trying to be as diplomatic as possible.

“Ya mon, now begone with ya! I not be tellin’ ya again.”

If the two guards had taken into account how many intruders there were, they might have suspected something but they failed to do that and were completely unaware when Sophia ran her blades through the backs of the two.

“Alright, let’s get in there and try to find those animals who are in pain,” Flutashe said.

“And take out that creature who lurks inside,” Stella added.

As they moved toward the entrance of the Gurubashi capital city, Thanatas gave Sophia a brief rundown about what they were facing. “That creature is known as Hakkar the Soulflayer, an evil loa who unleashes disaster wherever he goes.

“Millennia ago, some foolish Zandalari trolls attempted to summon Hakkar but the summoning was interrupted, unleashing a deadly blood plague that killed thousands of trolls before it was contained. He’s known as the Loa of Blood.

“Nearly two thousand years ago, the Gurubashi worshipped him until they found out his true nature and turned against him and those loyal to him, likely with the aid of the Zandalari. The Atal’ai are a sect of Gurubashi trolls who were devout worshippers of the Blood Loa and sought to summon him to the mortal plane.”

“Does this mean that our involvement in the Temple of Atal’Hakkar is related to what’s happening now?” Sophia asked.

“Afraid so, chances are someone claimed the essence of Hakkar after you killed his avatar and brought it to Zul’Gurub where they could summon him at his full power.”

“So this means that we’re cleaning up our own mess…” Sophia groaned mentally.

Once the group entered the valley that Zul’Gurub was built into, they proceeded down some stone steps and began fighting a few of the defenders. There were few defenders to contend with but they knew that there would be a lot more where that came from deeper inside.

They crossed a rope bridge where they faced a few more defenders before they found their path forking. One led up a hill while the other led across another rope bridge.

Looking around, the group quickly spotted a pyramid in the center of the city as well as a massive red serpent-like creature sitting atop it. It appeared to be the edifice and creature from Flutashe’s dreams.

Flutashe gasped as she heard a shrieking scream coming from up the hill. She turned to look in that direction while the others, who didn’t hear the scream like she did, were debating which way they should go.

“I heard a scream coming from up the hill!” Flutashe said.

“Are ya sure? Ah didn’t hear anything.” Jaqueline responded. The others voiced their agreement to the warrior.

“Maybe it’s a druid thing,” Sophia guessed. “Or maybe it’s another gift unique to Flutashe. Either way, we should investigate.”

Flutashe was relieved that the templar supported her and was glad that the others decided to go along with her decision when they unanimously decided to investigate the hill.

As they climbed the hill, they were ambushed by a dire troll. Flutashe was able to match the bulky troll’s strength with her own in her bear form which left him distracted long enough for the others to attack him from behind.

Atop the hill they discovered a number of Gurubashi witch doctors and a swarm of large bats with some being ridden by trolls carrying highly flammable liquid.

It was while they were fighting the witch doctors, bats and bat riders that something strange happened. While Bella, Stella, Mena and Jaqueline were fighting the witch doctors, Flutashe unleashed a powerful roar that stopped all bats in their tracks. The bats landed on the ground and spread their wings in what appeared to be a bowing gesture which also knocked the bat riders off their mounts. The druid was taken aback by this gesture since this had never happened before. Out of curiosity, she approached one of the bats. “Tell me, you were serving the trolls until you bowed to me, why this change in behavior?”

One of the bats let out a series of squeaks and shrieks which Flutashe nodded to. “Oh, oh dear. That’s no good. Don’t worry, we will free him from that monster.”

As the others finished off the trolls in the area, the bats flew off. With renewed determination, Flutashe approached the group. “It seems that the cries of pain were coming from several of the loa in the area being tortured by that monster on the pyramid. It’s doing so through the high priests in the city.”

“Loa?” Bella asked. “What are those?”

“They’re ancient wild gods who receive their power from the devotion of their followers, mostly trolls since the religion is primarily practiced among their culture,” Flutashe explained.

“So we’re up against a god this time?” Stella concluded. Flutashe nodded in affirmation.

“Let’s get going, the first priest is nearby.”

Once the area was cleared, they looked around to find it was a dead end room with a bunch of bamboo in the center. Mena quickly spotted a figure standing atop a wall overlooking the area. The figure was a female wearing black robes and carrying a feathered staff that emitted a black aura. Her hair was gray and her shoulders had a darker, scalier appearance compared to her paler gray skin.

“Fun fact about Zandalari trolls, those dark and scaly parts of their skin set them apart from other troll tribes. Plus the males stand upright compared to other tribes.” Thanatas lectured to Sophia.

“Only you would lecture about biology at a time like this,” Sophia shot back.

“Anyway, that’s High Priestess Jeklik. She is a Zandalari loa priestess who is a devout follower of the bat loa Hir’eek. Expect her to do bat-related things.”

Jeklik soon spotted the intruders and called out to her loa. “Lord Hir’eek, grant me wings of vengeance!” She then transformed into a humanoid bat garbed in a black mantle and bracers that somehow didn’t cut part of her wings off and glided down to the floor to engage the group.

Flutashe quickly gained Jeklik’s attention, though as she did so her mind was invaded by a strange squeaky yet masculine voice. “Please, sever my bond with this priestess. Hakkar’s control over her is too strong. He drains my strength through her. Make it stop!”

Flutashe gasped as she heard this. “She’s being mind controlled by that creature on the pyramid!” She dodged several swipes from the claws on Jeklik’s feet. “Do we have any way to break his control without killing her?”

“Violetta says that she needs to consume at least one Old God before she can break the control of a divinity,” Mena said.

“Ya got any mind tricks that might help, Sophia?” Jaqueline asked.

Sophia shrugged, “Sure, I’m always up for a little psychological warfare.” Her eyes glowed blue as she focused her mind on Jeklik’s mind. The priestess unleashed a shrieking sound that gave Flutashe and Jaqueline a brief case of tinnitus. Before she could attack again, Jeklik suddenly flapped her wings and backed away from everyone. She then began clutching at her head in pain. The pain soon caused the priestess to lose her concentration and she reverted back to her original form.

Jeklik rolled on the ground shouting about the pain for several minutes before she stopped and began breathing heavily. She then suddenly realized that she was in control of her body once more. “It can’t be…I am…free from his control? Impossible…”

Flutashe reverted to her night elf form and walked over to the priestess. She held out a hand to help her. “Are you okay?”

Jeklik looked up at the night elf. She hesitated for a moment before grabbing her hand, allowing the druid to help her to her feet. “You all saved me…I thank ya, mon. My loa is elated that I was freed as well.”

Flutashe giggled, “Yeah, I can hear his elation.”

Jeklik looked at Flutashe in confusion. “Ya can hear my loa?” Flutashe nodded. The priestess turned around and began behaving strangely, as if she were having a conversation with the air but no words were spoken. After a few minutes of this, Jeklik turned to the druid. “It seems Lord Hir’eek has taken an interest in ya and would like to bestow his blessing upon ya. He says that it is important that you receive his blessing as well as de blessings of de other loa who are being drained by Hakkar.”

“Important? How come?” Flutashe asked.

Jeklik twirled her wrist in a nonchalant manner, “Someting about destiny or whateva. He won’ tell me anymore than dat.”

For some reason, Flutashe recalled the memory of when Aessina sent her on her quest. She was only able to guess what the true intent of the quest was. At first she thought it was about making friends, then she guessed that it had to do with the Scepter of the Shifting Sands.

It seemed far fetched, but could the true intent of the quest have to do with meeting other wild gods and receiving their blessings? If so, then why her of all people? All she knew was that she was a freshly trained druid with an unusual gift of talking with animals and, for whatever reason, exerting her dominance as if she were some sort of alpha beast.

Suddenly she felt like she knew herself less than ever. Times like this made her wish her sister was here to offer her advice. She may be the same age as her but she often behaved like she was the older sister.

Flutashe was snapped out of her thoughts when Jeklik started channeling something in Zandali, the official language of the trolls. A dark energy started forming around the top of her staff and the next moment the energy flew into the druid.

For a moment, Flutashe became nervous as her eyesight started to fail her but it quickly returned which made her breathe a sigh of relief. “What was that?”

“Dat be de blessing of Hir’eek. He may be a blind old bat but he be a kind one. Ya felt a temporary blindness, dat’s normal when one receives his blessing. Now off wit ya, de other priests and priestesses be needin’ your help.” With that, Jeklik turned into a bat again and flew over the wall and away from the city.

Once Jeklik was no longer in sight, the group returned down the hill and crossed a second rope bridge, dealing with more of Hakkar’s loyalists and brainwashed Gurubashi along the way.

Not long after they crossed the bridge did they find an entrance to another altar. The inside was mostly occupied by cobras and a few priests of Hakkar. Atop the stairs were a few more cobras and a priest wearing green robes. Flutashe heard another loa’s cry for help coming from the priest.

The druid pointed at the priest atop the stairs. “He’s the next one we have to free.”

“That’s High Priest Venoxis, another Zandalari loa priest who is the champion of the lesser loa Hethiss, a snake loa,” Thanatas said.

The moment Flutashe entered the room, the snakes slithered to the edges of the room which confused the Hakkari loyalists long enough for Jaqueline to charge in and quickly eliminate one of them. Bella and Stella rushed in and dealt with the remaining enemies at the bottom of the stairs.

Venoxis noticed the commotion and ran in to attack. Sophia began to use her psionic powers to attack the link between Hakkar and Venoxis’ mind. She soon noticed that this one proved more difficult which led her to conclude that Hakkar was concentrating his control across the other priests and with each priest severed, Hakkar’s control over the others would become stronger.

As Flutashe clawed away at the priest while holding back her bear form’s strength, Venoxis transformed into a humanoid serpent with green and brown scales, a tan underbelly and arms. He was wearing dark gold bracers and a mantle.

As he unleashed his poisonous abilities which Flutashe was able to resist, Venoxis began to struggle within his mind, as if assuming a form like his loa had made him more susceptible to Flutashe’s dominance and Sophia’s psionic tampering. Within a minute the struggle ended and Venoxis broke free from Hakkar’s control. Flutashe waited for a moment in case the priest was still being controlled. Once she knew that the battle was over, she shifted back to her night elf form.

Venoxis stared at the druid for a moment before he spoke, “Ya carry de blessing of Hir’eek wit ya, mon. How can that be?”

“I’m not sure myself, Hir’eek said something about destiny.”

Venoxis then went through the same strange gestures that they saw Jeklik go through. He seemed to be conversing with his loa. He soon turned his attention to the druid. “Ya’ve been blessed by numerous lesser forest spirits and Hir’eek. It be unprecedented for loa to bless those who don’t follow them. It seems deres someting special about ya, someting dat de loa have a great interest in. My loa, Hethiss, wishes to give his blessing to ya as well.”

The priest chanted in Zandali and Flutashe briefly felt her skin becoming scaly and her upper canine teeth becoming sharper and longer until she had to be careful to keep her tongue away lest she pierce it. As quickly as the transformation came, it went away. “Wit de blessing of Hethiss, ya can now shapeshift into a serpentine form at will.”

With his business taken care of, Venoxis fled for the entrance to the city, poisoning every troll defender to death whenever any got in his way.

The party left the altar and continued through a corridor, dealing with more Hakkari priests and controlled defenders. Flutashe exerted her dominance over some serpents who considered getting in their way but moved aside instead.

One serpent pointed the group to a passage that went uphill and then branched to the left. Following that, the group found themselves in what appeared to be a settlement in the city.

Dealing with the Hakkari loyalists was more time consuming than difficult. Flutashe tested out her new serpent form where she found herself shapeshifting into a feminine version of what Venoxis turned into except her scales were black as night with a gray underbelly. Light gray scales formed crescent moon markings along the sides of her tail.

Flutashe proceeded to spit globs of venom at each of the oncoming attackers which made sure all enemies were poisoned by the time they reached her or her allies. Their weakened bodies made them easy to defeat.

Once the settlement was cleared, the group proceeded further, entering another enclosed area that had a number of raptors who appeared to have been starved into a frenzy which prevented Flutashe from communicating with them. She and the others were forced to put them down along with the guards.

At the end of the area was a small pyramid with a troll at the bottom of the stairs bowing. The others looked up to find a troll in heavy scarlet armor with a red mohawk riding an orange armored raptor.

“That troll atop the pyramid is dangerous,” Thanatas warned. “Bloodlord Mandokir is his name and one-shot kills is what he likes to do. Whoever he casts his gaze upon is under a very real threat of getting eviscerated by that huge sword he has. They will not survive the attack.”

“I doubt he has ever fought someone like me,” Sophia replied.

“Given that psionics aren’t a thing on Azeroth, that’s pretty obvious.”

Disposing of the troll at the bottom of the pyramid was trivial, but it did attract the attention of Mandokir who strode down the pyramid on his raptor. Once at the bottom, Mandokir dismounted from his raptor mount and ordered him to attack Mena. “I’ll feed your souls to Hakkar myself!” he declared.

Jaqueline ran in with both of her swords ready to engage the Bloodlord while Flutashe briefly attempted to converse with the raptor only to discover that he was unconditionally loyal to Mandokir.

The warrior clashed her blades with Mandokir’s sword. Jaqueline soon found that the troll was abnormally strong and his attacks were heavy but this only pushed Jaqueline to fight harder. A strike suddenly unbalanced Jaqueline long enough for him to thrust his sword forward. The warrior managed to move an inch to the side to get cut in the left side. Mandokir pulled his sword away and left his foe with a grievous wound but Jaqueline used that to her advantage as she headbutted the large troll under his chin before she aimed a sword for his heart. Mandokir dodged and ended up with a few tendons under his arm severed, slightly weakening his attacks.

Meanwhile, Flutashe fought with the raptor, who she learned was named Ohgan. The raptor’s talons were strong but the druid’s hide was tough. Using her cat form, Flutashe used her agility to leave deep claw marks in places where the raptor’s armor didn’t cover. She used precise slashes to cut into the leather straps that held the armor together. Stella was able to pull the severed armor pieces off which allowed Bella to make more effective strikes on Ohgan’s head, knocking a few teeth loose.

Ohgan was the first to fall as he was bled out from Flutashe’s numerous strikes.

Seeing his beloved companion fall, Mandokir went into a rage. Not caring who he attacked, he set his gaze on Stella who was channeling a fire spell to use against him. He wasn’t about to allow that to happen so he left the fight against Jaqueline to focus on murdering the dracthyr in one strike. The mage braced herself for the lethal blow.

It never came. Sophia intervened and blocked Mandokir’s strike with her wrist blades. The Bloodlord pulled his sword away and tried to kill the templar with a powerful horizontal slash but the templar grabbed it with one hand. With an innocent smile, the bunny templar used her other hand to bypass Mandokir’s defenses and stabbed him in the same place he stabbed Jaqueline. “And here’s the interest!” she declared as she stepped on the troll’s right foot and left it a bloody mess.

What she didn’t show when she stepped on Mandokir’s foot was that she grew a large number of tiny, sharp chitinous spikes through her shoe and turned his foot into a pin cushion. Since trolls never wear footwear this was more devastating. She made it look like she simply crushed the Bloodlord’s foot to the others.

Mandokir attempted to use his regenerative abilities to heal his wounds, an ability inherent in all trolls. However, he soon came to realize that the bleeding was not stopping and his ability was being blocked somehow. What the troll didn’t realize was that the spikes grown by Sophia were also laced with a special poison her body synthesized.

Sophia remembered one time a while back when she was alone, she snuck into SI:7 headquarters and tasted every type of poison used by their agents so her body could develop an immunity to them and to be able to create it herself. Among them was a poison that restricted the body’s healing process.

With his regeneration negated, Mandokir’s movements became sluggish and he started taking attacks that he could have dodged. Stella and Surprise’s spells slammed into him. Jaqueline moved behind the Bloodlord and plunged both of her swords into his chest which punctured both of his lungs. Mandokir coughed up blood just before Bella dealt the finishing blow by summoning a sword of light that impaled his chest and out the back of his neck.

Mandokir collapsed onto the ground once the blade disappeared.

The group took time to regain their breath as they put their weapons away for the time being. “By the Light, that was one tough feller,” Jaqueline said.

“Indeed, I hope he wasn’t a loa priest,” Bella said.

Flutashe shook her head. “No, if he was then his raptors would have listened to me. These were tamed and trained raptors we were dealing with.”

The party backtracked through the settlement and down the hill they climbed. As they neared the passage entrance, they instead took a left down another passage where they took down another dire troll before discovering that the area beyond was filled with giant webbed eggs; spider eggs.

Flutashe could hear the cries of another loa nearby and it wasn’t hard to conclude that the priest tied to the spider loa was nearby.

The spiders nearby spotted the group and pleaded with the druid to save their loa, whom they called Shadra.

With the spiders staying out of the way while placing their hopes on the druid, the priestess, Mar’li, was without her more dangerous means to attack with. In desperation, she shapeshifted into a giant humanoid spider with six legs and a pair of arms. Her abdomen was black with green markings and she wore a black mantle.

With her in her beast form, Mar’li was more susceptible to Flutashe’s dominance and Sophia’s psionic tampering. After a few minutes of fighting Flutashe in her bear form, Mar’li reverted to her troll form, freed from Hakkar’s control.

“Bless you all, I am free from Hakkar’s control.” Suddenly, Mar’li went into a trance state. She stayed still for a minute before she addressed the group again. “Shadra has told me that she is willing to reveal one secret in addition to giving de druid her blessing.”

“Secret?” Flutashe asked.

“Ya mon, Shadra is de loa of spies. She knows many secrets. Whenever ya see a spider, they be gatherin’ information for Shadra. She also knows what ya did, blue rabbit, in Stormwind.”

“Impressive…” Sophia said with a little awe in her voice. “I wish that I could recruit this spider loa to my covert ops division.” she thought to herself.

“So what is this secret?” Flutashe asked.

“Shadra knows de reason de loa are given’ ya their blessings. Your destiny was foretold in a prophecy uttered by de mada of Azeroth’s wild gods, de weava of de Dream. If ya wanna know more, ya gotta find her and ask her yourself.”

With that said, Mar’li bestowed Shadra’s blessing upon Flutashe before she transformed into her spider form and skittered up the walls and out of sight.

The priestess had left Flutashe with more questions than answers.

Author's Note

Yep, this dungeon is mostly about giving our animal-loving druid a power up and it gives insight into my plans for her.

See you soon for part 2.

Rise of the Blood Loa, Part 2

After Flutashe received the blessing of Shadra, the spider loa, she gained a sharper sense of what went on around her but she also had a creepy feeling that she was being observed. This was likely a side effect of the blessing and she guessed that anything she learned from now on would be learned by Shadra. She could only hope that the loa was as good at keeping secrets as she was at learning about them.

The group exited the building and returned to the main road. As they moved forward, they spotted a dire troll and eliminated him.

Beyond a small pyramid at the side of the main road, the group discovered another passage. However, they could also feel a lot of dark energy coming from the area. A chill ran down their spines as they drew near the path. Something truly evil lurked within.

“You know this isn’t your first time feeling the power of Death, right?” Thanatas said. “You’ve been around me long enough to know what it feels like.”

“I’m aware, but this deathly energy feels like it’s mixed in with pure madness.” Sophia attempted to explain. “It’s as if someone twisted the spirits here in such a way that it’s like they were psychologically attacked by Violetta but left to fester.”

“Regardless, the spirits there are contained in that area so ignoring it is inconsequential, unless your friends decide that they want to cleanse the place.”

“I cannot ignore such evil coming from within, we must purge this place of the wicked,” Bella declared.

“...Have fun fighting ghosts,” Thanatas said.

Sophia rolled her eyes as the group proceeded into the passage and into the miasma. As they advanced, the group became more apprehensive and began hearing whispers from disembodied voices. Violetta’s powers offered Mena protection from the miasma while Bella created a Light Barrier to protect her friends.

Bella was forced to drop the barrier when the group were suddenly attacked by imp-like creatures with long ears and wearing earrings, tattered pants and tattered vests. Flutashe recognized them as grell, wild nature spirits that were often mistaken for imps due to the similarities in their behaviors. The difference was that grell had no horns nor were they filled with demonic fel energy.

Still, the grell attacked the group like a crazed mob. The creatures weren’t all that strong and Stella used her Counterspell to prevent any of them from casting Fireballs.

It was when the grell were killed that things became more interesting. For each grell killed, a shimmering red portal formed from their blood. From these portals emerged a pair of voidwalkers until they numbered twice the number of the fallen grell.

Surprise found herself draining the life from half of the voidwalkers until only their bracers remained. The group had figured that Violetta had decided to provide a little assistance.

The remaining voidwalkers were easy to deal with since there was no longer an army of them bearing down on the party.

Further into the miasma the group spotted a few Hakkari priests tending the area. The priests moved to attack and one used blood magic to draw Jaqueline’s blood. The warrior quickly charged him and ran her blades through him to prevent any further blood loss. Stella incinerated another priest while Surprise destroyed the mind of the remaining priest.

With the last of the enemies dead, the group looked around the area. It appeared to be an altar of some sort with a series of four tablets on the back wall. In front of the altar was a large brazier with a roaring flame that appeared to give them a sense of warmth and protection, as if the flame was the only thing keeping the dark spirits at bay. Huge brambles grew around the altar.

The five each chose a tablet to read while Sophia guarded the entrance. After a few minutes, they gave their report. Much to Sophia’s confusion and Thanatas’ surprise when she heard it through the link, they each said the same thing.

Once every year, de four are near de Edge of Madness at de same time.

Sophia scratched her head as she heard their readings. She could feel the false sympathy from her cousin through the link. “Does this mean that we have to fight four ghosts at the same time?” Sophia asked.

“Yep, I have never seen this happen myself to be honest. So here are the basics: Gri’lek is a dire troll, Renataki is a rogue who uses cheap tricks to cause chaos, Hazza’rah is a shadow mage who makes real illusions and puts people to sleep, and Wushoolay specializes in lightning spells.”

It was then that Stella discovered that her tablet was different from the others. At first they only saw four but Stella discovered a fifth behind the altar. This one turned out to be a recipe of some sort. It appeared to be a recipe for a potion. “Let’s see, Blood of Heroes, Powerful Mojo, Massive Mojo(?), and a Black Lotus…where would anyone find these ingredients?”

“I know!” Mena said as she reached into her hair and pulled out several bottles and a black flower. One bottle was red and fiery, another radiated power so strong that it was a surprise that the vial could contain it, the rest also contained liquid that radiated power but to a lesser extent.

Stella raised an eyebrow at the gnome priest. “Where did you get this stuff?”

“Violetta had it, she says that she’s been traveling a lot.”

Not wanting to question the eldritch horror, Stella decided to put her skills to work and craft a mixture according to the recipe. Once finished, she presented a vial containing a strange liquid that looked like a blend of colors one would experience if they were on a psychedelic acid trip.

“So what do we do with it?” Jaqueline asked.

“We use it to put out the brazier,” Sophia answered. “Then get ready for an intense fight.”

With that knowledge, the group drew their weapons while Stella nodded and moved to the brazier where she poured the contents onto the fire, extinguishing it.

The feeling of warmth was gone, the safe feeling had disappeared in an instant, replaced by dread. All that remained was the miasma and the maddening whispers that came with it. And that miasma grew thicker and thicker over a few seconds. Bolts of lightning struck the altar which seemed to originate from the miasma itself.

A moment later, not one, not two, not three, but four ghosts manifested in front of the altar. One was a dire troll whose eye sockets were empty, one was in warlock garb, one wore black leather armor and spiked shoulder pads and carried a pair of daggers, and one wore black and green armor and carried a large warhammer.

The robed troll gave a wicked smirk as he saw the group, “Ya choose de wrong day ta invade Zul’Gurub! Now we’re gonna make ya regret ya folly!”

As the four ghosts attacked, Flutashe shifted into her bear form and headbutted the dire troll, Gri’lek in the gut, causing him to turn his rage on the druid. Hazza’rah, the troll in the robes, summoned a number of illusions that looked like various monsters and demons while Stella summoned a number of clones of herself who quickly banished the illusions while the mage blasted the dark caster in the face with a shard of frost. Jaqueline rushed Renataki, the troll who appeared to be a rogue, and the two clashed blades for a time. This left Bella and Mena to face Wushoolay, the troll with the warhammer.

Thanks to Stella, everyone was able to fight with enchanted weapons which meant that their attacks could harm the ghosts.

The thick body of Flutashe’s bear form was able to mostly absorb the blows from Gri’lek but they were still causing a strain on her body as she took them. When the dire troll roared and suddenly doubled in size, the druid’s instincts told her that she needed to be dodging his attacks. Switching to cat form, She gracefully avoided Gri’lek’s earthshaking blows while she leaped all around him and slashed at his body with her claws. This frustrated the dire troll as he put more effort into smashing the small transforming creature. Being undead, Gri’lek had limitless energy to fight but each slash of her claws was causing him to leak dark mojo from his body.

Eventually, the dire troll lost too much power because of Flutashe’s attacks and shrank back to his original size. He fell to one knee and used his energy to try and seal his wounds. Flutashe noticed this and shifted into her moonkin form and bombarded him with the light of the sun and moon until his body ignited. Gri’lek roared in rage and tried to charge her but between his leaking mojo and using even more of it to try and recover, he quickly ran dry. With no mojo left to sustain him, he faded away.

Hazza’rah soon found himself in a bad match against Stella. He found that his opponent had a counter to his best spells. He tried to detonate some of the mana within her but her Counterspell prevented such attempts. His illusions always ended up combating her illusions and he found his enemy was impossible to put to sleep, not realizing that her green dragon essence prevented such spells from affecting her. Because of this, the dark mage was forced to use conventional spells but Stella’s knowledge of the arcane allowed her to break down his spells and use the mana against him. Hazza’rah stood no chance.

Jaqueline had to keep a close watch on her opponent’s movements. Renataki clearly fought like a rogue with his daggers. This meant that she would have to watch for any attempts of him using dirty tricks to throw her off balance. She had to jump back when he attempted a low sweeping kick to trip her and blocked a horizontal slash that was aimed at her eyes when he thought he saw an opening.

When he figured that he wasn’t getting anywhere with the warrior, Renataki threw a smoke bomb and blended into the shadows. Sophia knew that he was going to target and ambush one of the others while they were distracted. She quickly sensed the mind of the rogue ghost and figured that he was targeting Mena. Her psionic power allowed her to detect hidden enemies, whether using cloaking technology, a dark templar technique, or a rogue being sneaky, and spot them as if they weren’t invisible. Since Jaqueline had no idea where Renataki went, she rushed to the rogue in an instant and punched him in the gut, revealing him and leaving him stunned.

The templar wasn’t through with him though as she wanted to see the ghost punished for his dirty trick. She delivered a powerful uppercut to send him flying into the air before jumping after him and juggling him around with a series of punches and kicks.

Renataki was unable to react as the heavy blows from the bunny templar were devastating and each blow caused more dark mojo to be expelled from his body. “Dis…is…unfair…” he grunted between each impact.

“You’re a rogue, you don’t fight fair so you shouldn’t expect such in return,” Sophia countered.

Once she was done with him, she then slammed Renataki to the ground where Jaqueline quickly pointed her sword upward and waited until the rogue ghost fell on the warrior’s sword and vanished in a poof of dark mojo.

Bella and Mena had some difficulty dealing with Wushoolay. The ghost used his hammer sometimes, which Bella blocked, but most of the time he unleashed bolts of lightning. Some of the bolts electrocuted Bella and jumped to Mena while other times he unleashed lightning from one hand that forked outward.

The two light users decided to move so that Wushoolay was between them. Since his attacks couldn’t hit both of them this way he tried to reposition himself so he was facing both of them. However, Mena let Surprise take over and the stormcaster watched as his opponents faded from view.

Wushoolay looked around, trying to find his enemies. He leaped forward as he sensed a blade of light bursting from the ground but was unable to dodge the hammer of light that fell on his head, causing him to sprawl on the ground. He tried to get up but he spotted tendrils of void energy wrapping around his wrists and ankles. The tendrils pulled at his limbs and left him with no room to resist.

The last thing he saw was Bella fading into existence before him with her hammer raised, overflowing with the Light.

The hammer came down.

Once the four ghosts were defeated, the miasma faded away. The ominous feeling the group felt the moment they entered the area was replaced with a sense of calm. The area soon became nothing more than just another area in Zul’Gurub.

Realizing that their work was finished, the group left the area and continued north toward the next altar.

The next area they arrived at featured a large number of tigers alongside a few city defenders. Just like with the bats, snakes and spiders, the tigers noticed Flutashe and one approached her, asking for help in saving their patron loa named Shirvallah. The other tigers lied down to rest, even though their hearts were full of worry for their loa. They hesitated to do more for fear that Hakkar would forcefully drain all of Shirvallah’s life in retaliation.

Grateful that they didn’t have to take on a pack of tigers, the group focused on the few Gurubashi defenders that were in the area.

They soon came to the next altar which held a number of cages as well as a few defenders and a number of tigers. The tigers noticed their saviors coming and put their simple plan into action. As they entered the altar area and since Hakkar nor the priest were looking, they immediately attacked the defenders in the area, clearing the way for the group to get to the priest.

The priest appeared to be in a conversation about something they couldn’t overhear with two other trolls. One wore black leather armor and a mask while the other wore black feathered armor.

Thanatas began her explanation, “High Priest Thekal is the champion of Shirvallah. He and his two lackeys, Lor’Khan and Zath, are going to be your opponents. Each has their own skills but they can also revive fallen comrades. They will need to go down together.”

“I have a feeling that those three need to be dealt with at about the same time,” Sophia said, trying not to let on about how she knew that.

“Why do ya think that?” Jaqueline asked.

“Just a hunch.” Jaqueline raised an eyebrow but decided to let it lie for now since they had more important business.

“If we free the priest, we won’t have to worry about three enemies but two instead,” Flutashe offered.

“We can try, but Hakkar holds a strong grip on the minds of the remaining two priests and I’m not sure I can break it without your help. Our best chance at saving him is if he decides to use his animal form.”

Flutashe nodded and prepared to fight the trio alongside her friends.

Once Thekal noticed the intruders, he and his two lieutenants moved to attack. Jaqueline crossed blades with Zath while Mena got Lor’Khan’s attention before she started making her chase the gnome all over the area. Flutashe fought Thekal in her cat form.

Once again, Jaqueline was fighting another rogue who used the same dirty tricks that Renataki used but she was ready this time. When the troll tried to throw dirt in the warrior’s eyes, she blocked with one sword while striking with the other, scoring his leather armor. Jaqueline noticed the troll’s attempts at kicking her in the side so she went for a low-sweeping kick and knocked Lor’Khan to the ground. Jaqueline didn’t give him a chance to get up as she plunged her sword into his chest.

Noticing that her warrior friend made the first kill, Mena decided to stop playing tag with Zath and let Surprise handle the rest. The troll noticed her comrade was down so she began casting a revival spell to resurrect him but the chant was lost as darkness silenced her voice and shadows seared her body. Her mind was assaulted by traumatizing images while her ears were assaulted by the creepy giggling of the gnome. Her vision cleared up just in time to see a blade of shadow reach her neck and her head tumbling to the ground.

Flutashe continued to claw away at Thekal’s body, hoping to pressure him into using his animal form. She was having no luck and Sophia was doing her best to chip away at Hakkar’s control. Try as she might, Thekal continued to remain in his troll form. It was as if Hakkar knew the weakness of his control over the priests and was forbidding Thekal from transforming.

It was when Thekal decided to revive Lor’Khan and Zath, with their bodies restored, that she was out of time and the others would have to fight everyone all over again. Out of options, Sophia moved behind the priest and pierced his chest with her blades, ending his life.

“Sophia, why did you do that?” Flutashe chided. “We were supposed to save the priest, not kill him.”

“He was about to revive his allies and render our efforts pointless. I’d rather we not waste more energy than needed before we face Hakkar,” Sophia countered.

It was then that the wounds on Thekal’s body closed and his body was restored to its original state. To everyone’s surprise, the priest got back up and glared at the group. The corruption of Hakkar made his eyes glow scarlet and his rage was brought to a boil. He stopped paying attention to the corpses of the two fallen zealots and decided to focus on wiping the stain of his humiliation by killing everyone. “Shirvallah, fill me with your rage!”

Whether it was an oversight on Hakkar’s part or because Thekal didn’t believe he didn’t need it before, the group got what they wanted when he began transforming into a muscular anthropomorphic tiger with turquoise armbands, mantle and loincloth.

Seeing this opportunity, Sophia began attacking the link of control again while Flutashe, in her cat form, roared at the tiger in challenge. Being smaller and more agile, the druid was able to dodge most of Thekal’s claw swipes but a few swift swipes managed to leave shallow cuts into her skin.

Flutashe’s dominating aura was working at full strength and the priest’s will began to waver as his attacks began so slow until he stopped altogether.

“It’s done,” Sophia announced.

The transformed priest quickly reverted back into his priest form and kneeled before Flutashe. “Thank ya for breakin’ Hakkar’s control over me. Shirvallah used a lot of her power ta bring me back to life so she’ll be restin’ for a while.

“Before she went into slumber, she instructed me ta give de one named Flutashe dis.” He presented what appeared to be a fist weapon that resembled a tiger’s paw with long claws.

Flutashe walked up to the priest. “I am her. What is this weapon?”

Thekal chuckled. “Dis weapon carries Shirvallah’s blessing. She intended it ta be used by de one who freed me. It will give greater strength ta ya feline form, but when ya receive de other claw from Priestess Arlokk, ya be in for a big surprise.”

With that, Thekal transformed fully into a tiger and bolted for the city entrance.

The group continued their journey through Zul’Gurub. They had traveled a great distance as they circled the pyramid that Hakkar observed them from. They only had one priest left to free and they knew the loa wouldn’t let her go easily.

As they moved on to the next area, Sophia sensed a presence in the lake beneath them. Whatever it was, it was huge.

“You probably sense Gahz’ranka, a fierce hydra.” Thanatas explained. “The creature will probably swim around the lake unless he’s disturbed. Unless your friends have a reason to fight him, it’s probably best to leave him be.”

At the same time, Flutashe sensed the movements underneath the lake but sensed nothing malevolent beneath the lake so she figured that whatever was down there was minding their own business so she said nothing.

In the next area, the group immediately noticed that a group of panthers were behaving strangely; they were forming a wall with their bodies to prevent others from moving past the next area. When Flutashe walked over to one, she asked about their behavior. One panther answered that they had begun to rebel against the Gurubashi defenders inside since Hakkar couldn’t see what went on inside the temple and they needed her help to break the spell on High Priestess Arlokk’s mind.

“Of course we will help,” Flutashe said. The group then headed into the next area which they discovered had a large pyramid inside. It wasn’t as big as Hakkar’s pyramid, but it was still larger than Mandokir’s pyramid. Panthers stood guard over the grounds while the group ascended the stairs to the entrance atop the temple.

The sounds of fighting could be heard inside which meant that the panthers had not secured the temple yet. The group quickly rushed to their aid, dealing with a few shadow hunters along the way.

They quickly discovered the trolls in scarlet armor were able to use a strange magic that allowed them to consume the blood of the panthers to restore their wounds. Enraged, Flutashe rushed toward one of the blood drinkers in her cat form and swiped at them with her claws. Surprisingly, the attack did more than she expected as the swipe knocked the troll into the temple wall. She wondered if this was part of the effects of the weapon Thekal gave her.

Once the party and the panthers finished off the defenders, the group moved to the bottom level of the temple which was empty. A couple of open pens were to their left and right as they entered and a gong was in the back of the room.

At first the group was confused as there seemed to be no sign of the last loa priest. One panther entered the room and told Flutashe that they needed to hit the gong to draw High Priestess Arlokk out of hiding.

Once she relayed this to the others, they prepared themselves as the druid walked over to the gong. Sophia prepared herself to use a lot of effort to break the last priestess from Hakkar’s control knowing that the blood loa would be using all of his effort into keeping her under his sway.

Once Flutashe struck the gong, Arlokk soon appeared. Her hair was black as panther fur. She wore lavender robes and carried a pair of curved knives.

Fighting Arlokk was not as tough as Thekal. The priestess relied on her pack of panthers to assist her in battle. However, the panthers stood back and allowed the group to try to break Hakkar’s control over her. Because of this, she had no choice but to use her animal form to deal with her enemies.

Calling upon the power of her loa, Bethekk, she transformed into an anthropomorphic panther. Like Thekal, Arlokk’s panther form was quite muscular but she was also quite busty. She wore a dark red one-piece suit that showed off her cleavage and also wore round, black shoulder pads.

Even as she was now in her panther form, Sophia and Flutashe still struggled to weaken Hakkar’s control over the priestess with their respective abilities. The priestess fought with great ferocity while the druid slashed away at her with her claws, leaving deep scratches.

The others watched as the two continued their attempts to free Arlokk from Hakkar, knowing there was little they could do to help free her.

The fight continued for several minutes and Arlokk grew weaker as Flutashe attacked the tendons in her joints, but the priestess continued to fight.

Mena then turned her thoughts inward, looking for help from her roommates in her head. “Why are Sophia and Flutashe having so much trouble with freeing her?”

“They’re dealing with a demigod, duh!” Surprise snarked.

“Sophia could break Hakkar’s link herself if she put more effort into it, but that would cause permanent damage to Arlokk’s mind,” Violetta said.

“Can either of you help? At this rate, Arlokk is going to bleed out before they can free her,” Mena begged.

“You know it would be dangerous for me to help,” Violetta warned. “If you still want to go through with it, have miss moody here attempt to mind control her.”

“Hey!” Surprise growled.

After some begging by Mena to go through with the plan, Surprise relented and took over. She then attempted a mind control spell on Arlokk which had no effect on her. However, Violetta was able to use the link between the priestess and Hakkar to connect to the Blood Loa. Outside the pyramid, Hakkar began to screech in agony as he clutched his head.

Violetta’s assault on Hakkar’s mind had made the loa lose focus and his link with Arlokk weakened. This made things much easier for Flutashe and Sophia to break the link. Within moments, the priestess was finally free.

“Finally, free from de Soulflayer at last! Thank ya, young druid!” Arlokk said. “I am glad my sista will not hafta mourn my death after all.”

“Sister?” Flutashe asked.

“Ya, Kilnara would be de next in line ta receive Bethekk’s power should anyting happen ta me.”

Arlokk then pulled something out from her robes. It looked like the weapon that Thekal gave her, except this one was black. “I assume ya freed Thekal as well and he gave ya de Claw of Shirvallah. This is de Claw of Bethekk, de other half. It will give ya a boost to ya speed and more when de Claw of Shirvallah is wielded with it.”

After Bella and Mena healed Arlokk’s wounds, the priestess shifted into a full panther form. “De bridge to de island where Hakkar is be nearby, but ya might want ta consider killin’ Jin’do de Hexxer first. He is de true leader of de Atal’ai and Hakkari tribes who worship Hakkar.” She then ran off and headed the long way around toward the entrance since the road was mostly clear.

After the group left the temple, they proceeded down the road once more, dealing with more Hakkari warriors and dire trolls. The animals gave them a wide berth. They passed the bridge leading to the center island, deciding to go after Jin’do first.

They soon ascended a hill up to an area with a pit full of dancing skeletons. There were also several large groups of zombified trolls dancing as if compelled to do so. Stella flew around using her fire to incinerate the undead while the group looked around for the Hexxer.

What they found was not what they were expecting. Instead of a troll, they found a shadowy image of Jin’do. The image wore a mask and studded leather armor. He was also dancing happily.

Once Jin’do noticed the group, he stopped dancing and laughed as if he had pranked them. “Ya fools thought it would be easy for ya to come into my lair and kill me? I could tell ya were freein’ de prisoners from Hakkar’s grasp. As strong as ya are, ya might stand a chance against Hakkar. That’s why I used what powers I could gather from de priests and priestesses and empowered Hakkar with dem.

“Ya won’t find me in Zul’Gurub no more. By de time ya listen to this message, I will be far away from here. If ya succeed in defeating Hakkar, I will bring him back stronger than ever. It may take years, but I will not fail. Farewell, strangers.” With that, the image laughed maniacally as it faded.

Everyone stared in stunned silence at the place where Jin’do’s illusion once was. Some of them gritted their teeth in frustration while others sighed in disappointment.

“Darn coward, he slipped right through our fingers!” Jaqueline growled.

“It seems that he has chosen to flee to fight another day,” Bella added.

“Rude…” Mena complained.

“There’s nothing we can do about this now, let’s head over to Hakkar’s temple,” Stella said.

Leaving the creepy area, the group retraced their steps and returned to the rope bridge they passed. Once they crossed it, an oppressive aura bore down on them all and their vision was tinted with a slight shade of red. Hakkar knew they were coming. “Minions of Hakkar, hear your God! The sanctity of this temple has been compromised! Invaders encroach on these holy grounds! The Altar of Blood must be protected! Kill them all!”

“He certainly thinks highly of himself…” Bella commented.

As they approached the temple, they noticed that the lower level was guarded by a number of dire trolls. One of the brutes noticed the group and roared, calling for his brethren from the lower level. What followed was practically a stampede of bulky trolls rushing toward the group.

Flutashe decided to try her enhanced cat form out on them. Though what she wasn’t expecting was herself transforming into an anthropomorphic variant of her cat form. It bore some resemblance to Arlokk’s panther form but clad in form-fitting green leather armor that provided freedom of movement and the ability to move in silence like rogues. White crescent moon markings appeared on her dark-furred shoulders.

Unfortunately, Flutashe didn’t have time to admire her new form since the dire trolls were close. She was used to fighting on all fours, so she had to think back to her Sentinel training and try to combine it with what she knew about feral combat.

Flutashe jumped over the first punch thrown at her and vaulted over the troll. She followed up with a slash from her claws that left a series of deep cuts on his back. The troll howled in agony.

The fighting quickly turned into a brawl where the druid gracefully dodged punches with her feline agility and tricking them into punching each other. This enraged the dire trolls where they soon forgot about her and focused on beating each other up in retaliation. This went on for several minutes until only a few dire trolls were left standing. By then they remembered who they were supposed to be fighting.

Flutashe’s training with the Sentinels had taught her how to deal with multiple enemies fighting her and it contributed to her honed reflexes which were enhanced further by her feline instincts.

Using her enhanced speed, she weaved between her enemies and slashed away at the tendons in their arms and legs, greatly weakening them. With her prey on their last legs, Flutashe moved in for the killing blow by using her enhanced strength to slash open their throats. They bled out in seconds.

Covered in the blood of her enemies, Flutashe ran to the lakeside and washed it off. She took a moment to look upon her new form. It did make her feel empowered, both physically and emotionally, but she knew this was only because of the power of her form. Remembering her humility, she willed herself to return to her original form. Once she was back to normal, she made a mental note to practice with the new form so she could keep it tamed and avoid losing herself to it.

The others waited patiently for their friend to return and she did a couple of minutes later. They prepared themselves as they moved up a set of stairs to the middle layer of the temple.

It was there that they saw a number of winged serpents alongside a few defenders and priests patrolling the level. It didn’t take long to defeat these enemies, though the smaller red serpents unleashed a cloud of poison from their bodies when they died which Flutashe and Bella had to cleanse from their comrades. While the others weren’t looking, Sophia inhaled a poison cloud for later in case the toxins would prove useful.

Moving around to the other side of the temple, they found a set of stairs that led them to the top of the building. There, they found their final challenge within the walls of Zul’Gurub, waiting for them.

Hakkar’s hateful glare placed an oppressive pressure on the group as he waited for them to dare to deal the first attack. His azure-feathered wings were fully extended in a threatening manner. His scarlet and gold regalia glittered in the sunlight. He wore a massive gold ring at the base of his tail. Strangely enough, he had an open rib cage that contained a black, pulsing heart.

“The arrogance of you mortals continues to astound me,” Hakkar boredly said. “Thousands of years pass and yet you insects never learn. Your hubris has led you to your deaths, but if you seek to rush headlong to your deaths, I will gladly accept your offering of your blood.”

“You won’t find us easy prey, Hakkar,” Flutashe called to the colossal serpent. “You may call us arrogant, but you will be the one to fall if you underestimate us.”

Hakkar laughed, “Pride heralds the end of your world. Come, mortals! Face the wrath of the Soulflayer!”

As the group rushed in, Flutashe using her bear form because her new cat form needed more time to break in, Thanatas warned Sophia through the psychic link about Hakkar’s ability to draw blood from others to mend his wounds and in order to counter it, they all needed to be poisoned briefly.

With no red serpents in the area, Sophia would have to risk showing off one of her abilities that she really didn’t want to be seen yet.

Jaqueline and Flutashe took care to avoid the swipes from Hakkar’s scythe-like arms while slashing at his serpentine body in between attacks. However, the loa had no intention of giving them the time to do that as he attacked with much faster speed than his huge body would suggest. He then blew away the two by releasing a powerful high-pitched screech.

Flutashe noticed that something was off about Hakkar’s attacks. She somehow sensed Shirvallah enhancing his speed and she sensed Hir’eek when he screeched. Was this part of Hakkar’s power, or was something strengthening his already considerable power?

While the struggles against the Blood Loa continued, another shadow of Jin’do manifested and laughed. “I see ya be noticin’ Hakkar’s enhancements. I claimed what mojo I could from de captive loa and gave it to Hakkar to strengthen him. Ya be facin’ him filled with de power of five other loa!” The shadow laughed again then vanished.

This information helped the group to realize that they were in for a tough fight. However, they didn’t have time to think of a new strategy as Hakkar struck them with globs of poison before unleashing a crimson mist that everyone inhaled, including Sophia. The other party members began to reel as their bodies burned from the inside from Hakkar’s poisons. Sophia managed to develop a resistance to the poisons quickly and blocked a strike from the Soulflayer who attempted to strike while they were down.

Unlike the others, Sophia had no problems blocking each of Hakkar’s rapid strikes and waited for the others to recover. While they were still recovering, Sophia felt guilty for what she was about to do, but knew it was necessary to defeat the loa. Planting her feet on the temple surface, she secretly extended a series of tentacles from the bottom of her feet through the stone and burst from below long enough to prick all of the party members while injecting a little poison into their bloodstreams.

Moments later, just as Thanatas warned, Hakkar opened his mouth and the group screamed in pain as Hakkar forcibly drew blood from their bodies. However, along with the blood he also drew in Sophia’s poison, relieving the others of their painful affliction. The toxins ended up causing further harm to the loa’s body.

Even worse for Hakkar was when he drew some of Sophia’s blood. She temporarily altered the blood in her bloodstream with the potent acid found in Zerg Banelings. The blood loa ended up consuming a substance that would literally melt a mortal within a few seconds.

The Soulflayer began hacking and soon coughed up blood. Surprised to see the bloodstains on one of his black scythe-like arms, he soon realized that the enemy had poisoned their own bloodstreams in secret just to make him consume poison. Normally that would have hurt somewhat, but whatever he consumed was worse than that because he felt his insides continue to burn.

Taking advantage of the loa’s suffering, the group recovered from their poison and readied themselves for the next round.

Jaqueline rushed forward and slashed away at Hakkar’s scales. The loa prepared to retaliate but Sophia blocked each one of his rapid strikes with her own, giving the warrior the freedom to attack.

With Hakkar distracted, Flutashe tried out her new snake form and slithered behind the loa and up his body where she coiled around his left arm and bit into his shoulder under his mantle, filling his body with more poison. The poison she used was designed to intensify his pain receptors and render him more vulnerable to her friends’ attacks.

Bella created a large hammer of light and struck his face as she hurled it. The impact broke a few of Hakkar’s teeth. She then made sure to immobilize him by impaling his tail with her sword of light spell. Hakkar roared in pain as he felt his tail being pierced.

Surprise took the offensive. The dark half of the priest unleashed a bombardment of dark spells that attacked Hakkar physically and psychologically. Normally, Hakkar would take the attacks like they were nothing and crush the gnome, but Flutashe’s poison combined with the remnants of Violetta’s influence on his mind have left him vulnerable to her assault.

With the loa vulnerable and distracted by Sophia, Stella was left to finish the loa off. She began taking Hakkar apart piece by piece starting with his arms. Using her ice breath and ice magic, she managed to freeze his right arm to the point of making it brittle. A blast of magma rock then shattered the arm. She did the same to his left arm which left him vulnerable to a frenzied series of slashes from Sophia who sliced his wings off. A Disintegration Beam from the drakthyr blasted the dark organ in his chest and a blast of psionic power from the templar destroyed Hakkar’s head. The rest of his body broke apart moments later and faded away.

The group was breathing heavily after that battle, but at the same time they were laughing with relief in the knowledge that they saved Azeroth from the wrath of a bloodthirsty god.

Although Jin’do had escaped, the group found that he wasn’t causing them trouble anytime soon. With Hakkar dead, their adventures in Zul’Gurub had come to an end. Stella began her spell to create a portal to Stormwind.

As Stella cast her spell, Sophia had to wonder about something. Hakkar called himself a god, but was he really?”

“Kind of,” Thanatas answered. “He’s a demigod just like Ragnaros and the Elemental Lords.”

“So this means that Hakkar is immortal?” Sophia asked.

“In a sense that killing them in the mortal plane only banishes them to another realm. With the Elemental Lords, it’s their respective elemental realms. When it comes to Wild Gods like Hakkar, they are banished to a place in the realm of Death where they rest and rejuvenate their bodies before they return to their respective spirit realms, awaiting to be summoned again by those who worship them.”

“So Hakkar will return someday? That’s gonna be a headache…”

“It takes years for a Wild God to regenerate so it won’t be like you have to deal with him every month.”

With the portal opened, the group stepped through and returned to Stormwind. There they rented a room to rest after their adventure before continuing their journey together.

A few weeks later, King Varian Wrynn made an announcement to the people of Stormwind which was given by King Magni Bronzebeard to Ironforge and Tyrande Whisperwind to the people of Darnassus, the latter of which was made a quiet affair as she didn’t want Fandral Staghelm to know. The preparations for the war in Silithus were complete and that all able-bodied members of the Alliance were to report there and prepare for the imminent war. They also sent some hunting parties to suppress the known Silithid hives located around Kalimdor.

At the same time, Warchief Thrall made his announcement to the people of Orgrimmar, Lady Sylvanas Windrunner to the Undercity and Chieftain Cairne Bloodhoof to his people atop Thunder Bluff.

The gathered supplies were shipped to the infested desert. The lighter supplies, such as herbs and cloth, were shipped by wyvern or gryphon while the heavier supplies, such as leather and metal, were shipped by zeppelin or boat, the latter of which was shipped by caravan once it crossed the sea.

Every adventurer from the Alliance and Horde prepared for what was coming. Soon the desert will erupt into chaos at the sound of a gong.

Author's Note

The first of many power ups in this story. Those of you who are knowledgeable of the Warcraft universe might have figured out my plans for the Reincarnated 6 by this point. For those Warcraft fans who might question my direction for Flutashe, just remember that Loa are Wild Gods too, even if they follow different practices than the others.

Up next: A 6 part season finale as the Alliance and the Horde attack an abandoned Titan research facility.

Ahn'Qiraj, Part 1: Battle at the Gates

A week had passed since the leaders of the Alliance and Horde made their announcement on the preparations for the coming war in Silithus. The stockpiled resources stored in the cities had dwindled to nothing as they were shipped by various means to the Silithus Desert.

Heeding the warnings of Thanatas and Sophia, Thrall and Varian sent soldiers to the known hives located throughout central and southern Kalimdor. Adventurers and soldiers alike kept a vigilant watch over the hives in the regions of the Barrens, Feralas, Thousand Needles, Tanaris, Un’Goro Crater and the three largest ones in Silithus.

Preparations were complete. All that remained was the spark that would cast half the continent into chaos.

Around the time the announcement was made, Sophia and the reincarnated five made their final preparations for what was to come. They bought non-perishable food and water for their trip into the desert. They checked their armor and weapons to make sure they were in top shape. Bella said her prayers to the Light for the safety of her friends.

Inside the recesses of Mena’s mind, Violetta was brimming with anticipation as her prey would soon be within her reach.

Once they were ready, Stella opened a portal to Tanaris and the group proceeded to the Caverns of Time to meet with Anachronos one last time before the battle. The dragon wished them the best of luck against the innumerable swarm before he bestowed Flutashe with the completed Scepter of the Shifting Sands.

With the Scepter in their possession, the group traveled across the desert to the west. Since Stella had not been to Silithus before, they had no shorter means of reaching their destination and were forced to traverse the desert, fighting off more bandits and desert predators. They also had to crush a few silithid scouts.

The Silithid resembled enormous insects that were slightly larger than people and often appeared in the form of wasps and beetles.

Nearly a day had passed before they reached the western end of the desert. A pair of obelisks with a scarab image carved into them marked a ramp that would take them to the next region: Un’Goro Crater.

The region was a lush jungle that served as a home to various species of dinosaurs along with a few other species such as plant creatures, gorillas, tar monsters, and a number of Titan-made constructs. Mostly dinosaurs populated the region though. There was also a volcano in the center of the region and the local fire elementals roamed that area.

During their travel west, the group discovered a number of colored crystals that appeared to only grow in this region. After examining them, Bella learned that the gems may serve a purpose in the region, but there was no demand for them beyond the crater. They were mostly worthless crystals in the end.

Among the dinosaurs they encountered, there were raptors that were twice their size, dimetrodons, pterrordaxes, stegodons and the wandering colossal devilsaurs. The group took care to avoid as many of these creatures as they could as they needed their energy for the battles ahead.

Another pair of obelisks marked a ramp up and out of the crater and into the fated region of Silithus.

The region had a different feel from Tanaris. Deposits of dark crystal were everywhere and one could almost hear the buzzing of insects from the moment they stepped foot into the region. The common wildlife, aside from the Silithid, was composed of giant spiders, scorpions and sandworms with the occasional roaming earth or air elemental. There was also a Twilight’s Hammer cultist camp north of the road, which made sense since they wanted to be close to one of the Old Gods that they worship.

Ever since the War of the Shifting Sands one thousand years ago, the Cenarion Circle organization had established their headquarters in the center of Silithus. While the members believed that their leader, Fandral Staghelm, was doing what was best for their people, Flutashe could only feel sorry for them as they had no idea of the kind of man that the archdruid had become. Still, they had to report there and join the armies for the coming battle.

Once they reached Cenarion Hold, they beheld something that they never imagined seeing in their lifetimes. Entire platoons of soldiers composed of races of the Alliance and the Horde together. Orcs and humans were side by side practicing their techniques. It was rare to see such a thing since the last time the Alliance and Horde worked together was the Battle of Mount Hyjal.

Inside the hold’s command center, the planning table stood in the center of the room and was surrounded by several individuals. The commander who was put in charge of the united forces was a grizzled old veteran orc named Varok Saurfang. He was respected by both factions for his philosophy to place honor above all else. The others were commanders of the 7th Legion, Stormwind’s special operations regiment, along with a tauren who likely knew the lay of the land.

As Varok and the others discussed strategy, Sophia’s group entered the command center. The guards let them in since they were expected. Hearing the entry of the group, Varok turned his attention to the entrance and smiled slightly. “Ah, you have finally arrived. I have heard a lot about you and your friends from Thanatas.”

“Good things I hope,” Sophia said as she approached the commander. “I take it she is around somewhere?”

“She is, along with that group she had trained. They should be around somewhere.” Varok’s smile quickly dropped as he stared at the map. “Your group and Thanatas’ group will be the assault force on the enemy city once the gates open. If the enemy is as numerous as projected, we will need to wear down their numbers and force them to retreat into the city before a proper assault can be mounted. Thanatas warned us about an army of colossal obsidian constructs called the anubisath, we will need to attack them with caution.” He paused for a moment as he stared at the group. “She also informed me that you have the means of getting this battle started.”

Flutashe pulled out the Scepter of the Shifting Sands and showed it to Varok. “This was given to me by Anachonos. He said that once I strike the gong near the entrance that the gates will open.”

Varok stared at the Scepter for a moment before nodding. “Very well, our forces are as prepared as we can be. Meet up with Thanatas’ group and head to the Scarab Wall. I will rally the troops. When I give the signal, strike the gong.”

Varok sent a few scouts ahead to inform the troops to gather at the base of Cenarion Hold. After half an hour, the soldiers were gathered. Varok moved to a place where he would be seen and heard by the most troops. Everyone waited eagerly for the supreme commander’s long awaited speech.

Varok began, “I am Saurfang, brother of Broxigar. You know me to be the supreme commander of the Might of Kalimdor. An orc, a true orc warrior, wishes for one thing: To die in the glory of battle against a hated enemy. Some of you have fought in battles. Peace has been with us for many years. Many years we sat idle but many years we battled. In those years – where strife, the land, Legion and Scourge sacked our homes, killed our families – these insects dwelled beneath us. Beneath our homes – waiting. Waiting to crush the life from our little ones. To slay all in their path. This they do for their god. And for our gods? We defend, we stand, we show that as one, united, we destroy. Their god will fall. To die today, on this field of battle, is to die an orcish death. To die today is to die for our little ones, our old ones, our…loved ones. Would any of you deny yourselves such a death? Such an honor?”

The desert erupted with cheer as the soldiers raised their weapons, their morale high. Each race represented shouted the name of their leader in declaration of their service.

As the cheers began to die down, Varok Saurfang shouted his marching orders, “ONWARD! TO AHN’QIRAJ!”

The group located Thanatas’ group nearby and walked over to them. “So, are you all ready for your biggest battle yet?” Thanatas asked.

“Yes, this will not be easy,” Bella said. “This enemy has had nearly a thousand years to prepare.”

“They have their great weapons, we have ours,” Lokosh said.

“I wish we got here sooner so I could have had more time to prepare a bug-squishing party,” Mena bemoaned.

“I’m sure it would have been one for the history books,” Flutashe said.

“So, our job be killin’ de leadership and gettin’ de gnome to de ting controllin’ them all?” Farra’jin asked.

“I wish there was a better way to take out C’thun, but this way makes sure the Twilight’s Hammer don’t try to revive him in the event that they have the means to do so,” Stella said.

“Enough discussing strategy, let’s get this over with!” Talia snapped.

“She’s right, it’s time ta give these critters what fer,” Jaqueline declared.

“Let’s get going,” Groun finished.

To speed their travel through the desert, the party borrowed horses from the Cenarion Circle before traveling with the army down the road south to the Scarab wall.

After a half hour of travel, the group arrived near the stone gate of the infested city. The peculiarity of the wall’s design was that it was composed of stone blocks along with stone made into the shape of hexagons. The gate into the city was sealed by a hexagon block held in place by strong roots. Obelisks floated above the left and right sides of the gate.

Aside from the looming gate, the group spotted the infantry and artillery of the factions. The Horde had their catapults while the Alliance had their siege engines, which were gold-colored steam-powered tanks with a gryphon head at the front and large exhaust pipes in the back and a large cannon on top.

Off to the side of the gate was the object that was about to turn the desert into a battlefield. An altar with a set of stairs leading up to a stone structure that held a bronze-colored disc with the inscription of a scarab beetle on it.

The Scarab Gong.

The party moved into position next to the gong and awaited Varok to give the signal. Flutashe pulled out the Scepter of the Shifting Sands and held it in both hands, readying herself and quietly praying that this wasn’t a mistake.

A few minutes later, a flare was fired into the sky, the party figured that that was Saurfang’s signal.

It took every ounce of courage that Flutashe could muster for this. Her thoughts momentarily drifted to her sister, the confidence she radiated, her ability to lead soldiers into battle, her sometimes reckless nature. She knew that she could never fill the shoes that her sister left behind, but she was still inspired to be confident in herself and that confidence had brought her to this moment. She and her friends had faced many hard fights together and she had faith that they would pull through again.

Fully resolved, she lifted the Scepter, prepared herself, and swung at the gong with all her might.

The resulting ringing of the gong resonated throughout the area. The soldiers readied their weapons.

The vines around the sealed gate receded and the stone blocking the gate vanished. For a moment, it seemed like the world had stood still as they awaited the incoming enemy.

A few moments passed before their eagerly awaited enemy arrived. An army of colossal obsidian constructs emerged from the gate and began their attack. The constructs wore white robes and took the shape of anthropomorphic jackals.

Catapults launched waves of flaming rocks at the obsidian colossi while dwarven siege tanks bombarded them with their cannons. The infantry moved in and attempted to chip away at their ankles while dodging their punches and stomps. Dwarven riflemen switched to explosive rounds to blast away at the stone forms while night elven archers fired steel-tipped arrows.

With the battle joined, the ground rumbled. In the distance, a number of massive crystals emerged from the sands. The crystals began radiating a pulse that drove the hives of Silithus into a frenzy, unleashing their numbers upon the area around them. Sophia suspected that the other hives outside of Silithus were also triggered by the crystals.

In the distance, a massive silithid emerged from one of the hives and unleashed a powerful unearthly roar that could be heard for miles. Sophia was sure that she heard at least two more.
This type of silithid was composed of two segments and walked on four legs with two of them free that resemble scythes. They also had huge horns on their heads for gouging. Their heads appeared to make up over half of their overall mass.

Behind the anubisath emerged strange giant creatures that weren’t as tall as the constructs but they looked quite deadly. The creatures resembled humanoid beetles with giant pincers on their right arms with a smaller pair on their left arms. Strangely enough, their arms looked almost human-like. The rest of their bodies were covered in black chitinous armor. Their heads had three curved horns; two on the side pointing forward and one on their foreheads pointing upward.

As the army reassessed the threats, a larger version of the beetle qiraji climbed atop the scarab wall. “Soon you will learn the price of your meddling, mortals… The master is nearly whole, and when he rises, your world will cease!”

Thanatas recognized that qiraji right away. “See that bug on the wall acting like he’s a big shot?” she asked Sophia. “That’s General Rajaxx, we will be dealing with him in the near future. He’s the leader of the Qiraji armies.”

The armies and the party fought and killed anubisath and qiraji alike. Much of the army was crushed by the constucts or by the qiraji gladiators, which was what Thanatas called their type. In return, the armies managed to bring down many of the constructs and bug people. The battle was bloody and even after several hours there was still no clear sign of a victor.

By nine hours after the gates were opened, Sophia got bored. She and her cousin cut down slightly more enemies than the armies were able to accomplish altogether. She also noticed the dark aura around Mena and that her shadow began to boil. It was obvious that Violetta was getting impatient waiting for them to fight enemy after enemy without getting anywhere. It seemed that it was time to bring an end to this and move forward with the attack.

It was time for some shock and awe. Sophia’s eyes glowed blue for a brief moment which sent a signal to unleash her secret weapon against a seemingly endless army.

This was, of course, her own endless army.

All of a sudden, the sand was practically roiling before it almost literally exploded everywhere as countless ferocious-looking creatures emerged from the sands. Their shrill battle cries echoed through the desert. Most of the creatures were four-legged beasts with insect wings, tendrils with claws at the end, horns on the side and armored with thick chitinous armor. Others resembled naga with their lower serpentine body but their arms ended in scythes and their mouths had fanged double jaws and their heads were half the length of their bodies. The armies also spotted huge tick-like creatures that carried ominously glowing sacks that looked ready to rupture at any moment.

The armies of Kalimdor were in complete shock by this turn of events since they hadn’t seen the enemy unleash anything new in nine hours. The hive colossi were still giving the soldiers problems in other places and they had no idea on the status of the hives in the other regions.

As the soldiers felt their morale drop and their situation seemed hopeless, they noticed something very strange: the creatures were attacking the anubisath and qiraji while ignoring the soldiers completely. It was the weirdest thing they had ever seen.

The green-glowing creatures took the place of catapult ammo and made the orc engineers shrug before simply launching them into several constructs. This resulted in the creatures exploding all over the anubisath, releasing a highly caustic substance that ate through their obsidian skin. A couple of the creatures was all that was needed to bring down an anubisath.

The other creatures rushed the qiraji gladiators. The serpentine creatures fired poisonous spines that pierced their armor and infected the flesh beneath. Meanwhile, thousands of the common creatures tore away at their chitin and gouged the flesh. The gladiators fought hard and crushed a few of the creatures but for every few they crushed, double that rushed them.

Soon, the dominance of the hive colossi was challenged when massive, bulky, four-legged creatures with enormous heads and massive, razor-sharp sickle blades on the sides of their heads emerged from the sands. Immediately the colossi and the beasts fought and the bugs soon found themselves being overpowered and their shells cracking from the pressure by the beasts’ blades.

The creatures’ blades soon sliced off the arm appendages of one of the colossi which forced them to try to charge a beast in desperation. The beast decided to meet their charge head on. Unfortunately for the colossus, their build was meant for breaking wooden gates or stone fortifications, the beasts were built for besieging thick metal structures and tearing through them like butter. The colossus found its shell on its head shattering, revealing their massive brain within. The beast capitalized on this and sliced through the gray matter with their blades. A few slashes was all it took for the silithid colossus to collapse.

When the colossi fell, the beasts began attacking the crystals that triggered the hives and shattered them in a few hits. When the crystals fell, the silithid stopped attacking the armies and retreated into their hives.

In the span of an hour, the mysterious creatures had shattered Rajaxx’s armies. The general had also sensed the crystals in the other regions shattering, meaning the tide of battle had completely turned against them.

Knowing that the battle was practically decided, Rajaxx sounded the retreat and called for all of his forces to retreat back into the city. “Retreat! If these curs decide to pursue, they shall do so where our master protects us.”

The armies watched as the remaining anubisath and qiraji retreated behind the wall once again. The battle had been won.

Sophia had the creatures burrow beneath the land and retreat through preplaced dimensional rifts that they used to come to Azeroth. Once the creatures began their retreat, she turned her attention to the party.

“That certainly was exhausting, though those things came at a rather convenient time,” Bella said.

“What’s strange was that I tried to communicate with a few of them but I couldn’t understand them,” Flutashe said.

“Maybe they were from another world?” Mena offered. That thought was quickly rejected by her friends.

“Whatever they were, them critters sure saved our hides,” Jaqueline chuckled.

“They aren’t in Dalaran’s bestiary, that’s for certain,” Stella said.

Of the party, the only ones who knew about those creatures were Sophia, Thanatas and the Horde party. They kept their mouths shut.

“I see you have your own brood now, Sophia. Have you given any thought about custom strains yet?” Sweetie Drops asked through the link.

“Not yet, I’m still experimenting with the hive mind, I want to see how many I could control on my own.”

Sophia could feel Sweetie’s surprise through the link, “Wow, you managed to control all of them on your own and the ones in other regions without a broodmother or an overlord? I knew your power was off the scale, but not that much.”

“It makes me wonder if she could beat you in a fight,” Kerrigan smirked.

While many were curious as to where the creatures went, they had to focus on the matter at hand. They would try to figure out the mystery another time. With the Qiraji invasion brought to a halt, the task of sending in the strike force, being Sophia and Thanatas’ group, would begin tomorrow. Varok had some troops stationed near the gate to watch in case the Qiraji left their city again.

In the meantime, the weary troops returned to Cenarion Hold with the party being provided beds and food. They were provided comfort since they would be given the most difficult part of the operation. They were about to invade a hive of dangerous and powerful insect people who were being led by a terrifying monster that the armies of the Titans failed to vanquish.

Little did they know, as they slept, they were being watched. A great and ancient evil with an eye that saw all looked within one of them and beheld the one who threatened to consume it.

This Huntress of the Void, as it would deem her, would learn the fate of those who would dare to challenge them. They would all soon taste the unfathomable chaos that it would unleash upon the world.

"̵̢̼͖̎D̸̢̥̾͊e̵͇̤͚̹̊̈́ả̴̦͋͝t̶̙̳̥̯͊̒̒ẖ̶͈͈͈͒ ̸̧̛͍̪͂͛̊ỉ̵̫̞̫͗̔́s̷̰̗̥͑̔͜ ̷̮̝̩̟̀́̓c̷̪͍͇̫̑͝͝l̴̮͌̈́̕ô̶͖͚̰͖̏͑s̸̨̩̓̄͜͝é̵̝.̶̱̥̒̊̔̀.̶̥̖̭̗͆͘.̶̖̘͇̊͂"̸̹͎͂͊͆͋

Author's Note

As of posting this chapter, I have finished writing out the last chapter of Season 1, which is part 6 of this arc. This arc will put together the last 2 raid dungeons of Classic that I intend to show (Naxxramas will stay in Season 3).

Next time: The Ruins of Ahn'Qiraj.

Ahn'Qiraj, Part 2: Scarab Terrace

Last night was not as restful as the party would have liked. For the first few hours of their sleep, they felt an oppressive atmosphere bearing down on them. Their dreams were full of horrifying nightmares of sudden death, betrayal by their allies, and other things that would have made them paranoid when they woke up in the morning and made them waste their energy.

That was until a powerful dark force drove away the pressure. The force said one thing before their dreams returned to normal, “̸̨̺̪̠̓̀̀Ȃ̵̛͙̰̑ ̸̧͙͓̭̻̄̃l̸̫̕ī̶̝̗̪̬͕͆̆͌̉ţ̴̦̩̮̖́̑̿t̷̞̣̤̦̀͂͜͠͠l̴͍̓̀̚͠ë̶̞̮̙ ̸̮̈́e̴̢͈̬̬͒̀̆̀̇a̴̮̝̥͋̌g̸̨͉̅͗̈e̶̖͎̭̺͒͂̏̈̚r̷̮̠̍̉͗ ̸̤̈͒ẗ̷̛̮̞́͛̽o̸̬̦̣͇͇͊̔̈́͒͝ ̵̢̲̻̥̄g̷̛̗͙͉͙͌̑͝ę̷̥̟̖̞̅̎̔̀ẗ̷̮̩̥̣́̊̍̑̕ ̸̢͈͛̍̅̊͠ẗ̶̙̻̰͖́̎̚͝h̴̢͓̭͊̋͂̊́i̷͚̱͖͌̋͠n̶̠͔̆͋́̈́g̴̨̟͆̔͗ś̶̮̮̠͎ ̸̱̫̝̼̞͠s̵̜̺̀t̴̫͖̭̭̟̿̌͑͘a̷͓͎̹̠̓̆́r̸̲͚̱̄̍͝ͅt̴̼͗ͅȩ̷͈̬̿d̶͔̼͇͉͗͌̕̚͜,̵̬̿͊̀͊͌ ̶̢̗̰̦͚̈́̓a̶̠͙͆͌̾̚r̷͈̈́ȩ̶̩̞̟̈́́̑̾͜ ̴̝̪͇͔͙͊̃͝y̶̝͓̆̿͝o̵̧͇͔̖͑̍͆ư̵̙͎͕̋̋̄̈?̵͓̮̝̞̳͋͛͒̕͠ ̸̜̪̻́̈̆̕͝P̶̩̈́͆͝͝ȅ̴͉͖̀r̸̳̥̞̋͋̆͒̔h̸̠̣͍̰̭̿̓̂̆̾ȃ̶̝̙̫̂͂͑͝p̸̡̧͚̣̪̏̀̄͌̚s̸̡̲̍̅̐̂ ̴̞͙̣̆̌ͅẙ̶̮̭͖̉̕͝ǫ̸̙̤͓̕ṵ̶̢̬̣̀͐̕͘ ̶̰̖̤͔̑̐̊̆̈́ͅw̵̱͍̠̬̎͋̑͝i̶̺̪̲͈̫̓s̵̨̱̀̏̒h̵̻͎͎͛̄̋͊͜͠ ̷̢̙̜̎͠ṭ̵̼̣͖̍̈́ơ̶͖̯̠͇͑̄͂͠ ̸̧͖̜̯͌̇͗̊̐b̵̤̳͊̾̚͝͝ȅ̸̱͝͝ͅ ̴̠̲̳̄͂̓̄̎͜d̸̮͋è̶̘̹̼͎̮͑v̵̦̦̺̌ő̸̯͑͘ȗ̷̝̣̟̼r̸̩̻͓̱͛̀̈́e̸̮̞͌d̵̢̻͔͘͜ ̶̜̅h̴͙̹̳̟̓̀͒̅͛ė̵͕̻̰̺̺́̊r̸͖̅é̵̯̖̜ ̴̛̠͇̫̘̓͠a̸̢̠͇̟̿́̄̔ṅ̷̜̣͖̦̳̇̽͝ḓ̷̛̘̞̻͉͛͐̃̚ ̷̥̻̝̐̎́ṅ̴̲̠͕͈͒̾̀͘͜o̸̮̼͙̬̊ẅ̸̦̾͒͊͝?̴͕͈̌̎̅͊”̵̰͕̳̱̇̿̏͘͜ The pressure faded completely after that.

Despite the incident, the party still woke up with the energy and focus to accomplish their mission. They made their morning preparations before checking in with Varok Saurfang and letting him know that they were about to set off into the city of Ahn’Qiraj. Varok informed them that he had scouts observing the movements of the three hives in the region and kept him updated on their movements. For the time being, the roads were clear so they had a clear path to the ancient city.

Traveling on horseback, the party arrived at the gates within an hour. The tall, hexagonal gate loomed over them. Beyond them, they would be on their own against the remnants of the Qiraji armies.

The party collectively gulped and took a deep breath and let it out before stepping foot beyond the gate.

Surprisingly, the first area within the city was completely empty of defenders. There was only a small crater in the center and two paths before them. The left path led up a ramp while the right path let up a set of stairs.

Lokosh turned to Thanatas who he figured had knowledge of the layout of the city. “So, which way do we go?”

The death knight placed a couple of fingers under her chin as she thought about which way they should go. She knew that her daughter was getting impatient since they were now in the territory of the Old God, but she also figured that a little warm up would be necessary before they moved against the temple, which was up the stairs. Thanatas had a feeling that they would need it.

She pointed to the path up the ramp. “We continue south into the ruins.” Dealing with Rajaxx was more important right now since he could launch another assault while they attacked the temple.

Going with her decision, the party proceeded up the ramp and south into the city ruins. The next area was mostly empty save for a pair of qiraji gladiators guarding the doorway into the next area. After battling with this type of enemy for ten hours yesterday, these qiraji proved predictable to the ones from before.

Once the gladiators were defeated, the group glanced into the next room to discover something that caught Thanatas off guard. In the timeline she remembered, the next room was supposed to be filled with groups of silithid wasps and a type of qiraji that was not present in yesterday’s battle. Instead of these types of enemies flying around in an almost organized chaotic fashion, they discovered an organized group of qiraji patrolling the area with several gladiators and the aforementioned qiraji type. One of them was a larger qiraji gladiator in bluish gray chitinous armor. Groups of silithid wasps still buzzed around the area.

The group quickly hid behind a wall to avoid being discovered. The party could see the look of confusion on Thanatas’ face which meant that something she had not foreseen had happened.

The death knight quickly tapped into the psychic network hoping to find an explanation. “Twilight, what is going on? The Qiraji are behaving unlike how I remember them. One of General Rajaxx’s officers is patrolling the next room when the remnants of them are supposed to be with the general planning their next move.”

“You can probably blame your cousin for that.” said a voice Thanatas wasn’t expecting.

“Discord? What are you doing here?” Twilight asked. “And what do you mean?”

The draconequus who suddenly appeared in the control room thought for a moment before he detached his head and tail before tossing them into the air. The tail landed on the floor first. “To answer the second question, Little Miss Monty Python Reference gave the evolved termites quite a scare when she unleashed the Swarm on them. It was very entertaining to watch though it had the consequence of forcing their general to recall his officers back to the city to mount a defense against them. Things like this happen when you cause large impressions on the history of the world.

“For your first question, why would I miss out on such a delightfully chaotic event?”

“So this means that things will be a little different from what we know?” Sophia shrugged. “I don’t mind it anyway, a little uncertainty on the battlefield makes things more interesting.”

Despite the minor alterations, Thanatas was still confident that the city still contained what she remembered it containing. “Let’s keep going.”

As they entered the next area and prepared to face the patrols of silithid and qiraji, a deep voice echoed throughout the ruins, “The walls have been breached! Rajaxx, the intruders have entered the Scarab Terrace!”

This was followed by a gravelly yet familiar voice, “Warrant Officer Zod, Lieutenant Jo-rel, intruders are near your positions! Annihilate them!”

The party looked around again. It wasn’t hard to figure that there was another patrol of qiraji nearby if Rajaxx had mentioned two names. They soon spotted the second qiraji patrol to their south but they seemed to be searching the wrong area.

As quickly as they entered the room, however, they were beset upon by a group of silithid wasps. One slammed its body into Groun and knocked him back a few meters, two others delivered a poisonous sting to Bella and Jaqueline with two more having their stingers dodged by Lokosh and Mena.

Bella used her light magic to purify the poison within herself and her fellow human before they engaged the giant wasps. Not only did they have to dodge or block the stingers, but they also had to be careful of the clawed legs.

Dealing with the wasps wasn’t difficult but they were still taken by surprise as nobody saw them coming.

The commotion ended up drawing the attention of the qiraji patrol who quickly moved to attack. “Kneel before me, mortals! Kneel before Zod!” the larger one cried.

The gladiators accompanying Zod had black chitin with a maroon layer covering most of their torsos and legs. However, while the gladiators fought with brute force, the smaller qiraji fought differently. Based on their body shape, they appeared to be female humanoids. They wore black breastplates and navy blue baggy pants with matching sleeves that concealed their hands. A navy blue veil covered most of their faces from the eyes down. While they appeared like a human female, their insect parts were on their feet, hands, head and back. Their feet were alabaster white with two jet black claws for toes, their hands were scythe-like claws that specialized in cleaving flesh, two large clawed appendages grew from their shoulders, thick antennae grew from their heads along with a pair of compound eyes on the sides. Large insect wings grew from their backs to allow them flight.

The female qiraji, which Thanatas called battleguards, were as swift as they looked. They were able to rapidly fly around the battlefield and their attacks were wide so they could slash more than one person. Jaqueline’s swift attacks were barely able to keep up with one battleguard.

One battleguard focused on attacking Jaqueline long enough for Surprise to ambush her with a Shadow Blade spell that sliced her wings off, grounding her. The shock on her face lasted long enough for the warrior to capitalize on the qiraji’s unbalanced state and finish her off.

Sophia had no problems keeping up with the other battleguards. In a split second, she was able to slice off their wings before Talia and Farra’jin set them ablaze one by one. Their clothes only made them burn easier.

Flutashe, Lokosh and Bella protected the party from the onslaught of the gladiators. The orc warrior was able to block the attacks from their large pincers while counterattacking with ax slashes to his legs. Flutashe used the bulk from her bear form to absorb the impacts from her gladiator’s attacks and waited for an opening before she shifted into her anthro cat form, vanished momentarily, and slashed at a weak point in their back before she grabbed them by the shoulders and suplexed them into a stone wall, breaking their armor. Bella pounded and slashed at her gladiator until his shell cracked before she used her swords of light to impale him.

All the while, Thanatas faced Warrant Officer Zod. The qiraji officer wasn’t much tougher than the other gladiators and his combat experience was lacking since she was able to avoid his telegraphed attacks. As the death knight saw the other battles wind down, she decided to stop dodging and used a corrosive rune to run her sword through the gladiator’s chitinous shell and through his heart. His insides dissolved from the magic and he collapsed in a few seconds.

As the battle against the squad began to wind down, more wasps flew in to attack. Stella dealt with this threat herself as she unleashed numerous pillars of fire below the giant insects and incinerated them from inside their shells. Other wasp groups she dealt with by placing traps in the form of rings of frost that froze anyone who entered their small area of effect. Many more wasps ended up frozen solid before she called on earthen spikes with her black essence and shattered them.

Soon the terrace was cleared of insects and the party was able to move forward. They moved south toward a stone structure with a pair of floating obelisks. A set of stairs leading to a lower area was guarded by a pair of gladiators. The lower area featured a pit of sand along with writing land coming from the silithid hive structures and the chitinous tendrils that towered above everything but the tall stone walls.

As the group moved to engage the gladiators, another group of qiraji led by who they assumed was Lieutenant Jo-rel spotted the party and attacked. The party used the same strategy as they used against Zod’s group since the squad had a similar composition. This time, however, Thanatas dealt with most of the battleguards by using her magic to draw them to her before she mortally wounded them with a spinning attack with a disease-ridden blade. Sophia ended up being the one who brutally smashed Jo-rel’s armor with powerful strikes before she channeled psionic lightning into an exposed area and electrocuted the lieutenant like a bug zapper.

As the battle ended, Rajaxx called out to something in the area, “Kurinnaxx, do not allow them to proceed beyond the Scarab Terrace!”

It was then that the sands in the pit shifted until a massive orange silithid with black markings and claws emerged. Its giant front legs looked raised as if used for slashing instead of walking. The remaining four legs were mainly for walking. Its eyes looked small and beady and its chelicerae were black as its claws. The entire length of its body was segmented with its tail forking into what looked like a pincer claw. Overall, it had a slight resemblance to a silverfish.

“What in the Light’s name is that?!” Bella gasped.

“That’s a sand reaver,” Thanatas replied. “It’s a rare species of silithid. They are almost never seen outside of a desert. They are one of the strongest variants, up there with silithid colossi.”

Talia rolled her eyes, “Let me guess, there will be plenty more of these when we attack the temple?”

“When I said they were rare, I meant it. The only other sand reaver that I know of in this city is this one’s brother, Fankriss.”

Kurinnaxx waited patiently for its prey to enter the sand pit. They appeared to be discussing something but that was of no consequence to it. All that mattered was that it was about to get its first meal in a long time that wasn’t another silithid.

A large slitted eyeball floated high above the area observing the intruders. The owner of the eye could see all that went on in Silithus as its power reached the ends of the region. As it gradually regained its power after millennia trapped beneath the land, that reach continued to extend and would spread across Kalimdor in due time. For now, it would observe and decide if the one who challenged it and the others would prove to be a threat.

Lokosh charged in to attack Kurinnaxx. The sand reaver attacked with two of its raised claws which were blocked by his shield only for the pedipalps on its face to swipe at him and knock him back a few meters.

The others began their attacks with Talia, Farra’jin and Stella blasting it with fire. What they weren’t expecting though was one of Kurinnaxx’s legs glowing. The three observed the leg while attacking but failed to pay attention to the piles of sand growing behind each of them. By the time they took notice it was too late and the sand piles burst like bubbles and struck all three of them with sand. Some of the sand ended up in their mouths and made casting impossible until they could spit out the grains. It took them some time to cough up the offending sand.

Often one of Kurinnaxx’s legs would glow, but now that they knew what to expect, the party kept their eyes on the sand around them and moved accordingly whenever they detected nearby shifting piles of sand.

The sand reaver attacked Lokosh relentlessly and struck anyone who got too close to its tail. The party counterattacked with more fire, burning through its segmented armor. Shadow magic weakened the toughness of its armor and assaulted its mind while a certain two-legged cat managed to jump on top of it and rip off one of its segmented plates before she transformed into a snake with arms and bit into its exposed body.

In desperation, Kurinnaxx went into a frenzy and began attacking wildly. It also caused the sand around it to bubble violently which caused sand to be blown all over the area around it. The party kept their distance and continued throwing fire spells at the giant silithid. WIth its body exposed, the fire magic began burning it from the inside out. Jaqueline jumped as high as she could and used the momentum from her fall to deliver a powerful chop from her swords and cut off the end of its tail, reducing its attack options.

Soon, the sand reaver began to combust as the flames from the spellcasters came into contact with flammable substances within its body. Kurinnaxx screeched in agony as the flames ate away at its insides. This lasted two minutes before the sand reaver stopped moving.

The party waited a few minutes to make sure the smoldering insect wasn’t getting up again. During that wait, a bald, shirtless human wearing maroon and black gauntlets, greaves and a black eyepatch along with a squad of night elves approached the group. The human surveyed the trail of corpses along with the burning silithid in front of him before looking at the group.

“I see you all have been busy. I’m Lieutenant General Andorov of the Cenarion Circle, we’re on orders from on high to destroy Rajaxx. Terminate with extreme prejudice if you want to get technical.”

“There’s been a slight complication in that plan, Lieutenant General,” Sophia slowly stated. “It seems after those creatures completely halted the invasion, Rajaxx went deep into the city and left his officers to guard the route to him.”

“All the better I suppose,” Andorov shrugged. “We can root out the entire chain of command as we go so they won’t replace him so easily after we kill him.”

“Welcome aboard then, I guess,” Stella said with clear uncertainty in her voice. She could only hope that they could handle themselves against the Qiraji.

They moved beyond the now charring corpse of Kurinnaxx to continue their exploration of the city. The wall to the south eventually led to an opening to the east which led into the next area, which was occupied by five patrols of qiraji, each led by an officer.

“Captains, Kurinnaxx has failed us. The intruders approach your position!” Rajaxx called out from somewhere. The patrols went on alert and began actively searching for the party. Once they were certain the intruders were nowhere to be seen, the five squads turned their attention to the doorway to the Scarab Terrace.

“Come forth intruders, and face us!” one of the captains called out.

The party and Andorov snuck a glance into the area to determine a plan of attack against the Qiraji captains. It was clear that once one spotted them, the rest would know. The question was: would they all come at once or would they be arrogant enough to come one group at a time.

Andorov gave one last look at the patrolling captains before he turned to the others, a grim look on his face. “If it bleeds, we can kill it.”

Thanatas rolled her eyes at the officer’s words. “Enough with the lines…” she thought to herself. “Let’s just get in there and crush these bugs!”

Everyone soon rushed into the terrace to fight the patrols. The five captains noticed them with only one group charging in while the others stood back and waited their turn. However, the party wasn’t playing that game. Instead, Flutashe and her group engaged the attacking group while Lokosh and the Horde group engaged another squad. Andorov and his elite soldiers engaged the third squad while Thanatas and Sophia each attacked one of the two remaining squads.

Flutashe’s speed in her empowered cat form allowed her to challenge the battleguards in terms of speed but their lack of experience in facing anything like her gave her every opportunity to slash them from every angle. The female qiraji didn’t have time to analyze the druid’s attack pattern before she inflicted deep lacerations and dismemberments upon them.

Her friends fared just as well as Bella faced the gladiators with Jaqueline, Mena and Stella. The dracthyr froze and shattered the captain. Surprise exploited vulnerabilities in the qirajis’ armor and sliced them with shadow blades. Bella struck a qiraji hard enough with a hammer of light that she shattered its carapace before the Light burned the abomination.

On the Horde side, Farra’jin was messing with the winds which interfered with the flight ability of the battleguards and forced them to land to avoid colliding into each other where they had their feet bound in roots that wrapped around their bodies and crushed them. Talia summoned a sayaad who used her demonic magic to seduce the captain into fighting his allies while the warlock focused on burning the other gladiators with fire. Farra’jin’s fire elemental added to the warlock’s attacks while the shaman delivered bolt after bolt of lightning to electrocute the brutes. Once the subordinates were dead, the sayaad had the captain rip his own heart out.

Andorov and his squad proved that they were no slouches in combat as the soldiers easily faced the battleguards and clipped their wings and felled the gladiators. Andorov took out a pair of double-bladed axes and displayed his nimble movements as he attacked the weak points in the captain’s armor before he felled him.

Thanatas and Sophia defeated their squads in seconds with the death knight displaying her skeletal wings and slamming the tips into the ground, casting a spell that caused numerous giant bone spikes to erupt beneath the entire squad and impale them all at once. Sophia needed only one strike as she empowered her right blade to create a ten foot long blade of psionic energy before she completely faded into the shadows. The captain and squad looked around for their target but were unable to locate her. The paranoid qiraji moved into a circular formation to avoid being taken by surprise. This proved futile as the strike came in an instant, with the templar appearing in front of the captain with her back turned and her blade back to normal. The captain thought nothing had happened but was quickly proven wrong as he and his entire squad fell to the ground, their heads and upper torsos severed from the rest of their bodies.

“This cannot be!” Rajaxx yelled as he saw the last of his captains fall. “Moam, devour them; magic and all!”

A gravelly roar resonated nearby just before four centaur-like constructs emerged from a doorway to the west. The constructs were made of obsidian that was roughly cut. From the shape of it, it walked on paws and had a large pair of wings that had a gold color at the tips. A band of bronze was worn on their waists and one of their paws. Their heads bore a feline shape wearing a headdress of similar design.

“This will be interesting…” Thanatas commented. “Looks like we’re about to face some of the Qiraji’s secret weapons.”

“Secret weapons?” Andorov questioned. “That wasn’t in the intel you gave us.”

“I didn’t expect you to come this far with us,” she countered. “Obsidian destroyers are very durable and are known for draining magic from people and the air around them, making them effective against warriors and spellcasters. The mana they draw in accumulates until it exceeds their bodies’ capacity to contain it, then releases it all explosively.”

Once they knew what they were up against, the group planned around the abilities of the black stone creatures. Jaqueline switched to her shield and faced the three of the statue monsters that emerged from the entryway along with Bella and Lokosh. One of them stood back and watched the action. As expected, their weapon strikes hardly damaged their durable skin but the magic from the others was still able to damage them.

The spellcasters felt a pull of their own magical wellsprings as the obsidian destroyers stole some of their magic. As the fight progressed, their stone bodies began to glow dimly. That glow continued to brighten over time. The party knew that they needed to finish them before they accumulated enough to release it all, but they also felt that the destroyers showed no signs of breaking down.

Stella couldn’t risk the destroyers unleashing so much magic and feared that it might kill some of her friends. For that, she called on her blue essence and started draining magic from the statues and accumulating it in her right hand. The constructs didn’t care that they were losing mana since their endless hunger was insatiable anyway, but they did notice the growing concentration of mana coming from the dracthyr and ignored the other fighters in favor of feasting on the growing ball of magic.

The party saw this before in Molten Core so instead of pursuing the obsidian destroyers, they took cover to the side. Stella watched the others and lightly chuckled before she frowned and unleashed the accumulated magic into three bolts of raw arcane energy.

The high thaum blast disintegrated the statues where they stood since they weren’t designed to take in so much magic at once. Smoking scorch marks and obsidian dust remained.

As the smoke cleared, the group looked back at the damage but only for a moment as they spotted the one statue who stood back entering the area.

“Moam shouldn’t be too tough if you can exploit its weakness.” Thanatas said.

It wasn’t hard to exploit Moam’s weakness thanks to Stella. Once the dracthyr realized that the biggest weakness of the obsidian destroyer was the fact that if it couldn’t take in mana, its biggest threat was no longer an issue. Stella took back every drop of magic it tried to steal from the others and prepared to blast it like the others.

Moam hardened its body to defend itself and made it nearly indestructible but that rendered it immobile as well. Using what little magic in the air it could find, Moam created three elemental constructs made of arcane energy. However, those three were quickly drawn into Stella’s growing attack, adding more fuel to the fire.

Adding in her own disintegration beam from her mouth, Stella fired it and the arcane energy at the statue. Moam was obliterated in the blast while chunks of obsidian scattered into the sand around it.

Once Moam was rubble, the party decided to explore the area the obsidian creatures came from. That plan was changed though as a pair of colossal anubisath warriors emerged from the sands and struck the wall with such force that the doorway collapsed, blocking that route.

“Looks like Rajaxx don’t want us goin’ that way,” Jaqueline commented.

“That path was the shortest way to the Watchers’ Terrace where the biggest threat in the ruins resides,” Thanatas said. “There is another way there, but we will have to go through more threats along the way.”

“That’s probably what Rajaxx wants,” Bella said.

“He’s probably stationed his remaining officers along that route,” Flutashe figured.

“Which means we can cripple the military structure of the Qiraji in one fell swoop,” Sophia added.

“Let’s get going, I don’t want to be in this infested city any longer than necessary,” Lokosh said. Farra’jin, Groun and Talia voiced their agreement.

With that, the party proceeded down the only path available to them as they moved deeper into the city.

Ahn'Qiraj, Part 3: The Unscarred

Following the destruction of the obsidian destroyer known as Moam, Rajaxx had ordered the collapse of the passage it came from, forcing the party to take the long way around to reach the general.

The party continued their exploration of the city through an eastern passage which was guarded by a few wasp-like silithid that walked on four legs with two front legs used as arms. Unlike the wasps, these types had stunted wings which made them incapable of flight.

“And here we have the silithid reavers,” Thanatas announced cheerfully. “Also known as battle tanks, these are the soldier class of silithid and make for speedy mounts if trained right.”

“Anything we need to know about them?” Lokosh asked.

“Nothing special, conventional attacks are sufficient to eliminate them.”

The reavers put up some fight using their claws and their ability to quickly burrow underground and ambush unsuspecting prey, but the party was not caught by surprise.

At the end of the corridor, the party entered a huge room that appeared to have been dug into a huge pit. Living silithid hive structures filled much of the area. There were also what appeared to have once been underground stone pipes or tunnels broken and exposed over the pit, possibly a sewer. A massive silithid that looked to have no combat capabilities and a massive abdomen that was larger than its entire body lay at the back of the pit. The party guessed that it was primarily an egg-laying silithid.

At the bottom of the pit were a few eggs that looked ready to hatch that were guarded by a dark blue silithid colossus with red markings and claws. Thanatas smirked as she saw it. “You guys ready to take on your first silithid colossus?” She pointed at it. “That is Buru the Gorger, and your equipment won’t protect you from those claws. Its carapace is pretty hard so you will need to weaken it with the eggs which contain a caustic substance that will do the job.”

A gurgling sound was heard nearby. The party turned their heads to spot a monster made of ooze creeping toward them. The creature looked like it had seen some battle as it had arrows in its body and it was using someone’s skull for a head and someone’s ribs as an imitation spine.

Thanatas didn’t want to waste time with the slime monster so she froze it with frost magic before a thrust from her sword shattered it.

With that distraction taken care of, the party began carefully climbing down into the pit since there appeared to be no path into it from their side. Those who could fly or float did so while Lokosh and Jaqueline nearly fell due to a combination of their heavy armor and the fact that they were climbing down a wall of sand.

Buru sensed a threat to the eggs and quickly spotted the intruders. Slowly, the colossus skittered toward them with its claws at the ready. Lokosh attempted to gain its attention by clanging his shield, but it ignored him in favor of chasing Mena.

Thankfully, the gnome priest sensed the danger and began running for one of the eggs. As the colossus closed in on the gnome, it raised one of its claws to strike while taking care to avoid the egg next to it. Surprise quickly took over and blasted the egg with enough shadow magic to cause it to explode, splashing a green substance on Buru’s face. A silithid drone emerged from the egg but the priest destroyed its newborn mind before it became a threat.

While the colossus was busy wiping the substance off of it, the party watched with anticipation while they waited for it to pick another target to chase. Suddenly, Rajaxx called out from somewhere, “The Hatchery is under attack! Major He’al-ie, Major Pakkon, Major Yeggeth, protect the eggs.” The three majors appeared from the broken sewer pipes and ordered battleguards to swoop in and collect the eggs in the hatchery. The party attempted to stop them from taking the eggs since they were needed to defeat Buru but a group of qiraji gladiators jumped down to distract them. Though they were defeated quickly, the battleguards were able to escape with the eggs at that time.

Thanatas frowned as she saw the last of the eggs get carried away before she stared at the three officers who jumped down beside Buru. “So, your plan was to get the eggs away from the Hatchery so we couldn’t use them against Buru?” Her frown quickly transformed into a smirk. “Clever plan, let me ruin that for you.” She then glanced at the other party members, “Me and Sophia can deal with the silithid ourselves, you three deal with the officers.”

With the plan made, Flutashe, Bella and Lokosh charged in and faced one qiraji each. The rest, save for Stella who dealt with the returning battleguards, attacked the officers.

Buru chose that time to go after Groun. However, Thanatas quickly forced it to change its plans when she hurled a vial at its carapace. The vial shattered and exposed Buru to the substance within. At first it ignored the attack before it felt an intense burning pain spreading across its body. Its shrill, pained roar clued the majors in that something was wrong with the colossus. This distraction cost Yeggeth his life because of Andorov using his axes to tear open an exposed point in his chitinous armor and rupturing a few vital organs.

“I’d say this experiment was a success,” Sophia said.

Thanatas proudly nodded, “Yes, you have impressive knowledge of genetic modification to be able to alter one of my flesh-eating viruses to attack chitinous tissue. It takes incredible precision to pull off what you did.”

Buru continued to struggle with the chitin-eating virus eating away at its armor. The pain made focusing on any one target difficult so it decided to attack the one who infected it in the first place.

As Buru began skittering toward the death knight, the virus ate through the chitin on its head and exposed its brain, which was massive and seemed to take up at least forty percent of its overall body mass. With such a huge weak point revealed, Sophia moved in. She floated above Buru and charged her wrist blades with psionic power. She then performed a dive while she spun toward it like a drill. Blades met brain tissue as she literally tunneled through its cerebral cortex and tore through its brain cells like a runaway blender. The colossus twitched and spasmed as it rapidly lost more of its mental functions from its motor functions to its memory to its consciousness, ending in the destruction of its vital functions.

The majors were not faring any better. Jaqueline exploited the same weakness in Pakkon that Andorov found in Yeggeth and him the same way. He’al-ie ended up getting roasted by Talia and Farra’jin.

Once the guardians were finished, Stella set the egg-laying silithid queen on fire to prevent any further production of eggs from this hive.

With the threats in the area removed, the party proceeded up a ramp, freeze-shattering another slime monster along the way. They crossed another threshold to find an area that was writhing with silithid structures, showing that they were nearing the very heart of the hive.

The area looked the most infested of any other location in the ruins so far, given the large number of silithid in the area. Wasps buzzed around the area in one of three different colors: red, green or white. There was also a species that they hadn’t seen before spraying some disgusting maroon substance that seemed to expand the hive structures in the area. There were also large scorpions and silithid larvae that were over half as large as the other silithid in the area.

The party reeled in disgust at what they saw and Talia considered setting the area on fire but Sophia warned against it as it would block the only path to Rajaxx.

With no other option, the party trekked through the living mass. The silithid reacted aggressively to the intrusion but were incinerated by Talia, Farra’jin and Stella who took care not to hit the hive structures in case they were flammable. Groun’s vines pulled the wasps to the ground where they were crushed.

The corridor ultimately led the party into a larger room that was almost completely living hive matter. Silithid larva crawled all over the area along with several groups of wasps who appeared to be watching over them. To their right was the threshold to the next area which appeared to go up a set of stairs to what may be the highest point in the ruins since they felt sure that they had traveled through the majority of the city by this point, not counting the area that Rajaxx ordered sealed off earlier.

To the party’s left was a tall hive structure that appeared to be some sort of hatchery for wasp type silithid. In front of it was a stone altar that was guarded by an unusually colored wasp hovering over the altar.

This one had a colorful display of red, orange and yellow chitin over most of its body with a black underbelly. It was also shaped a little differently from the silithid wasps. This one had one pair of legs that were thicker and jagged and had a hook on the end while the other pair were thinner and shaped like serrated scythes. Unlike other wasps who had clear or gray wings, this one had an orange coloration to its wings that faded to red at the edges. Its mandibles were also much larger than a regular silithid wasp.

“That’s a rare variant of the silithid wasp,” Thanatas commented. “I’d say they are about as rare as the sand reavers. I like to call them alpha wasps because they are an overall improvement to the regular wasp to the point they are practically an evolved version.

“This one is named Ayamiss the Hunter. It contains a potent paralytic poison in its stinger that can paralyze its prey in an instant. It’s fond of that altar for a reason, it likes to abduct its paralyzed prey and place them on it while the victim awaits their fate by being eaten alive by a larva.”

While the group was observing the alpha wasp, another wasp flew in from behind and abducted Jaqueline. “What the!? Lemme go ya overgrown varmint!” The party pursued the wasp and the warrior but the abductor was able to bring her to Ayamiss before Stella burned its wings with a Fireball.

Before Jaqueline had a chance to get back on her feet to fight the alpha wasp, Ayamiss struck first by stinging her below her ribcage, piercing through the armor and just missing the stomach. The toxin quickly worked its way into her system and paralyzed her. Ayamiss then placed her atop the altar and screeched, calling for a larva to emerge from the ground and feast on the offering.

Thankfully, the others made it to the altar in time for Bella to send the larva flying with a hammer of light. A gust of wind from Farra’jin sent the grub flying back toward them where Talia’s felguard grabbed it, threw it down and crushed it under his foot.

Enraged, Ayamiss called for a swarm of wasps to attack the interlopers while spraying poison at them from its mouth. The party moved out of the way of the poison rain but suffered a few stings from the wasp swarm.

Groun handled the wasps by calling on a predator plant that released a mist into the air that lured the wasps to it. Each wasp that flew too close to it ended up devoured. Every few wasps devoured caused the plant to branch out and another floral maw growing from it. Within a minute, the plant grew enough devouring blooms to eat the entire swarm.

Ayamiss called for more of its swarm to attack but this only served to feed the plant more. Instead, it attacked the plant with globs of caustic poison while it continued to rain poison from
its stinger gland toward the party.

The alpha wasp was so preoccupied fighting the others and the plant that it had briefly forgotten how long the paralysis poison would last. It sensed the danger from the warrior and tried to fly away, only for one of the mouths of the plant to reach it and grab one of its legs. Ayamiss struggled to free itself but took too long as Jaqueline, who had recovered, was jumping from branch to branch to reach the escaping wasp before she severed its abdomen.

The plant was able to finish Ayamiss off by biting into its four legs followed by its head. In a brutal display, the predatory plant pulled back and ripped its limbs and head off before collecting every part of it and consuming them.

After her attack, Jaqueline fell to the ground on her face. She was slow to recover as she struggled to get up. A brief sharp pain in her chest made recovery difficult

Concern showed on Bella’s face, “Darling, are you alright?”

“Ah’m fine,” Jaqueline said, somewhat forcefully. “Still workin’ off the poison, ah guess.”

The party took a few minutes while the warrior recovered. During that time, Sophia and Thanatas listened to Twilight who seemed concerned about something. “Oh no! No, this is bad!”

“What is it, Twilight?” Sweetie asked.

“Ever since we discovered that magical core inside Jaqueline, I’ve been running periodic scans on her vitals. The more she fights, the stronger the core becomes. As the magic grows within her, it places a strain on her body. Without any means of using it, her internal organs will shut down. Most likely she will suffer cardiac arrest.”

“We already knew that the thing was killing her, Twilight,” Lyra recalled. “Why are you panicking now?”

“The poison from that wasp weakened her internal organs. Normally, the poison could be flushed from their system and the body could recover over time, but the core is weakening her body’s ability to do so.” Twilight sighed in resignation before looking to Midnight, “How long would you estimate she has?”

Midnight, being the former program that she was, ran the calculations in her head and came up with the answer a few seconds later. “At the rate she’s going, and taking into account that she will continue fighting without long periods of rest, I estimate that she has about a year at the most, a few months at worst.”

“Isn’t there anything you could do to prevent this from happening, Thanatas?” Twilight begged.

“I could, but something tells me that if I did, I would ruin her destiny which would have a negative impact on Project Ankh. I know where this core originates from and I think it best to let it run its course. Trust me on this one.”

Twilight struggled to find her words as she heard that. It took her a moment to find them. ”Run its course? She’s going to die! What good could come of that?!”

“Fate seems to be guiding these girls down their respective paths for a reason. Fluttershy appears to be gaining power through Wild God blessings. If Applejack’s fate is going where I think it is, she will need my guidance in the future, once the core runs its course.

“I hope you’re right,” Twilight sighed, defeated.

While the psychic conversation was going on, the big question was asked about where the plant had come from. Groun replied that he always had the ability to grow plants in any environment, regardless of species. Of course, Thanatas and Sophia knew that the plant had its Equestrian origins. They figured that he most likely studied the plant during his isolation in the jungle, but they weren’t about to reveal that to the others.

With their curiosity somewhat satisfied, the party proceeded through the next opening and up the stairs. Atop the stairs, they came across another large area. This one was devoid of all hive structures. Massive stone pillars with writing on them that nobody could translate were scattered around the area. A large number of colossal anubisath patrolled the area flanked by a pair of qiraji gladiators. The party also noticed a swarm of qiraji battleguards flying over the area.

Andorov nodded as he observed the area, “Yeah, if Rajaxx is anywhere in this city, it would either be here or the temple.”

Sophia hummed as she rubbed her chin, “Looks like they’ve pulled the last of the city’s defenders to this place. Here’s the plan, Stella, you handle the battleguards. Bring them to the ground if you need assistance.”

Stella nodded, “Got it!”

“Andorov, you and your troops engage any ranked officers in the area.”

“Understood, as long as Rajaxx goes down, how it happens doesn’t matter to me.”

Sophia was glad that the lieutenant general was flexible on the matter. “Glad to hear it, because I’m taking out Rajaxx. The rest of you will focus on the anubisath and gladiators.”

“A good plan…” Thanatas cut in. “However, there is one detail you aren’t aware of. In the back of the area is a unique anubisath construct that was reshaped by his brethren after the War of the Shifting Sands. He’s named Ossirian the Unscarred, famed for being the first anubisath construct to fell a dragon. His new form changed his black-skinned, jackal-headed appearance to a blue-skinned, hawk-headed appearance and had been reclassified as a horusath, since all anubisaths are modeled after jackals and horusaths are modeled after hawks.

“As part of his reward for his efforts in battling the dragons, Ossirian was not only reshaped, but his essence was bound to the crystals buried in the sands in the room, granting him near invulnerability at the cost of being unable to leave this room.”

“I see…” Sophia mused. “Well, since you likely know his weakness, you can handle Ossirian.”

Thanatas shrugged nonchalantly, “Eh, that’s fine.” She then added through the mental link, “If I’m taking the big guy, I need you to be my spotter. When I engage him, the crystals will emerge periodically to empower him before they sink. I need you to pinpoint those crystals for me.”

“Alright, let’s do this!” Sophia declared before the party and Andorov’s group ran into the room.

Rajaxx quickly noticed the intruders and barked orders to his remaining officers, “Colonel Zerran, Brigadier General Pax-lish, Lieutenant General Nokhor, they come for us! This shall be our last stand! Make them bleed!”

With that, Zerran, Pax-lish and Nohkor charged the group. Andorov rushed ahead with his soldiers and engaged the officers. Rajaxx joined the fray but something small grabbed his left arm and he found himself flying into a distant pillar a split second later.

The roaming anubisath and gladiators noticed this and wandered toward their general, only for a roar of challenge from a bear to draw their attention away. Lokosh slammed into a gladiator while a line of flames snaked up one anubisath’s leg and singed its skin slightly, which was not noticeable since its skin was obsidian. Still, the ground soldiers assessed the group as a threat and moved to attack.

The flying battleguards observed the situation but were drawn into battle themselves when a beam of frost froze the wings of some of their number which sent them plummeting toward the sands below. The female qiraji focused their attention on the lone dracthyr and moved to swarm her.

From the small adjacent room, Ossirian observed the sudden battle occurring and became enraged by this. “Sands of the desert, rise and block out the sun!” he cried out. Suddenly, the sky darkened as the city became enveloped in a blinding sandstorm. Numerous dust devils formed in the room which quickly strengthened to become sand tornadoes that blindly drifted around the room.

With his power on display, Ossirian began to move into the room. However, one lone small figure stood in his way. Seeing her as a pest to be crushed, Ossirian raised his foot to stomp on her, only for a giant bone to rise out of the sands and push back the horusath, leaving him off balance and falling on his back.

Thanatas took this opportunity to freeze the entrance to the small room so nobody would see her fight. As Ossirian attempted to get back on his feet, Thanatas began her transformation where she shed her armor and flesh, her bones growing and transforming, becoming more draconic with each second until she became a giant skeletal dragon about Ossirian’s size.

“What manner of creature are you?” Ossirian asked.

Thanatas giggled, as much as she could with her voice deepened as a result of her new form, “It’s ironic how you are the first of C’thun’s constructs to fell a dragon, only to meet your end at the bones of one. I can hear Grakkarond’s cries for vengeance, and he shall have it.”

Meanwhile, Rajaxx got back on his feet after his meeting with a pillar. He rubbed the back of his head wondering what threw him there. His answer quickly came in the form of a blue humanoid rabbit girl before him. Her innocent smile only served to unnerve the qiraji general. “You! Tiny creature, was it you who hurled me into a pillar?”

Sophia tilted her head while maintaining her smile. “Indeed. You may not want to believe this, but I’m probably the one you want to kill the most.”

“And why is that?”

“Remember those creatures who routed your armies and forced you to retreat back into the city? The ones who made those silithid colossi cry for their mommies? You’re looking at the one who controls them; their leader.”

“That was you?!” he roared. “Impudent fool! You face General Rajaxx, leader of the Qiraji armies directly under the Twin Emperors!”

“A good introduction. I suppose, it’s only fair that I give mine. I am Admiral Sophia Craft, leader of many fleets of celestial ships. It seems that this will be a battle of a general versus an admiral. Let’s see if you can entertain me.”

Every inch of the terrace became embroiled in battle as Stella whittled down the battleguards with each attack while skillfully dodging their hidden blades. The majority of the group kept the attention of the anubisath and gladiators while Andorov and his soldiers faced the officers. When sand tornadoes began roaming the area, the party had to take great care not to get caught up in them which diverted their focus.

Sophia toyed with Rajaxx by dodging his slow attacks. Her small and nimble body made avoiding the giant qiraji trivial. She suddenly noticed a crystal rising from the sands in front of Thanatas’ ice block. With pinpoint precision, she calculated the position of the crystal relative to the room. She relayed the location to her cousin which resulted in a series of giant bone spikes bursting from the sand and piercing it in multiple places. The crystal cracked for a second, then shattered.

Thanatas and Ossirian were slugging each other with their fists. Stone splintering bone, bone breaking stone. The bone dragon traded the construct blow for blow. She knew that the crystals would restore his body because of his conditional immortality which was why she didn’t bother using her powers and waited for her cousin to mark the crystals for her.

Stella may have been busy dealing with the female qiraji but once their numbers dwindled, she was able to observe the battlefield. She saw her friends holding their own against the constructs and qiraji. One of Andorov’s soldiers finished off one of the officers. Sophia looked like she was playing around with Rajaxx. Crystals were rising from the sands only for bone spikes to shatter them a moment later.

What the dracthyr wasn’t expecting was the battle happening behind the ice wall. From her aerial position, she saw a giant skeletal dragon duking it out with Ossirian. She could only conclude that Thanatas had a secret dragon form that she wanted to keep hidden from her friends. She decided to file that knowledge for later if the death knight became a problem. After another minute of combat, she froze the last battleguard and hurled her into the stone wall, shattering her.

Andorov used the strength of one of the officers against them by making them overextend. He always wondered why huge creatures were so overconfident that they were prone to mistakes. He tripped one of the officers by knocking one of their legs out from under them and sent them faceplanting into the ground. One final strike from his axes sealed the officer’s fate. His subordinates finished the last officer moments later.

After several minutes of combat, Sophia noticed that the battles were beginning to wind down. Only a few gladiators and a couple of anubisath remained standing. They would fall soon. She noticed that her cousin had shattered quite a few crystals by this point so there couldn’t be many left.

Her battle with Rajaxx proved disappointing as she hoped that the general had more to offer than a lightning strike that would have caused serious harm to most fighters. Sadly, she came to the conclusion that the general had too little diversity in his attacks. It was time to end this.

Dodging another attack, Sophia went on the offensive. She struck Rajaxx’s chest with her knee and cracked his chitin. He was surprised by how much power she put into that but the real surprise was when she ran her hand into his chest and reached for his heart. Before he could respond, the templar pulled away and took his heart with her.

Realizing that he was pretty much dead at this point, Rajaxx made one last cry, “My emperors, I have fallen. The temple is in danger!” He then collapsed and never rose again.

Feeling a little peckish, Sophia decided to eat the qiraji’s heart before she located what she believed to be the last of the crystals. Once she relayed the location and saw it shatter, she held her arms behind her head as she casually strolled around.

Ossirian sensed the disconnect from the crystals he was bound to. He knew that he would die without them. In his desperation to take his opponent with him, the construct blasted her with deadly blasts of sand in an attempt to erode her bones. Thanatas sensed his desperation so she ended the fight quickly by showering the stone construct with globs of highly corrosive chemicals which Ossirian was unable to avoid. He felt his end coming and mourned his failure in his duty to C’thun before he crumbled.

At the same time, the last of the anubisath in the area were felled by the party and the gladiators were in full retreat once they realized that the chain of command had been destroyed. They fled toward the temple.

With Ossirian’s demise, the sands settled somewhat. The tornadoes had subsided but the sandstorm persisted. The party saw the ice wall shatter and melt away, revealing the death knight back in her human form. Stella narrowed her eyes at her, making a note to confront her about that other form later.

The party soon regrouped in the center of the terrace, taking care to avoid stumbling over the crystal shards that littered the field.

“Ah think we need to find shelter from this storm,” Jaqueline said. “It’s gonna be trouble if we have to fight more threats in this.”

Farra’jin set an air totem that produced an air dome that protected them from the storm while they planned. “Dere, now what else is in these ruins dat we need ta worry about?”

“Actually, we’ve pretty much cleared out the ruins of the major threats.” Thanatas said. “The allied forces can move in and secure the city. Beyond here is the reservoir that leads back to the General’s Terrace that was blocked off before. That area was originally guarded by Moam, so there’s no need to explore that area now.”

“In that case, I need to head back and report to Saurfang that we’ve accomplished our mission,” Andorov informed. “Your assistance was greatly appreciated and will be added in my report.” He then turned to his squad. “Men, we’re moving out!” The squad quickly gathered what supplies they had and returned back the way they came from. Andorov gave the party one last bow. He did not envy them for where they would be headed next. He knew that only a fool would enter the temple that housed one of the most malevolent beings on Azeroth.

Before Andorov moved any further, Stella stopped them by stating something they didn’t anticipate. “You all know that I’m a mage, right? I can just create a portal back to the entrance and save you the needless return trek through the ruins.”

Andorov froze. He didn’t want to admit that he failed to take that into account but the red on the shirtless man’s face said it all.

Since the ruins were ready to be secured, Stella prepared a portal to the entrance of the ruins. There was still one path to explore and they knew that it would lead them straight to the eldritch horror that controlled the silithid and the qiraji. Everyone but Thanatas and Sophia knew that they would be lying if they said they weren’t scared. They had to bank on the horror inside Mena’s mind for any chance of seeing tomorrow and this didn’t sit well with them.

Once the portal spell was cast, everyone passed through it and returned to the entrance.

High above the Watcher’s Terrace, a giant phantasmal eyeball observed the battles occurring throughout the ruins of the city. Its armies had been decimated, its minions had been slaughtered. The leader of the Qiraji army had fallen along with one of its strongest constructs.

However, it was not worried. They were but the weaker of its armies. Only its strongest minions were allowed inside the temple. If the fiend inside the gnome intended to come for it, she and her allies would have to face the horrors that resided in its stronghold.

"̷̤̓T̵͎͍̓͐̅h̸͙͉̃̀̚͠ë̷̛̪̻̜̤̱̲̏ȳ̴̡̯͖͉̻̯̃̅̅ ̸̗̥͓͗̒w̵̞͕͔͓͔̰̽î̴̧̛͕͗͒͘͝l̷̛͚͆͜l̸̠̦̹͛ ̶̮̏̔͂̒c̴̳̟̈́̊o̷̗͛m̷̢̹̼̤̱̄̊̋e̶̗̤͈͆̉͛̃̈́̈́.̴̨̮̼̍͑.̴̛̛͇͚̻̬̎͂̋̐.̵̠̩̜̭̣͓͒̾̊̒̚͠ṯ̶͗͑̔̓͘h̵̡̖̰̦̖̆͒͘ë̷̡̬͕̗̖́y̷̼͉͑̔͌̃ ̴̗͈̣̩̈́̈́͑́w̸̨̨̝̱̃i̶̤͈͍̼̰̓͗́͗̀̄l̴̘̪̈͋̂̎ĺ̷̡́̑̽̃ ̵̙͎͙͗̇̓̏̅d̸̮̩̯͙̔͑́̍̑̚͜i̶̝̇̂e̵͈̠̣͗̿͗͌͌.̴̪̅͜ ̸̲͕̇́̄͛̋͑C̵̺̆̓͊h̷̘̜̺̮͍̊à̴̰̤̥͙̍̀ǭ̷̺͝s̸̳̒͛̊͆̕ ̸̛͉̎͊̑͑̀ã̶̘̝͉͈̾͊͂̇n̷͎̽̅͜d̴̰̙̻̞̰̊̀ ̷̼̫͕̦͔̯̀͊͂́̐͂m̶̹̯͠ą̶̗̰̙̥̽̄̆́̊͆d̸̘̤̎̔͌͌͑n̵̻̣̝̓́͆̃͋͝e̵̙̯̗̳͑̓ṣ̸̛̦͎̞̒̈́̄̏̚s̸̝̺̍̀ ̷̨̢̯̓͐̿͐͐͋ḁ̸̦͈̣̒́ȓ̶̟̲͑͗̽̿̂e̷̜͓̥̓͆̈́̌̎ ̵̣̥̀̐̿̓̉a̸̲͕̭͙͌̕l̸̹̼̼͇͙͉̍̅̈l̵͓̬̀̇̓̀͠ ̴̥̹̱̄̓̍́t̴̮͕̦́h̷̫͚́̈́̉ạ̶͒̀̐͊̔t̷͓͆ ̸̨̘̟̲͒̇̑̚a̴̡͈͈͖̟͉͆͐̋̈́̄ẘ̷̻̬̑͊͆͛͑ǎ̶̟i̶̜̤̲͈̥̜̿̔̈̔͝t̴̜̭̫͓̰̀̽͋̕̕͜.̵̨̧̫̭̾̀͛͘"̸̗̓̓͂̿́

The eyeball faded as its owner prepared for battle.

Ahn'Qiraj, Part 4: The Infested Temple

Once they returned to the ruins entrance, the party soon found that the sandstorm conjured by Ossirian continued to rage over a wide area. It was likely that it had enveloped the entire city, at least.

Once everyone emerged from the portal, Andorov and his troops bid them farewell before they left to give their report.

It would be some time before the allied forces would be able to move in and secure the city due to the sandstorm, but they only had so much time to prepare for their assault on the temple. There was no telling when a new wave of qiraji and silithid would be ready for battle.

They decided to take the risk and retreat to the front line near the gates where they spotted a series of tents that served as field command structures and shelter from the storm. Entering the largest one, the command tent, the party soon found Andorov giving his report to Varok Saurfang. He was pleased with the progress in clearing out the ruins but knew that the worst had yet to come.

“Thanks to your efforts, the ruins will soon be secured. The temple is all that remains of Qiraji occupation. No doubt the deadliest threats lie within that structure. Do we have any intel on the layout within?”

“The temple itself is not very large, most of it is used to house the Old God,” Thanatas offered. “Of course, the route to that thing is not so direct. The only way to reach C’thun is to navigate a massive silithid hive beneath the temple that circles back to the objective location. Obviously, the Silithid and Qiraji leadership will be holed up there.”

Varok nodded, “I will leave it up to your group to lead the attack on the temple. Unfortunately, I cannot afford to send in forces to assist because we don’t have enough intel on the Old God.”

“It’s for the best,” Thanatas assured. “Old Gods have countless tentacles that they attack with. They also regenerate rapidly. I’m fairly certain that its reach is vast. Their most dangerous abilities are psychological as they like to get into your heads and turn you psychotic.”

“I see, as strong as our forces are, we are not properly equipped to handle psychological attacks. Get some rest, once the sandstorm subsides you may begin your attack on the temple.”

The party was glad to have this respite to regain their strength. They would need every ounce of it for what was to come.

The sands in the desert settled a few hours later. The Might of Kalimdor army began marching into the ruins of Ahn’Qiraj to secure it and clear it of any lingering insect infestation.

Once they returned to the courtyard beyond the gate, the party advanced west through a doorway and up a series of stairs along a wide corridor. Once they found a threshold at the top of the stairs, they spotted four anubisaths keeping watch over the area along with a single obsidian destroyer.

The destroyer was quickly disposed of when Stella channeled unstable mana into it which detonated and caused it to explode. The anubisaths had a strange power which they discovered during the fight. Each of them fought with one ability. However, when one of them was felled, its soul was fragmented and transferred to the other anubisaths, partially restoring any damage they took. Not only that, but they also gained the abilities of the fallen anubisath. This made dealing with the final one more difficult since it had its own ability in addition to the ones held by the others.

They had to repeat the encounter once again while dealing with two more destroyers, but this time they were being observed by a strange giant qiraji. This one wore a wine-colored robe and had black-spotted, rose-colored, segmented shoulder armor that extended down its arms. Its narrow chest armor looked like a dangling insect with segmented legs and a green jewel. Atop its covered face was a pair of antennae as long as its body. The legs of the qiraji resembled six tarantula legs.

Beside the qiraji were a pair of obsidian destroyers frozen like statues and holding up a pair of scepters. Behind the qiraji was the entrance to the massive structure that served as the stronghold of the Qiraji armies. Atop the entrance was a large-scale replica of the Scarab Gong.

Even though the qiraji clearly noticed them, it still did nothing as if it were confident about something.

Thanatas decided to take this time to talk about the qiraji. “This is the third type of qiraji known as prophets. Unlike gladiators and battleguards, prophets assault your minds. He is known as Skeram, probably the most powerful of the qiraji prophets we will encounter.”

“Which is why you should give up on your suicidal efforts to face my master and rejoice, for the coming darkness shall embrace this world and return it to the way it was always destined to be!” Skeram preached. “My master shall reach all across this world and bring all believers into its embrace!”

Thanatas rolled her eyes and groaned in disgust, “Just watch out for the illusions created by this overgrown pastor.”

As the party moved closer to the prophet, weapons drawn, Skeram shook his head in disappointment. “Are you so eager to die? I will be happy to accommodate you…”

Skeram attacked Lokosh and Jaqueline with his two front legs which left his arms free to cast spells. He struck Talia, Stella and Mena with the concussive force of an Earth Shock spell which Groun was able to heal.

Outnumbered as he was, Skeram knew that the infidels would eventually overwhelm him, despite that he hadn’t used his illusions yet. Alone, he would soon fall.

He was glad that he was never alone.

Suddenly, a giant eyeball manifested and zapped everyone with an eye beam. Thanatas and Sophia were also taken by surprise by the powerful attack from the echo of the Old God’s power. C’thun spoke through the eye, "̴̣̪͆̎͑Ÿ̵͆̋ͅõ̴̢͚̙̮͈̜̒͑̏̓͘ͅu̷̱̙̗̙͎͈͔̽ ̶̨̧̛̺̊͘͜ĉ̸̢̼̲͕̾̏̍̔o̷͉̙̒͐̋̆ͅm̷̺͓͍͍̟͎̞͛̔̿͆e̴̡̪̒̒̈̂̀͗ ̷̺̦̤̔̇͝t̶̛̫̟̱̐̑̽̾̎͝ờ̷̦̥̬̄̾̄͝ ̷̹̟̖̟̿s̷̨̾͌̚͘e̶̡͇̓̄͒̊͘r̴̢̮͍̥̰̓̾͆̌́̆͝ṿ̴̠̹̖̮͕̇e̶̲̦̝̯̗͚͉̊̍̍̃͘,̷̺̱̮̯̈́ͅ ̵͙͉̑͐o̵̲̭̪̺͇̰̖̿͋̀̂̚r̷̗̮̝̙̬̟͆ ̸̘͈̊̏̎̅y̴̡̗̰̬̹̻̏̈͒̋ǫ̸̠̿́͝ú̵͙̻̲̠̼̥̏͗̀̚ͅ ̵̘̞̜̆̈̈́c̷̼̩͖̞̿o̸̢̠͖̅̀̓ḿ̵̧̰̟͉̗̠̯͠e̸͓̗͑̑ ̶̡̛͈̩̳͊̅͋̑̔t̴̲͕̝͋̓ȍ̶̟̈̒̽͝ ̵͔̪̘̜̣̽̿d̵͙̩̥̦̳̓ḯ̵̠̲̙͖͔̓̾̈͘e̴͙͔̬̬̙̪̒.̸͖̦̲͎̿ͅ.̵͔͎̺͐̃̿͠.̶͈̇͌"̷͍̹̆̈̌̂̏̿̔ The voice sounded like someone trying to say something while their body was decaying.

Everyone groaned as they slowly picked themselves up. “Owie…that really hurt!” Mena complained. Groun and Bella worked together to heal everyone’s injuries, but the eye zapped everyone again.

“How are we supposed to take out that overgrown bug if that damn eyeball keeps blastin’ us?” Jaqueline asked.

“The damage is more psychological than physical, I can put up some mental defenses for us, but I need time,” Sophia said.

“I doubt that thing will give you that time,” Thanatas countered, pointing at the eyeball.

The Eye of C’thun charged up another eye beam, preparing to end the fight quickly. As the beam was released, it ended up bouncing off a pitch black dome. Flutashe was the first to notice that black smoke was rising from Mena’s eyes. The smoke began to coalesce until a familiar humanoid figure manifested. C’thun fired another beam at the defender but was countered when Violetta fired a black beam to clash.

As the two beams ended up canceling each other out, a cloud of black smoke formed between the two. The eye failed to notice the creepily-smiling figure flying toward it with her right arm emitting darkness in the form of a blade. In an instant, the phantasmal eyeball was cut in half and vanished, but not before the bits of darkness that emerged from the destroyed eye were drawn to Violetta’s body.

To the eldritch horror, that was hardly a nibble’s worth of the feast that awaited her inside.

Skeram looked up at the scene. He knew what was coming, but he also couldn’t help but wonder how the world would change should his latest prophecy come to pass. If this was the direction the future would take, the void itself would one day tremble in fear before the very creature who sought his master.

The prophet would not go down without a fight though and while he was glad that Violetta stayed out of the fight from this point, it didn’t change anything. He created illusory copies of himself that attacked with the same spells that he used and packed the same punch as his own. However, they were used to fighting multiple powerful enemies and his clones were very flimsy. Even when he created an army of clones, they quickly fell apart to the human warrior’s spinning blade technique and the shaman’s Chain Lightning spell that jumped to several clones and zapped them.

The party quickly found Skeram’s real form and blasted, slashed, bashed and utterly maimed his form until he succumbed to his wounds, his legs giving out on him and his body slumping over but not falling to the ground. The prophet’s eyes closed for the last time.

As the party was cautiously checking the body of the fallen prophet, a malevolent voice invaded their minds. They were uncertain if it was irritated since it was difficult to tell how someone felt through a decaying voice. "̸̨̛̜̯̗̞̟̮Ē̴͈̑́̏͘n̸̰̋̇̅̀͋̐͘t̶͈̭̱͐̍̈́͂͝͠è̸̡͍͗̇̏͗͝r̶̤͓̈̈͒̈́̈́͐͝.̶̘̳̖̎ ̵̞̈͂̃́̈́B̷̧͛̚͝e̵̩̼̮̠͋͛͗́ḫ̵̄̅̓̾̉ǒ̸̬̙̗̒̉͠ļ̸̛̰̌́̉́̀̕d̵͖͋ ̴̺̔͛̉̄̀̅w̵͕̌̊̽ͅh̷̨̧̧̜̫͊̎̒̏͑͘͜ȃ̶̗̱̼̣̻͒͐̀ţ̸̧͈̜͍͋̾ ̶̱̞͕̭̼͊͛̿ľ̸̜̖̺̜̈́̈͊͘͝i̸̲̇ẻ̶͎͈̦̪͇̠s̸͖̋̋̔́̾͠͝ ̸̢̦̝͕͛̀̍̍̉͝b̷̨̢̹͍̰͙͂ë̶̯n̷̜͖͕͙̪̔ẽ̵̺̱̳̣̬̙̓͆̂̂a̷̧̗̦̲̰̝̾͛t̸͔̞̟̬̞̍̃̈̈̾́̚h̸̛͔̬̲̪͙̱̝́͌͠.̵̤̾̀͛͗̄̔"̴̜̭͘

As C’thun said that, the stone doors into the temple slowly parted; half rising, half falling. Looking through the widening opening, the inside appeared intact. The stone blocks were still neatly ordered, though weathered from millennia of sandstorms, with the path leading down several sets of stairs that led deeper into the temple.

As they moved toward the entrance, a draconic roar from above halted their progress. The party looked up to find three dragons: red, green and blue. They came in for a landing in front of the entrance before shifting into their visage forms. The red dragon became a familiar human in red robes, the green dragon became a female night elf dressed in green robes and the blue dragon turned into a female gnome in a blue robe.

"We meet again, champions," the red dragon said.

"Greetings, Vaelastrasz," Stella replied with a slightly bitter tone.

The dragon picked up on the tone and quickly spoke, "I apologize for that time I attacked you, my queen told me about your kind and how Neltharion feared what you would do with nothing to control your wills. If you are an example of what we can expect from the dracthyr, then I can feel confident that his fears are unfounded."

Stella snorted, she knew that she wouldn’t get a proper apology from the dragon so this was probably the best she was going to get.

“Who are your associates?” Bella asked.

He pointed to the night elf first, “This is Vethsera,” then to the gnome, “and this is Andorgos. We were sent here to provide something to hasten your journey through the silithid hive.”

It was then that he and the other two dragons pulled out several strange glowing crystals. Some glowed green, others blue or yellow, one glowed red. Flutashe noticed the shapes of the crystals and remembered one that fell to her feet when she struck the Scarab Gong, except that one was black. For some reason, she felt compelled to take it with her.

“These crystals resonate with a single silithid battle-tank and will force them to obey you,” Vaelan explained. “We did some experimenting before we came here and discovered that they will carry people around Ahn’Qiraj, but they will cower and bury themselves in the sands if they encounter their brethren.”

The dragons then distributed the crystals to everyone except for Thanatas, who could use her skeletal wings to move around faster, and Sophia, who could outrun any silithid. The red crystal was ultimately given to Stella, the dragon possibly hoping the rarity of it might help to mollify her. Flutashe showed that she didn’t need a crystal since the one she found summoned a black silithid battle-tank.

Once the party was ready to move deeper into the temple, Vaelan had one last request for them. “As you may have learned from Anachronos, three dragons entered Ahn’Qiraj to distract the Qiraji during the War of the Shifting Sands. Caelestrasz, Merithra and Arygos disappeared when the Scarab Wall sealed them in along with the Qiraji. Each of them are children of our respective Aspects while Caelestrasz is my brother and Merithra is my cousin. I ask that you please look for them in this place. We searched the ruins but found no sign of them, so we could only conclude that they are in the temple somewhere, dead or alive.”

Stella wasn’t planning on forgiving Vaelan anytime soon, but she did sympathize with him wanting to find his brother again. “Alright, we’ll keep an eye out for them.”

Vaelan faintly smiled at her and gave a slight bow before he and his companions found a nearby empty room where they could rest. The party then proceeded down the stairs.

At the bottom of the stairs, the party saw the beginnings of the silithid hive in the form of organic walls and along with long tendrils along the ground wrapping around a clutch of silithid and qiraji eggs. Several egg sacks dangled from the ceiling. Although it wasn’t the same, the sight did remind Sophia of the inside of a Zerg Hatchery.

In the back of the room, the party spotted two maroon silithid battle-tanks along with a bluish green variant of Skeram. Farra’jin had a bad feeling about the prophet so he set his air totem to grounding magic. His fears were founded a few seconds later when the prophet tried to take control of Talia’s mind but the spell ended up being sent to the totem. The projection of the prophet’s will had also made him vulnerable as Lokosh hacked the qiraji apart with his axes. Talia and Stella burned down the two silithid reavers.

A spined, sand-colored tentacle grabbed Flutashe from behind. She screamed in surprise which turned everyone’s heads to the scene. Lokosh also noticed the look of surprise on Thanatas’ face as if she was not expecting something like this to happen.

As the tentacle began to wrap around the druid in an attempt to crush her, she quickly shifted into her snake form and escaped the tendril’s grasp. Violetta moved in and severed the tentacle from the ground, the severed portion turning into void essence for her to consume.

“What in Light’s name was that?!” Jaqueline demanded.

“That was a tentacle of C’thun…” Thanatas replied, unable to suppress the surprise in her tone. “I didn’t expect it to attack us this early.”

“That was probably my fault, mother,” Violetta said. “My exploration of Blackfathom Deeps, alongside Mena and Flutashe, was where I made my declaration of war against the Old Gods when I devoured their precious pet hydra, Aku’mai. While this act on its own would not have spooked the Old Gods since flesh is irrelevant to them, it’s how I devoured Aku’mai that led to me kicking the proverbial hornet’s nest and it’s why C’thun will try to attack us every step of the way until we reach its main body.”

“Which means you will be assisting us in this place by keeping the Old God off our backs while we deal with its minions,” her mother concluded in a tone that was less drawing of a conclusion and more ordering her daughter to clean up the mess she made.

After exploring the room, they found that the only way forward was through a tunnel of sand and hive matter. Thanatas had everyone call their silithid mounts, which came in the colors of blue, green, yellow, red and black, before she and Sophia began hovering and moving ahead into the tunnel. Everyone quickly followed with Violetta vanishing underground.

The silithid battle-tanks skittered over the soft hive tissue and sand while traveling through a narrow tunnel filled with dangling egg sacs and into a larger area that spiraled downward to a lower level that was occupied by another prophet and three maroon silithid battle-tanks along with a group of light gray battle-tanks. The latter group was a matter of using area-affecting attacks since they carried smaller silithid on their bodies.

It was quickly apparent that the majority of their journey was going to be spent staring at dangling egg sacs and organic hive matter, much to Bella’s disgust.

From the new room, there were two paths they could take. Thanatas indicated that the one at the bottom of the room would lead to a chamber that was occupied by some of the leading members of the Silithid.

Seeing an opportunity to eliminate some of the silithid leaders, the party proceeded into the chamber that was occupied by more groups of prophets and battle-tanks. Thankfully, Sophia had already developed a means of protection from the prophets’ attempts to control their minds and created a mental field to protect the others. Because of this, the groups were easily defeated.

This left the more dangerous group in the room left to deal with: a trio of silithid colossi of different sizes. The smallest was maroon with a black marking on its head, the middle one was blue with the same marking and the largest one was sunset orange with the same marking. The smallest one was spending its energy running around the other two.

“That is the trio of silithid nobility,” Thanatas said. “The smallest one is Vem, he likes to run around and slam into things. The middle one is Princess Yauj, she’s pretty much a silithid priest. The last is Lord Kri, he likes to fling poison around.”

“Focus on the priest first,” Lokosh said.

With their plan set up, Lokosh, Bella and Flutashe charged in. Lokosh slammed his shield on Vem’s face to get his attention while Bella threw a light hammer at Yauj which left Flutashe to shift into her bear form and slash Kri’s face.

To make sure Kri’s poisons didn’t become a problem, Farra’jin set his water totem to cleanse poisons. Jaqueline assisted Lokosh with Vem and the others focused their attacks on Yauj.

As the fighting began, Bella was struck in the back by a tentacle which left a wound for Groun to heal. Violetta severed the tentacle before it could strike again. More tentacles in the form of claws and eye stalks emerged from underground. The tendrils were numerous and the eldritch horror was forced to dash across every inch of the room to sever more tendrils, including slicing the occasional eyeball that appeared in an attempt to fire a deadly beam at someone.

Irritated with the exercise, Violetta placed a hand on the floor and turned the ground black. A moment later, many black tentacles emerged from the ground and wrapped around C’thun’s tentacles before they were crushed and broke into motes of void which sank into the floor to be consumed. She maintained this ability while firing black beams at the illusory eyeballs.

Meanwhile, Surprise used a silencing spell to keep Yauj from healing her allies. Bella moved the colossus away from the other two.

Jaqueline and Lokosh competed against Vem in a charging contest where the two warriors took turns body slamming the colossus and using their weapons to break into his shell. Vem occasionally knocked away one of the warriors who slammed him back.

Flutashe, being a highly versatile druid, was able to weaken the effects of Kri’s poison on her by utilizing her snake form’s resistance to poison. The nimbleness of her feline form allowed her to evade its massive claws.

Yauj went down first when Stella rapidly aged the shell that made up its head using her bronze essence to make it brittle. Bella’s hammer of light shattered the brittle shell and exposed the colossus’ brain, allowing Talia’s felguard to leap up and come down on the gray matter with his ax. Farra’jin summoned shards of earth to further stab the massive organ. Yauj desperately tried to heal itself but another Silence from Surprise ended its last hope.

Vem and Kri sensed Yauj’s death and completely ignored everyone else as they rushed for the colossus’ corpse. Much to the disgust of Bella and Talia, the other two quickly devoured their fallen ally. Feeling refreshed, Vem and Kri continued their attacks. Bella’s group had to wait a little longer after the gruesome scene before they could attack the other two because a swarm of beetles emerged from Yauj’s corpse.

Vem fell next as his carapace buckled under the repeated batterings from the two warriors and began to crack. A slam from Lokosh’s shield shattered the shell and left an opening for Jaqueline to plunge her swords into the silithid’s brain.

Kri sensed his companion’s demise and rushed to devour him, only for him to run into a barricade of bone spikes that suddenly burst from the ground in its path and pointed at it. Given its size, there was too much momentum for him to stop in time and he ended up impaled on the spikes.

Once the last of the trio lost their life, C’thun’s tentacles withdrew and its eye faded away. Violetta allowed the blackened ground to return to normal. The party took that time to rest for a few minutes while they processed what just happened. Talia, despite her undead state, felt a headache coming on. “Great…as if these bugs weren’t bad enough, now we have to deal with a creature with infinite limbs who can attack us anytime in this place,” she complained.

The others ignored her whining and proceeded back into the previous room and slightly up the ramp they came down from to enter a tunnel filled with groups of maroon battle-tanks which were no problem for the party by this point. Of course, some did try to knock some of the party members high into the air and nearly to the top of the high ceiling. The fall would have been especially painful had Mena and Stella not been there to make sure the landings didn’t end that way.

At the end of the tunnel, the party came across a mostly empty chamber. Empty except for a group of qiraji battleguards flying around the chamber at breakneck speed, one was larger than the others. At first, Lokosh figured that they were a simple group of qiraji to be eliminated, but Thanatas warned him otherwise. “The larger of that group is no ordinary battleguard. Sartura is her name and she is one of the most zealous of the qiraji battleguards. She’s pretty much the captain of the Qiraji Royal Guard.”

Once they party attacked Sartura and her entourage, the zealot spouted that they would be judged for defiling the sacred grounds. Her skills and those of her companions mainly amounted to striking with their scythe-like claws under their sleeves and spinning around with their blade arms extended. To make the encounter more interesting, C’thun made a large number of its eye tentacles emerge from the edge of the massive chamber and fire beams at the party from far away.

With each tiny piece of the Old God’s essence that she consumed, Violetta gained more insight on the way C’thun thought. She needed much more essence before she could properly make use of its abilities, but her abilities could still make quick work of the eye stalks. She warned the party to avoid the black areas before she plunged a quarter of the chamber into utter darkness. When light returned to the section, the eyes that were caught in it were gone. She did the same for the rest of the room, which prompted the party to move to avoid suffering the same fate as C’thun’s appendages.

With its tactic thwarted, three Eyes of C’thun appeared and pointed their glares at the party, only for the black zone to appear under them and ended up consumed as well. Violetta quickly found that she got more essence from the phantom eyes than from the tentacles which was fine by her.

The party soon put down the zealous battleguard who proved to be simpler than what most of the enemies in the ruined city threw at them, especially after Sophia sliced off her arms.

“Just how big is this place?” Stella wondered. “We’ve gone pretty deep into this hive, are we even halfway yet?”

“What are you talking about?” Thanatas asked. “This is only the beginning.”

“They may have used the tunnels in this hive to escape under the Scarab wall to establish their own hives,” Flutashe guessed. “Either that or the Wall was only made to keep the Qiraji from escaping, giving the Silithid an opportunity to expand.”

“What else can we expect in this place?” Talia asked. “This is a hive, I would have thought there would be swarms of these vermin crawling around.”

“Funny you should say that…” Thanatas slowly responded. “If you listen closely toward the next tunnel, you will know what I mean.”

Talia and the others did that. It was faint, but they did hear a faint cacophony of chittering, skittering, and screeching. Thanatas continued, “The tunnel ahead is infested with silithid drones and our advance requires going through them.”

“Ah, but that’s not all, mother,” Violetta declared singsongly. “Tell them who lies at the other end of the tunnel…”

Thanatas giggled, “Kurinnaxx has a big brother named Fankriss the Unyielding. He doesn’t have his brother’s talent in playing with the sand, but he does have plenty of friends who help him.”

“Don’t you have anything that can make our journey through the tunnel a little easier?” Bella asked. “We simply don’t have the numbers to deal with so many. And what of this Fankriss? What if he became involved?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” The death knight tossed her one of the crystals that she collected after their encounter with Ossirian. With it being a shard, she wasn’t sure the paladin would receive a clear vision of the future, but perhaps it was for the best as there was too much risk that C’thun might try to attack her mind in the attempt.

Bella did receive glimpses of the future where they tried to force their way into the tunnel, but she saw some of her friends and allies fall during the process and few of them made it through to face Fankriss.

“We can’t force our way through, we need another way,” Bella declared.

Thanatas stared at the paladin for a few moments, narrowing her eyes at her and receiving the same look in return. The death knight shrugged and casually walked toward the entrance. “Good enough for me.”

Once she neared the tunnel, she pulled out a vial of black liquid and tossed it at one of the silithid drones. The vial shattered on its carapace and splashed it and a few nearby drones with a few drops of the stuff. The concoction took hold quickly as the affected began to slow down and their carapaces began to turn black. A moment later, one drone curled up and stopped moving.

That was when the chaos began in the tunnel.

The drones that died from the concoction exploded, splashing nearby drones with its remains. The goo sprayed from the dead drone was contaminated with the mixture that reproduced itself from within the silithid and infected other silithid. The drones had no idea what was happening and ended up spreading the plague throughout the tunnel. Tens became hundreds, then thousands. The chittering cacophony became a splattering symphony as drone after drone exploded and spread the disease.

Upon seeing this, Midnight handed Twilight a waste bin for her to throw up in. She would never get used to the way that Thanatas could so casually dish out death by unleashing such vile diseases. Bella, Stella, Jaqueline, Mena, Lokosh, Farra’jin, and Groun all followed suit as their lunch ended up in the sand. Talia, being a forsaken, lacked the means to actually throw up and just dry heaved instead.

Once that was done, Thanatas tossed another vial in the tunnel that shattered and released a white foam that reacted to the disease by neutralizing it. Within a minute the foam had covered every inch of the tunnel before it ended up being soaked into the sands. Assuring everyone that the tunnel was now safe, she spread her skeletal wings and flew into the tunnel. Reluctantly, everyone else called upon their battle-tank mounts and proceeded to follow.

Traversing the tunnel took a few minutes but they soon made it to the next chamber. This one was occupied by a few drones and the sand reaver in question. The silithid knew that these were the ones who killed his brother and he would wait no longer for his revenge. With a screech, the drones in the room moved to attack along with Fankriss.

Lokosh charged in along with Flutashe who used her cat form to dash from drone to drone, smashing them or ripping their chitin apart.

More drones skittered into the room as the fight progressed along with claw tentacles of different sizes rising from the ground that Violetta had to sever and consume. Talia and Farra’jin proceeded to burn the coming bugs.

Occasionally, worms would emerge from the smaller entrances around the chamber which Jaqueline was able to handle herself as she blocked a bite from one worm with one sword and cut its head off with the other. Groun crushed another worm with some strong roots.

A few eye tentacles would emerge from the ceiling and attack the party from above but were not around long when Violetta fired a black beam that erased them.

It wasn’t long before Sophia jumped onto Fankriss’ back and sliced off his tail, followed by his legs. Lokosh dealt the finishing blow by slamming one of his axes deep into his head.

Once the appendages of C’thun retreated, the party took a small break to regain their strength after what happened and what they saw earlier. While they hoped that some conversation would help them repress the images of what they saw, C’thun decided to mess with them by making the images flash in their heads repeatedly, causing some to repeat what happened earlier. Thankfully, Sophia and Violetta’s mental wards drove off the Old God’s influence.

C’thun was not done with them yet though, it still had a few more minions for them to fight to keep them away from the Qiraji Emperors.

Ahn'Qiraj, Part 5: The Twin Emperors

C’thun began to grow annoyed with the intruders defeating its strongest Qiraji servants one by one. In one day it not only lost its general to command the armies, but it lost Rajaxx’s commanding officers, meaning the rank and file had no commander to lead them anymore. Sartura could have taken over for Rajaxx but she was dead too. Add to that the loss of its horusath champion, Ossirian, its greatest prophet Skeram as well as the majority of the Silithid rulers and the Old God knew that its plans had suffered a colossal setback.

While it could conquer all of Kalimdor on its own, there was no telling when the others would awaken and rouse their armies. Yogg-Saron and its N’raqi minions were the bigger threat since N’Zoth was still the weakest of the four. But C’thun knew better than to underestimate the latter since they were known to be the most clever.

Right now though, its plans were in jeopardy and the Huntress of the Void drew ever closer to it. Each tentacle and eye that it sent at them resulted in their destruction and a sliver of its essence lost. Even if someone were to slay it, it could always restore itself with time, as long as its essence remained. Even Y’shaarj would eventually restore itself despite being slain by the Titan Highfather. However, the Huntress of the Void had the power to consume the essence of itself and its kin and this would mean that all four of them would be in danger as long as she remained.

What’s worse was that her companions were slaughtering the Silithid and Qiraji leadership left and right. The only ones left who could keep this hive’s silithid in line was the wasp princess, Huhuran and the chamber that held the rulers of the Qiraji was not far from where Huhuran was. C’thun knew that if they fell, it would be the only one left who could keep the swarms from falling into disarray.

It still had one last minion it could throw at the invaders before they moved against Huhuran. This one would not be beaten so easily as the others.

In a chamber adjacent to Fankriss’ chamber, its minion dwelled. With a little influence, C’thun took control of the creature and set it to hunt down the intruders. The mindless creature obeyed and creeped toward the exit.

After taking down four dangerous foes so far, the party decided to take a break for a few minutes. While there was concern that C’thun might attack again while they were resting, Violetta assured them that the Old God won’t needlessly throw away its appendages with her around. Each mote of its essence taken from its pieces was progress toward her objective of devouring the whole parasite and it knew that fact.

One of Sophia’s ears perked as she picked up the faint sound of a thick liquid bubbling somewhere. She wasn’t certain if it was a threat or a pool of sludge somewhere so she stayed on alert.

She noticed that the sound was getting louder which made her concerned that something was coming. Her instincts were affirming her suspicions. “Hey Thana, are there any sludge monsters nearby?”

“Just one,” Thanatas responded. She pointed toward a hole that was small enough for people to enter. “A sludge beast named Viscidus makes its lair in a dead end chamber at the end of that passage. We shouldn’t need to face it since it’s not bothering anyone…”

That was when an ooze-covered skull emerged from the hole. Disgusting gurgling sounds could be heard from it as it slowly squeezed its body into the room.

“...unless C’thun decides to take control of it and sick it on us.” Once Viscidus was fully through the hole and inside the room, a large number of C’thun’s tentacles, eyestalks and phantasmal eyes manifested in the room. She shook her head in disappointment. “You’d think it would have learned by now.”

Violetta shrugged and turned the floor black once again, just like back in the chamber with the Qiraji royalty. While the tentacles struggled against Violetta’s black tentacles, the eye stalks and phantasmal eyes attacked them in turn.

While C’thun and Violetta were having another round of battle, the others focused on Viscidus. Lokosh was under pressure as the ooze monster attacked fast and hard. His counterattacks proved ineffective as his ax practically passed through liquid. Jaqueline’s slashes were met with the same result.

“What the Sam Hill is this?” Jaqueline asked. “It’s like we’re tryin’ to fight water!”

Fire spells from Talia and Farra’jin were met with similar results. It was apparent that the creature was completely fireproof.

“We need to try to freeze it!” Stella declared. “Our attacks might be more effective if we solidify its body.” On the inside, Thanatas was glad that the dracthyr figured out the necessary strategy to deal with this creature.

Farra’jin focused on blasting it with Frost Shock spells while Stella bombarded Viscidius with most of the frost spells that she knew. Thanatas began to unleash a harsh chill onto the battlefield. The frost runes on her sword unleashed their power to drop the temperature around the ooze monster.

Viscidus fought back by firing pieces of its poisonous body at everyone which prompted Farra’jin to set his water totem to wash away the toxins. The healers who couldn’t use frost magic focused on dealing with poisons. It also unleashed a cloud of poison around it which prompted Mena to pull Jaqueline and Lokosh away with her Leap of Faith spell before they breathed in too much venom.

The frost magic soon began to take effect as the ooze that composed its body began to grow thicker, the chill turning the green ooze blue. Continued exposure to the cold made movement difficult for Viscidus. It wasn’t long before its body began to solidify and its movements were completely stopped as the chilling magic froze it solid.

It didn’t take any orders from anyone to know that now was the time for smashing. Jaqueline unleashed a series of quick slashes that battered the solid body. Talia’s felguard used all of his strength to unleash a series of heavy blows with his battle ax. Surprise solidified a mass of shadow magic and crashed it against Viscidus’ body.

Their efforts were rewarded as a cracking sound was heard followed by another, and another. Spider web cracks began to appear all over the ooze monster’s body. One final leaping strike from Jaqueline was the final straw as Viscidus shattered. Its body flew all over to the edges of the chamber. Everyone had to hold their arms over their faces or shield themselves to protect themselves from flying chunks of frozen ooze.

As the chunks settled on the edges of the chamber, most of the party thought the fight was over, though they were baffled because C’thun continued sending more of itself at them. Thanatas knew the fight wasn’t over.

The frozen ooze chunks quickly thawed and took life of their own. They began creeping toward the center of the chamber. While the party attacked the miniature oozes, the globs ignored the party and continued their course. Stella quickly realized that they were trying to merge and reform but she wouldn’t allow that if she could help it.

Using her bronze essence, Stella released a temporal pulse that temporarily froze the oozes in time. She called out for the others to finish the oozes off quickly while her magic held. Talia rained fire on a large number of small oozes while Sophia dropped psionic lightning on many more. While the destruction that the group was unleashing appeared to be ineffective, Stella knew that everything they did would hit them all at once the moment time resumed.

Stella’s assessment was correct as once the spell wore off all of the oozes burst and stopped moving. The disappearance of C’thun’s appendages told them that the ooze monster was not getting back up again.

“Ah think we should keep movin’ in case that thing sends somethin’ else after us,” Jaqueline suggested.

“I doubt that C’thun has any more powerful minions to send at us in this area,” Thanatas said. “We’re nearing the leaders of this hive, best to be careful..”

Once they were ready, the party proceeded deeper into the hive. A short tunnel led to a smaller chamber that was occupied by a few giant scorpions who attacked with poisons meant to weaken their attacks. Beyond that was a chamber filled with many groups of silithid wasps accompanied by qiraji battleguards. A shallow pond took up the majority of the chamber.

As the swarm of insects bared down on the party, Sophia quickly grabbed one of the wasps and hurled it into the pond. She then ran after her prey before she quickly finished it by ripping its head off.

The other insects and qiraji noticed the isolated target and flew after what they believed to be easy prey. As the templar lured the insects in, she spun around and splashed water on all of them, making sure there was not a dry one left when she was finished. Once satisfied, she moved for dry land before she unleashed a psionic storm into the pond. The soaked silithid and qiraji ended up picking up the charge and were badly electrocuted. Stunned, the insects fell into the water where Sophia delivered another electrical wave to make sure her makeshift bug zapper left none of them alive.

At this point nobody was surprised that the bunny templar was able to pull off such a stunt, especially after what happened to Eranikus.

The party left the bug barbeque behind and proceeded into the next chamber. This chamber had numerous puddles that appeared in a slightly spiral pattern along with giant honeycombs the size of the giant wasps along the walls. Only one occupant buzzed around the back of the chamber. An alpha wasp that had similar appendages to Ayamiss awaited their arrival. Unlike Ayamiss who had red and yellow chitin, this one had a green and yellow color scheme as well as magenta spots on its wings.

Everyone turned their heads toward Thanatas as a sign that they were waiting for her explanation. “This is the leader of the Vekniss Hive that we have been exploring. C’thun controls the silithid in this hive through Princess Huhuran. Watch out for her poisons and her short temper.”

The fight against the silithid puppet ruler turned out to be easier than Viscidus, though she did still bring her own challenges. Farra’jin’s water totems had no effect on some of the poisons she spat at them which forced Groun to heal through it. Another poison made Mena and Bella fall asleep and received a painful awakening when the totem washed it away.

What made the fight easier though was the fact that C’thun didn’t make any attempts to defend the silithid princess. Violetta wondered about that and could only conclude that it was not willing to needlessly expend more of its essence over a replaceable insect. This conclusion came as a result of her devouring enough of the Old God’s essence to get a feel for how it thought.

During the fight, Groun maintained an herbal soothing cloud around Huhuran to keep her calm while the others attacked her. However, she noticed this and used every ounce of her will to break the hold the cloud had on her to attack ferociously. However, in her blind rage she failed to notice a certain druid in her anthro cat form ready to pounce on her from behind. Taken by surprise, Huhuran tried to shake the druid off but not soon enough to stop her from ripping her wings off to make her fall into a puddle. Farra’jin repeatedly zapped the now soaked princess with his Lightning Bolt spell until she caught fire. With the others’ relentless attacks, the princess soon fell still.

After a short break following their victory against Princess Huhuran, Thanatas warned that while the Silithid would not bother them from this point, C’thun still kept its most dangerous minions up ahead to guard its most valuable assets.

“The tunnel ahead is patrolled by anubisaths, beyond them is the chamber that acts as the seat of power for the Qiraji. The twin emperors, Vek’lor and Vek’nilash, lead the Qiraji in service to their dark master. Vek’lor is a mage and Vek’nilash is a warrior and they have an innate ability that prevents their abilities from harming each other.” Thanatas kept that last part cryptic so they would figure out what she meant.

“So do these two not get along with each other?” Jaqueline asked.

“They get along quite well, actually,” Thanatas replied.

The party figured that they weren’t getting any more answers from the death knight and proceeded into the next tunnel.

The patrolling anubisath constructs proved more formidable than the ones outside the temple. While each of them looked the same, they each had their own set of abilities that kept the party guessing. Some created powerful balls of energy that would have greatly injured them if Sophia hadn’t grabbed them and hurled them back at the constructs, some inflicted a disease on someone that would have led to some unpleasant experiences if Thanatas didn’t already have a cure for it as well as a vaccine to prevent future infections. All of them summoned qiraji gladiators and battleguards to assist them. One attempted to self-destruct to take his enemies with him but Sophia shoved him into another construct and made them destroy each other.

Once the tunnel was cleared, the party found a stone doorway that was too small for the anubisath. Looking inside, the chamber was made of wrought stone that had eroded over the millennia; no sign of hive infestation. The chamber was triangular in shape and was crawling with small beetles and scorpions.

More importantly were the two giant figures at the ends of the chamber kneeling before one of C’thun’s giant phantom eyeballs. The figures were about as tall as the anubisath constructs. Both were faceless with glowing orange eyes and curved horns growing from their backs. They also wore red hoods and red loincloths. Their midsections were unnaturally narrow and their hands featured segmented claws. The clothing featured pauldrons, gauntlets, pants and knee-high boots in purple and orange. Where one of them wore a piece of clothing that featured one of the two colors, the other wore it of the other color. The one on the left wielded a rod while the other wielded a massive sword with a red crystal blade.

Going along with Thanatas’ info, they guessed that the left figure was Emperor Vek’lor and the right figure was Emperor Vek’nilash.

The eyeball turned to stare at the people who had just entered the chamber. The eye turned red for a brief moment but reverted quickly. "̵͎̮̒̊͘D̵͚̯̼͈̓̿̕é̷̥̾̔̓â̷̛͙̤̎̊t̶̺̓͐͗̀h̵̡̞̠͙͗̄͌ ̷͍̔̾̾̚c̸̼͕͈̻͆̔o̵̮̮̭̱̾̌̊m̵͈̐̈͑̏e̸͙͖̐s̵̞̹̳̔̀ ̵̮͙̋̌͐f̶͔́̔̈̑ó̶̩̫̣̗ṛ̵͓̺͗̀ͅ ̷̠̘͊͊̾̇y̴̺͇͔̓̀̔̌o̴̜͚͈̍ų̷͇̫̟̔͐,̷̘͎̘̂͋ ̷̨̮̰̅i̴̡̩̔̌͝ņ̷̣̜͕̾t̴̢̩̝̰͐́͋͝r̸̨͚̲̀͑̃͆ͅǘ̵̱̦͐̄d̵̖̺̥̹̿ē̸̜̃̊r̷̩̱͆̉͂̈s̷̜͎̚!̶̡̛͉̪̭̍"̸̯̝̉͜ it said before it faded.

The twins rose from their kneeling position as they spotted the party. Both laughed condescendingly. “Mortals are mere sacks of meat and flesh, I find it hard to believe that the master fears them so.” Vek’lor said.

“Do not underestimate them, brother,” Vek’nilash warned. “For them to make it this far, the master’s concerns must be well founded.”

“No matter, their journey ends here.”

“Indeed, none can stand before our combined might.”

“They shall experience pain…”

“Oh, so much pain…”

“Come, little ones…”

“The feast of souls begins now…”

The battle began with the twins moving toward the party to get into attack range. Vek’lor moved close enough to begin casting Shadow Bolts at the group. Flutashe attacked Vek’lor while Lokosh attacked Vek’nilash. The others picked a target to fight.

The fight was off to a bad start for the party as Vek’lor’s chitin was so hard that Flutashe’s attacks were doing nothing. Jaqueline’s strikes were the same way. The mage brother didn’t consider them a threat and continued blasting random people with his spells. However, the druid noticed that the emperor staggered when Stella bombarded him with spells, which meant that her attacks were earning his attention. She then looked toward the other side of the room where the others were fighting Vek’nilash. She noticed that Farra’jin and Mena’s spells were bouncing off the warrior brother but Lokosh’s ax was leaving small cuts in the emperor’s body.

The druid’s eyes widened in realization. “That’s why Thanatas said that their attacks couldn’t harm the other, Vek’lor can’t be harmed by physical attacks and Vek’nilash is immune to magic!” she thought. She then called for all spellcasters to attack Vek’lor while she and Jaqueline charged at Vek’nilash.

The fight became more complicated when C’thun conjured more phantasmal eyes that fired beams at the party. Groun was able to heal the ones hit long enough for Violetta to spring into action and blast the eyes. To her disappointment, there was less essence within them than usual which meant that the Old God was not putting in as much effort into creating the appendages than before. It was easy to conclude that C’thun had stopped trying to stop them in favor of conserving its strength for the final battle.

The twins began using new tactics such as swapping places before chasing after their original targets. At the same time the two began casting healing spells on each other. The party was completely taken by surprise by this tactic and it cost them some progress in their efforts to defeat them.

Once the situation was back under control, the twins performed another unexpected action, they began casting spells on the insects in the room which drove them into a frenzy and attacked the party. Flutashe found that she was unable to get the frenzied insects to calm down because of their magics so she had to bash them in her bear form until they fell unconscious. Vek’lor saw the minion’s failure and cast a spell on it to make it continuously bloat. Sophia knew what was coming and acted fast to grab the doomed bug and hurled it at Vek’lor. The emperor’s eyes widened as he took an exploding bug in the face.

The treatment of the insects by the brothers sent Flutashe into a rage. She shifted into her cat form and jumped on Vek’nilash’s right arm and delivered a series of ferocious slashes with her claws that tore into the warrior brother’s chitin. The emperor tried to shake her off but ended up distracted. Jaqueline took advantage of the opportunity to jump up and thrust one sword into his midsection.

Vek’nilash’s howl of pain caused his brother to look toward his brother in horror. “My Brother! No!” Vek’lor ignored his opponents to run over to his brother to heal him. Thanatas quickly put a stop to that idea when she planted a sword into the ground. A circle of blood red runes appeared in the area around them and enclosed herself, the spellcasters and Vek’lor inside.

“I wouldn’t leave the circle if I were you…” Thanatas warned. “This blood arena spell will claim your soul if you leave it before all conflict between the inhabitants is resolved. If you don’t have a soul then your essence will do.”

Vek’lor was halted in his tracks by the spell. He turned to glare at the death knight, a mix of shock and rage in his eyes. He never expected a mortal to know such a powerful spell, but he needed to eliminate her and help his brother quickly.

That never happened. His focus on Thanatas, who was putting on an innocent act, narrowed his perception and was taken by surprise when the other party members bombarded him with many spells and overwhelmed him quickly. A Disintegration Beam to the face from Stella finished him off.

Vek’nilash looked on in despair as he felt his brother’s life essence leave him. He had always shared a life bond with his brother and the death of his brother meant his own as well. He could feel the burning pain of the beam taken by his brother as if he had taken it himself. “Vek’lor, I feel your pain…” Those were his last words before he followed his brother in death.

The party breathed a sigh of relief once the chamber was clear and Violetta had disposed of any remnants of C’thun’s power in the chamber.

“So now that we’ve taken out the bugs and those two, does this mean that we have a clear path to that kuhtooloo or whatever?” Jaqueline asked.

Thanatas ignored the warrior’s butchering of its name and explained, “The Silithid are in disarray, but the Qiraji are not bound by a hive mind. They will continue to do C’thun’s bidding with or without their emperors. Even if they experience a drop in morale, the Old God’s influence would render that moot. We also have to deal with any anubisath and possibly obsidian destroyers on the way. The deadliest of its minions are just ahead.”

Jaqueline, feeling a little cocky, pounded her hand with her fist. “Bring ‘em on!”

Once the group left the chamber through an exit near the entrance, the stone structure gave way to sand and hive matter once more. Scarabs aimlessly crawled around the area which was being patrolled by large groups of gladiators, battleguards and prophets. Sophia’s mental protections would be tested here.

As usual, Lokosh took the lead. He quickly attacked the gladiator of the nearest group which distracted the battleguards long enough for Jaqueline to transfix one of them from behind.

It didn’t take long to finish off that group but they still had to go from one battle to the other dealing with the three qiraji types. Violetta destroyed the minds of many of the prophets along with Surprise. The others were dealt with through their usual tactics.

Beyond the tunnel they found themselves in a relatively small chamber that had a group of qiraji as well as two groups consisting of one anubisath and two obsidian destroyers each.

The party had to act quickly to dispose of the qiraji group since the commotion drew the attention of the construct groups. Lokosh and Flutashe were able to keep the anubisaths busy while the others battled the mana eaters.

Bella, Jaqueline and Farra’jin’s earth elemental guardian fought three of the destroyers while Stella focused on the remaining one. With all four of them gathering mana from the party, Stella had to work fast to steal mana from the constructs to create her destroyer-blasting spell. With four of them draining magic, Stella had her spell ready within seconds. She quickly used it to annihilate her destroyer. She took longer with each destroyer that fell, but that was also one less problem to deal with until the last one was defeated.

By the time the obsidian destroyers were shattered, the spellcasters were running low on mana and would be less effective until they could regain it. Sophia and Thanatas noticed this and decided to quickly end the fight by shattering the two anubisath.

Once the battle was over, the spellcasters spent a few minutes regenerating their mana by drinking some of Stella’s conjured refreshments. Once they were ready to move forward, they moved into the next room which had a few more qiraji patrols and a group of constructs. With fewer obsidian destroyers, Stella had an easier time dealing with them while the others took down the qiraji and the anubisath.

It was in this room where they found that the path forked. To their left was a chamber about the same size as the one the twins occupied, though it appeared empty. To the right, Violetta could sense the void energies growing stronger. She was practically drooling a black substance as she could feel the energies being given off by C’thun’s main body. She started to move toward the source, but a hand on her shoulder from her mother stopped her. “I can sense it, mother. My prey is close.”

“I understand your eagerness to claim your long awaited prize sweetie, but there is still one last obstacle for us to deal with before the long awaited event,” Thanatas looked toward the large chamber to the left. “I’d rather not have a repeat with Viscidus and have that monster that lurks within the other chamber come after us with our backs turned. You have been patient for years, what’s a few more minutes to take care of a giant sandworm?”

Thanatas knew that Ouro the Sandworm wasn’t going to be too difficult to deal with. The creature was colossal, but that was all it really had going for him.

“Or, I personally deal with the sandworm and we get on with the real show,” Violetta countered. She then proceeded into the chamber.

Thanatas facepalmed. She really needed to teach her daughter patience, though she had to wonder if that was possible when her instincts were demanding that she hurry and feed.

“Shouldn’t we assist her with whatever is in that chamber?” Bella asked.

Thanatas snorted, “She can handle the lurking sandworm by herself, but if she wants haste then Sophia can give her that.” A nod to the templar had her going after her younger cousin. “Meanwhile, we deal with the constructs in the next chamber.”

What occurred next happened in the span of two minutes. Most of that was Stella blasting the two obsidian destroyers with the others annihilating the anubisath.

Ouro emerged when it sensed prey nearing it. The worm was taller than anything else they encountered in the hive. Its bright red shell and numerous legs were made of the hardest chitin they had seen, except for the stuff that Sophia reinforced her minions with.

However, despite all that the battle ended within thirty seconds once the worm noticed the horror who entered its mind and damaged it from within. The sandworm cried out in agony which prompted Sophia to begin her assault. Once she was sure the others couldn’t get a clear line of sight of the battle, she switched to her energy blades and severed the surface portion of the worm from the rest of its body in one swift strike. Ouro’s mind was destroyed the instant its head landed on the floor.

By the time the two returned to the group, they were still fighting one destroyer and the anubisath. Once they were defeated, the party took a moment to make sure that everyone was ready to move forward.

It was time. Violetta had waited years for this moment to come. She trembled in anticipation for the imminent battle and the first of four feasts that would allow her to reach her full potential.

Not far away, within a large stone chamber, a mass of flesh, tentacles and eyes gathered all of its power for its last stand. If its fate was to be devoured by the Huntress of the Void, it will make her taste the full brunt of its ancient fury before she does.

Author's Note

Next time: The Season 1 Finale.

I've been debating with myself on whether or not to have all 9 seasons for this story as one large story or to break it up into 9 separate stories. I would appreciate the opinions of those who read this before I post beyond the season 1 finale.

Ahn'Qiraj, Part 6: Chaos and Madness

The hive was quiet. The once thriving primary Silithid hive beneath the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj was riddled with the fallen bodies of its denizens. The seemingly infinite swarm was now reduced to the dangling egg sacs hanging from the ceiling without tenders to care for them upon hatching. Of course, there were the many insects that lit up the hive, but that was their only function.

The Silithid and Qiraji armies had been devastated by a group of adventurers and the meager army at their back. The leaders, including Vek’lor and Vek’nilash, were dead and it had nothing left to put in the way of the Huntress of the Void to keep her from it. Within a day, the plans it had devised over thousands of years were foiled. It would have to wait another generation before it could begin to rebuild the hive, provided it survived the imminent encounter.

If only its N’raqi minions had survived the Usurpers’ onslaught those many millennia ago.

It gathered all of the power it could muster for its last stand. If it was going to be devoured by the Huntress, it wasn’t going down without a fight. The mortals that accompanied her would fall prey to madness and serve it.

Violetta was salivating a black substance. Her prey was within her grasp at last and she sensed nothing else, aside from three non-hostile minds, between herself and C’thun. She was trembling in excitement knowing that she would soon be one step closer to obtaining her true power.

Claiming C’thun’s essence would allow her to be independent of Mena’s mind which protected her from her own madness. Of course, she also had a contract which would take years to fulfill. This was fine by her as she was certain that the priest would encounter the other three Old Gods in time.

With nothing else to impede their progress, the party summoned their silithid battle-tanks using their crystals and rode into the long, narrow tunnel. As they rode, anxiety gripped the party. They knew they were about to face a being that fought in a way that they couldn’t train for. Their minds would be their vulnerability and only Sophia and Violetta could offer them any means of protection from that. The horror they would soon face was what they figured Violetta was capable of and it scared them to think about it.

The tunnel narrowed until they could barely move side by side. Sophia and Thanatas led the way forward while the others formed a line behind them. The tunnel twisted and turned a few more times while ramping upward.

Soon, the sand and hive matter gave way to stone once again and they entered the central area of the temple. The death knight stopped at a corner of the stone corridor which prompted the others to stop. She dismissed her wings while the silithid mounts burrowed underground.

Instead of looking at the group, Thanatas looked around the corner to find three individuals: two night elves and a gnome, all in robes corresponding to the dragonflights she knew they belonged to. These were the three who sacrificed themselves to ensure the Scarab Wall was sealed one thousand years ago.

Thanatas already figured that the Old God, who was likely staring at the three dragons from the central chamber, already knew that they had arrived so there was no point in being secretive.

“Who are you all? How did you get this far into the temple?” the red-robed one asked. Going by Vaelan’s description, the party figured that he was Caelestrasz. They deduced that the gnome was Arygos and the female night elf was Merithra.

“We’re here to put an end to the threat of Ahn’Qiraj once and for all,” Thanatas answered.

“You sound confident, that will be your downfall,” Caelestrasz warned. “C’thun is an entity unlike any you have ever encountered. He strikes at you where you can’t fight back.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ve heard this before,” Violetta dismissed. “Let’s get in there and eat, I’m hungry!”

The dragons gave strange looks to the strange-looking female. Did she really just say that she intended to go into C’thun’s chamber with the intent to eat in there like it was a tavern? They watched as she and the entire party began moving into the Old God’s chamber. Most of them were understandably nervous while others, such as the undead knight, the blue rabbit creature and the black-wearing figure with the writhing hair, showed no fear. They wished that they could help against it, but C’thun’s dark power kept them bound.

What the party saw of the Old God was a massive slitted eyeball with purple sclera and a bright yellow iris. The sclera faded to a sickly green toward the back. The eyeball sat atop a circle of claws that moved around. The eye was surrounded by a circle of eye stalks which stared at the party.

"̵̼̮̈́̀C̵̹̹̝̱̞̫͒o̵̺̪̳̞͂͂̓̕ṃ̷̽͌̔͘ȩ̵̛̛͇̘̱̥́̅̾̍,̸̫͑ ̷̨̰͐̆͛̋̾͜ỳ̵͕̭̰̮̫͆o̵̢̤͈̘̯͛̍̋͑̄͘ū̷̡͓̺̖͍̚r̵̝͙͖̾̉͋͜ ̴̟̚d̷̤̖̺̾̓e̸̖͈̞͈͎͂̔a̴̱͙̽͌̑t̵̗͔̐̆͝h̷͍͙̝͕̣͎͘s̵̹̽̆̑ ̸̬̙̤͎͇̒̑͠ẉ̷̫̓̀̎̓ͅi̸̹̘̝͉̽̈́̾̈l̸̡̦̭̞̭͆̄͗̀͛͑l̶̞̻̥̫͎̺͆̅̓ ̴̛̜̗͍̓̈́͒͛b̵̡͓̟̻̙͈̓̊̅͒e̴̢͍̣͉̻̗̓̄̐ ̵̨̝͉̹͂̈́͒͑͋̿s̶̩̝̊̐̿̓̎͋͜l̶͍̥̳̘̼̿o̷̘̰͗̇̌́̀w̶͇͌́͋͆̈́.̷̡̛̑̑.̵̹̉́̾̅.̷̖̳̟̗̝̤͐̆͝͝͝"̶̟̞̻̯̱͎̈́̇̒̈́̇͠ it said.

Violetta frowned. She could tell that C’thun was concealing its main body in one last attempt to keep her from devouring it. She would force it out of hiding.

The rest of the party charged in and began attacking the eye stalks which began firing beams that harmed their minds but was still healable since it wasn’t psychological damage. The giant eye began firing beams that jumped from Jaqueline to Talia who was nearby, injuring both of them. Groun and Bella were able to heal their injuries.

Lokosh found that C’thun paid no special attention to anyone so he changed tactics to attacking the tentacles.

Each tentacle that fell bled more of the Old God’s essence which was taken by Violetta who used the chaos of the battle to begin channeling a large amount of void energy to prepare an attack.

C’thun was also preparing something big as well and needed its enemies to stand still while it was using it. The Old God then began to use its power to pierce through Sophia’s mental defenses and attack the party’s minds.

It was mostly successful but the templar’s mind was too strong to pierce. The Huntress had the most powerful mental barriers it had ever experienced and found piercing that to be futile. That protection extended to the undead in plate armor. It was a curious thing, but there was nothing it could do about that.

It was able to get into the minds of the other party members and discovered some interesting things. While the night elf druid and the human paladin didn’t have anything noteworthy in their minds, the others were another story.

From the gnome, it discovered that her mind was fractured by the void energies coursing through her. It could have taken advantage of such a thing if it didn’t notice the trap the Huntress set that would have ripped its essence from it.

It was amusing that N’Zoth’s pet dragon had created pets of his own. Even more amusing was that he became so scared of his own creations that he locked them away in stasis. There wasn’t much it could do with that info, but if it ever saw its fellow Old God again, it would derive some amusement by making fun of the fact that their pet was a coward.

C’thun discovered that the human warrior had some dark power within her that didn’t belong on this side of the Veil and it was slowly tearing her apart. It knew that her fate was unavoidable at this point.

With an amused tone, despite that it all sounds like a decaying zombie trying to speak, it foretold her future with one phrase, "̸̡͖̲̺͑̐̅͘̕̕Y̴͔͈̤̭͚͑̇̚ơ̵̫̬̳̒͑û̴͎́̓r̵̰̝̘̰̯͐͘ ̵̛͔̬͔̰̓h̶̞͇̒͜ė̷̻̬̂̆ä̵͚̭́́͘r̴̡͔͖̈́͐̆͊͘͠t̶̖́̏̿̑͐̔ ̵̖̜̞͍͌̊̽͒ŵ̵̻͔̹̻̈́̓̅i̸͉̮̔̚l̸͖̈l̶̝̣͉̇̑͆ ̴͔̤̮͕͒̿̐̓͜ͅe̶̱̗̬͉̩͐̈́̉̚͝͠x̷̰͌̀͗p̶͖̻̯̾͐͂̽̇͠l̴͉̅̓̏̎̎o̷͈̪̱͂d̸̳̩͙̋̑̂̈́͋̀ę̷͖̦̋͌.̷̘͐̆̂̍.̷̧̺̬͑̀̃͜.̶͚̘̅̓͂͋̍"̷͉͚̓͒̓̌̕͝

“Argh, get outta mah head, ya freak of nature!” Jaqueline growled as she clutched at her head.

C’thun chuckled as it heeded her request, if only because it had seen all that needed to be seen of the warrior.

It was the others that possessed information that piqued its interest. The orc, tauren, troll and forsaken held memories that didn’t match their bodies. It was certain that the minds possessing these four were not of this world. In fact, if it was interpreting the information right, these four were not of this universe. It could see their true forms through their memories. Their universe was created and administered by a race of colorful equine creatures? Very interesting indeed.

Even more interesting was the master whom the four served. The one called Crystal Silicon greatly feared her master while the others were kept oblivious to his true nature. Even though it was a memory, C’thun could sense the ancient malevolence emanating from her master. There was more to their little mission than what their master let on.

Sophia realized too late the information leak that had just occurred. Her eyes widened in horror as she opened the link to the Sphere employees. “This is bad! Very bad! I couldn’t stop C’thun from reading the minds of the ELF members, the nature of the Eternal Sphere is compromised!”

“WHAT?!” Twilight mentally screeched. “We need to stem the leak before it spreads. We can’t allow the denizens of this world to know about the Eternal Sphere, there would be a mass panic and everything will be ruined!” Twilight began to hyperventilate as many bad scenarios began to play out in her head. Sophia cut her off from the link temporarily because nobody wanted to see these scenarios play out in their heads and because this was not the time for indulging in fantasies.

“For now, we need Violetta to absorb C’thun into herself as soon as possible before it decides to leak the info to the reincarnated,” Sweetie Drops offered. “Chances are the Old God may already be trying to send the info out to Yogg-Saron and N’Zoth.”

“Are you sure, Bonnie?” Lyra asked.

“I’ve read the report on these things Lyra, they are rooted so deep into the planet that I wouldn’t be surprised if their combined reach extended across the known world.”

C’thun turned its eye to stare at Violetta. The party began to notice that the eye was slowly turning red. Thanatas knew what that meant so she yelled at the others, “Move out of its sight, quickly!”

At the same time, Violetta was ready to unleash her own attack as C’thun finished charging its attack. The two unleashed their attacks at the same time, resulting in a beam clash. The collision of red and black filled the chamber with an eerie light.

The party decided to distract themselves from the dark display by attacking the numerous eyestalks and claw tentacles around the Old God. Each severed tentacle continued to give a tiny amount of power to Violetta who continued to struggle against C’thun’s eye beam.

It was then that Thanatas said something to her daughter that surprised everyone in the chamber. “Quit playing with your food, young lady. We don’t have time to mess around anymore.” Even more surprising was her daughter pouting as if her mother had just spoiled her fun.

Violetta then summoned a number of tentacles around C’thun with fanged maws that began to devour the ocular organ, consuming it piece by piece. The Old God was forced to abandon its attack with its main weapon now under attack. Of course, with the other tentacles under attack, it couldn’t defend itself.

Having no other option left, the eye withdrew into the circle of claws around itself which began to stretch outward and point upward, becoming a ring of teeth. To Violetta’s excitement, C’thun’s main body emerged from the ground.

The main body was a bulbous mass of light gray flesh with smaller tentacles around its body along with purple, horizontally slitted eyes with yellow irises. There were also fanged mouths around the base of the body along with larger tentacles in between each mouth.

"̵̢̤͇̤̟́̚Y̵̯̰̹̩̽̿ō̵̼̣ͅů̴̧̡͔͈̎͐̊̈r̸̠͍͋̇͌ ̴̟̯́͆̚͠m̵̺̤̃̆ą̵̟̫̂̉͝͠s̷̻̮͑͒͝ẗ̴͚̩̟e̶̛̪͔̘̼͜r̴̛̰̹͂̆s̶̘̯̱͂̏̿ ̶̨͋̈́ẉ̸̢̺̘̪̌̈̀͝i̴̮̾̆l̸̰̦̙̈́͗̀̈́́͜l̵͔̳̣͈̘̑̕͠ ̵̳̀̈́̕n̷̨͖͍͋̉̂ō̴̪̇t̵͕̞͔͒̈͆̅͠ ̸͎͆ş̷̧͎̍̋̐̿̓a̶͙̭͔̋͛̔v̸̜͚̙̚ē̸̖̾̈̀̕ ̴̥̱̟̿̇̈̒̕y̷̳͔̦̹̥͒̄̽̉̒ơ̸͍͔̻͛̀u̵͉̮̖̤̇.̵̡̲̏͋̇,"̶̨̄̏̚ C’thun said.

"̷͕̓W̶̢̬̭̱͛ͅo̴͈̹̍̆̀͠ř̷̡͈̭͈͉r̴̰͈͛͝͠y̴̮̹͉̖̬͆̒͆ ̶̛̣̝̯̪͉̔͛̎a̴̟̒̂̈́͜͠͠ḃ̸̡͓̤̗ơ̶̻͍̮̯͐̈́ȗ̷̢̼̜̲̄͂t̶͚̀͑̀̀ ̴̞̠̖̓͒y̴͕̘̓̍͘o̶͈̜͋͝͠u̷͇̖͑͊͌̚r̷̛̩̝̠̞̼̔̈͘ ̴͎̹̜͆͆́͗ö̶̟͎̲͔̮́ẅ̶̗͈͒͛̋n̴̩̘̝͙̐̾͘ ̷̳̾̄̌̈́e̸̜͙̥͌ń̸̘͈͎̭͜d̷͈̓̑̒͑a̶̼̪͈̯̅̅̊̿ͅn̴̰̯̣̍́g̶̥̳̬̫̔͗͑ͅe̶̡̙̫͕̖͂͛̋̀͠r̴̰̤̩͗͑e̴̙͓͊d̴̢̞͖́ ̸̨͇̲̝̄̏͒̔͜͠h̵̺̖̼̪̙̋́̊ì̴̡͍͈̐̅ḏ̴͚̺̈́̒̃̍e̵͚͓̽̈́,̶̲̈́̇͜͝"̵̺͑ Violetta countered.

The battle resumed with C’thun firing beams from the eyes around its body which were barely dodged or barely blocked by shields which ended up shattering against the powerful force as it faded. The party retaliated against the Old God, but it quickly became apparent that their best spells didn’t even faze it. Their time soon became occupied when a number of giant claw and eye tentacles emerged from the ground and forced the party to focus on them.

Sophia and Thanatas also discovered that their attacks were not working as it appeared that the horror’s carapace was nigh invulnerable, rivaling the armor of Sophia’s toughest minions. Both had ways of piercing its shell, but not without potentially causing the chamber to collapse on them and the others.

Not long into the battle, C’thun decided to rid itself of the nuisances that were destroying its tentacles by causing its own mouth tentacles to rise from beneath each of them. In an instant, everyone except Sophia, Thanatas and Violetta ended up on a trip through the Old God’s digestive system.

Thanatas and Sophia were a little distracted as they had to listen to Twilight panicking that all of her friends were just eaten alive. The death knight could only hope that the victims could figure out what they needed to do now.

Inside C’thun, everyone who was eaten suffered a brief slide through the narrow, slimy tentacles. Each was thankful that the Old God didn’t know how to chew its food, though this didn’t change their situation.

Their little luge soon ended as they all fell into a chamber filled with a smelly, green liquid.

“That was fun! Let’s do it again!” Mena remarked.

“I’d rather pass, darling,” Bella said.

“Are we really in the stomach of this thing?” Stella wondered.

“It certainly looks that way,” Lokosh added.

“How about we discuss something useful, like finding a way out of here before we end up digested,” Talia snarked.

Sure enough, the party could feel the stomach acid begin to burn through their armor and it wouldn’t be long before things would turn ugly.

Aside from the pond of acid at their ankles and the caustic fumes in the air, the inside of C’thun’s stomach seemed almost as large as its whole body. What appeared to be a black stone platform stood at the opposite end of the stomach guarded by a pair of tentacles. Farra’jin looked up and spotted a hole in the ceiling just above the stone slab.

“Maybe if we triggah de gag reflex we might be able ta use de slab ta get out.”

“How are we gonna do that?” Jaqueline inquired.

“Perhaps if we attack those tentacles, we might trigger the reflex,” Flutashe guessed.

“Worth a shot,” Groun said.

With their plan made, the party began attacking the tentacles while the spellcasters positioned themselves on the slab and fired spell after spell at the tendrils. Once the tentacles were mangled until they stopped moving, the stomach began to rumble and the spellcasters could sense something rising from below. Acting quickly, the melee-oriented members of the group joined the others with everyone holding each other tightly. Within moments, they found their platform flying into the air and out the hole.

The party emerged from the fanged maw atop the Old God and flew off in different directions, some landed hard on the floor while others who could stop or slow their falls acted quickly to do so.

C’thun groaned as it suffered a painful stomach ache. Its eyes were unfocused and its skin had taken on a deep purple color.

Violetta sensed its weakness, she knew that it was time to strike. She knew it was the chance she was waiting for. She was not going to get another chance like this again.

It was dinner time.

Summoning her mouth tentacles once more, Violetta had each of them rip its eyeballs out from its sockets before reaching inside and pulling on the Old God’s essence. Each tentacle took big gulps as they drained the mass of flesh dry. Each gulp greatly added to Violetta’s power and already she could feel the consciousness of the Old God within her as the first of four prison cells within her mindscape was being filled. The rush of void energies was ecstasy for her. She began holding herself as she was overcome with a feeling of pure bliss. The malevolence she felt only added spice to her meal.

C’thun’s body began to wither as the tentacles continued to drain it of the essence of the Old God. The fleshy exterior was nothing more than a vessel meant to protect the true fiend within from the weakness that the universe itself imposed on all beings who existed outside of it. Violetta was an exception to this rule.

Within a few minutes, C’thun’s body was reduced to a dried, withered husk. For the first time in her life, Violetta felt satisfied with her meal. Though the hunger had not completely disappeared, it was now much more bearable.

C’thun’s malevolent aura in the room began to fade which was soon replaced by Violetta’s ominous aura.

Violetta spent the next few minutes testing out her new powers. She created an eye and found that she could witness everything the eye saw. This was followed up with multiple eyes which flew out through a window just outside the chamber. She could see everything that went on outside the temple from the perspective of each eye, including every soldier that was securing the ruins simultaneously. She would need to enhance her brain in order to increase the limit of information that she could take in at once, and there was one Old God who could give her that capability.

She then looked at the three surprised dragons in the corridor outside who had witnessed the battle and the consumption of the fiend who controlled the Qiraji. Her hand radiated darkness for a moment before the bindings on the trio came undone. “There, you’re free to go home. Now get lost,” she said casually with a shooing motion of her hand.

Caelestrasz looked like he wanted to fight while Merithra appeared confused. Arygos was in shock from what happened. “You took C’thun’s power into yourself, how can we be certain that that thing becoming a part of you isn’t the same thing as it running free?” Caelestrasz asked.

“I hope you’re not planning to pick a fight with me. What would your brother say if he found out that his brother needlessly lost his life fighting a pointless battle when his adversary was giving him a chance to walk away?” Violetta countered with a dramatic flair. “Seriously, don’t pick a fight you can’t win. You’re just like your brother in that regard. He even came to these ruins to find you. If I were you, I wouldn’t keep him waiting any longer.”

The red dragon narrowed his eyes at her, “I am not foolish enough to turn my back to you, monster…”

Violetta rolled her eyes, “This conversation bores me, let’s get out of here.”

Hesitantly, Stella begins opening a portal to the camp outside the ruins. Caelestrasz didn’t want the fiend to escape from the temple so he began channeling a powerful fireball to stop the mage only for a wall of ice to rise and block the entrance to the chamber. The spell left a small dent in the ice wall.

As the party left through the portal, Violetta kneeled down to Mena and moved her head closer to the gnome’s ear. “You’re going to need a more powerful source of light magic if you plan to wield stronger powers of the void safely,” she whispered before she faded back into Mena’s mindscape.

Once back at the camp, the party gave the good news to Varok Saurfang who cheered uproariously. The soldiers cheered in turn as the Might of Kalimdor had claimed victory in the second War of the Shifting Sands. With C’thun gone, the ruins of Ahn’Qiraj would soon become an archaeological hot spot for the Explorer’s League, the Alliance’s premier archaeological company. Of course, they still had to take care of the Silithid infestation.

By the time night fell, Cenarion Hold was filled with revelry as the dwarves busted open the kegs of ale and most of the soldiers who were off duty ended up completely smashed. Laughter and merriment could be heard for miles around. Many of them tried showing off their dance moves which looked silly while they were drunk. The party lasted well into the night.

When the next day dawned, the soldiers were fighting hangovers while Stella, Bella, Mena, Flutashe, Jaqueline and Sophia, none of whom drank too much, prepared to head back to Stormwind. Stella opened a portal to Stormwind and the Alliance group said their goodbyes to the Horde group and entered the portal.

Back home, the group knew that it was time for them to go their separate ways. With all of the imminent threats in the world defeated for the time being, it was time for them to get back to their own lives.

Flutashe returned to Darnassus to work with Tyrande on undermining Fandral Staghelm’s authority over their people. Until they found proof of his treachery, this was all they could do for now.

Bella had recently discovered that the market for magical gems was on the rise and she knew that the Cartier name would be at the forefront of this wave. She began buying the necessary equipment to expand her repertoire into this new market.

Mena spent some time honing her power to channel the Light at Stormwind’s Cathedral of Light where the priests and paladins there were especially helpful with their lessons.

Stella returned to Dalaran to give her final report on her assignment. Rhonin was pleased with her initiative and her adaptive thinking. He was surprised when he learned that she was a winged humanoid dragon but this didn’t affect their bond as master and student, or at least former student since she was ready to be a full agent of the Kirin Tor.

Jaqueline spent her time training at SI:7 headquarters to hone her fighting skills while considering her next move. She had heard that her little sister, Blossom Pomerton, had taken up an apprenticeship under the royal gardener at Stormwind Keep. Jaqueline chuckled when she heard that she had also become friends with Prince Anduin.

Sophia finally began her mission of earning the trust of the Alliance leadership through conversations with King Varian. The two of them shared tales of their adventures and quickly became friends. She would need to spend time with the other leaders, though Thanatas also warned her that another race would join the Alliance in the near future.

Although everyone had gone their separate ways for now, new adventures were just over the horizon and new dangers would soon rise.

End of Season 1

Author's Note

As is said at the end, we have reached the end of Season 1. There will be an interlude chapter to set things up for Season 2 where we delve into Outland. We introduce two new characters and increase the total raid size to 12 (including Sophia and Thanatas).

The Invasion of Outland

Azeroth had entered its twenty-sixth year since the infamous event that brought the Orcish Horde to Azeroth. The previous year was eventful with violence and uprisings in the City of Stormwind which were brought to an end along with a conspiracy by the Black Dragonflight to claim the city and its people for themselves.

The Horde, under Thrall’s leadership, had emerged as a political power that rivaled the Alliance. With allies in the Darkspear Troll Chieftain, Vol’jin, the Bloodhoof Tauren Chieftain, Cairne Bloodhoof, and the Banshee Queen, Sylvanas, the new Horde grew strong together.

Despite old hatreds, the two factions showed camaraderie in the face of threats that endangered both sides. One example of this was Ahn’Qiraj.

Near the end of the year, the Horde gained a new ally in the form of the magical Blood Elves and their leader, Lor’themar Theron. Once members of the Alliance, relations with them soured when it was discovered that Alliance spies were sent to undermine their power in the region.

While the Horde had gained a powerful ally in the Blood Elves, the Alliance soon found new friends as well. Bella Cartier, a devout paladin, joined a naval patrol to sail around western Kalimdor. However, when they lost their navigational instruments, they were forced to go ashore on a strange island. They established a small outpost near their landing while they figured out what to do next.

They soon came across a people who would become a significant factor in the paladin’s life. The people were blue-skinned and walked on hooves. The males were very muscular, more so than the other races of the Alliance, while the females were svelte, to the point where their bodies were the envy of females everywhere. Their horns matched the color of their skin and came in many different shapes. The males had tendrils dangling from their chins while some had beards.

These people introduced themselves as the Draenei, though the night elves initially viewed them as Eredar, a race that sold themselves out to the Burning Legion for power. They were quickly assured that these people were not like their corrupted brethren and were devout followers of the Light, even more so than the humans were.

After the Draenei helped the expedition find their missing navigational instruments, and uncovering a traitorous gnome who worked for Kael’thas and hinted as his connection to the Legion as well, Bella spent a couple of weeks learning about the Draenei and their leader, an ancient Draenei with eons of wisdom and a devoted follower of the Light named Velen. She also learned that they had just crash landed their interstellar ship on this island from Outland.

Bella learned much from Velen. When she told him about her ability to see visions when she looked into gems, Velen realized that the paladin had the Gift of Sight, though unrefined at this time. The old Draenei felt a desire to provide some guidance to the young paladin so he brought her to a blue naaru at the core of the Exodar, the ship that the Draenei had converted into a new home for themselves. The naaru was introduced as O’ros.

The naaru could sense something dormant within Bella, a great potential that slept within her. Unfortunately, he lacked the means to fully awaken it but he could allow her to draw on some of that potential.

O’ros floated down a tiny shard of itself and bade her to peer into it. As she did, she felt a warmth unlike any she had felt before. She could feel her connection to the Light more than ever.

After thanking the naaru for the gift, she spent some time with Velen to learn some pointers for controlling her Gift of Sight.

Once the isles were cleared of blood elf saboteurs, the Draenei began negotiations for joining the Alliance.

Back in the Blasted Lands, the vigilant mages garrisoned at Nethergarde Keep continued their observations of the Dark Portal. The stagnant years observing the same thing time in and time out did turn out to be grating on one’s nerves. The people there were thankful for the party provided by the gnome priest months ago.

It was when the last watchman of the evening was finishing up his shift when he noticed something happening at the Portal. Using his spyglass, the watchman observed a giant demon casting a spell on the structure that once contained the Dark Portal. The watcher’s eyes widened as a green rift opened within the structure and the demon passed through.

The watcher quickly sounded an alarm while the commander in charge of the keep called for a mage to report the incident to Dalaran.

The Kirin Tor received the message half an hour later and began sending representatives to Stormwind.

The organization recently learned about the blood elves emerging from their isolation to join the Horde which allowed them to use the blood elves already among them to send messages to Orgrimmar.

The Alliance and Horde were not the only ones who answered the call as the Argent Dawn sent a division to aid in the defense of Azeroth. Among the knights that came to Azeroth’s defense was one of their newest recruits, Jaqueline Pomerton.

Jaqueline had sworn to fight the Scourge after the undead menace had destroyed her home and murdered her parents and her brother. Right now, she was making sure the demons didn’t establish a foothold in the Blasted Lands.

Standing with her were Mena and Bella along with the champions of the Horde who she fought beside on several occasions.

The Horde, Alliance and the Argent Dawn fought wave after wave of a seemingly endless onslaught of felguards streaming from the portal. The brutish demons fought the defenders with large axes and superior size but the defenders were resilient and the Light supported them. Countless felguards fell before the defenders.

Eventually, the defenders were able to push them back through the portal and enter it to see what lay beyond.

What they saw was quite surreal. The rugged land appeared to have the same dead and red coloration as the Blasted Lands and the sky looked like a night sky with streams of cosmic energy drifting around aimlessly while other worlds were clearly visible. Flames erupted from small fissures in the ground.

Surprisingly, the defenders were expecting to fight a lot more demons on the other side of the portal but they were all slain before they got there, including the leader of the invasion. The defenders looked around to see who did this but nobody appeared.

“I don’t know how these things were killed, but I ain’t looking a gift horse in the mouth,” one of the Argent knights said.

“Doesn’t look like there are anymore demons in the area, let’s head back and report,” Lokosh said.

One by one the defenders retreated back through the portal to Azeroth, oblivious to what actually happened.

Jaqueline was the last to walk through, but before she did she looked back and spotted a cloaked figure who kept all of their features hidden. She had to wonder if the figure had anything to do with what happened. As she turned around to address the figure however, they vanished.

The warrior frowned, a growing sense of irritation at the feeling that someone was playing tricks on her. She grunted, then turned around and proceeded through the portal.

Back on the other side, Jaqueline noticed that a battalion of soldiers from both factions arrived with their respective builders and engineers for the purpose of establishing a forward position and ultimately bases of operations.

Despite their sense of unity during the second War of the Shifting Sands, the Horde and Alliance still held on to their old rivalries and old hatreds. There was no way those scars would heal anytime soon.

“So, you're gonna help us explore this strange new world?” Mena asked.

Jaqueline looked back at the portal then back at Mena before she sighed and shook her head. “‘Fraid not sugarcube, ah’m a member of the Argent Dawn now and we have our own concerns for the Scourge up north. We’d stretch ourselves too thin if we sent troops to Outland.”

“What about all that recruiting you guys did? Didn’t that help?”

“Not really, adventurers did most of the work dismantlin’ them necropoli. There were some new members like mahself, but there weren’t many willin’ to fight the Scourge.”

Jaqueline gently smiled as she knelt down and put a hand on the gnome’s shoulder, “Don’t you worry ‘bout me none, ah got mah duties and you got yours. Once the factions get set up, me and the knights are packin’ up and headin’ back.”

“Good luck darling, don’t get yourself killed over there,” Bella said.

“Same to you and the others, ah’m sure Stella and Flutashe wouldn’t miss out on this.”

After news of the Dark Portal reopening had spread and the Legion incursion failed, a certain organization took interest in exploring the decimated world to see if there was still an ecosystem there. The Cenarion Circle put together an expedition to study the flora and fauna of Outland.

The expedition was put together and led by a high-ranking member named Ysiel Windsinger who gathered the most knowledgeable of their order. Ysiel also extended an invitation to Flutashe due to her expertise in animal communication. The young druid accepted on the condition that she conduct her studies independently while reporting her findings to the expedition leader. The two came to an agreement.

A week had passed since the negotiations and Flutashe was prepared to follow her fellow druids through the portal and into the unexplored world.

Back in the magical city of Dalaran, Stellaglim, or Stella as she preferred to be called, was summoned to the Violet Citadel where the rulers of the city governed.

As she wandered the streets toward the building, her mind wandered as she thought about a few things. Ever since she got her memory back, she couldn’t help but feel concerned that the Blue Dragonflight never visited the city in any official fashion. This was a city where some of the most brilliant scholars and spellcrafters in the world gathered and Malygos didn’t bother sending representatives. “Perhaps Azuregos was right, perhaps Malygos has truly gone mad,” she thought.

Stella nearly tripped on the stairs to the Violet Citadel from being lost in thought but managed to avoid completely embarrassing herself, despite the chuckles from nearby mages. She ascended the stairs and entered the building where she spotted the leaders of the Kirin Tor, the Council of Six.

Her master, Rhonin, was the leader of the Council while standing in a line near him were Modera, one of the oldest members of the Council, as well as Ansirem, Karlain, and two others whom Stella forgot their names.

She also noticed one other person standing next to Rhonin, a middle aged man wearing the standard robes of a Kirin Tor agent.

Seeing his apprentice approach, Rhonin called for the others to cease their discussions and turn to the dracthyr in her elf form. “Thank you for coming on short notice, Stella. We have need of your skills once again.”

“So this is about my next assignment?” Stella asked. “What do you need?”

“Allow me to introduce you to my associate here. This is Archmage Cedric, leader of a special sect of Kirin Tor agents who are investigating Medivh’s tower.”

“Karazhan? I thought the place sealed itself after Medivh and Khadgar disappeared.”

“I will let Cedric here explain.” The archmage in question moved in front of the Council and stepped closer to Stella.

Cedric began, “You are correct that the tower has sealed itself, preventing any further attempts at investigating the abrupt changes that have afflicted the tower as of late. But if it were only that, I would not be here right now. Ghosts haunting the tower doesn’t concern me. I recently received a report from one of my apprentices about a small demonic presence detected in the tower.

“Something is drawing upon the ley line that the tower was built upon and I want to know what. If the Legion is involved then I want them stopped.”

“So where do I come in for all of this?” Stella asked. “I can’t open the tower.”

Cedric smirked, “Indeed girl, but we might know of a way. It is true that only two people can open the portal and while we hope one of them is dead, the other we hope is still alive in Outland. I want you to go there and search for Archmage Khadgar. If he survived the destruction of Draenor, then we may have our way into the tower.”

Stella looked at the archmage in disbelief, “You’re asking me to find one man on an entire landmass floating in the Twisting Nether?! Do we even have an idea where he might be?”

“That’s for you to find out,” Rhonin ordered. “I’m sorry we can’t give you any better info, but we haven’t had time to fully scout Outland. And with the army of The Betrayer holding the continent under his rule, I am reluctant to send agents to map out the land.”

Stella had read the reports that were disclosed to SI:7 and Dalaran from the Night Elf Sentinels. She read about The Betayer, Illidan Stormrage, and how he sided with the Legion during the War of the Ancients ten thousand years ago for the purpose of undermining their invasion. After the war and the Sundering of the Well of Eternity, the night elves banned the use of magic but Illidan used the waters from the Well to create a new one atop Mount Hyjal which earned him an eternal imprisonment.

During the Third War, Tyrande Whisperwind released him from his prison and his contributions to the effort to stopping the Legion made victory in the Battle of Mount Hyjal possible with the death of the dreadlord Tichondrius. However, he did so by infusing his body with fel magic and became a half demon. He was then banished from the night elven territory.

The reports showed that he formed an alliance with a force of naga under the command of a sea witch named Lady Vashj before he fled to Outland. She remembered an incident years ago when a former Council of Six member named Kael’thas Sunstrider was arrested and tried for treason by the leader of the last pocket of resistance in Lordaeron named Othmar Garithos. Apparently, he accepted the assistance of Vashj’s naga who also helped him break his people out of prison and fled with her to Outland.

If Kael’thas had allied with Illidan, then The Betrayer was even more dangerous than ever. It was never clear where The Betrayer’s loyalties lie since he helped the Legion and betrayed them for reasons unknown. It was common speculation that he was not part of the Legion but was just as much of a threat as they were.

Perhaps she might be able to obtain some solid facts about him during this mission.

“Alright, I’ll do my best to find Khadgar,” Stella said.

“Thank you for your service,” Modera said. “If you do find him, try to convince him to part with his key if possible so we won’t have to bother him every time we need that gate opened.”

Stella gave a polite bow, “I shall make preparations at once.” Without an incantation, Stella teleported back to her room to begin gathering what she needed for the trip.

Raida frowned as she saw soldiers and builders from the Alliance and the Horde build fortifications around the Dark Portal. She noticed that the demons were sending another wave of felguard who were easily disposed of. The leader of this wave was some incompetent pit lord who was overconfident in his power. She also noticed that the two factions were bringing in gryphons and wyverns to fly around the attacks and establish bases further in the region or reinforcing pre-existing ones.

“Hey Rairai, what are you lookin’ at? Some chickens that got crossed with cats? Or maybe those lion things that got crossed with a bat and a scorpion?”

Raida chuckled as she heard the imp next to her; they did look like how he described them. “Sorta Loki, looks like the two factions are setting up near Hellfire Citadel. Makes sense that their first obstacle would be those fel-crazed orcs.”

“Isn’t that where we stashed that sourpuss who keeps whining about them stealing his blood?”

“Yeah, I know Lord Illidan wants to keep him around to keep the orcs pumped up with felblood, but those guys don’t seem all that reliable and keeping them organized is a pain.”

“Regardless, those orcs are going to make us look bad to our new visitors,” came another voice. “It might be best to be rid of them entirely.” This one came from a purple-skinned demon with minimal blue armor to keep him decent along with shoulder armor and a helm. He wielded two long swords.

“I agree Truth, but Lord Illidan seems to think these bloodthirsty savages might have some use for the invasion. Personally, I think they’re a liability.” Raida didn’t bother looking at her demon friends near her as she needed to stay vigilant.

Standing next to Loki and Truth were three other demons. One was a blue-skinned shivarra with six arms and wore a flaming headdress. Another was a felhound and the last was a black robed demon with thick horns and a mouth with crooked teeth. He had no eyes. He was known as an inquisitor demon.

“Anything you want to add, Lady Heartswell? Leech? Seeker?” Raida asked. The other three shook their heads. “We’re going to continue our observations. Seeker, I’m counting on you to relay any updates to Lord Illidan.”

“It will be done, Lady Raida.”

Ever since she became Illidan’s second in command, many of the Illidari had taken to calling her “Lady Raida” and for a while it made her uncomfortable. The demons she was surrounded by also called her “Lady” even if they didn’t have to. Loki was the exception who called her “Rairai” because he thought it was funny, but often called her “Boss” when she was in the company of others. She admittedly thought the nickname was a little funny. She had eventually grown used to her title and nickname over the years she spent in Outland.

Raida sighed as she observed the Azerothians establish their foothold. She was bored out of her mind and Loki’s jokes were falling flat. She knew that these visitors had the potential to dismantle Illidan’s invasion plans, especially once they joined forces with the Sha’tari forces in Shattrath City.

She may have taken down those ered’ruin demons, Kazzak and Kruul, before they became a real menace, but that may have screwed the Illidari over since Azeroth was still a force to be reckoned with and many of the Illidari demon hunters will be hesitant to fight their own kin, even if they would anyway out of self defense.

Illidan had told Raida to befriend some of the invaders in preparation should the contingency plan become a necessity, whatever that was. If things really did go south, he needed the plan ready to be put into action.

In her boredom, Raida’s thoughts drifted to happier times, back when she and her sister joined the academy together. She often had to protect her sister from those who heckled her because she was barely keeping up with the class. She did improve to be an acceptable fighter in time for the Battle of Mount Hyjal and Raida was so proud of her then. The last thing Raida remembered before she left for Outland was that her sister was learning the art of druidism. She could see her sister leaping around like a cat because Raida knew she was a better fighter than she gave herself credit for and also her love of all animal.

Raida snapped out of her daydream and continued her observations.

Author's Note

Now we officially begin Season 2. Sadly, our favorite terminally ill, apple-farming warrior will not be taking part in the fighting this season. Fear not though, she will be replaced by someone who is at least just as good as her very soon.

Next time: A double dungeon run (not something I plan to do very often).

Hellfire Peninsula

Around the outdoor command center on the Azeroth side of the Dark Portal were a number of supplies and troops, including a few officers. Mena and Bella stood at the base of the dark stone portal structure. Both were patiently waiting for their other friends before they crossed over into Outland. They were a little disappointed that Jaqueline wouldn’t be joining them on this adventure.

“So Mena, how has that other presence in your mind been lately?” Bella asked, trying to strike up a conversation to relieve the tedium.

“Well, Surprise has been grouchy for the past few days, but that’s normal for her as far as I know,” Mena answered. “I think the lack of action has been putting her on edge and she gets snippy whenever I try to ask her what’s wrong. Maybe some fighting in Outland might get her to calm down but I don’t know; I’m not an expert on Surprise.”

“That’s…good to know darling, but I meant the other presence in your mind.”

“Violetta? She’s been pretty quiet ever since she gorged herself on that Old God. Last thing she said was that she was gonna take a nap while she was digesting.”

Bella was about to reply to that but stopped as she saw Flutashe approach with a group of druids.

“Flutashe, dear, so glad you could make it!” Bella greeted cheerfully.

Flutashe smiled and stopped in front of the pair. The other druids proceeded toward the portal. “Hi Bella and Mena, so you two are going to Outland too?”

“Of course darling, we wouldn’t miss this adventure for the world…or two worlds,” she tittered.

Flutashe’s smile brightened even more, but quickly pulled back as she considered what she wanted to ask them. “Since we are both going to Outland, do you mind if…” she trailed off.

“Dear, you don’t need to ask to join us, you are our friend.”

“It’s not that, it’s just…have I ever told you that I have a twin sister?”

Bella stroked her chin as she tried to recall, but nothing came up, “I don’t recall…”

Flutashe nodded, “My sister’s name is Raida Lunarwind. She was one of the best soldiers to graduate from the academy years ago. She was a very confident woman who could inspire those she commanded. I looked up to her. Growing up, I was normally shy and reserved, but she protected me from bullies.”

“So what does that have to do with Outland?” Mena asked.

“Well, the last mission Raida participated in was a hunt for The Betrayer alongside Maiev Shadowsong, one of our best wardens. Maiev and Raida chased The Betrayer to Outland and haven't been seen again.”

“Ah! So you want us to help you find out what happened to your sister? You know that it’s likely that…” Bella didn’t finish that sentence.

Flutashe sighed, “I know she might be dead, The Betrayer has been known to be ruthless. I still want to find something of hers for me to bring home.”

Bella smiled gently at the druid’s resolve, “And we will do everything in our power to help.”

Flutashe returned the smile, “Thank you!”

Just then, Stella teleported next to the others, startling them. “Sorry! I was running a little late and I knew you girls were going to Outland too and I overslept and…” She paused as she noticed that someone was missing. “Where’s Jaqueline?”

“She isn’t coming darling, duties with the Argent Dawn,” Bella answered.

Stella sighed, “Right, so from what I’ve heard from Sophia, King Varian is having her oversee operations in Outland so we won’t have her assistance during most of the campaign unless she believes we’re about to be going up against a very tough opponent.”

“It’s probably for the best,” Mena shrugged. “Wouldn’t wanna be getting complacent with her holding our hands all the time.”

“In that case, we might need to consider finding someone to join us,” Flutashe suggested. “Normally, adventurers get together into groups of five to explore dangerous places. Before, we could have gotten away with just the four of us since Sophia was supporting us. We can’t rely on her anymore so we should invite a fifth person to join us on our adventures.” The others voiced their agreement.

“Shall we?” Stella offered.

With that, the group proceeded into the Dark Portal to Outland. As they entered, the Alliance group noticed that the portal was under attack by waves of felguards with a giant pit lord in the distance. While they wanted to help, one of the commanders refused their assistance, saying that they could handle the demons for a while and that they should report to Honor Hold. Reluctantly, the group accepted this and borrowed four gryphons to fly around the demon invasion and land in Honor Hold.

The place had seen better days. Most of the walls were still standing, but the white stone was burnt in many places and were showing signs of erosion. Other places within the walls were an inn, a stable, a mage tower, a blacksmith, the ruins of a barracks, and a keep that served as the command center. A huge stone monument stood in the center with the inscription of a Light-blessed hammer on the sides.

The group proceeded into the keep to report in. There they discovered that the commander was a veteran of the Second War and one of the missing expedition members from years ago, Danath Trollbane. A statue of him stood in the Valley of Heroes in Stormwind.

Before the expedition, Danath’s hair and beard were dark brown with the top part bald. That was twenty-two years ago. Now his hair had completely grayed out.

The group entered the war room and were quickly noticed by Danath and his advisors, one of them was a draenei.

“Good, you made it,” Danath said. “I was told by that strange rabbit-looking girl to expect you. At first I had my doubts about her and her claim that she was sent by King Varian Wrynn of Stormwind. Glad to hear that the city is still standing, by the way. So if you’re Bella Cartier and company, then we can get started.”

“What would you have us do, commander?” Bella asked.

“First, I need to brief you about what’s been going on in Outland since we closed the portal over twenty years ago. When that filthy orc shaman Ner’zhul opened a bunch of portals that tore the planet apart, me and my comrades escaped the destruction by going through one of them. Some of us ended up getting separated, namely General Turalyon and Ranger General Alleria Windrunner. Haven’t heard from them since. The rest of us returned to what remained of this place and stood guard over it. Me, Kurdran and Khadgar are what’s left of the leadership.”

“Do you know where I can find Khadgar?” Stella asked. “I’m on a mission from the Kirin Tor to find him.”

“If he’s not doing anything reckless right now, he might be with the refugees and war veterans in Shattrath. There’s two ways there and both lead you through a nest of ravagers.”

“Ravagers?” Flutashe asked.

Danath ignored the inquiry and continued, “Things have been tough around here, chief among them are the fel orcs, an army of those monsters who are so drunk off of that nasty green stuff that they ended up mutating. We got another army of those monsters on the other side of their base of operations, Hellfire Citadel, but somehow we managed to broker a non-aggression agreement with those beasts. Dunno how long that’ll last.”

“He’s referring to Thrallmar, the Horde base on the other side of the canyon separating our two bases,” Sophia said as she walked into the room. She rolled her eyes at Danath as she leaned against a wall next to a doorway.

Stella silently acknowledged the templar before she returned her attention to Danath. “Anything else?” Stella asked. “Flutashe mentioned someone called The Betrayer is supposed to be in Outland.”

“Ah, yeah, From what the reports say, the fel orcs fall under the leadership of Warchief Kargath Bladefist who reports to someone they call Lord Illidan.”

“That’s him, Illidan Stormrage, The Betrayer,” Flutashe said.

Danath continued, “Anyway, he has the fel orcs based nearby in Hellfire Citadel as well as naga forces doing something to the ecosystem in Zangarmarsh west of here. They’re led by someone named Lady Vashj. North of here is a place once known as Faralon, now it’s a region enveloped in a storm of nether energies called Netherstorm. We have our former elven allies basing themselves there under the leadership of the prince of Quel’thalas, Kael’thas Sunstrider.” He silently muttered the word ‘traitor’ under his breath.

If the party heard his muttering they showed no signs of it. He decided to ask them something that had been botherin him, “By the way, can any of you tell me why there are elves among the Horde that we aren’t supposed to be fighting right now?”

“Well, you see darling, it’s complicated,” Bella struggled to explain. “It seems that the high elves now call themselves blood elves after Lordaeron’s crown prince fell to darkness and destroyed his own kingdom before he sacked Quel’thalas. The ones who remained either joined Kael’thas here in Outland or remained in Quel’thalas and ultimately joined the Horde.”

“Prince Arthas Menethil!? Lordaeron’s destroyed!? Seems a lot has happened since I’ve been here.” Danath paused for a moment and sighed. “Let’s move on to what’s been happening the past few days. My forces and Thrallmar led our own strikes against the fel orc base of Zeth’Gor to the east and burned it down. We’ve had some minor issues locally, such as Colonel Jules getting possessed by a demon; our draenei friends were able to save him with an exorcism. West of here is the settlement of Falcon Watch which Thrallmar claims as part of their forces and the Temple of Telhamat to the northwest is home to some of our draenei friends.

“One of the more disturbing reports I received was of a giant red crystal that dropped from the sky in the northwest reaches of the region. A number of rock giants roamed the area but were quickly disposed of. Those night elves, as they are called, helped get rid of it using some plant stuff that I couldn’t even begin to understand. One adventurer encountered an image of a blood elf who admitted to dropping the shard there as part of some experiment. The elf called himself Pathaleon the Calculator.”

“So where do we fit in?” Bella finally asked.

“We need to make a move against Hellfire Citadel. They are the biggest threat right now. Sophia made a deal with the Horde to where they will assault the citadel ramparts while we take advantage of the confusion to perform a scouting mission and find out what they are up to. Particularly, I want all of you to investigate the tower in the back of the citadel known as the Blood Furnace. Our mages’ scrying spells can’t penetrate the wards inside and I want to know what’s going on in there. Head west toward the back wall, there should be an old siege tower there you can climb to reach the entrance to the Blood Furnace. In exchange for clearing out the ramparts, we have agreed to share the info of what we find in that place.”

Bella took in the details of Danath’s body language. She could sense the discomfort and the tensing of his jawline, as if he was doing his best to refrain from grinding his teeth. It was obvious to her that the commander was against the idea of trusting the Horde for anything but she kept quiet about it. “Very well commander, we will be ready once the Horde makes their move.”

Danath nodded, “Good luck in there.”

Lokosh, Farra’jin, Groun, Talia and Feloma flew wyverns from the Dark Portal to the settlement to the north of Hellfire Citadel, Thrallmar. This settlement was composed of an inn, a barracks, a kennel, several guard towers and an alchemy tower where the forsaken and blood elves perform their experiments in alchemy and enchantments.

One of the officers who was drilling a squad of troops directed the group to the barracks. Lokosh led them inside to find an orc with a wolf cowl over his head and wielding a strange-looking battle ax that had numerous jagged points on the head. He stood next to a map of the region along with a blood elf who appeared to be advising him.

The elf pointed in the direction of the group before the orc beckoned them closer. “So you’re the veterans of Ahn’Qiraj. I am Nazgrel, chief of our warchief’s security and leader of this expedition.”

“Lok’tar, Nazgrel,” Lokosh responded. “We are here to assist with the expedition. Where would you have us?”

Nazgrel chuckled, “As much as I would want you keeping an eye on the humans of Honor Hold, I have a more fitting task for your area of expertise. Right now, we have a non-aggression agreement in place while we focus on the Legion and the crazed orcs of Hellfire Citadel. The demons seem to be focused on the Dark Portal but they are a diminished threat now that their portals are destroyed.

“The threats to the west are also diminished. We had reports of a giant red crystal crashing in the western reaches. The scouts reported seeing an image of a blood elf near the crystal.” He gestured to the elf next to him. “Magister Bloodhawk here has informed me that the image was one of their prince’s advisors. The crystal has been dealt with. There were also reports of a powerful eredar to the northwest of us. He has been eliminated.

“More importantly, we located a settlement belonging to those who were left behind during the First War. These orcs are ones who never drank of the felblood, allowing them to retain their brown skin. They are known as the Mag’har; the Uncorrupted. The warchief has been notified of this and preparations will be made for his journey to Outland.”

Nazgrel’s anger rose for a moment but took a deep breath to reign it in. “Now we need to make good on our end of a bargain we made with Honor Hold. I am sending you five to assault Hellfire Citadel. You will focus on clearing out the ramparts and providing a distraction for the Alliance agents to infiltrate the depths of the citadel. See to it that the Alliance fulfill their end; they agreed to inform us of what lies down there.”

“It will be done, Nazgrel,” Lokosh said.

“Go with honor, and bring back proof of your victories against anyone you believe is important.”

The group left the barracks and proceeded out of Thrallmar where they spotted a canyon to the south that led up to a crudely, yet solidly made stone structure. The building rose nearly a hundred feet from the bottom of the chasm to well above the cliff. The structure was mostly stone framed with black metal and some spikes. A wall extended from the citadel to the northern mountains. A few red-skinned orcs were patrolling the walls.

The group found a path to the citadel walkways nearby and proceeded through, dealing with any bloodthirsty fel orcs they encountered. It was once they passed through an open doorway along the walkway that their mission began.

Sophia observed the Horde team entering the Hellfire Ramparts. She also spotted the Alliance team moving into position, waiting for the word to move in.

However, Sophia was more focused on her psychic communication to the employees of the Sphere Institute. “So, you’re certain that she’s here?”

“Yes, we picked up her signal once the Portal opened.” Twilight answered. ”I have no doubt that Rainbow Dash is on this world. Though something concerns me about her status. The long range readings tell me that there’s something off about her. We need to find her so we can run a scan.”

Sophia turned her attention to Thanatas who was overseeing the citadel from a different angle. “So Thana, is there anything particularly dangerous in this place that would involve us?”

“For the most part, no,” Thanatas responded. “These fel orcs aren’t anything they can’t handle and their warchief is on the wrong side of his prime. He can still be a threat if they aren’t careful though. It’s what lies in the deepest depths of the citadel that we will have to get involved with. But that is for a later time, exploring the Ramparts and the Blood Furnace will be a good warm up for their Outland adventures.”

“So what is in the depths?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out,” Thanatas giggled.

The fel orcs fought with brutality as they did their utmost to kill those they deemed the “False Horde.” Though they were still simple orcs who fought like typical rogues or warriors. Lokosh held the orcs’ attention when he declared that they weren’t worth wasting his energy fighting. Talia set a rogue on fire before she sent them running away with her Fear spell, causing them to crash into a few supply crates and setting them on fire. Feloma showed off her marksman skill by shooting the warriors through their heads.

Further inside they encountered armored warriors wielding oddly-shaped axes along with warlocks and archers. Lokosh charged the archers while Feloma fired a few arrows into the chests of the warriors since they weren’t smart enough to wear chest armor. Talia’s felhound countered the fire magic of the warlocks while Farra’jin electrocuted them.

They quickly discovered that the orcs here patrolled the ramparts with wolves. Feloma decided to use this against her enemies as she released her pheromones into the air. The wolves smelled the scent and howled, confusing the orc handlers. Feloma smirked, “Eat!” she commanded. The wolves quickly turned on their handlers by going for their throats first. Being caught off guard, the orcs couldn’t put up a proper defense before they became dog food.

One orc tried to call in more wolves while a pair of warriors tried to distract the party. This backfired spectacularly because Feloma’s pheromones turned the wolves into the huntress’ pets. Several more orcs were eaten alive before the wolves were put down.

As the group trailed through the path of blood and carnage, they heard a grizzled voice nearby. “Do you smell that? Fresh meat has somehow breached our citadel. Be wary of any intruders.”

They soon came across a number of tents and wagons along with many supply crates lying around being guarded. Talia and Farra’jin had a devious look in their eyes as they both had the same idea. Farra’jin called on his fire elemental while Talia called on her fire magic and they began to set everything on fire. The flames quickly spread and the supplies and tents became engulfed in flames.

The orcs were in a panic trying to put out the fires that they didn’t notice that they were under attack as the party took advantage of the chaos. They had no idea what hit them.

It was then that the voice from earlier made himself known again. “Why is everything on fire?! When I find out who did this they will beg for a swift death!”

A dark red-skinned orc wore ornate gold and red armor and they noticed that his hands had been replaced with a sword for his right hand and an ax for his left. He was accompanied by two more orcs in robes and carried priest staves.

“You’re in our way,” Lokosh called out.

The orc looked at the group and gave a wicked smirk, at least for someone whose lower teeth extended most of the length of his head. “I’m going to enjoy this…” he declared.

Despite his claim, the orc, who called himself Gargolmar, did not enjoy the fight. Lokosh’s shield withstood the watchkeeper’s furious attacks. Talia focused her attacks on one priest while her felhound proceeded to drain him of his magic and his life. The other priest tried to heal his ally but Feloma kept him pressured with her arrows. Farra’jin and Groun focused their attacks on Gargolmar with the tauren seeding the cracks in the floor with seeds that he quickly made sprout into a number of vines that tried to bind the orc. Farra’jin’s lightning spells were conducted with Gargolmar’s armor and badly electrocuted him.

“Heal me, quickly!” Gargolmar called out. One priest tried to cast a healing spell on him despite the pressure but an alluring scent caused him to lose touch with his senses as he ended up healing the party and afflicting Gargolmar with a shadowy affliction. “Traitor!” he yelled before he decapitated him. The other priest was soon rendered into a withered husk.

In one last desperate act, Gargolmar tried to charge recklessly at Groun to impale him on his blades. Lokosh saw this coming and put a foot out to trip him. The orc ended up falling into the burning supplies and caught fire. He screamed in agony until he collapsed on the floor, unmoving.

“Think he was one of the important people?” Groun asked. Everyone else shrugged. Farra’jin called on water spirits to put out the fires around Gargolmar. Since they were told to bring trophies of their victories, Lokosh decided to pull off Gargolmar’s sword hand, revealing a stub.

Talia reeled in disgust, “These orcs have some truly insane customs, I can’t imagine a life without hands.”

“Let’s keep moving,” Lokosh said.

Bella, Stella, Mena and Flutashe heard the chaos in the citadel and quickly moved up the siege tower up to the upper wall and down a clear path to a tower with stairs that led them downward into the darkness. A doorway at the bottom of the stairs led into a hallway.

At the end of the short hallway, they spotted a group of fel orcs practicing dark magic by summoning imps. A quick blast of light from the paladin burned the imps to ashes and gained the attention of the orcs in the room. A swipe from Flutashe’s bear paws caused lacerations on the chests of some of the orcs. Burning shadows from Surprise exacerbated their injuries. One armored orc ended up completely disintegrated by a beam from Stella.

Once the orcs in the room were dead, the group proceeded up a long flight of stairs. Bella’s eye for detail allowed her to pick up on the distorted space often caused by amateur rogues. A wave of light quickly revealed the sneaky orcs before they were quickly dispatched and sent on a long and bloody trip down the stairs.

Once they reached the top, they dealt with two more armored orcs the same way as the rogues before they entered the next room which contained more orcs summoning imps. Bella quickly incinerated the imps while Flutashe showed the orcs her method of brutality by crushing them with her anthro cat form.

Unknown to them, a figure completely concealed in a cloak was observing the group. The person saw that this group seemed pretty strong for them to handle the fel orcs so easily. She watched as they proceeded up a ramp, dealing with the guards who belonged to the Laughing Skull Clan, known for being more deranged than other clans. The warlocks in the place belonged to the Shadowmoon Clan, known for their practice of dark magic. Of course, that demon that she absorbed held far more knowledge of dark magic than anything the Shadowmoons knew.

She was also aware that the citadel ramparts were under attack but she didn’t care about that. These fel orcs were a liability to her master’s plans in the long run. The Bleeding Hollow Clan and the Bonechewer Clan who guarded the ramparts were just as insane as the other clans. The two clans may have shared the same origins at one point, but the difference between the two clans was who could handle their void better than the other. Bleeding Hollows turned that darkness to power while Bonechewers simply went insane.

Raida sensed a lot of void energies coming from the gnome which seemed to have split her mind and developed into a separate personality: one who wielded light magic and the other void.

The black haired female seemed to wield the Light much like Kael’thas’ blood knights. Raida learned about paladins from the Alliance expedition to Kalimdor. Her time with them was brief, but she did learn about warriors who could wield the Light. She had to wonder how they could do so without the ability to steal it from a naaru like the blood elves did.

The purple-haired girl was an oddity. She had never seen anything like her. In one instance she looked like an elf, the next she looked like some sort of human-shaped dragon with pink scales. She used magic like your typical mage but then there were abilities that no normal mage would be able to wield. Red flames that burned enemies and healed allies reminded her of the flames of the Red Dragonflight but then she summoned a green mist which put a few Shadowmoon warlocks to sleep, a power not unlike that of the Green Dragonflight. At one point she even sped up time for her allies which was something that mages could do, but she had a suspicion that there was Bronze Dragonflight magic involved. What in the world was she?

However, most of her focus, and the main reason for observing this group, was the druid among them. Raida recognized that pink hair from anywhere. She had no doubt who she was. She figured that she would be here since those Cenarion Circle druids were here to investigate Outland’s wildlife, something that would have greatly interested her from how she remembered her. Two questions popped into her head that she didn’t know the answer to. Why was she here in Hellfire Citadel murdering orcs? More importantly, how did she get so strong? That two-legged cat form was utterly mauling those Shadowmoon orcs and the Laughing Skulls were getting planted in the walls. If this was what the night elves were teaching the druids these days, she would have considered trying to be one years ago.

Raida felt proud that Flutashe was coming into her own and had friends who had her back in these situations. It was too bad that she couldn’t properly introduce herself to them. She was a demon hunter, one of the most hated types of people on Azeroth. For all the demons she killed in her life, it would never prepare her to face her sister’s look of disappointment.

Still, she had to introduce herself to them in some way, Lord Illidan was determined to have the contingency plan in place should the worst case scenario occur. The forces of Azeroth were strong, but they weren’t prepared to do what was necessary to destroy the Burning Legion. These invaders were probably Kil’jaeden’s move against him, to lure them to Outland unwittingly and let them do all the dirty work. With the fel orcs and Kael’thas’ treachery while claiming their association with the Illidari, there was no way to convince Azeroth that the Illidari weren’t their enemies.

She noticed the group was about to attack that mo’arg demon who did so many pointless and wasteful experiments on people. Mo’args were from the same species as felguards except more intelligent and were mainly scientists and engineers. They had that green substance flowing through their barely held together bodies that were holding on with iron stitching. Mo’args were known to replace their body parts with mechanical enhancements.

This one, known as The Maker, couldn’t put up a decent fight if he tried. The dragon girl caught one of his explosive beakers that he tossed at her and hurled it at his face which made Raida chuckle as the explosion knocked him back. Flutashe didn’t bother using her cat form and instead tore through the mo’arg’s stitchings with her bear form’s claws while the paladin created a shield which protected them from the green fallout. She kept that barrier up until they found dry floor again.

The group proceeded into the next room with Raida secretly in pursuit, treading across the green fluid.

Raida had no idea that a small invisible mechanical drone was observing her. On the other side of that drone, a certain blue rabbit was performing her scans.

Lokosh rushed two Bonechewer guards who protected the doorway into a tower. Feloma ended them quickly.

The group proceeded up a spiraling staircase in the tower until they reached an upper level where they found four Bleeding Hollow warlocks empowering a Bonechewer fighter who was nearly foaming at the mouth. Talia had her felguard rush in and decapitate one of the warlocks while Lokosh slammed his shield into the fighter’s face. Groun grew a few vines which strangled two more warlocks while Farra’jin bombarded the last warlock with fire and lightning. Lokosh held the rabid fighter against a wall while Feloma’s lynx, Autumn, ripped a leg off which made the orc turn his head to her and that earned him two arrows in his eyes and an ax to his now shattered skull.

They exited the tower into an open area that was occupied by a large number of orcs and their wolves. Feloma’s pheromones evened the odds as the orcs were now forced to deal with the intruders as well as their rebellious wolves. Feloma shot a few warlocks in the throat to prevent them from casting while Farra’jin called on his fire and earth elementals to defend him. Groun focused on healing who would be injured while Talia unleashed a number of fiery and shadowy afflictions on every orc in sight to weaken them. To reduce the effectiveness of the enemy warriors, she also placed a curse on them that made them feel too exhausted to move properly.

The chaos soon came to an end and the group was soon left with two options to take for paths. Feloma noticed a new type of demon at the end of the right path while a strange-looking drake flew around the left path. Lokosh pulled out a gold coin and called heads for the demon and tails for the drake.

The coin landed heads.

With their path set, they headed through the right path, dealing with a few warriors and a couple of warlocks.

This demon had black skin and cloven hooves for feet. He appeared to have two heads. The upper head was cylindrical-shaped with a set of teeth that nearly went all the way around his head while sporting six twisting horns and some diamond on his forehead over what appeared to be empty, dead eyes. The second head was part of his torso with a colorful flame coming from its mouth and eyes. His wings were extended.

“Your insolence will be your death,” the demon declared.

The group spread out around the demon and attacked him from multiple angles. He tried summoning a felhound to assist him but Talia’s felhound moved to intercept and attack the pup the demon summoned. She wasn’t worried about her hound because he was more seasoned. The demon tried placing a dark spell on Feloma that would have discharged dark energies against her allies but they were too spread apart for that to work properly and Groun made sure the huntress was kept healthy.

It wasn’t long before the demon was overpowered by the group and kneeled. With one last defiant look he spoke, “It is…not over.” Lokosh cut off the upper head while a series of stone shards impaled his chest head.

They looked at the dead demon for a few moments in contemplation. “He seems important,” Lokosh said before he used his ax to chop off the demon’s left hoof.

Raida observed from the shadows as Flutashe and her friends traveled down a hallway where the fel orcs infused their prisoners with felblood. They easily cut down the Shadowmoon warlocks and engineers who tested out their landmines on them. The dragon girl remotely triggered the mines by striking them with icicles. The unfortunate prisoners also had to be eliminated since the felblood had driven them mad.

They entered another room at the end of the hall that appeared to be blocked off by a barred door made of twisted spikes. There were also a number of prison cells that held a number of freshly converted fel orcs mindlessly waiting for their first kill.

Seeing this barbaric practice for herself, Raida was more sure than ever that these orcs were not worth what Illidan invested in them. He would likely be mad at her for this but she really didn’t care at this point. This was not the image of the Illidari that she wanted to give to the Azerothians.

Once the party cleared out the orcs, they turned their attention to the giant lever in the room and the observer demon beyond the door. As they moved to pull it, Raida called out to the party, using the pendant her master gave her to conceal her voice. “Be careful, pulling that lever will release the prisoners in the cells around us as well as the demon you will soon face.”

Bella, Stella, Mena and Flutashe quickly turned around to see the cloaked figure. They tensed and moved their hands to their weapons as they believed that they were in for another fight. “Who are you?” Bella demanded.

“A warlock. I can help you against the prisoners while you take care of the observer.”

“Thanks, but no thanks,” Stella declined. “We have no idea if we can trust you. You could be related to these fel orcs for all we know.”

“Then perhaps one of you can assist me, someone who could deal with these orcs with or without me, like your druid friend.”

The group looked at each other, a silent conversation occurring. None of them were willing to trust some stranger who showed up out of the blue to offer assistance. However, given the circumstances, they knew that regardless of what happened, someone had to pull that lever and bring everything being held back by the bars into the room. They knew that Flutashe could handle the orcs by herself while they handled the demon. What they weren’t sure of was whether or not the mysterious stranger would stab them in the back or not. They would have to keep a close eye on them during the fight.

With no other options, Flutashe moved closer to the stranger while the others pulled the giant lever on the floor. With a click and the sound of metal grinding, every door in the room opened, sending in a large number of fel-incenced orcs and the giant observer demon.

Raida figured that the three of them could handle Broggok, all he did was spit poison everywhere. He didn’t even know any ocular abilities like most of his kind could do. She saw her sister shift into her cat form, which Raida briefly gushed about while the others weren’t looking. With her sister going into action, she decided to get started too by summoning Truth and Lady Heartswell, her wrathguard and shivarra. “Truth, cut down those orcs to my right.” She pointed at the cell. “Lady Heartswell, the left side is yours.”

“It will be done,” Truth said as he charged in with both swords ready.

“As my lady commands,” Lady Heartswell said.

Raida groaned as the shivarra had unknowingly given the others a small hint about her identity as they revealed her gender. “Great, first battle and my demons reveal a piece of the puzzle. At this rate it won’t be long before my sister realizes what I am…” she thought.

Raida made it rain fire over a group of orcs who were exiting one of the cells before she turned around and fired a large bolt of shadow and fire magic that exploded and sent several orcs flying. Flutashe grabbed one of the flying orcs and used him as a club to knock away several more orcs. She spun around and threw the orc toward Raida by accident. “Watch out!” she cried.

Raida saw the orc coming and smirked before she fired a Chaos Bolt which obliterated him.

Meanwhile, the others were having no problems with the demon. Bella was the one facing his wrath but took care to move back whenever he dropped a cloud of poison. She gracefully avoided his bites while getting in a few hammer bashes that knocked out some teeth. Surprise struck each of the observer’s eyes with sharp shadow needles which lodged themselves there and started draining the life from the demon. With Flutashe handling the orcs and Bella keeping the demon’s attention, Stella took offensive and supportive roles at the same time. Her red flames healed Bella when she took a hit while she used her magic and dragon essence to blast the demon.

Once the last of the fel orcs were obliterated by Raida, the other three were just about finished with Broggok. With that threat dealt with, the group turned toward the one who they were still unsure was a threat or not. “Now that that’s done, perhaps you may enlighten us as to who you are.”

Raida knew that they were going to ask this, but she still struggled to come up with an answer. “I…uhh…” When it came to leading troops, she was always confident in what to say. However, her biggest weakness revealed itself whenever she was in the presence of her sister. She looked at the others but couldn’t bring herself to look at Flutashe. She could come up with a story for the others to believe, but she never once was able to fool her sister, even as they grew up.

Bella narrowed her eyes. She had a keen eye for detail, a trait that was inherent in the Cartier family of jewelers and further tempered through her adventures. She noticed that the stranger was avoiding her druid friend on purpose. “Is there something about Flutashe that interests you?” she gasped. “Are you some sort of stalker planning to kidnap her for some sick pleasure?”

Raida lost control of herself at that moment as her emotions took over. “What?! Eww! What kind of sick fantasies have you been reading?” In her shock, she failed to notice that a lock of her hair stuck out from under her hood. “Hope it wasn’t that weird steamy romance novel that just came out. Blech!” Despite what she said she actually binge read the book from beginning to end and it took Illidan to pull her away from it.

Flutashe spotted the lock of hair. The clues were piling up and the figure’s defensive attitude toward a romance novel convinced her of the person’s identity, since there was only one person she knew who would behave like that and had hair in multiple colors. Even though the figure had disguised her voice, she failed to keep her habits in check. She gave the figure a deadpan look. “Take off the hood, Raida.”

“Guess I wasn’t prepared for this,” she thought. Raida chuckled awkwardly but had enough presence of mind to place an illusion spell on her face to avoid showing her true nature to them before she pulled down her hood. “Eheh…guess I’m not a very go-” She was quickly tackled by Fluashe in her night elf form.

The others prepared to step in to help but stopped when they realized that their friend was hugging the stranger. “My sister, I’m so happy to see you’re still alive! I had thought the worst when Maiev’s party never returned. I thought The Betrayer had killed you.”

Raida winced as she said that, she wished that she could tell her the truth but she was not so naive to believe that her sister wouldn’t be devastated if she found out that she had joined the Illidari and took in fel magic. “Can you get off me? This is going to turn awkward quickly and this is hardly the place for this.”

Flutashe suddenly remembered where they were and quickly removed herself from her. “Sorry about that.” She then frowned as she remembered something else she needed to have addressed. “Why are you using dark magic? You know that use of any magic is forbidden in Darnassian society. And what’s with those demons?”

This was something that Raida did have an answer for, one that was close enough to the truth without giving away the whole thing. “I had to do what it took to survive, even if I had to befriend demons who, thankfully, weren’t associated with the Burning Legion. Not every demon sided with Sargeras’ dark crusade. I’ve had to fight to survive this dead world knowing I was stranded. I still have my skills from the academy, but it’s gonna take more than that to handle the dangers of this place. I had to learn dark magic from the renegade warlocks around here.”

That last part was a lie since she learned those spells from Kael’thas and Illidan but it seemed that they bought her story for the most part.

“Well, when you come home just don’t show those powers off around Darnassus or I won’t be able to save you from getting executed,” Flutashe warned. Even so, Raida was still uncertain if she would be returning home.

Bella, Mena and Stella relaxed as they witnessed their friend’s casual behavior. Since she seemed to vouch for her, she might be alright to be around.

Only time would tell.

Once they claimed the hoof of the demon, Lokosh and the others backtracked to the fork and took the other path. Only a few sentries remained who guarded the platform the strange drake was flying around.

The sentries were quickly dealt with but whoever was riding the drake took notice of the intruders. The rider yelled to them, “You have faced many challenges, pity they were all in vain. Soon your people will kneel to my lord! Face now his herald, Vazruden!”

The drake flew low and allowed the fel orc riding him to jump off. Vazruden wore a dark gray version of Gargolmar’s armor and he carried a polearm that had a red burning blade.

As the orc rushed forward, Lokosh charged in to slam him with his shield. Vazruden swung his weapon to meet the warrior’s charge which resulted in their attacks clashing. Neither gave an inch as the two warriors engaged in a shoving match.

Vazruden was aware of the others so he whistled for his dragon to attack the others. Feloma attached a stick of dynamite to one of her arrows, lit it and fired it at the dragon. As the beast opened his mouth to unleash fire, the arrow reached his maw. The heat caused the explosive to go off early and the dragon was rewarded with an explosion going off in his face. The dragon was knocked out of the sky.

“Nazan!” Vazruden shouted before he redoubled his efforts to knock his enemy away. Lokosh smirked as he suddenly moved out of the way and tripped the orc who had too much momentum and stumbled toward the edge. Vazruden barely managed to stop his motion at the edge of the platform so Lokosh helped him along with a nudge which sent the fel orc falling over a hundred feet into the canyon.

Nazan managed to get back up after being stunned by the explosive before preparing to return to battle. Normally, dragons were intelligent creatures but when forcefully tamed they tended to behave like beasts which made them susceptible to attempts to control them, such as Feloma’s pheromones.

The fight was over the moment Nazan smelled the alluring scent. While Feloma would have preferred a better looking creature to ride in the future, she decided not to be picky and allowed him to carry her places whenever she wished. To complete the taming, she placed a magical scent marker on Nazan and herself so that no matter where she was, he would come running when she called for him.

With Vazruden at the bottom of the canyon and Nazan now Feloma’s pet, Lokosh realized that he had nothing to use as a trophy to show to Nazgrel. He shrugged and decided that his word would have to suffice in this case.

With the entire area explored, it was time for them to return to Thrallmar.

With Raida officially in the party, they proceeded into the next room which had a few Shadowmoon warlocks and a few blue-skinned felguards wandering around. The warlocks appeared to be enhancing the demons’ strength with some sort of spell that didn’t last very long.

The party engaged the warlocks and felguards, Flutashe leaving a deep wound on the chest of one felguard. Stella prevented the warlocks from casting while Surprise attacked their fel-addled minds. Raida obliterated a felguard with a Chaos Bolt while Bella incinerated another with the full force of the Light.

One warlock in the next room had summoned a pack of imps as a display of his power. That was when Loki snuck into the imp pack and lied to them about a loophole in their contracts that they could exploit which resulted in the imps turning on their summoner, bombarding him with Firebolts and incinerating him. The imps ended up suffering the penalty for turning on their summoner and burned to death. Loki returned to his master with a snicker, feeling proud about what he did.

The party soon found themselves descending down a curved hallway that ended in a small room with more Shadowmoon warlocks and felguards with orange skin. While the demons were tougher than the previous kinds, they were still taken down easily and the warlocks quickly fell as well.

“How long do you think your pathetic sorcery can hold me?” bellowed a deep rumbling voice.

“Swagger all you like Magtheridon, we can hold you for as long as we need,” declared another voice confidently. It sounded like it came from the next room.

Peering inside, the group saw a huge chamber. Most of the floor was one huge crude grate with a stone platform in the center. Standing on it were five Shadowmoon warlocks performing a protection ritual that had them fire beams of shadow magic at each other to where it formed a star. In the center of the star was a single fel orc in robes performing his own ritual. A barred doorway was the only way forward.

More importantly, as they looked below the grate they discovered what they suspected was the source of the Fel Horde’s felblood. The level below appeared to contain a pit lord, a massive lizard-like, centaur-like demon with a giant pair of wings that lacked the capability to give the massive creature flight. He had two huge horns on the sides of his head that went down to his chest and pointed upward. Atop his head and down his back was a trail of green fire. He had armor plates on his shoulders and in front of his barrel.

Raida knew he was here but was able to act surprised to keep up appearances. The others gulped. “Is that…?” Flutashe began.

“Yeah, the fuel source of the Fel Horde,” Raida finished. “I once heard that there used to be a pit lord who ruled outland before Illidan but became decadent and complacent with his unchallenged position which made him easy prey. Now he serves as a source of power for Illidan’s fel orc army.”

“We need to find a way to take him out and cut off the supply,” Stella said.

Raida could take out Magtheridon herself but she couldn’t afford to blow her cover. She knew that they weren’t ready to deal with him yet either. “We’re not prepared to handle a powerful demon like that yet but we can give the Fel Horde a huge setback by killing the main orc in the room. Without him, the Fel Horde will have to divert a lot of their magical resources to keep the demon restrained. We can deal with Magtheridon another day.”

Reluctantly, the others agreed to Raida’s proposal. Readying their weapons, the party moved in to attack the orcs in the room.

The orcs were forced to attack the intruders, calling them fools and ignorant whelps for trying to disrupt the ritual. However, the group couldn’t care less about that and slaughtered the warlocks, leaving the main orc remaining.

The orc noticed his protection was gone and saw the cause. In anger and frustration he was forced to halt his ritual. “You fools have no idea what you’re doing! You’ll ruin everything!”

The orc began channeling shadow magic but Stella countered that cast. He then had to conjure a dark shield to protect him from Raida’s Chaos Bolts which left him open to Flutashe headbutting him and knocking him to the floor.

He sat up but didn’t try to get up. The group cautiously moved closer to him. “Closer,” he mumbled. The group continued closing in on him. “Come closer…” Raida’s eyes widened as she remembered who the orc was. Keli’dan the Breaker was a ruthless orc who would trick his enemies to move toward him before he casted a powerful fire spell.

Hastily, she summoned Truth, Lady Heartswell, Seeker and Leech and had them quickly throw the others back before she took a strong leap backward herself just in time before Keli’dan finished his spell. “AND BURN!” A fiery wave erupted from his feet that caused a large scorch mark on the platform. The demons were badly singed but they would recover.

Raida quickly ended the fight by hitting him with a Chaos Bolt which blasted a hole in his chest. Keli’dan gasped in vain, coughing some of the last of his precious air he had remaining. “Good…luck. You’ll need it,” he said ominously with his last breath.

With the ritual interrupted, the pit lord began to break free of his bindings. The party didn’t want to be here when he did. Thankfully, Mena found a switch that opened the gates into a crudely carved tunnel. The party rushed through the passage not finding any resistance and soon found themselves back at the entrance of the Blood Furnace. Not looking back, they quickly climbed up the stairs of the tower. None of them wanted to be there when the pit lord went on a rampage.

Author's Note

The thing about Burning Crusade when it came out was that it was set up as what I like to call the "Ladder of Attunement" Most of the raids in this expansion required completing a quest chain to access them, with the exception of 4 of the 9. Completing objectives in the earlier raids was required to access the later, more difficult raids. The earlier, easier content was as steps to access the higher difficulty stuff. Hence the "Ladder of Attunement." For this season, our heroes are going to end up suffering this phenomenon.

This pretty much summarizes Season 2.

Coilfang Reservoir

Bella, Stella, Raida, Mena and Flutashe managed to escape from the Blood Furnace after clearing out the enemies within. Though they were expecting some rumbling from the citadel, things were still quiet.

“Huh, guess they had some backup plan ready in case the pit lord tried to break out,” Raida noted.

“I can’t imagine how they are able to chain such a powerful beast,” Bella said.

“They will probably have to maintain a binding spell until they can find someone who can contain him. Keli’dan was a powerful warlock and the only one I know who could replace him would be Nethekurse but he’s probably too busy abusing his power on his minions to bother.”

“I know that you have been here in Outland for years, but have you identified every potential threat here?” Stella asked.

“Pretty much,” Raida shrugged. “Aside from the ramparts, there are two other areas in the citadel to explore, one being Magtheridon’s prison and the other being the halls leading to Warchief Kargath Bladefist’s inner sanctum. The latter is locked behind a gate and Kargath has the only key.”

“Maybe we can lure him out if we make a lot of noise?” Mena offered.

“Wouldn’t work, Kargath doesn’t want to risk the Shattered Halls being attacked so he almost never leaves for any reason. Only way we’re getting in there is if we either bust the gate down or make a copy of the key.”

“Actually, I think we’ve done enough damage here for the time being,” Stella said. “We still have more of Outland to explore before we decide how we go about dismantling Illidan’s forces.” The others reluctantly nodded in agreement, not sure how they felt about leaving Hellfire Citadel unresolved until later.

As they walked back to Honor Hold, Flutashe suddenly asked, “So, I’m guessing that you have plenty of info on our enemies, how come you never shared this with Honor Hold?”

Raida raised an eyebrow, “Why would I? Most of those people have been stuck here for twenty years. They’re out of the loop for most of what happened on Azeroth during that time and most had never heard of a night elf. The high elves among them might know about me but you know our history with them, I doubt they would be happy to see a night elf, especially given our people’s aversion to magic.”

Flutashe gave her sister a questioning look, “Says the girl who decided to learn warlock magics.”

“Hey, that’s different. I did what I needed to survive,” Raida defended. “I ain’t about to die for cheap pride just because of how dangerous magic is.”

Flutashe giggled, “I’m just glad you’re alright.” Her cheerful mood darkened somewhat. “I hope you haven’t been corrupted by such dark magic. So many have gone mad from abusing dark magic.”

“Power only corrupts if you let it,” Raida countered. “The more you have, the more responsible you have to be with it. The Legion allowed such power to go to their heads.”

“Let alone the Illidari,” Bella added. Raida didn’t comment.

Upon their return to Honor Hold, the group reported their findings to Commander Danath. Sophia was also present in the command center.

After a brief explanation of their discoveries, Danath’s eyes widened. “A pit lord?! This means that the fel orcs are harvesting his blood to create more fel orcs. It also means that Thrallmar would be a prime target for their attacks since the green orcs would be used to bolster their armies, and that’s not counting the brown orcs we’ve seen.” He sighed, “This just got a lot harder, we can’t get into the heart of the citadel to take out their leader without alerting the entire Fel Horde to our intentions and now we have to deal with the pit lord which will be a monumental task.”

“Is there anything we can do?” Bella asked.

“My forces can handle the orcs outside the citadel for now. With the Ramparts cleared and their fel orc production halted for now, we can hold out for weeks until they can get their production back.” He paused. “I think it’s time you moved on, maybe you might find a way to get into the citadel during your exploration of this land.”

Once Danath dismissed the group, not really caring about their newest addition since he had other things to worry about, they rested at the inn before they journeyed west.

The wastelands of Hellfire Peninsula were vast. It took them half a day to reach the western end of the region on foot. Along the way, the group had a few close calls with a few colossal mechanical constructs fueled by fel energies wandering the region. Most of them had a feeling that they really should avoid fighting them unless necessary as they could easily stomp them flat.

Near the end of the region, the group encountered a small outpost owned by the Cenarion Expedition. They were tasked with studying the stone giants and the animals of the region, which were mostly fel-tainted boars and two-headed vultures along with ravagers. One of the researchers admitted to trying to cure the corruption of one boar only for the remedy to worsen its condition.

Flutashe requested a copy of their research notes to pass to the expedition leadership before they continued west. The end of the region consisted of a thorny mountain pass which were occupied by insectoid creatures walking on four tipped legs and had a segmented, spiked carapace as well as long, sharp teeth.

“These must be the ravagers that were in the expedition’s reports,” Flutashe noted. She then moved forward and called the ravagers to herself. “Excuse me, but would you mind letting us through here? My friends and I need to reach the land beyond.” One ravager hissed and snarled. Flutashe frowned, “I know that you need to maintain your position of strength for the sake of survival in this region, but blocking off all passes into the other regions is only going to get you and your kind hunted down.” More hissing. Flutashe sighed, “I have no time for this.”

The druid glared at the territorial ravagers, using her alpha powers, which resulted in the creatures becoming nervous before they moved aside and allowed the group passage into the next region.

Sophia sat atop one of the ruined guard towers of an abandoned armory. She waited for Thanatas to return after she had “relayed” to the Horde what the Alliance group had learned. While she waited for her cousin so they could decide on their next move, she decided to have a different conversation.

“That newcomer with them was definitely Rainbow Dash. Though from the files I read on her, I would never take her reincarnation for the spellcaster type.”

“Me neither, Rainbow’s focus was always about being athletic and agile,” Twilight added. “Honestly, I would have figured her to be a warrior or a rogue, maybe a hunter. Never a warlock though.”

“So have the results from the scans come back yet?” Sophia asked.

“I just got them and am looking through them now…” Sophia heard mumblings and grumbles. A surprised gasp sparked some concern within the templar. She then heard some hyperventilating and an angry growl.

Twilight got up from her seat in the observation room before she stepped out the door. “GRAPE VINE, COME TO THE OBSERVATION ROOM IMMEDIATELY!” she yelled through the Royal Canterlot Voice.

“You know we have intercoms for that, right?” Sweetie reminded Twilight.

A deep shade of red shone through Twilight’s purple coat. “Oh, right…” She laughed awkwardly.

“So what’s got you so enraged?” Lyra asked.

“Well, for the most part, Rainbow’s vitals are good. The problem is that she’s been dabbling in chaos magic, the kind that the demons around that sector of the Eternal Sphere use. Not just dabbling though, she actually has chaos magic coursing through her veins. That’s a very dangerous thing to have and something no warlock would try since they would either burn themselves from the inside out or go mad from the rush of power.

“And that’s why you’re angry at Grape Vine?” Kerrigan asked.

Twilight shook her head, “No, that part has me worried for Rainbow but that’s not why I’m upset.”

Grape Vine hastily entered the room, carrying a pile of her work with her. “You wanted to see me ma’am?”

Twilight’s anger returned, but not as strongly as earlier. “Care to explain how King Sombra managed to get into the Eternal Sphere?”

“The tyrant of the Crystal Empire? I thought he was dead.”

“So did I, but somehow Rainbow Dash’s reincarnation has Sombra’s magical signature within her body. Why was I not notified of this?”

“It’s probably in this huge stack of reports in my hands, I haven’t had time to go through them all,” Grape complained.

“I thought I told you to delegate your work to the junior staff,” Twilight said.

“I tried ma’am, I really did. After the terrorist attack on the Eternal Sphere, many of the junior researchers up and quit because they feared another attack from the ELF and the new ones we hired complained that taking on some of my massive workload was ‘not in their job description’. It is in their job description but they assume I’m too lazy to go over their contracts. When I tried using my authority as head researcher to make them go through the reports, they complained about having too much to do and threatened to quit. Foals these days are getting lazier with every generation!”

A lavender palm met Twilight’s face. “I’m starting to think I should have hired more protoss researchers, at least they have a far better work ethic.” Knowing that a major headache was coming in the form of a string of employment terminations and a hiring campaign as well as a long discussion with her living resources manager, she put that in the back of her mind for the time being and focused on the immediate concern.

She levitated Grape’s stack of reports in her magic before quickly skimming through each report until she stopped at one. “Here it is, according to this, Sombra’s horn was reported in the Everfree Forest. It seems the magic collectors absorbed the magic from his horn and entered the Eternal Sphere through the world tree network that exists between the two universes. So somehow between then and now, Sombra and Rainbow met and she somehow absorbed him. Though it does beg the question of how Rainbow was able to absorb Sombra.”

Twilight hummed in thought, “Thanatas, do you know of a means of someone absorbing dark magic and chaos magic into their bodies?”

“Well, the blood elves use a technique to absorb magic into their bodies but that only turns them into magic junkies. This applies to all forms of magic,” Thanatas explained.

“What about a way to absorb dark and chaos magic for night elves?”

“Night elves don’t practice that, at all. However, there are a select group of night elves outside of their society who put chaos magic into their bodies directly using the blood of demons on knives to gouge their eyes out to obtain vision beyond mortal capabilities. This is also practiced by blood elves within the same group. Those who succeed in the ritual without their minds or bodies succumbing to the chaos magic become warriors of chaos known as demon hunters.”

“Demon hunters? Maybe that’s what Rainbow is?”

“If that’s the case, then we need to take extra care in keeping this a secret from the Alliance and Horde. Their fear of chaos magic would put her in danger of execution.”

“She appears to be acting under the guise of a warlock with lower and mid-class demons,” Twilight offered.

“Good, she needs to maintain that appearance to the two factions, at least for five to six years if she has a means of avoiding what’s coming to the Illidari.”

“What do you mean?”

“No spoilers, princess,” Thanatas giggled.

Bella and her friends left the nether-scarred wastelands of Hellfire and arrived in the strangest looking swamp they had ever seen. The contrast between Hellfire and this region, which was referred to as Zangarmarsh, was like comparing the Blasted Lands to the Swamp of Sorrows.

The region had an eternal night feel to it since the ground had a bluish green look to it. Instead of trees, the region featured a vast forest of colossal mushrooms which rose high into the sky. One could place a small town on some of the mushrooms. The wildlife was also intriguing, as it featured species which were of great interest among the Cenarion Expedition. Because of this, the expedition set up their headquarters near the entrance to the region.

Cenarion Refuge was a small base of operations which featured two buildings and a moonwell. Two ancients, giant trees given the ability to move freely, patrolled around the base. Several small tents were set up.

One of the guards ran up to the group as they approached the refuge. “Lady Flutashe, Ysiel wishes to see you.”

“Right now? I was planning on giving her the notes from the post on the felboars,” Flutashe said.

“You can still hand the notes to her, but there is another matter that requires the expertise of you and your party.”

Fluashe nodded, “Lead the way.” The group was led into the main hall of the refuge where they saw a chef preparing a meal for the soldiers. At the far end of the building stood the night elf who led the expedition.

Ysiel heard the group coming and turned to acknowledge them. “Lady Flutashe, I am glad to see that you made it here in one piece.”

Flutashe handed Ysiel the research notes before continuing the conversation, “What’s the matter?”

“First, let us explain the situation in Zangarmarsh. From what we learned about the area from the reports of the Alliance Expedition, this whole region used to be completely immersed in sea water. When the world was shattered, the sea drained and left behind this beautiful mushroom swamp. A wide variety of creatures have nested in this region including giant fireflies, floating bat-like creatures that spread spores, giant striders with enormous heads and skinny legs, and others. We’ve also discovered a race of fungal people who have built homes out of mushrooms along with a race of fungal giants who lack the intelligence that the sporelings have.”

“This sounds like a beautiful ecosystem,” Flutashe noted.

“It is, but now we have a problem. There are naga in this region who follow The Betrayer and they have an operation here where they are draining Zangarmarsh’s lakes. For what purpose we do not know. If they aren’t stopped, the ecosystem will become irreparably damaged and the life here will wither and die.”

Raida had no idea why Vashj was trying to monopolize the water in the region. While she knew that naga preferred an aquatic environment, there was no need to destroy the environment just to create the world’s largest swimming pool.

The Illidari weren’t in any position to choose their allies and it showed. The fel orcs were only loyal as long as the felblood kept flowing, the naga were loyal for reasons unknown but was hardly earned and the blood elves were only loyal because Illidan promised them a new font of magic. The latter was likely planning on betraying Illidan in the near future, likely because Kil’jaeden put in a higher bid than what Illidan could afford. She couldn’t imagine the broken having any real loyalty either and the demons were only helpful as long as their interests coincided with his. About the only true loyalists were the demon hunters, though she could imagine a few who had doubts about Illidan’s sanity as her thoughts turned to one in particular.

Raida’s overall opinion of Illidan was that she felt that he had good long term plans against the Legion, but tended to overlook the pitfalls in his short term plans which would lead to unforeseen issues later on which might jeopardize the long term plans.

Raida had brought up her concerns to Illidan and he seemed to agree with her. Of course, she wasn’t expecting for him to come up with a contingency plan that involved her befriending an adventuring party.

“...which is why we need you to head down there and rescue them,” Ysiel said, with Raida only catching the tail end of that discussion. Not wanting to embarrass herself by asking the druid to repeat what she said, she simply nodded. She figured that she could piece together the details later.

The party soon left the building and proceeded northwest with Raida blindly following them. They moved past a draenei village built into a mushroom and continued toward one of the four lakes of Zangarmarsh. The expedition discovered that the locals called it Serpent Lake.

Raida quickly figured that they were heading to Coilfang Reservoir where the Vashj’s forces were storing the region’s water. Some adventurer must have stumbled upon the drain earlier, she figured. The drain served as the only entrance to the reservoir.

“Alright, so let’s get down there,” Raida said.

“I’m not sure I can hold my breath that long,” Mena slowly said.

Bella hummed, “Stella, perhaps you might have a spell that may help us reach the other end of the drain?”

“Not really, Dalaran didn’t think water breathing spells were worth the effort to research. Though I have heard that shamans can call on air and water spirits to allow underwater breathing. However, without Farra’jin around, that isn’t an option.”

“Actually, I know a spell that allows the target to continue breathing in any environment,” Raida offered.

“That’s probably the best option right now,” Flutashe figured. “I won’t need the spell myself since I can breathe underwater in my sea lion form.”

With the plan decided, Raida cast the spell on everyone else as well as herself while Flutashe dove into the water and shapeshifted into a sea lion. The others followed.

The group had to take care not to get tangled up in seaweed as they navigated the depths of Serpent Lake. Flutashe managed to convince the hydras hanging around the lakebed to move aside while they proceeded to the center of the massive structure in the center of the lake. A crudely-designed giant drain made of dark metal sat in the center of the lake. They soon entered the drain and traveled the long, narrowing pipe to the point that they had to swim in a single-file formation. At the exit of the pipe, the party entered a large cavern that had breathable air and land to emerge upon.

The cavern had strangely designed metal structures with some plant life growing on the stone areas.Two passages were spotted to their left, one to their right and one in the center. The central passage appeared to be blocked by a wall of falling water.

“Glad you made it,” said a familiar voice.

Lokosh and his group approached their allies who were just getting out of the water. While the Alliance group was drying off, Talia explained the passages in the chamber. “From what those druids told us, the left passage is supposed to lead into the facility where the naga keep the broken who refused to cooperate with The Betrayer as slaves. It’s called the Slave Pens.” She pointed toward the next passage over. “That way leads to a place called The Steamvault where they construct their pumps to drain the lakes.” She then pointed toward the rightmost passage, “That way leads to the Underbog where the naga harvest its natural resources. We looked inside and found a bunch of sporebats, swamp beasts and fungal giants.” Finally, she pointed at the waterfall. “We don’t know what lies behind that waterfall curtain since the force of the water is too much to get through, even for Farra’jin. Though there is a good chance that it leads to the heart of the facility and the leader of the naga around here.”

“Thank you for the information,” Flutashe said. “We’re here because some Cenarion scouts went missing when they explored the Slave Pens and the Underbog. We need to try to find them and save them.”

“We were sent here to find them too,” Groun said. “The scouts were assigned to explore the Slave Pens and the Underbog.”

“In that case, we can check out the Slave Pens and you can investigate the Underbog,” Flutashe offered.

“Who ya think ya are given’ us orders?” Farra’jin demanded. That earned him a bash to the head by Talia’s staff.

“Does that really matter right now?” Talia hissed.

“Very well, go with honor,” Lokosh said.

“One other thing,” Flutashe interrupted. “Groun, right?” The tauren nodded. She handed him some paper and some quills. “I’ve been asked by the Cenarion Expedition to aid in the research into Outland’s wildlife and since you’re exploring the Underbog, I need notes on the wildlife in there.”

“I can do that,” Groun affirmed.

Farra’jin looked at Groun in disbelief but kept quiet for fear of getting bashed in the head again. Talia noticed this look and frowned. “Eyes on the prize, Desert. If it means that we get the fragments in the end then we will do what we must to stay in their good graces. You can unleash your frustrations all you want once we have all seven.” Farra’jin relented from the telepathic message.

Flutashe thanked Groun for his assistance before she and her group headed toward the west passage while the Horde group headed into the east passage.

The tunnel was narrow for the Alliance group but it soon broadened into a small chamber occupied by a new variant of makura, a race of lobster people who inhabit Azeroth’s shorelines…and Outland’s too apparently. Thankfully, Flutashe was able to sketch one of the creatures before they skittered away.

Further inside, they found a number of naga along with broken who were working on expanding a tunnel passage. There were also some broken locked up in cages. When the naga noticed the intruders they ordered the slaves to attack them but Stella quickly dispatched the slavers with several icicle shards and a Disintegration Beam to their heads. Seeing their slavers down for the count, the workers fled back to the entrance. Unfortunately, the slavers didn’t have the keys on them so the caged slaves were stuck there.

The next chamber was vast and housed some of the naga machinery. There were more slaves, working and caged. The workers were stripping the chamber of natural resources under the scrutinous gaze of their naga overlords. Flutashe noticed some of the naga in the area had a tamed creature by their side which she had never seen before. They looked like manta rays except they floated and had crystalline growths on their bellies and a set of sharp teeth.

The party fought their way to the entrance to a structure which housed more naga and some broken who appeared to be working together with the naga, possibly collaborators. They also had to deal with a broken shaman who admitted to selling out his people and corrupted his bond with the elements.

After that they followed a path up a series of ramps to the top of the structure which seemed like a dead end as there was nowhere else to go but they noticed that there was more to explore below them but no safe way down. Flutashe, Stella and Raida knew that they could fly down, though the latter was not willing to risk doing so because she might expose herself as more than a warlock. Thankfully Mena could float down with her Levitate spell and Stella was strong enough to carry Bella down.

Raida smirked as she rushed over to the edge of the broken platform and dove seventy feet into the water below, much to everyone else’s surprise. Once they saw that she survived the dive, the rest followed.

Once the area was cleared of naga forces, Mena called out to the others from atop a high platform, “Hey everyone, I think I found one of the scouts!” The others climbed up a nearby ramp to reach where Mena ended up where they found the corpse of a tauren in druid garb. “Seems like he’s been dead for a while, his soul may have already departed from the living realm.”

“Oh, so we were too late to save him,” Flutashe said sadly.

The group had a moment of silence for the fallen druid before Stella set his corpse ablaze and the group moved onward.

As they moved toward an exit from the structure, they stopped when they heard what sounded like a naga’s voice nearby. “I commend you for murdering these fools for their heresy against the Tidehunter.” The party looked around until they saw a cage in a nearby corner. Oddly, it contained a naga instead of a broken.

“Excuse me, but what do you mean?” Stella asked. “I would have thought all of the naga were aligned with The Betrayer.”

“You would think that since everyone else on this doomed world is, but my loyalties remain with the one true ruler of the seas. If I could, I would tear that bitch Vashj limb from limb, if only I had the necessary artifacts to complete the Cudgel of Kar’desh.”

“What would you do with such a crude instrument?” Bella asked. “I doubt you could face an army of your kind by yourself.”

“Fool! The Cudgel of Kar’desh isn’t some weapon, it is the means for me to have my vengeance,” The naga snarled.

“So it’s a magical artifact that does what?” Stella asked.

It was clear that the naga had no intention of telling them what the artifact did as he tried to steer the conversation in another direction. “I’ll make a deal with you airbreathers, I need two more artifacts to complete the Cudgel. I need the Earthen Signet and the Blazing Signet. Get me those and I will bestow Vashj’s mark on all of you which will grant you access to Serpentshrine Cavern where she and her most powerful lieutenants lie.” The naga, who introduced himself as Skar’this, revealed his cheeky grin since he knew that he had their attention now.

Stella was not so easily distracted, she made a mental note to determine the nature of the requested artifacts.

“So where would we find these signets?” Raida asked.

“The Earthen Signet is in the hands of the father of all gronn on this world, Gruul the Dragonkiller.”

“Gronn?” Flutashe inquired.

Before Skar’this could explain, Raida spoke first, “Gronn are massive creatures with brown skin that is hard as rock. Taking one down is a major feat as these guys are brutes. Among the most fearsome is Gruul the Dragonkiller who is famed for murdering a good number of black dragons and held his own in a fight against the black aspect, Deathwing.” Stella winced at the name but didn’t let anyone see that.

Skar’this continued, “The Blazing Signet is the heart of a cursed dragon named Nightbane who is said to reside in the hallowed halls of the prophet, Medivh.”

“Halls of Medivh? Karazhan?” Stella asked.

“Do I look like I care what the place is called?” Skar’this snapped. He quickly calmed himself again. “The dragon won’t appear so easily though, you will need to figure out a way to lure him out.

“Now go and leave me to plot my revenge in peace.”

Skar’this stayed silent which prompted the group to leave the caged naga to his brooding.

The party fought off more naga and would have fought some hostile makura, including a massive one in an alcove nearby if it weren’t for Flutashe soothing them with her animal communication skills as well as her ability to exert dominance upon animals. She wished that she could help the giant makura who appeared to be in terrible pain but she had no idea how to heal him.

“The critter looks like he’s suffering from nether exposure,” Raida offered. “I think I can use a special crystal to draw the energies out of his body.” She pulled out a crystal out of her bags and approached the makura, Flutashe continuing to keep him calm. While Raida was pressing the crystal against the creature, she began to drain the energies.

Truth be told, the crystal only turned colorful in the presence of nether energies but what she was really doing was pulling the energies into her body. While for other demon hunters, this would increase the strain on their body but for some reason she felt like she could take much more into her body than other demon hunters.

The other stared in awe as the makura began to shrink down to the side of his peers. Once the process was complete, the creature showed gratitude toward the warlock and even hugged her.

“Oh my, he seems very grateful to you Raida,” Flutashe giggled.

“Heh…yeah…” Raida chuckled awkwardly.

Once they managed to get the makura to let go, the party continued through the Slave Pens while taking out more naga and freeing more broken slaves. Once they went through a tunnel and entered another chamber, they quickly found one of the missing scouts in a small cage guarded by a few naga. Once they were dealt with, Flutashe freed the scout.

“Ishnu-alah Lady Flutashe, I am very grateful for the rescue. I am Naturalist Bite, these naga tried to break me and force me into toiling with the other slaves. I came here to prove the existence of Quagmirran only to find that his will has been broken beyond saving. I must ask all of you to put him down before we may escape from here.”

A low, ground-shaking roar shook the caverns. The group turned their attention to the pool at the end of the chamber where they saw a giant fungal creature emerge from it. It was shaped like a hunched humanoid with arms that ended in dangling tentacles. Its mouth looked like a bunch of plant growths were trying to hold it together and a number of spore pods grew on its dull green back. Its eyes glowed a dark yellow.

Flutashe gulped as her eyes widened, “Quagmirran?” she asked Bite. The male nodded.

The party engaged the fungal giant who roared again and tried to slam one of its thick arms onto Flutashe who dodged and slashed at the beast’s leg. She could sense the broken will within the creature and knew that Bite was right and that it needed to be put down.

Raida bombarded the creature with fire spells which weren’t doing much to it at first because it was still wet from being in the pool. As the fight progressed, the creature dried and became more flammable. Stella added her own fire spells and a flame breath to the attack. Surprise attacked with shadowy fire.

Quagmirran counterattacked by attempting to spray acid everywhere but the others managed to dodge the splashes while Flutashe used her snake form to withstand the poison.

Raida and Stella were soon able to set the creature on fire who attempted to return to the pool to put itself out but Bella slammed its head with a hammer and knocked it back. Quagmirran fell on its back and the flames completely engulfed its body. It quickly found its strength had waned too much for it to resist anymore and succumbed to the blaze.

The group returned to Bite who cast a Rejuvenate spell to heal his wounds. “Will you be alright to return with us?” Bella asked.

“Yes, they barely got to torturing me before you showed up. What about Weeder Greenthumb? I heard he tried to escape. Did he make it?” Their silence was his answer. “I see. Let’s leave this place behind.”

About ten minutes later, the group and Bite returned to the entrance chamber. The Horde group returned a few minutes later with two more druids. Feloma appeared to be laughing at someone’s expense, given that the tauren druid among them who wasn’t Groun was grumbling.

Feloma continued laughing as she spoke. “Hee hee, I still can’t believe that broken hunter actually managed to tame a druid. That shouldn’t even be possible, unless it were me.”

“Miss Brightbow, please show some consideration for Claw, this has been such an embarrassing situation for him,” The night elf druid among them begged.

Lokosh and his group stopped as he spotted the other group. “Looks like they found another of your members, you should head over to them,” Lokosh suggested.

The two druids complied and headed over to Bite and the Alliance group. “Rayge, Claw, I’m so glad you two made it back in one piece,” Bite said.

“It’s good to see you too Bite,” Rayge said. “Where is Greenthumb?”

“I’m afraid he didn’t make it.”

“I see,” Claw said. “We should regroup and rest at the refuge, we need to be ready for when Windsinger gives the order to investigate the Steamvaults.”

The parties escorted the druids back to the refuge where they all spent the rest of the night and prepared for the next leg of their journey.

Author's Note

Frankly, I'm not entirely comfortable with how this chapter came out. The Coilfang Reservoir dungeons don't strike me as interesting so I might have gotten lazy when I wrote the part of the dungeon run.

I'm not going to write out Underbog because the dungeon just doesn't feel impactful on the story of Coilfang. If it weren't for the two trapped druids in there I might have pretended that place didn't exist. The whole reason I wrote out Slave Pens was because of Skar'this the Heretic and the attunement quest he gives for Serpentshrine Cavern.

I know I'm being a bit of a downer but Coilfang dungeons were some of my least favorite dungeons in BC.

Anywho, until next time.

Preparations

The next day everyone woke up and prepared themselves for the challenges that may come. Bella had to spend an extra hour brushing her hair because the humidity of the swamp made her hair frizzy.

Once they were ready, everyone reported to Ysiel to check on the status of the scouts who were being prepared for an attack on the Coilfang Steamvaults. However, there was a change in plans according to the expedition leader. “We have received word from Shattrath requesting your presence, all of you. While you are away, my forces will begin setting up a forward post in Coilfang Reservoir in the meantime.”

“Won’t the naga just keep draining the lakes if we don’t stop them from making the pumps?” Flutashe asked.

“Fear not, my forces are small but skilled. We will work on sabotaging their efforts until you are able to assist us.”

Groun walked up to Flutashe and presented her with a stack of pages containing notes detailing the species within the Underbog. She furrowed her brow as she went through the papers. “I see, the caverns are its own ecosystem with the naga and broken intruding in some places. Most of the species of Zangarmarsh appear to be represented in that cavern. I am curious what kind of gas the sporebats and nether rays use to keep afloat…” She mumbled for a few minutes before she handed the papers to Ysiel. She smiled at the tauren druid and bowed slightly. “Thank you for helping me with this.”

The tauren blushed slightly about how cute she looked when she did that but quickly regained some composure to respond. “Uh, you’re welcome.”

With their current business in Zangarmarsh concluded, the two groups traveled south from Cenarion Refuge, down the main roads. They passed by a village of lost ones, a few who futilely tried to attack them. They continued on their path for a couple of hours until the scenery changed once more as the bluish green ground gave way to dusky green and the mushrooms gave way to trees with an unhealthy shade of green.

Stella pulled out a map given to her by Commander Danath. “So according to this, we should be entering a place called Terokkar Forest. According to the Alliance Expedition reports, this is a region that’s been affected by fel sickness which turned the trees into the color it is. Apparently, the leaves used to be constantly orange, yellow and red. Shattrath City should be close.”

As they turned a corner around a hill the city came into sight. A circular, walled city of draenei design stood before them. The city was themed with a dull brass color inscribed with vague depictions of naaru to symbolize their idolization of the ancient creatures of the Light.

The entrance was guarded by a pair of draenei on elekk, elephant-like creatures with tusks and horns. The guards briefly observed the coming group but held their gaze on Raida longer than the others. They were told that this group was coming so the guards went back to looking for invaders.

The two groups entered a tunnel into the city. The lower tier of the city appeared to be slums, given the tents all over the place. Parts of the area also appeared to be in a state of disrepair. The market also appeared to be in the same area though. Old war veterans from the Second War appeared to have made their home here, humble as their dwellings were. They also spotted a strange-looking being who was shaped like a humanoid but looked like he was made of energy wrapped in bandages and some armor. As they explored the slums, they also found a species of hunched over bird people.

“Looks like you guys finally made it,” said a familiar voice. The groups turned their heads and spotted Sophia waving at them. “I know you want to explore the city more, but you have an appointment with the ruler of this city and apparently he is especially eager to meet Bella.”

“Me?” Bella inquired.

Sophia said nothing as she led the groups up a ramp to the upper terrace and into a large building that stood in the center of Shattrath. As they approached the building, a melodic chiming sound was heard as if a beautiful wordless song was being sung. Bella heard such a sound when she was aboard the Exodar and that told her that they were about to meet a naaru.

Sure enough, the center of the building was where they found the naaru. Though unlike O’ros, this one was even more radiant; the light he emitted was pure white.

Standing beneath the naaru was an elderly looking man wearing a blue and white robe with a white vest and mantle. The naaru brightened briefly before the man turned around to see the party. “Ah, there you are, we’ve been expecting you. Glad to see you’ve all made it here safely.” He then spotted Stella in her visage form and smiled. “And Stellaglim, I haven’t seen you since you were but an infant. You have grown into a splendid young woman.”

Stella chuckled awkwardly, “About that…” She cleared her throat and explained her origins to the man whom she identified as Archmade Khadgar. When she finished her explanation, the archmage let out a good-natured laugh.

“I find it a little ironic that you ended up regressed to an infant by a spell while I aged forward by a spell,” Khadgar said. “Frankly I would have preferred your affliction. What fascinates me more is the fact that you were originally a creation of Neltharion before he became Deathwing. Little is actually known about his past.

“But where are my manners, allow me to introduce you all to the ruler of Shattrath City, A’dal. I have learned many things from him and I hope you each gain a little wisdom during your time here.”

The continuous singing from A’dal turned into a message for all of them, “Welcome to Shattrath City. Here you will find safety.”

A’dal then turned his gaze upon Raida and delivered a message meant only for her. “Only you can hear me now, I know of your affiliation with the Illidari but fear not, I am aware that you bear no ill will towards us so you are as welcome here as any other. Your secret is safe with me.” Raida breathed a sigh of relief.

He then turned his gaze toward Bella, “You, who bears the Gift of Sight, I can see that you have been blessed by O’ros. You will be tested in the coming days. The Light within you shall guide you toward your destiny. I see great things in your future.”

“Thank you for your kind words, A’dal,” Bella said with a deep bow.

A’dal then turned his gaze toward Mena, his song taking a lower pitch, as if expressing a frown. “You live a life straddling the line between Light and Shadow, yet you choose to embrace both. You follow a dangerous path and can so easily fall under the sway of one force. Stay true to your path and you will be greatly rewarded.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Mena said.

“So, now that the introductions have been made, perhaps you may now tell me your business for finding me, Stella? A’dal did say that you were seeking me but never told me why.” Khadgar inquired.

Stella gasped as she remembered her business. The sight of A’dal had briefly distracted her. “Ah, yes!” She cleared her throat. “The Kirin Tor requires your assistance in reopening Karazhan as the Violet Eye has managed to scry enough of the tower to determine a faint demonic presence within.”

Khadgar chuckled, “Either the mages of Dalaran are getting better or the wards on the tower are weakening.” He then frowned, “This is dire news though, if a powerful demon has infiltrated Karazhan, then they may gain access to the ley line beneath the tower and use it to open a portal to allow the Legion into Azeroth, given time.

“Unfortunately, I did not account for the possibility of the two worlds connecting again. When I was certain that I was stranded on Draenor, I split my key into three pieces and hid them away in containers in places that were safe at the time I hid them.”

“Where are they?” Stella asked.

“The first fragment is in the depths of the ruins of the Draenei mausoleum of Auchindoun in the center of a desolate wasteland to the south. These days, the Shadow Council uses that place as a headquarters. The second was hidden in a cavern beneath Serpent Lake in Zangarmarsh. The place is known today as Coilfang Reservoir and the fragment is hidden in a deep pool.” The group gave the archmage a look that suggested that he wanted them to look for a specific cloud on a cloudy day. “Would it help narrow your search if I told you that I used the second cavern from the left? Anyway, the third fragment was hidden in the highest of Tempest Keep’s satellites.”

“Tempest Keep?” Bella asked in surprise. “Velen did mention that the Exodar was one of the satellite ships that accompanied a vessel of that name.”

“Yes, the fragment is located inside the Arcatraz where the naaru contained dangerous entities in their travels. Getting inside is going to be difficult though.”

Talia groaned, “Let me guess, we need to procure some things before we can enter that place?”

“Yes mortal,” A’dal answered. “I recently received one of the fabled Ata’mal Crystals from an agent of the Scryers. There was a message embedded upon it from the ethereal known as Nexus-Prince Haramad.

“If you don’t mind me asking, what’s an Ata’mal Crystal? What’s a Scryer? Also, what’s an ethereal? You made that one seem like you were referring to a person?” Flutashe asked.

Khadgar chuckled at the druid’s inquisitive nature. “The Ata’mal Crystals are seven holy artifacts given to the draenei by the naaru. The locations of the other six are unknown. Ethereals are mysterious world travelers with highly advanced technology. You may have met one on your way here if you saw a being who looked like energy wrapped in bandages.” Khadgar heard approaching footsteps and turned to see who was coming and sighed in exasperation. “As for the Scryers…”

Approaching the gathering was an elderly male blood elf in black and white robes with gold bordering. He was accompanied by and giving a death glare to a female draenei in ornate blue robes. She was snubbing the blood elf.

Khadgar sighed again. “Everyone, these are the leaders of the Aldor and the Scryers. The blood elf is Voren’thal the Seer who leads the Scryers while High Priestess Ishanah is the leader of the Aldor priesthood.”

“How come there are blood elves in Outland who have sided against Prince Kael’thas?” Feloma asked.

“I had a vision of a glorious light shining over Quel’thalas that promised hope and salvation for our people, young one.” Voren’thal responded. “I understood that the light of the naaru would ease our hunger and torment. Also, I’ve noticed that our prince had grown mentally unstable and I felt that he was hiding something. To my surprise, I recently learned that Prince Kael’thas had been consorting with the Burning Legion. One of my agents even brought me proof of his treachery.”

“So it was true…” Raida thought. She suspected that Kael’thas planned on betraying Illidan and if Voren’thal’s testimony was true, then something needed to be done about the blood elf prince.

“Thank you for coming,” Khadgar addressed the two. “I have introduced these fine people to the leaders of Shattrath, now may I introduce you to the vanguard who will lead the assault on the Illidari and Legion leaders on Outland. A’dal has high hopes for them.”

“If A’dal vouches for them, then they shall have all of the support that the Aldor can offer,” Ishanah said.

“The Scryers shall do all we can to support your cause,” Voren’thal said, before glaring at Ishanah again. The parties raised their eyebrows at the two.

“Before you go searching for the fragments to my old key, A’dal requests your assistance with other matters that will ultimately benefit all of you in the long run,” Khadgar said. “Stella, you and your friends are asked to go to Shadowmoon Valley, the southernmost region in Outland where The Betrayer has his base of operation. The Aldor have a base in the northeastern part of the region near the Black Temple and the Alliance Expedition has a base in the southwestern part of the region led by Kurdran Wildhammer. A’dal wishes for you to look for clues to the whereabouts of an artifact called the Cipher of Damnation. It must be recovered before anyone else with ill intent learns the words.

“Lokosh, A’dal wishes for you and your group to do some hunting. Your paths will eventually bring you face to face with the lord of the gronn, Gruul the Dragonkiller. We need to make sure his seven sons don’t interfere with that final confrontation. Start your hunt in Nagrand, west of here. The Aldor have a tunnel leading into that region from their base on the top tier of this city but are only allowing you to use it once.”

“How come?” Lokosh asked.

“Unfortunately, your affiliation with that blood elf in your group will put my people on edge,” Ishanah replied. “I do not mean to offend your friend but too many of our own have been slain by the very elves who we have to share a city with. Such wounds do not heal easily and I’m afraid that the Aldor have come to view all blood elves as either Scryers or as part of Kael’thas’ forces. The only reason we are allowing you a one-time use of our passage is by A’dal’s request. Do not expect another opportunity to set foot on our rise.”

“The Sons of Gruul are fearsome opponents by themselves,” Khadgar warned. “I would recommend finding assistance in dealing with them.”

With that, the two groups made their preparations, stocking up on what food they could buy, including a few apples from a brown orc who appeared to have gone stir crazy from being next to a cart of apples for too long.

Once everyone was prepared, the Horde group proceeded up an elevator to Aldor Rise where they were met by the wary glares of the draenei. Feloma could have used her pheromones to distract the Aldor but Lokosh quickly rejected that offer because he would rather not risk starting an unnecessary fight in Shattrath. They quietly entered the tunnel, heading to Nagrand.

The Alliance group finished their preparations and proceeded out of the city and traveled the long road to Shadowmoon Valley.

Along the way, they found a Cenarion Expedition post that was abandoned and its residents dead. Stella sensed the magical radiation in the area and it gave her a migraine just being near it. They quickly moved away from the side and took a side road to avoid the town of Tuurem which had become a haven for the savage lost ones. They paid a brief visit to another Alliance stronghold which was named after the missing Ranger-General, Alleria, to restock on supplies used during their travel through the forest.

After half a day of travel from Shattrath, the scenery changed from the dusky forest to a land forever blackened. The ground was a greenish black and the sky had an eerie green color to it. As they traveled through this fel-scarred wasteland, they found the wreckage of siege machines around them along with patrols of demons who were associated with the Burning Legion, some of whom tried to attack them but were easily dispatched. They also found pools of lava that were tainted by fel and colored bright green. This dismal landscape painted a picture to the party of what will happen to their world should the Legion conquer it.

In the distance, the party located a Horde settlement where the outskirts sported many craters which Raida figured was an attack by infernals, the Legion’s fiery war golems. It appeared that the attacks had stopped so she figured that the Legion ran out of infernals for now or something was done to dismantle them.

Further down the road, the party finally came upon the tall, damaged walls of Wildhammer Stronghold, the Alliance base of operations in Shadowmoon Valley. They noticed craters around the area which suggested that the Legion had been hitting both places simultaneously.

The party checked in at the stronghold to see what was going on and were glad to see that the defenders held strong against the onslaught.

The stronghold itself was made of dwarven design with the keep built into a mountainside, like most pieces of dwarven architecture. A sunken stone structure served as a stable for the numerous gryphon mounts.

Wandering around the area was a dwarf with a red beard and dark blue markings on his nearly bald head to show that he is a member of the Wildhammer Clan. He was wearing red and gold platemail armor.

“Hail, travelers,” the dwarf greeted. “What brings ye tae this sorry spit of land?”

“Well met,” Bella responded. “You wouldn’t happen to be Kurdran, would you?”

“Aye,” Kurdran said. “Been livin’ here since the Dark Portal closed down.”

“We came here on a mission from A’dal. We’re looking for something called the Cipher of Damnation. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Kurdran thought for a moment then shrugged, “Can’t say I have. We’ve had plenty of other things goin’ on around here though. We put a stop tae the infernal rain comin’ from Legion Hold to the west and put a stop tae their production of those monstrosities. Bad news is that some foolish adventurer set free Teron Gorefiend, a wicked death knight who gave us a lot of trouble during the previous invasion.”

Raida recalled the Illidari’s latest ally, a human corpse with an orc’s soul. She didn’t trust him any more than she trusted any of Illidan’s allies. She suspected that the death knight was looking out for his own self interests and didn’t truly care about the war against the Legion.

Kurdran continued, “Still, there are a couple of problems in the region which need resolvin’. The shamans around here are goin’ on about the elements not listenin’ or somethin’. Some representative of the Earthen Ring went tae some altar north of here to try and find the answer. He might need some help.”

“Earthen Ring?” Raida asked. “Never heard of them.”

“Aye, plenty haven’t. They usually keep tae themselves fer the most part, but when it comes to issues from the elements, they tend to be there tryin’ tae pacify them. Though in this case the shaman might be in over his head this time.

“Another issue is that a call for assistance has been made from the Aldor near that blasted temple. They need assistance in dealing with some Illidari broken who are ransacking the ruins near their base on the other side o’ that mountain in the center o’ this region.” He pointed northeast toward a tall mountain in the distance. “Other than that things are quiet here. If ye wanna help ‘em out, it’d be a load off my mind.”

“Thank you for the information, Kurdan,” Bella said.

Once Kurdran walked away, they decided to talk among themselves. Bella went first, “It seems that we have to make a decision; do we help the Earthen Ring or do we help the Aldor?”

“Why not do both?” Raida offered. “It would probably be smart to split up into two groups.” She thought for a moment and realized that facing the fel-corrupted elements might not be the best idea at this time as her presence might anger the elements further. “I’ll help with the Aldor,” she quickly added.

A slight grin appeared on Bella’s face, she knew that Raida will probably want some private sisterly bonding time to catch up with each other, likely to air out some grievances along the way. “Very well, I will go to the altar with Stella and Mena while you and Flutashe will assist the priesthood.” She didn’t miss the look of worry on Raida’s face but she wasn’t backing down. Whatever they needed to talk about in private needed to be said.

“Alright, good luck you three,” Flutashe said. Raida slumped in defeat.

With that, the group split up with Bella, Mena and Stella heading to the nearby altar where the Earthen Ring shaman was last reported while Flutashe and Raida prepared for a journey around the tall mountain.

Author's Note

Things are going to be a little busy for the groups for a while. The Alliance party members are now on their way to beginning the attunement quest chains for two of the nine raids which will be featured this season.

I added the whole gronn hunting thing to give the Horde party something to do until it's time for the raiding to start.

Shadowmoon Valley

It wasn’t long before Bella, Mena and Stella reached the Altar of Damnation at the base of the tall mountain. The place looked like a chapel without the building. Rows of benches were seen and some were occupied by tormented orc spirits.

At the front of the altar was a transparent, elderly orc. This one wore the dark robes of a warlock and had curved spikes growing out of his back, some had skulls impaled on them. Around his neck was a necklace of skulls and bones. Chains dangled from his body and his staff was a gnarled stick.

One of the orc spirits begged the figure, who they called Gul’dan, to not go through with what he intended.

“What is this place?” Stella asked.

“This is where it happened,” said a voice from behind them. “This is where Gul’dan severed the bonds of the elements from our people.”

The trio turned around and saw a living orc approaching them, this one wearing gray and purple robes. “Are you the Earthen Ring shaman we were sent to meet?” Bella asked.

“Ah, so Wildhammer Stronghold sent you three to assist me with this task. Thank you for coming. I am Earthmender Torlok and I was sent by the Earthen Ring to ease the suffering of this land.”

“So what do we need to do?” Stella asked.

“Throw a ‘We’re Sorry We Shattered Our Bond With You’ party?” Mena asked. Torlok gave the gnome a confused look while Stella and Bella rolled their eyes.

“We must try to make amends,” Torlok said. “We must commune with the elements of this region and see if anything can be done.” He handed Stella a totem. “This is the totem of spirits, use it to capture a few of each type of tormented elemental spirit in this region. By defeating them when they are close to the totem, this will consume the elemental’s soul. You will find fire and earth elementals around the nearby mountain. Water elementals are boiling the waters north of here in an area held by naga. The air elementals are in the southeastern part of the region. Once you have enough elemental souls, we can begin communing with them to see what can be done.”

With the totem in their possession, the three proceeded to seek out some elementals.

Flutashe and Raida traveled the long road around the mountain known as the Hand of Gul’dan. The two spent the first fifteen minutes of the trip in silence while Raida had a nervous look on her face. After that, the druid decided to break the silence. “So, care to introduce me to your friends?”

Raida’s nervousness lifted a little as she eagerly introduced her demons, “Sure, the imp is Loki. He tells the funniest jokes, though most would be inappropriate for sensitive audiences. Truth is my wrathguard. He can be blunt with his opinions but he never lies to me, mostly out of a personal code. Lady Heartswell is my shivarra. She is a clean and efficient assassin who never leaves her prey to suffer, granting them a quick death. Leech is my felhound and is always ready to give his life to protect me when he can. Finally, there is my inquisitor demon, Seeker. Whenever he learns something new and possibly important, I’m the first one he will tell.”

“Aren’t your demons bound by a contract?” Flutashe asked, remembering what she knew about warlocks and contracts to keep their demons on as short of a leash as necessary.

“Kinda, but when I found these guys, they were the throwaways of the Legion, too weak to be useful and a lot nicer than your average demons. I would have killed them but when I saw all of them huddled together awaiting their demise, it kinda reminded me of you in a way. Sure, they still had their weapons and abilities and they looked like they would fight to their bitter end, but the look in their eyes told me that they just wanted to live in peace.” She sighed, “I couldn’t give them that since their lives as demons would never be peaceful. I gave them a choice: be my henchmen or a mercy killing. Even if I left them alone, some Legion demon would have likely found them and eliminated them for being such sorry excuses, same for any of those Illidari demon hunters.”

Loki suddenly appeared. “And we never regretted our decision once. Rairai has been such an awesome boss, never once making us do anything we wouldn’t want to do. She personally took out any enemies that we were too scared to fight, though this also motivated us to become stronger so we could fight as her equal. She’s like a big sis to us all.”

Flutashe giggled, “I understand that, even though we’re twins, she had always been a big sister figure to me when we were growing up.”

Raida chuckled, “And now look at you, fighting with the same vigor that I…u-used to fight with.”

Flutashe raised an eyebrow at her. She knew her sister was one of the most agile trainees at the academy, putting some of the instructors to shame. She, herself, tried to emulate some of that skill in her fighting style while in her cat form, while adding her enhanced strength to it as well. There was no way that Raida would give up her fighting style for the life of a spellcaster, it was very unlike her.

They soon came upon the ruins of what appeared to be a village of strange huts that were haunted by the ghosts of bird people like the ones they saw in Shattrath. “I never found out what those bird people were called, do you know?” Flutashe asked.

“They’re arakkoa,” Raida answered. “I heard that years ago they used to be taller and capable of flight. They used to be worshippers of some sun goddess until some of them were cursed into that form. As far as I know there are no more sun-worshiping arakkoa since the Old Horde destroyed their home and the destruction of Draenor probably finished off the variant. Now there are only these crazy birds whose minds are addled by shadow.”

“That’s so sad…” Flutashe mumbled.

She shook her head, remembering what she wanted to do. “I’d like to get through here as fast as possible and I’d like to see if you have retained your skills from the academy. Since the road goes through these ruins, I’m going to use my cat form to rush through,” A smirk appeared on her face. “Think you can keep up with me?”

Raida began to sweat. Normally, spellcasters were not agile at all, not counting Stella who could fly through the air like nobody’s business. Showing her skills might tip her sister off that she was not some spell-slinging warlock. “Uhh, listen, I don’t mind if we take things slow.” She chuckled nervously.

Flutashe saw right through that. A motherly look of disappointment appeared on her face. “You are a terrible liar Raida, I can see the desire to compete against me in your eyes.” She decided it was time to point out the mistakes she made in her little ruse. “I’ve known you since we were little. You were always competing against others to hone your skills. I’ve also noticed you flinging bolts of fel magic with hardly any channeling. The others might think that you are just that good of a spellcaster, but I know better. Those bolts were similar to the ones that The Betrayer reportedly used against Tichondrius in Felwood. You wouldn’t have known how to use something like that unless he taught you. Seeing as you are not with Maiev or any of her party I can assume that you were either separated, the last survivor or you betrayed Maiev and joined Illidan. Given the spells you used, I’m leaning toward the latter.”

Raida sweated even more. “That’s some pretty wild accusations there, sis. I have no idea what happened to Maiev.” Though she tried to throw her sister off, she knew that was a losing battle. Between the both of them, Flutashe was the most insightful. The hard look in her sister’s eyes was the final nail in the coffin.

“Come clean now and I won’t tell the others,” Flutashe warned.

“Alright, alright! So I’m one of Lord Illidan’s demon hunters. I only followed Maiev’s party so I could find him and help him against our true enemy. The Legion is the biggest threat out there right now, you know.”

“You do know that the practice of fel magics is dangerous and can easily corrupt your soul.”

“Only if you are careless,” Raida countered. “Demon hunters wield the powers of our enemy to defeat them. It’s pretty much fighting fire with fire. I know it’s risky and the power can easily corrupt or destroy us. Lord Illidan works us hard to make sure we were ready for the fel infusion ritual, though many of us lose our lives in the attempt anyway.”

Flutashe’s eyes widened as she heard that but that surprise quickly turned into indignant anger. She took a moment to collect herself before she unleashed that anger, “I’m not mad that you chose to side with Illidan, though I would like to know why he wants to rule this land instead of fighting the Legion. I’m not mad that you chose to wield the energies of our enemies, as long as you are still you I can live with that.

“What I am mad at you about is the fact that you risked your life over a ritual with a low success rate, if what you said about the infusion is true. I was praying to Elune that you had survived in this land somehow and I was so elated to find you. Now I find out that you came so close to dying over a ritual that left you changed forever? Did you ever think about how I would feel if you died?! Huh?!” Tears began to flow from the druid as she began to shout.

Flutashe did some breathing exercises to calm herself and shook her head before she continued, “I’m sorry, it was selfish of me to have you consider my feelings, I was just so worried about your safety. I’m really glad that you’re still safe and sound.”

Raida always found herself cowed whenever her sister got this upset with her, there was no arguing with her when she got this way. All she could do was look down in guilt. She still didn’t regret going through with the ritual, but she wasn’t going to voice that since that would only make things worse on her.

Flutashe let out a long sigh once she was finished venting. What was done was done and she thanked Elune that her sister was still alive.

Twilight observed the conversation through one of Sophia’s Observer Drones. She cringed at the sight of Rainbow being berated by Fluttershy. She remembered being on the receiving end of at least a few of her lectures over the course of her friend’s previous life.

Sighing in defeat, Raida removed her cloak to reveal her appearance and protective tattoos. Flutashe raised an eyebrow at the cyan hooves. Raida then deploys her large, demonic wings. “Sorry you had to find out this way sis, but I’m still dedicated to Lord Illidan’s cause of destroying the Burning Legion.”

“With an army of mentally unstable orcs, treacherous blood elves, naga, broken and demons?” Flutashe deadpanned.

“I’ll admit that Lord Illidan’s choice in allies has been questionable. I suspected that Kael’thas sold out to the Legion and the Scryers proved it. I know the fel orcs are only loyal as long as the felblood keeps flowing and I don’t expect that to last much longer once the Alliance and Horde find a way to kill Magtheridon, so I’m expecting them to want to defect to the Legion sooner or later. I’m not sure why the naga follow Lord Illidan. He says that he’s calling in some favors but I have this nagging feeling that there’s more to it than that and whatever this reason is, it fills me with dread. The demons are castaways from the Legion but I can’t say if they are loyal to the cause or are just looking for someone to protect them.

“As for the broken, they have to be plotting something. Since Lord Illidan’s track record of allies has been terrible, I suspect that Akama is plotting against him, especially since Lord Illidan sacrificed the souls of some of his soldiers to open a portal to another world not too long ago.”

Flutashe nodded, “Thank you for telling me this. I still want you to tell the others about your real profession, but I won’t force you. We’ll find a way to keep the leaders of the Alliance and Horde from finding out.”

Raida was surprised that her sister was accepting of her new status. Then again, she was more open minded than the majority of night elf society. A part of her couldn’t help but wish that Malfurion was as flexible as her sister, then she wouldn’t be in the situation she found herself in.

Flutashe shifted into her bird form but paused before she spread her wings. “You can fly on those wings, right?”

“Yeah, but only me and Lord Illidan are capable of flight with these things. The other demon hunters can only glide at best.”

“Alright, we’ve spent enough time discussing this. Let’s fly over to the Altar of Sha’tar.”

With that, Raida and Flutashe spread their wings and took off toward the Aldor outpost.

Hours had passed since Lokosh, Farra’jin, Talia, Groun and Feloma exited the Aldor tunnel into Nagrand.

Unlike other regions in Outland, this one seemed more intact than others. The grasslands were still filled with wildlife ranging from the big horned talbuks to the hulking clefthoofs with their plated skin. Of course, there was still the matter of pieces of land floating around the area that gave an unnatural feeling to the region.

Apparently, the abundant wildlife also made the region a prime hunting spot since the group spotted a camp of beast hunters who were collecting trophies to commemorate their time here. They were ignored as the group moved on to their destination.

Once the road turned westward, it took them about an hour to reach their destination. The orc town of Garadar was where they would find their first clue toward their dreaded hunt of the infamous Sons of Gruul.

The town was built of wooden log fences and clay huts with red markings. Several windmills served as granaries for what the orcs farmed. The orcs themselves were brown-skinned which made Lokosh feel like he stood out like a sore thumb since he was one of the green-skinned ones. The villagers paid him no mind and went back to what they were doing.

In the center of town was a group of mag’har orcs with one of them looking very depressed.

Lokosh decided to ask them for any information about the Sons of Gruul. The sad orc ignored them while another pointed to an orc behind them.

“You five seek to confront the Sons of Gruul?” asked the orc behind them. The orc looked to be dressed in tan and brown chainmail and was standing by a bulletin board.

“We were sent here to hunt down the seven of them,” Lokosh answered.

The orc bellowed in laughter when he heard that. “All of you scrawny people must be suicidal if you think you can take on the Sons of Gruul. Not long ago, one adventuring group before you took out two of Nagrand’s biggest names, denying their leadership to the Shadow Council forces and the Warmaul ogre clan. They tried their luck with the gronn in this region and never came back. Even now that gronn is still trampling everything in his path around Oshu’gun to the southwest. If you seek to slay the Sons of Gruul, then you better be strong. The name of the gronn is Durn the Hungerer, slay him and I will point you to another of the Sons.”

“If you think we can’t do it, why point us to him?” Lokosh asked.

“Why deny an orc their death in combat? I dunno about your friends, but either way you bring honor to your clan as long as you fight well.”

Lokosh rolled his eyes. He and the others gathered what supplies the mag’har could offer before they made the long journey southwest.

It took a few hours since they had to travel all over northern, eastern and southern Shadowmoon Valley to accomplish their task, but Stella, Bella and Mena managed to gather the corrupted elemental souls needed for whatever ritual Torlok intended. The trio often grumbled that the task would have gone faster if Torlok had more than one totem for the task, but what’s done was done.

Upon returning to the altar, Stella handed back the totem. Torlok smiled as he saw the totem brimming with spirits. “I thank you for your assistance. Now, we must get to work. Please stand back as the spirits might lash out.” He went to the back of the altar and planted the totem, unleashing the spirits. The collected spirits coalesced into four larger elementals in their fel-corrupted state.

“Why have you captured us?” Earth asked.

“What is it that you hope to gain from this?” Fire asked.

“We wish to help you spirits, we seek your wisdom,” Torlok responded.

“Wisdom? It was your people who caused the insufferable wrath of Cyrukh!” Water accused.

“Why should we help you? The world is ruined! Destroyed!” Air said.

“You are right spirits, it was my people that did that to you. Allow us to make it right. Please tell us, who or what is Cyrukh?” Torlok asked.

“Fool! Cyrukh the Firelord! When the tie was severed, Cyrukh awoke. It is the tears of Cyrukh that fill this land with molten rock.” Earth said.

“An Elemental Lord?!” Torlok shouted before he muttered about Gul’dan being a damned fool.

“He is insane now. Driven mad during the shattering. There is no rest for the elementals.” Fire said.

“There must be a way,” Torlok muttered.

“The only way to restore balance is to destroy Cyrukh,” Water said.

“You must utter the words of damnation to summon him,” Air said.

“Very well, we shall find the words and destroy him,” Torlok said.

“We have told you what you must do, now release us!” Earth demanded.

With that, Torlok released the elementals from the totemic binding. As the elementals drifted away, the shaman turned to the trio. He sighed, “I have no idea where to even begin to look for those words.”

“Even after all that we still have no leads to the Cipher of Damnation?” Stella asked.

“Isn’t there anything to go off of? Even the teensiest thing?” Mena asked.

“Without any clues we will be forced to search under every rock in this region for the Cipher,” Bella said.

Torlok closed his eyes and thought deeply for a moment. No relevant clues came to mind so he would have to consider the tiniest possibilities for a lead. He soon thought of something, it may likely be a dead end but they didn’t have much to go off of at this point. “It’s a long shot, but I remember an orc who visited this area before; we spoke briefly. His name is Oronok Torn-heart, a hermit who lives in the mountains above the naga base to the north. Perhaps he might have some answers.”

“Oh dear, if he lives high up Stella might have trouble carrying both of us if we need to fly,” Bella said.

“I’m light as a feather with my Levitate spell,” Mena offered. “I can ride on Stella’s back and she won’t feel my weight. She will be free to carry you without me being a problem.”

“Let’s worry about that when we get there,” Stella suggested. Her tone failed to hide her reluctance to carry a paladin in heavy armor up the mountain.

The trio returned to the road and proceeded north.

Flutashe and Raida landed near the Altar of Sha’tar but far enough for the guards to not notice them. Raida quickly made her wings vanish and put her cloak back on to follow the druid into the outpost. The guards were wary of the two but returned to their duties when the druid told them that they were here on business from A’dal.

A few minutes later, the duo was greeted by a female draenei in plate mail and carrying a staff, which seemed like a strange combination for a paladin. “Greetings, I am Exarch Onaala. I am told that you are here on business from A’dal?”

Flutashe nodded, “We were sent to this region to seek an artifact called the Cipher of Damnation. Have you heard of it?”

“Can’t say that I have. I wish that I could help, but my forces have been on high alert ever since the Ashtongue Broken began ransacking the nearby ruins.”

“Who are they?”

“The Betrayer’s elite broken soldiers. They are led by the most wretched of them all, Akama.” Onaala sighed, “He used to be one of the most valiant of exarchs, until the fel twisted him into that wretched form.”

For a brief moment, Onaala reminisced about the past. She soon returned her attention to the duo. “If you could provide some assistance to us, we would be honored to help you with your task. The ruins to the south are being excavated by the Ashtongue. We should use this time to reclaim the Tablets of Baa’ri, an ancient text rumored to hold the secrets of the Temple of Karabor, known today as the Black Temple. We might be able to find something useful in our fight against Illidan. Please, retrieve the tablets from the ruins.”

Flutashe and Raida accepted the request and left the outpost to head south toward the Baa’ri ruins. The ruins were a few minutes' flight from the Altar of Sha’tar.

Once they arrived Flutashe began her hunt for the tablets while ruthlessly tearing apart any broken who got in her way. Raida blasted a few broken with Chaos Bolts. Though they were her fellow Illidari, she never liked the Ashtongue for their unscrupulous behavior.

While her sister was busy slashing up the broken and demons in the far south side of the ruins, Raida had obtained a few tablets.

It was when she obtained her latest one that a broken ran up to her with his hands in the air, informing her that he wanted to tell her something. She waited for the broken to approach her before she recognized him as Oronu, a lieutenant of Akama.

The broken stopped before her and held out an envelope. “Here, I was instructed to deliver it to you, Lady Raida. Akama wishes for you to open it immediately.” Oronu then ran off, likely to try to avoid Flutashe’s wrath.

While Raida didn’t trust Akama, she knew that Lord Illidan had control over the broken’s soul and he would not act against him so foolishly. Any act against her would be seen as an act of betrayal. Still, she cautiously opened the envelope and only found a letter inside. Opening the Letter, she began to read its contents.

Lady Raida,

I will be at the usual place. Please come see me as soon as possible. The Corruptors have been duped. I cannot say more in case this letter is intercepted by our enemies.

Akama

Raida burned the letter in felfire and waited for her sister to return, likely with the rest of the tablets. She had a feeling that the tablets would mention the Medallion of Karabor which was said to give someone access to the interior of the Black Temple, a gaping flaw in their security.

Suddenly, her pendant began to glow which meant that Lord Illidan wanted to speak with her.

“Is this a bad time, Raida?”

“Not really, I might have time before my companion returns,” Raida responded.

“Yes, your sister. Ironic, isn’t it? You and your sister chose paths similar to mine and my brother. I can only hope that she is more understanding than my brother was.”

“Yeah, I hope so too. I guess you heard that Kael’thas sold out to the Legion?”

“Yes, you were right to be concerned. If we are to win this war, we need to be sure of our allies. With the blood elves plotting against me, the fel orcs being as fickle as they are and the likelihood of Akama’s betrayal, we are in no shape to launch an invasion on Argus. While I have no doubt that the naga and my most trusted demon hunters will follow me, it will not be enough.”

“Doesn’t help that Varedis got taken out recently. Kayn believes Altruis had something to do with it.”

Illidan said nothing for a minute. Before Raida could ask about it, he continued. “It’s all falling apart and there are too few that I can trust. But I will not allow Kil’jaeden to have a complete victory over us, which is why it’s important for you to build up your friendships with your companions.

“In the past I have been known to sacrifice my allies for the sake of victory against the Legion. Many will not understand why I go to such lengths, but we must be willing to sacrifice everything because the Legion will take everything we hold dear. It is at this time that I must make more sacrifices, which is why I am giving you permission to slay our allies, Gruul, Vashj and Kael’thas.”

Raida couldn’t believe what she was hearing. While she had no love for Kael’thas and Gruul was as much a questionable ally as the rest, why would he allow her to slay Vashj? “WHAT!?” she exclaimed. “Forgive me for questioning your orders, my lord, but why are you so willing to throw their lives away?”

“Because it’s clear to me now that if there is any army out there who holds the potential to destroy the leaders of the Burning Legion, it would be Azeroth. Though as they are now they have no chance. Which is the purpose of the contingency plan. I will fall to them as well, but if it means that Azeroth will be more prepared for another invasion, then so be it.”

“You can’t seriously be asking me to fight you, Lord Illidan!”

“Fear not, my second. I have another task for you and my most trusted demon hunters, one which will be vital to the master plan. For now, assist your companions to your best capacity and avoid revealing yourself to the Alliance and Horde leadership.”

“What about Akama and the Fel Horde?”

“I expect that Akama is working in secret against me, I give you permission to support his rebellion. Kargath Bladefist needs to be dealt with swiftly. There is a blacksmith at the base of the temple who holds the necessary mold to forge a key into his inner sanctum.

“I know that what I say may sound mad, but as long as the plan succeeds we will still see the end of Sargeras and his Burning Crusade. Follow it through, no matter what.”

Raida grit her teeth. How could she follow such an insane order when it would dismantle everything they had built up over the years? Still, this was her master’s call and she would have to respect that, albeit reluctantly. “Yes sir…” she finally said.

With that, the glow from her pendant dimmed.

After his communication with his second in command, Illidan sighed before he turned to face the other figure that was with him on the summit. “This plan of yours better work,” he growled menacingly.

“It will. Azeroth may not yet be ready to face the full arsenal that the Legion can bring to bear, but there are major threats in their future which will test their strength in so many ways,” Thanatas said.

“I find it difficult to trust one who reeks of death like you do, just like him.”

“Why would I ever work for that puppet? Even if he doesn’t know, everything he does is ultimately in the name of a dark master who may be an even bigger threat than the Burning Legion. No, Arthas wishes that he could be as powerful as me.”

“And you are certain that they will face more powerful enemies in such a short time? A few years doesn’t seem like much.” Illidan’s frown deepened.

“A few years isn’t much, yes, but those few years will be filled with battles against not only Arthas, but also foes far more ancient than the night elven race. I also expect that the Legion will also permanently lose a couple of their biggest names before the invasion even starts.”

“What assurances do I have that this future you envision will come to pass?” Illidan asked.

“It will, even if I have to make sure of it,” Thanatas replied. “Arthas will launch another attack on the Alliance and Horde which will spur them to invade Northrend and deal with him.”

“You think they could take him where I failed?”

“If they can defeat you, they can take on Arthas.”

Illidan ignored what seemed like an insult. If her plan did work then everything he had worked for would come to fruition. Though a mention of a “dark master” manipulating Arthas did seem alarming, he couldn’t worry about that right now since the Legion was his primary concern. “What will you do now?” he asked.

“Enjoy the fireworks, of course. Your personal student and her companions will be at the forefront of the major crises in the future. In time, she will definitely surpass you.”

A smirk appeared on Illidan’s face, “Then I will look forward to it.”

Sunlight from a nearby star had begun to fade to reveal the ethereal skies of the Nether by the time Lokosh’s group made it to a massive, white, crystalline monument in the center of a flatland. Surrounding the monument were a number of strange symbols in the dirt where the grass didn’t grow.

While the mag’har revered the monument in the center of the valley, Lokosh had no idea why it was considered sacred nor did it matter. They were there to hunt a gronn.

Deciding to wait and see if the gronn was wandering around, they took the time to make sure they were prepared for a big fight. If gronn were as brutal as others claimed, Farra’jin had his earth totem ready to add a layer of defense to their bodies.

After several minutes of waiting, the five of them spotted a dark figure in the distance around the edge of the valley and moving along the rim. As he drew closer they could see that he was a lot bigger than they had imagined. He appeared to be as tall as an anubisath but much more bulky. Spikes grew from his shoulders, back, elbows and calves with hardened segmented plates growing along his spine. He had one eye and was very hunched over. His skin was brown as fertile soil and he wore a black loincloth with a skull for a buckle and black cloth armwraps with skulls on them over his three-fingered hands. His feet bore a resemblance to elephant feet.

Once Durn came close, Lokosh charged in and slammed his shield on one of his toes. The gronn showed no signs of feeling that, so Feloma fired an arrow at his head. The arrow struck his ear which he felt. The gronn stopped in his tracks and turned his baleful gaze toward the huntress. He unleashed a roar that nearly blew her away.

Groun attacked next by causing vines to grow from the ground and try to strangulate Durn. However, gronn were built to combat uncontrolled plant life and easily snapped the vines before he slammed his fist on the tauren who managed to dodge but got knocked away by the shockwave.

Feloma fired a volley at the colossal creature, aiming for his head. Durn blocked the arrows with his left arm and swiped at her. She leaped back in time to avoid the impact but the rush of air caused by his swing made her fall back more than she would have liked. She wished that she could use her pheromones to influence the gronn but she knew better than to catch such attention from someone large enough to grab her and carry her up a tall structure like a certain colossal gorilla from a human-made movie she watched a long time ago.

Lokosh focused on hacking away at the softer parts of Durn’s feet with his axes. He rolled out of the way when the gronn tried to stomp on him before he continued his assault.

Farra’jin blasted the gronn with bolts of lightning, lava, frost and rock from a distance while his summoned elementals attacked the arms and legs.

However, their attacks were not doing much damage due to the gronn’s size and nearly rock-hard skin. It was taking significant effort to leave shallow cuts into his skin and even more for the cuts to make him bleed. Talia tried setting him on fire but the beast was too large for the spell to have any significant effect and her shadow spells and demons’ attacks were just as effective.

Groun sprouted thorny vines from the ground which wrapped around Durn and squeezed hard enough to punch through the skin and cause bleeding wounds. It was while he was distracted by the vines that Feloma scored a direct hit on the gronn’s eye, causing him to roar in pain and effectively blinding him.

Feloma spotted a particularly large clefthoof nearby and got the idea to use her pheromones to control him into attacking Durn. This ended up with the large beast charging forward and slamming into his gut and knocking him to the ground, the impact causing large tremors which knocked the group on their butts for a moment.

As the clefthoof began slamming his hooves on Durn’s stomach, the gronn began to grapple with the beast and pushed him off. He was then hit in the back by smaller clefthoofs who charged at him from behind with one of them headbutting him.

Talia focused on setting Durn’s head on fire since that appeared to be where he was most sensitive. She called upon an infernal to pound his face. Her felguard left some deep cuts on his neck.

Durn had enough and roared as he got back to his feet and grabbed the larger clefthoof and slammed him down on where he believed the other clefthoofs were but missed because of his blindness.

He then tried to sniff around for where the annoying pests were only for an arrow to lodge itself in a wound on his neck. That was painful enough but became even more painful when the bomb tied to it exploded and widened the wound. The blast tore open his jugular vein and blood began to flow freely.

The gronn tried desperately to cover the wound but ended up knocked down by the large clefthoof again, giving the party a chance to attack the opening with everything they had. Talia’s shadow magic caused the wound to fester while Farra’jin’s earth shards tore the wound further. Several more Explosive Arrows from Feloma tore the wound wide open.

Between blood flowing from his eye and the wound, Durn the Hungerer soon became unable to continue fighting as he couldn’t find the strength to get back up again. He lost consciousness before blood loss claimed his life.

Once they were sure the gronn wasn’t getting up again, the group put away their weapons while Feloma drove away her new pets. Only the light produced by passing cosmic radiation illuminated the region.

“One down, six to go,” Talia said.

“There’s gotta be a bettah way to deal with dese tings, it took everyting we had just for dis one,” Farra’jin complained.

“Agreed, these direct confrontations will wear us down before we defeat all seven of them,” Feloma said.

“We will come up with strategies when we find out where the rest are, until then we focus on looking for clues to the whereabouts of the others,” Lokosh said.

After resting for a few minutes, the group prepared for the long walk back to Garadar.

Author's Note

I can only hope that the dialogue in this story isn't too forced. Several things came to my mind as I made this chapter.

Would I be able to have Raida's powers as a demon hunter restrained and limit her to warlock spells for what amounts to over half the overall story? I don't think so and it would have been a major hassle to keep that secret from her friends for all that time. Plus, Raida may have been trained as a demon hunter, but the Rainbow Dash inside her will shine through every now and then.

Yes, Gruul was canonically a member of the Illidari, albeit a tentative one.

The reason for the conversation between Raida and Illidan is because I needed to give her an excuse to go after the other Illidari leaders and try to alleviate any feelings that she was betraying her master. At the end of the day, Raida is still the Element of Loyalty, even if no longer officially the bearer.

I know that I'm using Thanatas as a deus ex element, but I felt like I needed one in this case in order to steer the plot how I want it and to give Raida plenty of opportunities to strengthen her bonds with her friends without her loyalty to the Illidari holding her back.

Next time: More Shadowmoon Valley shenanigans.

The Trials of the Naaru

With all eyes on her and nobody whom she didn’t want to hear what she was about to confess within sight or earshot, double checking as she used her Spectral Vision ability which she learned from Seeker as she absorbed some of his power, Raida took a deep breath and began, silently praying that this wasn’t about to blow up in her face.

“To begin with the obvious, I am a demon hunter who has absorbed demon souls and has fel energy coursing through me,” Raida began. “And I am one of the Illidari under Lord Illidan’s command.”

Bella gasped in shock while the others had more subdued expressions on their faces. “I’m sure you’re aware that you are playing with some dangerous magic that can easily corrupt your mind, body and soul?” Stella inquired.

“Yeah, it takes some intense mental training to better our chances of not losing our minds to the rush of power that the fel brings. Even then the success rate is pretty low. Most of the blood elves offered from Kael’thas’ forces were sent back once they finished combat training. We didn’t even offer the fel infusion to them because their spiritual fortitude was lacking. This isn’t something that can be easily offered, it’s too easy to go on a power trip which would have made them susceptible to the temptations that the Legion offers.”

“And yet your mind was strong enough to resist that feeling?” Stella asked with skepticism in her voice.

“Raida has always had a strong will, even when we were kids,” Flutashe offered.

Stella thought about Flutashe’s response and shrugged. She didn’t know enough about demonic chaos magics to have any real opinion of her own. Her line of questioning continued, “So why are you helping us? If you’re still calling The Betrayer ‘Lord Illidan’, I can see that you still hold loyalty to him.”

“I am still loyal to him. The cause of the Illidari has always been the destruction of the Burning Legion and the defense of Azeroth, even if its denizens disagree with our methods. Azeroth may regard us as no better than the Legion, but our loyalty remains with them regardless.”

“And yet Kael’thas is consorting with the Legion, the naga are stealing water from the landmass, the fel orcs are attacking the Alliance and Horde unprovoked and the broken are collaborating with the naga,” Stella countered.

Raida grit her teeth as her situation was thrown in her face. “Yeah…” she shook her head and took a deep breath. “Which is why I need help in dealing with them.” Stella silently motioned for her to continue.

“The original plan was to amass this army and launch an invasion of Argus, the Legion’s homeworld, but everything slowly began going downhill ever since our defeat at the Icecrown Glacier in Northrend. After Lord Illidan was defeated by Arthas, we were forced to retreat to Outland to gather our strength and make surgical attacks on Legion-held worlds while hoping that Kil’jaeden didn’t put us at the top of his list of menaces to deal with.

“Our luck recently ran out when Kil’jaeden ordered a pair of ered’ruin demons named Kazzak and Kruul to reopen the Dark Portal and launch a provoking attack on Azeroth, knowing that the Alliance and Horde would respond to it and blame the Illidari.”

“So why does Akama want to rebel against Illidan?” Flutashe asked.

“For good reasons unfortunately, the Legion made a mess of their holy Temple of Karabor and turned it into a bastion of corruption while we simply kept it that way when we took over. He didn’t like the idea of using the pit lord, Magtheridon, to create more fel orcs, especially since they had slaughtered many draenei in the past. Lord Illidan also has Akama’s soul hostage to keep him compliant. Then there was the most recent invasion of the dreadlord homeworld of Nathreza. Since the portal to that world required souls to open, Lord Illidan used the souls of Maiev’s fallen soldiers and Akama’s fallen Ashtongue soldiers, the latter of which Akama didn’t take well.”

The others gave her a piercing look. “I never said he made good decisions!” she defended. “And that’s part of the problem, he’s too reckless when it comes to his decisions, believing that anything goes as long as the Legion no longer plagues the universe. He sees the big picture but ignores the details at the cost of his allies’ loyalty.

“I don’t know what Vashj’s deal is with monopolizing the continent’s water, even if the water was slowly vanishing over time regardless. I’m sure there could have been better solutions, but now she’s put herself in a bad position to where she’s angered the Cenarion Circle and made herself a target.

“I never liked the idea of using the fel orcs either, they were originally Gul’dan’s pawns and the fel orcs are more inclined to be led by whoever makes the better deal for felblood. They are worse than mercenaries, at least the good ones honor their contracts no matter what. The Legion would be able to supply them with limitless felblood and the moment those morons realize that they will turn on us too.”

“So you agree that we need to dismantle the Illidari, but you don’t want to turn on Illidan?” Stella asked.

Raida nodded. “Lord Illidan may be reckless and blind to the details, but he knows more about how the Legion works than anyone. He knows that when the Legion launches a proper invasion on Azeroth, you won’t stand a chance. Believe me, the War of the Ancients and the Third War was them testing the planetary defenses. We need to be ready before they use their real firepower on us.”

“Didn’t we defeat Archimonde at Mount Hyjal years ago?” Flutashe asked.

“Demons like Archimonde aren’t so easily killed. When they die, they reform in the Twisting Nether, like elementals in the elemental planes. The only way to permanently kill the Legion’s officers is to either kill them in the Twisting Nether or have a demon hunter claim their soul.”

Stella looked at the Cipher of Damnation for a moment before she sighed and rolled it back up. “Alright, I’ll extend a small degree of trust.” Relief appeared on Raida’s face as Stella’s frown deepened. “Don’t squander it. Now, let’s get back to Shattrath.” She began channeling the portal spell while Raida put her cloak back on. Stella returned to her elf form as she finished channeling the spell.

The five of them entered the portal and appeared before A’dal. Stella offered the Cipher to the naaru who levitated it before it disappeared in a flash of light.

“You have done well to not only recover the Cipher of Damnation, but you have freed the elements from the oppression of the Elemental Lord Cyrukh,” A’dal said. “But we must turn to more dire matters, Kael’thas knows the ancient words and must be stopped before he decides to utter them.

“However, entry into the sacred ship of the naaru is not so easily given. You must pass the trials of the naaru before you may be deemed worthy to enter it.” The group gave the naaru a questioning look. “Worry not about Kael’thas, his manaforges may be shut down, but he still has a few means to siphon nether energy from the storm above Faralon to distract him before he considers uttering the words. That should give you plenty of time to complete the trials. For now, you must rest. The Aldor have offered lodgings to all of you.”

The group looked at each other for a few moments and realized how tired they were. Mena’s less than usual energy showed. Bella turned to the naaru again. “Thank you for your hospitality, A’dal. We shall take you up on that.”

And so, the group proceeded up an elevator to the top level of the city where the draenei of the Aldor Priesthood led them to their lodgings. A well-earned sleep awaited them.

After Lokosh’s group returned to Garadar in the middle of the night, the night patrols noticed them and led them to a hut where they house guests of the Mag’har. Their sleep was troubled as anticipation of future battles haunted their dreams.

The next morning, the group rose and prepared for the day. The first thing they noticed was the hopeful expressions on the faces of the orcs. Asking around, the group found that the village chieftain, a young adult orc named Garrosh Hellscream had found his spirit at last after a green-skinned orc named Thrall showed him visions of Garrosh’s father, Grommash Hellscream, slaying the very demon that he made a dark bargain with years ago. It cost Grommash his life, but the honorable death ignited the spark within his son. The village knew that they would be in good hands now once the greatmother who led their village beyond her normal lifespan moved on.

Not really caring about that, the group decided to talk with the orc who told them about Durn the Hungerer.

“We have slain the dreaded gronn who plagues Oshu’gun, now what do you know about the other gronn?” Lokosh asked.

“I am impressed that you felled such a mighty foe,” the orc replied. “Dealing with the others will be more difficult though. I know that five of them still live in the Blade’s Edge Mountains near their father’s lair while two others left the region to live away from their father’s shadow. One of them was Durn the Hungerer.”

At least they knew where five of the remaining six were…generally. This left the mystery of where the last one was and this one could be anywhere in Outland. They needed more information.

“Would dere be two gronn in Nagrand?” Farra’jin asked.

“No, our scouts would have spotted such a large creature by now,” the orc responded. “While the gronn prefer to live in regions populated by ogres, the Warmaul and Boulderfist clans show no signs of gronn leadership.”

“What about other regions?” Talia asked.

“Shadowmoon Valley would be out, the gronn have a pact with Illidan Stormrage, but there are no ogres there for them to bother settling. Zangarmarsh is unlikely to house a gronn, their kind and plant life are mortal enemies. Hellfire Peninsula is teeming with those giant mechanical constructs and a battle between the two would be anyone’s guess who would win. Plus, none of the ogre clans have settled there. Faralon would be hazardous to a gronn’s health with the state it’s in now. That leaves Terokkar Forest.”

“Any other information to narrow our search?” Lokosh asked.

“Nope, that’s all I know. Good luck on your gronn hunting.”

With no other clues left, the group had no choice but to return to Shattrath to gather more intel.

Hours later and a return trip shortened thanks to the village letting them borrow a few wyverns to fly them back to Shattrath as thanks for defeating Durn, the group was back in the rundown city and inside the central chamber.

“How did your investigations go in Nagrand?” Khadgar asked. “I heard rumors that there was a gronn there, did you encounter it?”

“We did, took everything we had to take it down,” Feloma said.

“I suspected that you would have trouble, gronn are formidable adversaries, especially the Sons of Gruul. I hope you find easier ways to deal with them.”

“Someone in Garadar told us that five of the Sons of Gruul stay near their father’s lair in the Blade’s Edge Mountains while one might be settled somewhere in Terokkar Forest,” Lokosh said.

“I see, I’d suggest consulting with Yuula of the Sha’tari Skyguard. Her people have a bird’s eye view of Outland. If there is a gronn somewhere in the forest, they will find him.” Khadgar pointed toward one of the exits. “You will find here just outside recruiting skilled flyers.”

The group followed Khadgar’s advice and left the building where they quickly spotted a female draenei with a hovering nether ray next to her.

As Yuula saw them approach, she quickly assessed them, scanning their posture, equipment, and every important feature to see if they had the right stuff. Sadly, she was disappointed that they showed no promise for such skill in the skies. That could only mean that they wanted to ask her something. “May I help you?” she asked.

“We were wondering if you knew the locations of any ogre camps in Terokkar forest?” Lokosh inquired.

“Why would you want to know that? Well, if you wish to know, the Sha’tari know of two camps in Terokkar Forest. One is in the ruins of a Bleeding Hollow orc clan settlement.”

“Would anything in those ruins be large enough to house something as large as a gronn?”

“No, those are standard orc huts,” Yuula said. “A hut would have to be twice the standard size to house a mountain gronn and about five times the standard size for one of the larger variants.

“There is a proper ogre settlement in the Barrier Hills overlooking Shattrath though, this one held by the Gordunni Clan. The Sha’tari Skyguard use that settlement as a means of testing new recruits to see if they have the combat skills to make it as one of the Skyguard. Some ogre buildings would be large enough to house a particularly large gronn, though our scouts never reported a gronn wandering the settlement. However, we have had a low turnout because many of those prospective recruits ended up dead.”

“That’s probably our best bet,” Talia said. “The gronn we are hunting might be hiding in that settlement, it might also be what’s killing your potential recruits.”

“Is dere any way to reach de place on foot, or do we need to borrow a flying mount to get dere?” Farra’jin asked.

“The settlement can only be reached from the air,” Yuula said. “There was once a path the ogres used to get there, but that collapsed when the world was shattered. I will let you borrow a few of our nether rays, but you five really should consider finding flying mounts of your own.”

Once the negotiations were complete, the group flew on their borrowed nether rays, trying not to get sick as their mounts continuously undulated. Feloma had a better time since she called on Nazan, her nether drake, to carry her. They flew just above the city where they spotted the ogre settlement and landed in a place where the ogres weren’t looking.

Once they were ready, they began fighting their way through the ogre village. Lokosh’s defense was proving as resilient as ever while Farra’jin and Talia burned down a number of ogres who tried to smash them from the side. Groun’s plants strangled a few ogres while his spells kept everyone’s strength up. Feloma built up an ogre fanbase using her pheromones.

“It scares me how powerful you will be once we find the Fragment of Temptation,” Lokosh commented.

They soon managed to fight toward the back of the village where they spotted the largest building in the settlement. Talia decided to scout ahead by summoning a demonic eye which showed her everything it saw. Once the eye peered inside, they spotted their elusive target resting in the building. Talia quickly banished the eye before looking at the others. “He’s in there alright.”

Lokosh thought for a moment before an idea came to him. “I have a plan, Me, Talia and Feloma will move in and engage this gronn along with Feloma’s minions. We just need to keep him in the building for Farra’jin and Groun to come through with their part of the plan.” He pointed toward the building and made a crushing gesture with his hand.

“That’s going to be a tall order, but we can do that,” Groun said.

With the plan formed, Lokosh, Talia and her demons along with Feloma and her brainwashed ogres ran into the building.

The gronn noticed the disturbance and woke up, glaring balefully at the intruders. “You enter the house of Slaag, I will break you.” he threatened.

Lokosh made sure to dodge the massive creature’s attacks while everyone else opened fire on Slaag.

Though he was assaulted by overwhelming force, Slaag toughed out their attacks and counterattacked. He started by backhanding several ogres into a wall before he brought his fists down on Talia’s felhound and voidwalker, crushing them and banishing them back to the nether. It would be a few minutes before the warlock could summon them again.

Slaag then started pounding the ground and creating shockwaves throughout the building which sent everyone flying back.

Meanwhile outside, Groun was working his plants into the building’s walls to weaken its structural integrity while Farra’jin unleashed the elements on the walls. Fire elemental and water elemental heated and cooled the stone rapidly to warp the stone and weaken its integrity while his earth elemental pounded at the walls and his air elemental worked to erode the stone.

The two were thankful that Slaag was doing his part in weakening the building with his heavy attacks.

The fight inside proceeded for a few more minutes before the building began to rumble. Feloma had her ogre slaves hold back the gronn while everyone else escaped. It was a few seconds after that that the building collapsed, crushing Slagg under stone rubble.

They had considered celebrating their latest kill but that was not to be as Slaag emerged from the rubble with a furious roar, still ready to fight but not unscathed as the rubble had left him with several wounds on his body. He spotted the group again and roared in fury. “You break Slaag’s house, I will break you!”

The group wasn’t sure what to do next since they had exhausted most of their options and that only served to make the gronn furious. The ogres in the area had fled to avoid getting in the way of their master’s wrath so Feloma couldn’t use her ability. Their own abilities had worn down Durn but most of the damage he took was when he was distracted. They weren’t going to be so lucky against Slaag.

However, as Slaag leaped toward them with intent to smash them with his hands, a huge wooden log that was sharpened at one point flew at Slaag at high velocity and pierced his chest. His leap sent him flying back into the rubble.

While Slaag was trying to get up while coughing up blood since the wooden projectile pierced his lung, the party looked behind them to find Sophia ripping off another wooden log from a nearby structure. The bunny templar felt the stares and shrugged, “What? I was in the area and I got bored.”

Slaag removed the log from his chest but blood began to flow freely from it. He didn’t have time to find the newcomer before she appeared beneath him and shoved a second log through his throat. There was no chance of the gronn recovering from that so the party and Sophia watched as the giant choked on the log and collapsed forward, unmoving.

Adding insult to injury, Sophia found the gronn’s favorite banner in the rubble, a forked branch with a banner made of animal skin hanging from it. She then grabbed it and rammed it up the dead gronn’s posterior.

“Was that really necessary?” Talia asked as the party walked through the rubble.

Sophia shrugged, “Not really, but it will scare the ogres around here since this ridiculous display will make them realize what a joke their masters are and that they won’t be able to protect them anymore. Plus, I find it funny.”

Not wanting to be around their sworn enemy for long and scared of what the templar was capable of doing in the name of comedy, the party decided to leave Sophia to admire her work while they boarded their nether rays and dragon and returned to Shattrath. They had a long journey north ahead of them and five more gronn to hunt down.

The next day Flutashe and the others awoke from their sleep. They quickly finished their morning rituals and returned to the central chamber for further instruction from A’dal. Once again, Khadgar was in attendance, though he stayed silent.

“Greetings travelers, I hope you have all slept well,” A’dal said before he got down to business. “Four trials you must pass before you are deemed worthy by the naaru. The Trial of Strength is divided in two. Within a section of Coilfang Reservoir known as the Steamvaults, the leader of the naga there, Warlord Kalithresh, carries a trident. Bring it to me as proof of your victory.

“Within the ruined mausoleum of Auchindoun lies the headquarters of the Shadow Council, known as the Shadow Labyrinth. The Shadow Council summoned a powerful sound elemental who was responsible for turning the land around Auchindoun into a desolate wasteland. This extra-planar being, Murmur, must be destroyed. Bring me its essence as proof of its demise.”

“The Shadow Labyrinth is locked behind a stone door, you will need a key to open it,” Khadgar added. “However, I hid the key in another part of Auchindoun and the area has become a haven for a renegade tribe of arakkoa.” Raida sighed in exasperation about the added complication.

A’dal continued. “For the Trial of Mercy, the fel horde have captured a number of prisoners from Honor Hold and Thrallmar and dragged them into the inner sanctum of Kargath Bladefist, known as the Shattered Halls. He seeks to execute them as a sign of his virility and power. Slay his executioner before the ax is used and bring me that ax. There must not be a drop of blood on it.”

“How can we get in?” Bella asked. “We still need a key to get in there.”

“Actually, I might have a way for us to make a key to get inside,” Raida said. The others looked at her. “I’ll explain later.”

A’dal continued once again, “The Trial of Tenacity requires you to venture into the Arcatraz, where we imprisoned many dangerous beings and creatures. One prisoner, however, is not supposed to be there. A gnome mage named Millhouse Manastorm stowed away aboard the vessel. Rescue him and ensure his survival.” The naaru paused for a moment before he added, “I will inform you of your final trial when you complete the other three.”

“So not only do we need to head into some dangerous places, we need to find a way to get into most of these dangerous areas,” Raida finished.

“I would suggest starting with Auchindoun,” Khadgar offered. “Obtaining the key to the Shadow Labyrinth from the arakkoa shouldn’t be a difficult task for adventurers of your skill.” He chuckled mirthfully.

The party left the chamber and made preparations to travel south. Once ready, they left the city and began their journey.

Their walk down the road allowed them to view the scenery of the dark forest inhabited by wolves and giant spiders. On one side of the road was an arakkoa settlement which they passed without incident.

The scenery changed abruptly as the forest gave way to a desolate wasteland of death. The dead, gray land showed no signs of recovery with bones of animals and people lay strewn about the wasteland. Vultures flocked the area searching for anything resembling meat to scavenge. In the distance, and likely the center of the wasteland, was the ruins of a massive structure that was once a place where the souls of fallen draenei found rest, now their restless souls haunt the place seeking the rest that they will never find.

The party crossed the wasteland, passing by a small camp of refugees on their way to the mausoleum. The walk took about a half hour before they stood before the massive structure.

Looking around the structure, they found an entrance which was guarded by a pair of green-skinned orcs. Their armor wasn’t anything that the Horde usually wore so it wasn’t hard to figure that they were members of the Shadow Council. A thin wave of shadows from Surprise decapitated both of them.

The party proceeded inside and found themselves in a narrow tunnel that led downward several stories. The hallway was undefended so they were able to explore the place unmolested.

After going down several flights of ramps, they soon entered the central area of the ruins. The place looked like a good place for a massive colosseum if they removed the rubble that was scattered all over the place.

Given how large the place was, it took them about half an hour to explore the area. In that time they found four places where they could move deeper into the ruins.

The northern passage appeared to be occupied by ethereals who were having some trouble tinkering with technology that the party couldn’t make heads or tails about how it worked. The engineers appeared to be struggling to dismantle something and were having no luck so far, especially since they seemed to be losing their members one by one to whatever the gate at the entrance was. The moment the poor volunteers tried to move through the gate they burst from their bandages and left their armor behind, showing the group what happens when an ethereal dies.

When the party asked one of the ethereals about the entrance, he replied that it was the Mana Tombs where a rival cartel had infiltrated it to plunder it of its relics and treasures. However, a group of adventurers had recently come to help them deal with the problem and now they were just here trying to figure out how to get inside themselves. The party left them to their work.

The western passage had a few draenei spirits praying to something with a live one standing atop a large pile of bones. He appeared to be speaking to something that wasn’t there. When asked about what part of Auchindoun this was, the strange draenei called the place the Auchenai Crypts where a shadowy cult took over and began practicing necromancy. An adventuring party recently came and took out the necromancers and their dark leader, Exarch Maladaar.

The southern passage was blocked off by a stone door so they figured that way led to the Shadow Labyrinth, according to Khadgar.

This left the eastern passage, one that was watched over by a lone arakkoa. Unsure of where the bird’s allegiances lie, the party warily approached him, hands on their weapons.

“Awk! I am not an enemy!” the arakkoa squawked. “If you wish to proceed into these halls, then I ask you to free my sister Lakka while you are in there. Awk! These halls are occupied by the Sethekk, worshippers of the dark god Sethe. They scour these halls searching for a sign of the return of our true Talon King, Terokk. These fanatics are mad and fruitlessly search the ruins for something not there.”

The party looked at each other for a few moments then nodded. Stella spoke for them. “We don’t know anything about your religion and dealing with them is not the reason we’re here. As for your sister, we will keep an eye out, at least.

“I thank you for your efforts. Awk! My name is Isfar, an exile of the Sethekk.”

“Why were you exiled?”

“Because I’m not mad like the rest of them, and I called that self-proclaimed Talon King, Ikiss out on it. Awk!”

They decided to bring the conversation to an end and prepared themselves as they moved toward the entrance and into a den of fanatical arakkoa.

Author's Note

All done with the setup, now comes the dungeon marathon.

Next time: 2 dungeons from the Auchindoun set in one chapter.

Trial of Strength: First Half

The party of Bella, Stella, Flutashe, Mena and Raida entered the once sacred halls that were now occupied by a fanatical group of arakkoa. It wasn’t long before a pair of guards came around the corner, likely in time for a change in shifts.

One of the crazy birds squawked, “Intruders in the Sethekk Halls! Aa-ak!”

If subtlety was ever an option, it wasn’t now. A disintegration beam from Stella and a black ocular beam from Raida disposed of them. The latter ended up frozen in black crystal before the demon hunter shattered it with a Chaos Bolt.

“Since when could fel magic do that?” Mena asked.

“It doesn’t,” Raida answered. “Whatever I got from that strange demon I absorbed, no other demon hunter could replicate that power, not even Lord Illidan. Even more odd was that I had to absorb the souls of more demons just to be able to use fel magic like everyone else.”

“Maybe it was a void demon?” Mena guessed.

“It would still be the weirdest void demon I ever saw. Most void demons look like some sort of shadow elemental or, as they’re commonly called, voidwalkers. The one I saw looked like a two-legged gray Xorothian Dreadsteed with a jet black mane and a curved red horn. It sorta looked like some sort of horse person. Plus, no void demon we know of could create black crystals.”

“Could be a mutation or a special strain or an anthropomorphic pony from a universe beyond our own or…” Mena trailed off as they entered the next room which contained a small army of arakkoa.

Arakkoa of various colors of plumage were waiting for the party as they began to channel their dark magic. Large birds of prey prepared their sharp talons. They noticed that some of the bird people were transparent. Given that they were in the middle of a haunted mausoleum there might have been some sense in ghostly arakkoa being here but that was likely not the reason, nor that it mattered.

Bella began using the Light to consecrate the room to burn the arakkoa ghosts while the others engaged the various defenders in the room. Mena let Surprise take over and show the birds who was the better shadowcaster by attacking the minds of the melee oriented arakkoa. Flutashe shifted between her bear form and her cat form, the former to endure the strikes and bolts of shadow, and the latter to attack. Stella unleashed an earth shattering wave of magma which set the nests and tents on fire. This attack worked a little too well as it set every flammable object in the room on fire, which was to say everything in the room was flammable including the cobwebs which clung to their nests.

Taking that as their cue to move forward, the party moved into the small hallway into the next room. Stella put up an ice wall behind her once they were through. She hoped it would be enough to isolate the fire and she made a mental note to watch the fire attacks from now on. With the place in disrepair, of course erosion and cobwebs would be prevalent here.

The next room was circular-shaped with more arakkoa, nests and tents. It was still smaller than the previous room and Raida had no problems unleashing a tempest of blades as she pulled out her twin warglaives and summoned Truth and Lady Heartswell before they unleashed their fury upon the birds.

It lasted about a minute, but it was a minute filled with clashing steel and pained squawks as bloodied arakkoa and hawks piled on the floor.

Despite how amazed she was by Raida’s martial prowess, Mena ended up pouting. “Aww, I wanna show off too.”

The party moved deeper into the halls, fighting more arakkoa and birds as they entered a hallway that turned left at a corner and into a similarly-shaped room with a single arakkoa standing on an elevated platform. Little else of note was in the chamber short of a caged arakkoa next to him.

“Mmm…new pets. Rak! You belong to Syth now,” the uncaged arakkoa said.

“I have no idea what you are talking about, we are nobody’s pets,” Bella firmly stated.

“Pets need to be broken first. Come my pets, let us tame them. Aa-ak!” Syth then summoned a number of elementals in the form of fire, water, arcane and shadow and ordered them to attack.

A blast of light from Bella quickly banished the shadow elemental while Stella drained the arcane elemental and unleashed a torrent of ice magic to banish the fire elemental. Raida vaporized the water elemental with a blast of felfire.

Syth was angry that his pets fell so easily so he tried casting various spells at them. Before he could get one off, he stopped and lowered his arms. This confused everyone at first before they saw Surprise had successfully taken control of his mind. The gnome then ordered the arakkoa to open the cage and let out the captive. The prisoner was confused by this until she noticed the shadowy influence on his mind and realized what was happening.

“My thanks to you, strangers. I am Lakka, and as much as I hate to admit, the sister to this foolish bird.” She let out a low squawk. “Would any of you happen to know where my brother, Isfar went? He said he would free me and help me get to Shattrath.”

“We saw him at the entrance,” Flutashe said. “He asked us to free you.”

“Typical, afraid to stand up to his brother…” She grumbled, which sounded like a pigeon cooing. “I will make my way out of here on my own, thanks again.”

“Wait, do you know where there is a key around here?” Stella asked.

“A key? I did hear some arakkoa talking about how they found an enchanted lockbox that had a key in it. Ikiss is likely trying to break the enchantment.” Lakka then ran back the way the party came from. The party silently hoped that the fire had died down enough for her to escape.

Once Lakka was gone, Surprise obliterated Syth’s mind to end him. Though as the arakkoa collapsed, a book fell out of his possession and slid toward Stella’s feet. Curious, she picked up the tome. It had no name on it, but she sensed power coming from it. Not wanting to allow a book to fall to tatters in this place or fall into the wrong hands, Stella decided to hold on to it for the time being.

The party continued onward. The next room had more arakkoa nesting areas along with a large wind serpent that was flying around. Once they were wiped out, they proceeded up a flight of stairs to an upper level that had a few more arakkoa guards for them to defeat.

The next room featured more of the same except there were flocks of trained hawks for them to eliminate. Some of the arakkoa also had a familiar ability that they experienced back in the Temple of Atal’Hakkar where their spirits emerged from their bodies upon their expiration and slowly chased one of them for a few seconds until the spirit destabilized and faded away.

After fighting through the flocks of birds and bird people, the party entered another room which was oddly empty for some reason. As they entered however, they couldn’t help but sense a presence that felt ominous, yet not hostile. Avian idols sat in the room, each one depicting a type of bird: a hawk, an eagle and a falcon.

Once they were halfway through the room, a small crow suddenly appeared and perched itself on Flutashe’s head, much to her confusion.

“Found yourself another friend Flutters?” Raida chuckled.

“I’m sure he’s just nervous about the atmosphere of the…” Flutashe trailed off as she felt a chill run down her spine, as if something powerful was staring at her, judging her. The feeling soon faded, but not before leaving her with a strange sensation as she could more consciously feel the air in the room and a desire to shift into her bird form and fly around. She suppressed that feeling as there would be time for that later. The crow suddenly flew away and quickly vanished.

“Are you alright, Flutashe?” Stella asked.

Flutashe shook her head, “Yeah, just a weird feeling. Let’s move on.”

The party was glad to be out of that strange room, as they shook off their apprehension, they noticed that the next room had one arakkoa within it. The room featured four pillars and several carpets surrounding the center where the arakkoa stood.

The arakkoa saw the group enter and began rambling, “Ra-ak! Trinkets, yes. Pretty trinkets! Ak! Power, great power. Ra-kaw! Power in trinkets! Ak-caw!”

“This guy clearly seems insane,” Mena said. “Too bad Violetta isn’t awake, though.” Everyone except Raida breathed a collective sigh of relief. Raida gave a confused look.

“May I?” Stella asked. “I can see the arcane energies swirling around him, so he’s likely a mage.” She smiled as her friends nodded and backed away into the previous room.

She frowned as she turned to the arakkoa, arcane energy dancing on her fingertips. “Come on!” she challenged.

“Mmm…you make war on Ikiss? Aa-ak!” He then fired several arcane bolts at Stella who blinked to the side and fired several bolts of her own. Ikiss blinked away as well.

Ikiss was sloppy with his spellwork, so Stella could sense his teleport location. In response, she quickly set up a Flamestrike at the destination. The moment he appeared, Ikiss was burned by a pillar of fire. He squawked as he patted out the fire before he blinked away to avoid a follow up from his enemy.

Stella blinked in pursuit of her enemy which was a mistake as she was immediately blown away by an Arcane Explosion and fell to the ground. “Ikiss slice you up!” he shouted as he pulled out a dagger. His swipe missed as Stella quickly teleported away. Ikiss looked around for her but failed to notice a large ball of fire being launched at his back which sent him flying forward a few yards and he fell to the ground in a smoldering heap.

Ikiss tried to get up and cast a baleful glare as his enemy. “Ikiss will not die!” he screeched before he began channeling another arcane spell. Stella quickly recognized the spell being cast and raised a mirror barrier. There was no way she would allow the arakkoa to turn her into a sheep. The moment the spell went off, it bounced off Stella’s shield and struck the caster, turning the bird person into a sheep. One last Flamestrike turned the sheep into charred mutton.

The rest of the party returned and cheered at Stella for her accomplishment. She blushed a little before her attention was drawn to a small box in the back of the room. She sensed that the enchantments had been removed so she looked inside to see what was inside.

Thankfully, Ikiss didn’t do anything with the key inside as they would need it to infiltrate the Shadow Labyrinth.

Once they were finished celebrating, the party headed down a passage that led out of the room. The way ramped downward until they reached the end where they found themselves in the first room. They concluded this because of the smoldering piles of ash in the room where nests and tents used to be. There were still some small fires in the room but they were slowly fading. A mostly melted ice wall once blocked the passage to their right.

“Looks like these halls circle around,” Raida said. “There might have been more to this place once but those passages had probably collapsed a long time ago.”

With nothing else for them here, they returned to the entrance. They found that Isfar was no longer lingering there so they guessed that he left with Lakka somewhere, probably Shattrath.

They didn’t linger on that because they now had to explore the important section of Auchindoun where their target was located. They proceeded to the door at the south side of the ruins.

What they weren’t expecting was an assortment of different races standing in front of the door equipped for combat. They weren’t certain if they were hostile or not so the group approached them with caution. One of them, a human, noticed their approach and yelled behind him. They were too far to hear what he said though.

A minute later, a broken emerged from the crowd and walked over to the group. “Greetings strangers, I am Field Commander Mahfuun, leader of this expedition into Auchindoun.”

“Umm, greetings to you as well, good sir,” Bella said cautiously.

Mahfuun chuckled, “Worry not, we are allies against the Shadow Council. We are operatives from the Lower City of Shattrath, so we are on your side.”

The party relaxed at that and proceeded toward the door with Mahfuun by their side. “We have been waiting for you to arrive with the key to the Shadow Labyrinth. We will assist you where we can, but it will be up to you to defeat the leaders inside.”

“We can handle that,” Stella said.

Once they were at the door, Stella pulled out the key and felt around for a hole. It was small, but she managed to find it and insert the key. With one turn and a clunk, the stone began to part. Once the door was fully opened, a surprised orc who was guarding a lever by the door took a few steps back but that didn’t save him from a shot from an operative’s crossbow.

“Secure the room!” Mahfuun ordered before the operatives fanned out and set up their stations for their headquarters. The broken looked at the group, “Reinforcements will arrive soon, once they are here, we will begin pushing inside. I hope you five are ready to lead the charge.” The group nodded and proceeded to wait.

A few minutes later, more operatives flooded into the chamber, just in time as the Shadow Council launched their own offensive against the Lower City operatives. However, they ended up blinded when Bella threw a hammer at them that exploded in a radiant blast. The operatives were far away so they were not affected as much. This gave them the advantage to take the cultists down.

“They know we’re here,” Mahfuun said. “Advance into the next chamber!”

The party led the way into the next chamber which was occupied by a large number of orc and broken cultists. Some wore robes while others wore leather armor and carried a polearm. There were a couple of warlocks in the room.

The party and the operatives engaged the cultists. Raida focused primarily on spellcasting since she didn’t want the operatives to know that she was a demon hunter; her demons had no such restrictions. Flutashe brutally mauled several cultists in her cat form. Stella countered the warlocks’ spells before she incinerated them with her Magma Breath.

Once the room was cleared out, the operatives set up defenses while the party and Mahfuun moved ahead themselves. They proceeded down a curving hallway past a couple of braziers that gave off a shadowy flame.

The path curved into a half circle and led into a room that was shaped similarly to the previous one. The previous room had five broken pillars, this one had six intact pillars and groups of Shadow Council warlocks were channeling their magics into them, causing the gems atop the pillars to glow red and fire a beam toward something in the back of the room.

Mahfuun pulled out a pair of binoculars to see what else was in the room. Aside from the warlocks and a few large felguards, he spotted what the warlocks were trying to bind. “There is a terrorfiend in the back. The warlocks appear to be binding him while they feed him the souls of their prisoners. He looks quite strong and I would rather not risk our operatives losing their souls fighting him.”

“I’ll say he’s strong, that’s Hellmaw. He’s an ambassador from the Burning Legion,” Raida informed. “Terrorfiends like him are less predictable than their doomguard counterparts since you never know if the mouth on their torsos might do something.”

“We shall deal with this demon quickly,” Bella said.

Bella and Raida handled the patrolling felguards. Raida’s knowledge of demons and their weaknesses allowed her to restrain them while Bella incinerated them with holy light.

Meanwhile, Flutashe, Stella and Mena attacked the warlocks who were maintaining the binding spell on Hellmaw. The three groups in the area stopped what they were doing and retaliated. Most of the spells they used were typical mage spells that used the arcane, fire or frost schools of magic so Stella was able to counter most of their spells. One of the warlocks tried to addle Mena’s mind to keep her contained while his allies attacked the others but that only ended up with Surprise taking over which broke the spell and surprised the warlock. His mind ended up crushed.

The group of warlocks on the other side of the room where Hellmaw was located noticed the commotion and that their comrades were losing. Weighing their options, the warlocks decided to release the demon. Once they stopped channeling their magic into their respective pillars, Hellmaw was free from the spell. The demon snarled and feasted on the souls of the remaining warlocks before turning his attention to the intruders and pulling out his curved sword. “Pathetic mortals! You will pay dearly!” he declared.

The party prepared for a fight. Flutashe switched to her bear form and grabbed the demon’s attention. Bella and Mena focused on unleashing their light magic on him with Stella using her dragon essences.

Hellmaw counterattacked with a shadow spell that made everyone around him flee in terror for a moment to disrupt their formation. Surprise proved more resilient and bombarded him with searing shadows. Raida recovered much faster than the others and summoned her demons to unleash their fury. The ambassador then opened his lower mouth and sprayed a corrosive acid in front of him which coated Raida’s demons and gave them severe acid burns.

The demons’ distraction gave the others time to recover with Flutashe switching to her cat form and punching Hellmaw’s lower face and breaking a few teeth. Raida blasted him from behind with a Chaos Bolt which pushed him forward and into another punch to the lower face. A hammer of light slammed into his upper head and blinded him momentarily which was long enough for Stella to unleash a powerful Disintegration Beam which punched through his torso.

Bleeding profusely and on the verge of death, Hellmaw made one last warning to them, “Do not…grow…overconfident, mortals…” He then fell on his back and stopped moving.

Mahfuun entered the room with more operatives who took up positions. The field commander approached the party with a pleased look on his face. “Thanks to your efforts, we have secured the Arcanium. We are much closer to eliminating the Shadow Council. The next room is the Refectory, the scouts reported that a sermon is scheduled to take place around this time. The ogre mage, Blackheart the Inciter, often conducts his sermons in there so expect a lot of cultists.”

Taking heed to the warning, the party cautiously crept into the next room where large groups of cultists were sitting on weathered pews with several shivarra demons patrolling between the rows. They were thankful that the cultists were paying too much attention to the sermon given by the ogre before them to look behind them.

“We will aid you against the Shadow Council while you focus on Blackheart,” Mahfuun offered.

“We will gladly accept your aid, Mahfuun,” Bella said.

Mahfuun ordered several units of operatives to get ready before he ordered them to charge in. The cultists inside were taken by surprise as their makeshift chapel came under attack by infidels. To make sure the attackers had a fair chance at victory, Bella and Mena bombarded one shivarra with holy magic until she was vaporized by the light. Raida drained the soul of another shivarra out of her body and absorbed it. She was glad that warlocks could absorb souls in a similar way to demon hunters.

Once the shivarra were defeated, the party moved up to the stage where Blackheart was observing the chaos and was laughing for some reason, as if the sudden interruption was some form of entertainment for him. Though given that he was a two-headed ogre, that was probably the case.

His disposition quickly changed to anger when his right head was struck from the side by a hammer of light. “You’ll be sorry!” he growled. He then pulled out a large warhammer and started swinging. Bella sidestepped a downward swing.

Blackheart proved that his attention span was very short and he quickly got bored fighting Bella so he turned his attention to Stella. He charged at the dracthyr with his hammer raised with intent to smash her into the floor. He didn’t expect a thick pillar of rock to suddenly burst from the floor right between his legs. A high-pitched scream rang throughout the Refectory which caused the cultists and operatives to stop fighting momentarily to feel sorry for the poor ogre.

A wicked gleam appeared in Surprise’s eyes as she unleashed a slicing wave of shadow magic while Blackheart was distracted and severed his right wrist, causing him to drop his hammer.

“You pay for that!” Blackheart yelled, both in anger and agony. He then unleashed a wave of dark magic that cause everyone to fight each other indiscriminately. Under the power of this spell there were no allies, but at the same time they couldn’t fight Blackheart.

However, Surprise was unaffected by the spell, and while her friends were fighting each other, she unleashed another slicing shadow wave while the ogre was distracted by the chaos. Blackheart turned just in time to save one head from being severed. The remaining head took a few seconds to register what happened but that was much too slow to keep up with what happened in the next two seconds as Raida leaped up and decapitated the other head with the back blade of her right warglaive.

Once the spell wore off for everyone, the cultists, who were less organized than the operatives, were left in a state of confusion long enough for the operatives to capitalize on that and finish them off.

The party quickly regrouped and ate some of their supplies to regain any lost strength. Mahfuun had them move on ahead while his forces recovered from the battle, saying that they would catch up quickly.

Bella nodded and took point as the party advanced. Stella used the key to unlock the stone door leading forward and they proceeded through a seemingly empty hallway, save for some rubble and a couple of skeletons.

As they turned a corner in the hallway, the skeletons suddenly began to move and stood up. Bella quickly reacted and shattered one skeleton with her hammer while her holy magic exorcised the dark magic making them move. Within a couple of seconds the hallway was silent once more.

The next chamber they entered featured several opened sarcophagi and a couple of piles of bones. There were also a few demons and a small camp of cultists in a far corner. Bella and Mena quickly exorcised the nearby bone pile in case they decided to come to life like the previous skeletons. Raida and Stella both fired beams from their eyes and mouth respectively and blasted a hole in the chest of a felguard before they engaged another demon in the room. The cultists tried to take arms against the intruders but they were ambushed by a two-legged cat who quickly mauled them before they could register what happened. Once the demons and cultists were down, the paladin and priest exorcised the other pile of bones.

The next hallway they entered was much like the previous except Bella and Mena were much more cautious around the bones.

Mahfuun and his operatives soon caught up with the group. The field commander shouted for them not to go further as he approached. Once he caught up, he took a moment to catch his breath. “The remaining leader of the Shadow Council, Grandmaster Vorpil lies at the end of the next chamber. Just like before, we will deal with the cultists between us and Vorpil.” The party nodded in acceptance of the plan.

Once they were ready, they proceeded with the attack. The operatives engaged more of the cultists, surprisingly able to deal with the ones who transformed into hounds blazing with green fire. There were also several piles of bones in the room which the healers blessed with the Light to exorcise the dark magic coming from them.

Vorpil stood atop an elevated platform in the back of the chamber. He saw the small army heading for him. “They are here! Minions, destroy them!” he shouted. While every cultist in the room engaged the operatives, the party emerged from the chaos and ran after him. He glared at them for a brief moment before he opened several rifts. Voidwalkers began to emerge from them and creep toward Vorpil. Mena and Bella clashed their light magics against the voidwalkers while the others engaged the master warlock.

No matter what they did the voidwalkers avoided fighting and continued toward Vorpil as if it was their only purpose in life. To make matters worse, more kept emerging from the rifts. “Everyone, please kill him quickly!” Bella shouted. “I don’t think we want to know what will happen if any of these things reach Vorpil.”

Vorpil wasn’t having that so he temporarily banished Stella out of this plane of existence to prevent her from attacking him. He then fired bolts of shadow at everyone else.

The voidwalkers drew closer to the warlock and Bella and Mena could only kill so many at a time and the fiends were emerging from the rifts at an increasing rate. Soon, the voidwalkers were feet away from the warlock.

They never reached him.

Black tentacles emerged from the floor and feasted on the fiends, leaving only their armor on the floor. Once there were no more voidwalkers to devour, the tentacles began to feast on the rift energies. “What? No!” Vorpil said. “That power is mine!” That was the last thing he said before a tentacle appeared in front of him and bit his head off.

Bella, Flutashe and Stella were stunned by what they saw while Raida had a stronger reaction. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”

“Mena, I thought you said that she was asleep?” Bella inquired.

“She is.”

“Then why did those black tentacles appear?” Stella asked.

Mena shrugged, “Maybe she smelled the void energies and started sleepeating?”

“Can someone tell me what the hell just happened?” Raida shouted.

“Raida, calm down!” Flutashe chided. She then explained the eldritch horror that lay within Mena’s mind and that she wielded the power of an Old God which made the demon hunter nervous when she looked at the gnome. “I felt the same way once. She doesn’t seem interested in eating us, only void energies and the insane.”

That didn’t make Raida feel much better since she had no idea when the creature known as Violetta would change her mind and go after them. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about this, only react accordingly if or when that scenario occurred.

Once the sounds of battle died down, the party heard a sound coming from further ahead. It sounded like fighting but there was also what sounded like a strange cacophony of musical instruments playing discordant notes.

“What is going on further ahead?” Bella questioned.

“Maybe some Shadow Council meanies decided to start a band and now they’re in the breakup phase?” Mena offered. “I’ve heard those can be pretty violent.”

Ignoring Mena’s comment, the party moved forward. Mahfuun stayed behind to examine a floating scarlet book hovering over a ritual circle.

They moved into another hallway with a corner which led to another door for Stella to open with the key. Once the door opened, they witnessed utter havoc. The remaining Shadow Council members were currently battling what appeared at first to be an air elemental the size of Ragnaros. However, there was something off about its appearance. The creature was throwing what looked like orbs of visible energy that emitted rings as it flew. One Council warrior was slammed to the ground by it, the impact sounding like thunder.

The warlocks struggled against the elemental but were slowly losing the battle as it killed a couple of them with a beam of concentrated sound that caused their heads to explode. Summoners brought in more reinforcements to battle the cosmic being. However, their numbers were dwindling and the summoners were being targeted by the elemental, either disrupting their spells or killing them.

“Grr…even in its weakened state it’s still killing us one by one,” one Council warrior growled. “Where is the Grandmaster? He needs to be here so we can finish the summoning to fulfill our masters’ wishes.” A beam of sound ensured that was the last thing the warrior said.

By this point, only a handful of Council spellcasters remained. The party knew they were about to face something incredibly powerful but they have faced powerful enemies before. The five of them gulped and slowly advanced forward.

By the time the party was standing before the elemental, whom they could only believe was Murmur whom A’dal mentioned, the Shadow Council members were completely wiped out. However, the being was showing signs of instability in his form, if their past experience with elementals applied here. The warlocks must have done a number on him or the summoning ritual was incomplete, which meant there was still time to drive him back to whatever plane of existence he came from.

Flutashe, Bella and Raida ran in and attacked the base of the giant elemental. Murmur swung his truncheon down which they dodged. Stella and Surprise attacked from range with their various spells. Weakened as he was though, he was able to take the hits like they were nothing, showing how tough he really was.

Murmur targeted whatever metal pieces Stella and Mena had on them and magnetically pulled both casters to him in order to smash them. Mena dove out of the way while Stella froze herself in a block of ice which blocked the strike though it shattered her protection.

Seeing that his attack failed, Murmur began to pull air towards himself while making a motion that he was doing so in order to release that air all at once. There wasn’t enough time to escape the blast so Raida quickly erected a wall of black crystals between themselves and Murmur. It was a few moments later that the elemental unleashed a powerful shockwave that shook the entire room. Powerful as it was, the crystal barrier barely withstood the blast but ended up shattered.

The shockwave also jarred loose a nearby canister which rolled down into the pit. Sensing nearby danger, the arcane energies protecting the container erupted from it and took the form of an arcane elemental. Believing that Murmur was threatening the container the elemental began to strike at it. Murmur became distracted by this newcomer.

Seeing the two combatants, Stella had an idea. It was a dangerous, and probably stupid one but it was their best chance at getting out of this. “Everyone, find a place to hide! Quickly!” Everyone complied and found a nearby pillar to hide behind.

Stella flew over to the arcane elemental and began to channel more arcane energies into it. The elemental grew until it was half of Murmur’s gargantuan height, though at the same time it became increasingly unstable. Stella continued feeding arcane magic into the elemental while sparks of arcane energy began to fly out of it. It wasn’t long before the construct reached critical mass.

Stella quickly teleported to the others with Murmur bashing the elemental one last time which was the last straw and the elemental’s form could no longer be sustained. A violent explosion erupted and shook the room and possibly all of Auchindoun to the foundations. Raida fortified their hiding spot with crystals to weather the blast while the rest of the area was exposed to arcane contamination.

Once the rumbling subsided, the entire area turned quiet, eerily quiet. Knowing how to handle herself in the event of an arcane fallout, Stella volunteered to check the aftermath. “Wait here,” she said. She emerged from the crystalline shell and teleported to the pit and found that all that remained of the elementals were Murmur’s truncheon and a metal piece that she suspected had once been part of a key. Stella quickly realized that it might be part of Khadgar’s Karazhan key so she quickly put it in her pocket.

As for the matter of Murmur, she used her magic to gather up what essence she could of the planar being from the weapon and condense it into an orb form. She would need to show it to A’dal as part of his trials. She was glad that her theory was right and that the rush of arcane energies disrupted the incomplete summoning ritual and banished him.

She teleported back to her friends. “Alright, let’s get out of here.” Stella then walked back toward the entrance of the room.

The others hesitated for a moment. When she looked back, they gave her a questioning look. “If this is about a portal to Shattrath, I can’t do that here. There’s too much interference from arcane contamination for anything short of short range teleports. There’s too much risk of creating a portal to places outside the laws of physics.”

Stella rambled on about the dangers of spatial magic in a magically oversaturated area until her explanations broke the minds of her fellow party members so she simply walked onward while the others robotically followed.

Author's Note

Another double dungeon chapter. I wrote it like this because Sethekk Halls is already a small dungeon and the arakkoa never really had any significant impact on the lore back in BC. They were a minor side story at best.

For all you WoW fans, you might be wondering why there was no Anzu fight in this chapter. The answer to that is because Flutashe didn't go through the questline to get the moonstone needed to summon him. Back when the dungeon was current, the only way to fight Anzu in Heroic Sethekk Halls was to have a druid who was on or had completed the Swift Flight Form quest chain in the party.

Anywho, next time: the return to Coilfang Reservoir.

Trial of Strength: Second Half

After a couple of days, the Horde party arrived in Blade’s Edge Mountains. They were told to stay on the eastern roads of Zangarmarsh to make sure they arrived at their correct destination as the western road would have taken them to the same region, but they would be in Alliance territory.

They traveled through the swamp and headed north past Cenarion Refuge and a Horde outpost near a dead section of the swamp that looked like a lake used to have been there. The wildlife there suffered because of the lack of water but the group could do nothing for their plight.

They traveled up a mountain pass and into a spider-infested tunnel that ultimately led into a forest inhabited by wolves and a warped species of chimaera with two heads and smooth, vibrant skin unlike the scaly and furred variant known on Azeroth. The wolves paid them no mind which hinted that they were trained by the local Horde. One or two chimaera pushed their luck before they reached their destination.

They quickly learned that the town they entered was known as Thunderlord Stronghold, once home to the Thunderlord Clan of orcs until they became corrupted by the fel. Now the Horde claimed the place as a stronghold in Blade’s Edge for their war against the Bloodmaul and Bladespire ogre clans who were being led by two Sons of Gruul.

Standing near the town center was an unusual-looking orc. He lacked the green color of one who drank felblood or inherited from their fathers, but it wasn’t quite brown like most mag’har. In fact, it was more of a sand color. He was also bulkier than the orcs around him while not looking hunched over like a dire orc. He wore the skins of animals for a loincloth, boots, gloves, right shoulder armor and a cowl.

“Greetings travelers, I am Rexxar of the Mok’Nathal and I am the leader of this expedition,” the unusual orc said.

“Mok’Nathal? I’ve never heard of that,” Lokosh said.

“Not too many have, my kind are half breeds, descended from orcs and ogres.” A brown bear next to Rexxar began to brush up against him. Rexxar chuckled, “Heh, how could I forget to introduce you, Misha? You are my closest companion.” Misha hummed in satisfaction.

“Getting to the topic of why we’re here…” Talia began impatiently, “We were asked to bring down the remaining Sons of Gruul. We have already dealt with two of them and the remaining five are supposed to be in this region.”

Rexxar frowned in thought, “I see, the ogres in this region are led by Gorgrom and Goc while two others, Grulloc and Maggoc keep to themselves. Grulloc lives at the end of the canyon below us guarding a sack that seems to be of interest to an associate of mine while Maggoc wanders the Scalewing Shelf above us. I don’t know where the last son, Skulloc, is as my methods of tracking him are ineffective.“

“Is there anything you can provide us for our fights against these gronn?” Feloma asked. “It took everything we had and then some to take out Durn and Slaag.”

Rexxar thought for a moment while looking at the town around him. “Very well, I shall assist you with Grulloc. He is not far from here and I need that sack that he’s guarding.”

Lokosh and the others were glad for the extra assistance, but they weren’t certain if their chances were much better with a half breed and his bear accompanying them.

Rexxar led the group to the back of the town where they descended down a small pass that led into the canyon. At the bottom, the group quickly took notice of a large building standing next to a watch tower, both crudely built out of an ogre styling of uncut stones and pointed logs.

“What is that?” Lokosh asked.

“That is the Circle of Blood Arena where warriors face other warriors in honorable combat,” Rexxar explained. “It was originally made to entertain the ogres with hazards added to make things more entertaining.”

The group moved east from the arena but they only made it a short distance before they heard someone yelling for them. “Wait! Don’t go that way! A dangerous gronn lives there!”

The figure running toward them was a two-headed ogre with red skin. The party prepared themselves for a fight but as he neared them, he stopped to catch his breath. Unsure what to think of the ogre, Lokosh decided on a diplomatic approach. “We are already aware of the gronn, we are going there to slay him.”

“I hope that you are able, my people have been under the oppressive rule of Gruul and his sons for far too long,” the ogre said, leaving the group confused.

“You don’t want the gronn ruling you?” Lokosh asked.

“The Bloodmaul Clan where I once came from has an ongoing rivalry with the Bladespire Clan but they have the advantage over us because they have the favor of Gruul and his seven sons. The Bloodmaul chieftain entered into a desperate alliance with one of the sons, Gorgrom, to avoid being annihilated. The chieftain has recently been killed and the clan’s future is uncertain.”

“Okay, two things,” Feloma began. “One, we don’t care about what happens to you or those two clans. We came here to kill gronn so saving your Bloodmaul Clan is only a side effect of that. Two, you are unusually well spoken for an ogre. You’re the first ogre we’ve seen who actually sounds like you’ve had a basic education.”

Instead of being insulted, the ogre actually laughed jovially. Feloma had given what was effectively an insult and he took it in stride.

Once the ogre was finished laughing, he spoke, “I don’t know if I’m smarter than most ogres, there are those who say I am wise. It’s why they gave me the nickname Mog’dorg the Wizened. If I do seem smarter, it’s because of the apexis crystals in this region. Most ogres don’t pay much attention to them but the sound they make opens my mind to a world beyond eating, sleeping and fighting.

“Anyway, it doesn’t matter why you are killing the gronn, both clans will benefit in the end once they’re gone regardless.”

“Do you have anything useful to say?” Talia asked, her patience wearing thin. “We already know about four of the five in this region and we killed the two who aren’t here. So if you know where we can find Skulloc we would appreciate it.”

“Ah good, then you may be able to handle yourself against Grulloc,” Mog’dorg said. “With Durn and Slaag dead and possibly Grulloc soon, my people may have hope. Skulloc keeps himself well hidden using dark magics taught to him by an ogre warlock named Vim’gol the Vile. You will need to steal his grimoire and use it at Soulgrinder’s Barrow near the Bloodmaul Camp north of the arena. It’s the only way to lure him back to this world.”

“And where will we find this Vim’gol?”

“There is a ritual area of fire and brimstone just off the road near the border to Faralon to the east. You may run into Maggoc on your way there. Just keep following the eastern road north until you’re near the border and you should be near the ritual area. You need five people standing in circles of fire to summon him and to weaken him if he decides to empower himself.”

“I know where Maggoc is,” Rexxar said. “So we must continue north from where we will find him?” Mog’dorg nodded. “Thank you for this information, we shall put it to good use.”

After giving his farewells, Mog’dorg returned to his post which was on top of a nearby watchtower, apparently. The rest of the group continued east where they spotted the massive gronn not far away.

“Be careful,” Rexxar warned. “These creatures can slay dragons with their bare hands. The carcases above us are victims of their might.” He pointed up and the others looked to where he was pointing and saw a grizzly sight of at least half a dozen dead black dragons, fully grown from their appearances. They were impaled on the countless long stone spikes along the cliff that gave the region its name. The party recoiled from seeing such a sight. “These are the ones who fell before Gruul the Dragonkiller. Their bodies serve as a testament to the gronn’s supremacy here.”

The party gulped and looked at the nearby gronn who was standing in front of a sack while holding a dragon skull in one hand, admiring it as if it were a trophy.

They readied their weapons and prepared for a tough battle.

“Let’s go!” Rexxar declared. He then charged in with the others not far behind. Grulloc soon spotted the coming attackers before he set the skull down next to the sack and moved to engage. Lokosh and Misha each attacked one leg with Talia, Feloma and Farra’jin shooting from a distance. Rexxar delivered a hard slash to Grulloc’s left arm with his jagged axes which caused the gronn to roar and turn his gaze to the mok’nathal.

Grulloc used his right hand in an attempt to smash Rexxar but the hunter moved out of the way before he delivered another slash to his right thumb, producing another deep cut.

Seeing that the half breed was causing more damage than he was and the bear was producing the same result, Lokosh grew frustrated and began slashing harder, deepening the cut with each slash. He realized that he needed to train harder for the future.

Rexxar whistled, calling another of his animal companions to his aid. This one was a large boar who was about as large as Misha. The boar pawed the ground before charging. The gronn didn’t pay attention to the boar until it was just under him and too late to stop it from slamming into his gut, causing Grulloc to roar in pain which Feloma capitalized on with an explosive arrow into his mouth.

As the gronn began to cough up the smoke from the explosion, his head was lowered enough that Farra’jin’s earth elemental was able to punch him in the face several times, causing Grulloc to lose a few teeth in the process.

Grulloc locked his fists together and quickly smashed the elemental but was taken by surprise when an arrow struck him in his eye, blinding him. He began to flail blindly but the attackers were able to easily dodge his attacks.

With the gronn blinded, the party was able to strike harder against him without worry of any intentional counterattacks. Rexxar dealt several deep cuts to Grulloc’s arms and caused him to lose strength while the attacks on his legs were becoming too much and he soon fell over. Rexxar dealt one last strike with a jump into the air and a heavy downward chop that landed deep into the gronn’s skull.

The gronn stopped moving after that.

Three down, four to go.

With the essence of an extraplanar being and hope that the arcane fallout from Stella’s little stunt didn’t cause any further damage to the ruins or the land, the dracthyr and the party moved far enough away from the magical residue to open a portal. However, she didn’t intend to return to Shattrath just yet. Instead, she opened a portal to Coilfang Reservoir, thankful that she remembered to place an anchor there or the journey there would have been very bothersome.

The rest of the party were not sure why they were back in the underground cavern beneath Serpent Lake in Zangarmarsh so Bella voiced their concern. “Stella, why are we here? I thought we would be returning to Shattrath.”

Stella nodded in understanding, “There isn’t much point in returning to Shattrath yet and we can rest here since it seems that the Cenarion Expedition has this place secured.” She pointed to the night elf and tauren guards around the cavern who were taken by surprise for a moment until some of the guards recognized the party and ordered them to return to their patrols. “A’dal’s Trial of Strength requires us to face not only Murmur but the leader of the Coilfang Naga outside Serpentshrine Cavern, Warlord Kalithresh.”

They soon spotted a broken walking toward them. “Greetings travelers, I take it that you are the group who rescued Naturalist Bite.” They nodded. “I am Mortog Steamhead, the Expedition is preparing for an assault on the Steamvault and should be ready in a few hours. Bite, Rayge and Claw are looking forward to working with you.”

“Any luck on getting past that waterfall curtain?” Stella asked.

“Afraid not, there appears to be a device next to the waterfall that will trigger if anyone who isn’t a naga gets near it. They end up either crushed by the waterfall or blasted away by a torrent of water. We tried disabling the device itself but there appears to be a failsafe that would cause the waterfall to deliver lethal amounts of pressure constantly. We were lucky that the device reset or we would be forced to find another way into the Cavern, if there were any.”

“Then it seems that we really do need that one naga’s help in getting past the waterfall,” Stella mumbled.

“We can worry about that later,” Mortog continued. “For now you may rest and we shall commence the operation to infiltrate the Steamvault in a few hours.”

The party accepted the broken’s offer and spent some time eating some fruits offered by the Expedition before resting in some bedrolls that the Expedition provided. Flutashe gave one of the druids her notes on what she learned about the fauna of Terokkar Forest and the fel-tainted wildlife of Shadowmoon Valley before she joined the others.

A few hours later, a druid awoke the group from their slumber, informing them that it was time for their operation. They returned the bedrolls to the druids before readying themselves for the attack. They joined up with Bite, Rayge and Claw as they stared down the cavern next to the waterfall. Once they were prepared, they proceeded into the carved cavern past some abandoned naga supplies and turned the corner.

The short passage quickly led into a large chamber that was partially flooded with some bushes growing from the cavern floor. A massive machine was lying on its side and appeared incomplete. The residents of the chamber consisted of a large number of naga along with a few groups of water elementals and a few fungal giants who reeked of rot and decay.

The party was no stranger to the stench given off by fungal giants but this was almost overwhelming. How the naga could tolerate that smell none of the party could figure out.

Still, they had to endure the smell to move forward. They began by attacking the nearby guards and engineers. With the eight of them, they were defeated quickly. A nearby fungal giant moved to engage them but Raida and Loki blasted the creature with fire which proved that the giant was highly flammable. Whatever was causing the smell only added fuel to the fire.

A group of water elementals soon took notice of the group and attacked. This one was composed of one large elemental and four smaller elementals. All five of them attacked by chilling parts of their bodies to freezing before releasing icy bolts at the party. Claw used his bear form to knock away the bolts with his paws.

Stella counterattacked with a few fire spells followed by a molten breath which caused the elementals to evaporate a little while Flutashe grabbed the bracers of the smaller elementals in one swift motion of her cat form and crushed them in her paws, causing the elementals to return to their natural state. Bite assumed a wildkin form and bombarded the large elemental with searing rays of sunlight and moonlight which caused the elemental to evaporate even further. The druid was relentless and didn’t stop casting until only the bracers remained.

They didn’t have time to rest though as more naga and fungal giants noticed the commotion and attacked. Raida and her demons continued burning down the giants who struggled to put out the flames using the water in the chamber while the others overpowered the naga.

It took them a little while but they finally cleared the chamber of Coilfang forces. However, they soon noticed a small circular chamber at the top of a ramp at the far end of the chamber. Rayge snuck over to the chamber to scout it and quickly returned. “There appears to be a single female naga guarded by two water elementals. They seem to be guarding some sort of device.”

The group nodded and followed the druid to the chamber which appeared to be a vertical half pipe with a grated floor. Some crates and a water tank were in there aside from what Rayge described.

“That may be Hydromancer Thespia from the reports,” Rayge said. “She is very good at controlling water.”

Thespia heard the druid talk and moved to investigate with her elementals at her side. She quickly caught sight of the intruders. “Surface Dwellers!” she hissed. She then ordered her water elementals to attack.

Raida quickly banished one elemental to another plane of existence temporarily while her demons and Flutashe attacked the other elemental. Claw held Thespia’s attention while the rest attacked her. Truth and Heartswell quickly slashed apart the elemental’s bracers and caused it to disperse.

Thespia quickly found herself overwhelmed, even as she tried creating localized lightning storms and magically crushing the lungs of some of her enemies, they easily moved away from the lightning while the gnome broke her spells. Knowing that her life was about to end, she gave one last declaration, “Our Matron will be…the end of…you…”

By the time the other elemental returned from the other plane, it could only watch as its master was savaged by the claws of several druids. With its master dead, the magic binding the elemental came undone and the elemental dispersed.

“That seemed a little too easy,” Stella noticed.

“We did outnumber her greatly,” Bella replied.

“Whatever the case, the lower chamber is cleared out. Now we must move to the upper chamber,” Claw said.

Suddenly, a faint rumbling sound could be heard somewhere in the cavern along with the sound of a nearby machine humming. The party looked at the machine that Thespia was guarding and saw Mena tampering with the controls. “Huh, so that did something, I think…”

“What are you doing?” Bella asked.

“I dunno, I saw a blinking button on this thing and something told me that I needed to push it,” Mena said.

“Without knowing what it did?!” Stella asked incredulously. “You could have gotten blown up if that was a self-destruct button!”

“A machine designed to blow up? I doubt the naga would take after goblins. Besides, it would be silly for someone like Thespia to guard something that was designed to explode.”

The others sighed in exasperation but decided to drop the matter and move on.

As they moved toward a tunnel that would take them to the upper chamber, Stella took note of the deep pool nearby. She suddenly remembered Khadgar saying that he hid a key fragment in a deep pool and since the rest of the chamber appeared to be shallow water, that left the nearby pool as a good place to look.

Remembering how Raida cast the spell before, she cast the water breathing spell on herself before diving in, to the surprise of the others. She swam deeper and deeper until she finally reached the bottom of the pool. Looking around she spotted a canister like the one she saw in the Shadow Labyrinth.

As she swam close to it, she opened the canister to look inside only to barely turn away her head before a surge of arcane energy erupted from it, knocking her back a fair distance. An arcane elemental like the one from before appeared before her. However, with her blue dragon essence she was able to draw in the arcane energies and stored it inside her body for a time until she found someone to unleash it on.

Just like before, a fragment of a key remained where the elemental once was. She swam to the bottom of the pool to pick it up before placing it in her pocket with the other fragment. She now only had one last fragment to find.

Stella emerged from the pool a couple of minutes later and swam to shore. “Did you find something?” Flutashe asked.

“Yeah, another key fragment. It was right where Khadgar said it would be.”

As they resumed their travel, Bite spoke, “Lady Flutashe, may I ask you something?”

“What is it?” Flutashe asked.

“Where did you learn that unusual cat form? All of us are trained to use the same form bestowed upon us by Moonglade’s Saber Spirit. I also saw that serpentine form you used against Quagmirran a few days ago.”

Flutashe nodded, “Actually, those forms came from unorthodox sources. During my adventure in the troll city of Zul’Gurub, the animal spirits that we freed there saw fit to bestow their blessings on me for some reason. Though they were the type who receive power through worship by trolls, going by the term ‘loa’.”

Bite’s, Claw’s and Rayge’s eyes widened at such a revelation. There had never been any individuals outside of the troll race who had been bestowed such blessings by the Wild Gods who favored the trolls. What they heard was unprecedented.

“If you don’t mind, please keep my unusual forms a secret from everyone else, I’d rather not have such knowledge fall into the wrong hands, especially Fandral’s.” Flutashe requested.

“Why would you want to hide such a thing from him?” Rayge asked.

“Let’s just say that he and I don’t see eye to eye.” There was more to say but she didn’t want to get into a debate about Fandral’s character here, especially if they still believed in the treacherous archdruid.

“Very well then, your secret shall be safe with us,” Claw said. The other two nodded in agreement.

The group proceeded up a short, ramping tunnel that curved slightly. At the top they encountered more groups of naga who seemed somewhat tougher than the ones on the lower level. These naga appeared ready to fight them as if they were being expected.

The eight of them took on the naga warriors and mages in the room and eventually came out victorious. With the area cleared, they observed the room and found a large number of crates and a path to the right and a door at the far end of the room. To their left was an overlook that showed what went on in the lower levels. The party suspected that was the reason the naga were ready for a fight as they entered.

Stella flew over to the door at the far end of the room and felt around for something to open it. To her dismay there were no openings or knobs nor any arcane locks. She had to wonder if it was a door or a dead end.

“Maybe there’s another device like the one Thespia guarded somewhere around here?” Mena offered. “Maybe we need to activate both of them to open the door.”

Seeing as they had no other options, they decided to cross a bridge into another area of the Steamvaults.

It was in this area that they saw something that reminded them of the Slave Pens. A large number of broken slaves were toiling away while they were overseen by a few naga. When attacked, the naga called on their slaves to fight with them. To avoid fighting the unfortunate slaves, Stella froze them in place with ice magic while the slavers were overwhelmed and quickly eliminated. With hope in their eyes, the slaves made a break for the exit when they thawed.

They soon entered another chamber which appeared to be occupied by what appeared to be gnome mechanics. There was a large red piece of gnomish engineering in the form of a mecha suit.

“Why would gnomes work with the naga?” Bella asked.

Mena peered at the distant gnomes and gasped dramatically, “Those aren’t just gnomes, they’re leper gnomes!” The others gave her questioning looks. “Didn’t you all hear about what happened in Gnomeregan? All the toxic gas that sprayed all over the place, I was there when it happened. If it wasn’t for that weird gas I inhaled instead, I’d be one of them.

“Are you saying that those ‘leper gnomes’ are the result of being exposed to that toxic gas?”

Mena nodded, “Yepperooni! There’s also the fact that exposure to the gas destroys their sanity so they have no sense of morality, and it turns their skin as green as a goblin.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think Vashj’s forces would be able to engineer all the pumps and arcane machinery without some help from gnomes or goblins,” Raida said. “I heard that she hired some gnomish engineer who called himself Mekgineer Steamrigger.”

Surprisingly, the leper gnomes whom they attacked were not well trained for combat and relied on throwing their wrenches or shooting with their blunderbusses. Some tried casting spells but they were all tossed by Flutashe into a chasm filled with water. If some survived or could swim, they would not be back for a while.

All that was left was Steamrigger, who was most likely piloting the mecha, and a few gnomes at his feet. Bite quickly incinerated the other gnomes with sunfire while the others focused on Steamrigger.

They were about to get into a big fight when Surprise spoke up, “You guys hang back while I handle this loser.”

The others looked at her as if she grew a second head which, in a sense, she did over a year ago but that was beside the point. “Are you sure you want to take this guy on by yourself?” Stella asked.

“Yeah, I got this.” The others decided to trust the devious side of Mena and moved a respectable distance away.

Steamrigger laughed as he approached the priest with his huge, imposing machine. “You are going to take on this piece of precision gnomish engineering by yourself? You are funny!”

Surprise gave a vicious smirk that Steamrigger couldn’t see from his pilot seat. “If you thought that was funny, then you will find this one hilarious.” Dark magic wrapped around Surprise’s hands before the same aura could be seen around Steamrigger’s head.

The leper gnome suddenly walked his machine over to the device he was guarding and pressed a button on it. A distant sound of rumbling could be heard again except this time it was followed by stone grinding against metal.

Once the device was activated, Steamrigger piloted his mecha toward the edge of the chasm before he jumped into the water while screaming, “I AM A STUPID LOSER!” as cheerfully as he could.

Apparently the mecha was not waterproof as the moment the suit landed in the water below, it discharged high voltage electricity. This had the result of electrocuting not only the pilot but also any leper gnomes who failed to swim away. The party had the pleasure to see the light show from a safe distance.

Once the light show ended, some like Bella and Flutashe felt sorry for the unfortunate gnome who died in a horrific way but they quickly got over that. Surprise returned to the party while laughing uproariously. They decided not to question the priest’s methods and went back the way they came.

When they returned to the previous chamber they found that the distant door was now open and a number of naga were guarding it. The eight of them had no trouble dealing with the guards while they forced their way beyond the door, eliminating more guards beyond it.

Once the last of the defenders were defeated, the party noticed that they entered a chamber that had a number of water tanks next to the railing. At the end was a particularly strong looking naga wearing thick chainmail shoulders, chestpiece and gloves. He was also carrying a red glowing trident.

“That must be Kalithresh,” Stella said. “A’dal said that he wanted that trident.”

Kalithresh likely heard what she said as he burst out laughing. “You come for my trident? You think you can best me simply because you bested my guards? I will crush each and every one of you!” He then slithered forward and delivered a series of swings with his trident which most of the party dodged. However, Rayge was caught off guard by a heavy swing that he failed to dodge properly and was knocked hard into the railing where he passed out.

Stella took to the air and fired blasts of red flames at the naga who blocked them with his trident before throwing knives at her with good accuracy. It became too dangerous for her to face him from the air so she quickly landed but not before a knife landed in her right arm. “Argh!” she grunted.

Kalithresh readied his defenses before slapping away a few spells thrown at him by Mena and sending them back at her. She was able to dodge the returning spells.

The naga warlord was not prepared for swords bursting from the floor which faded quickly. He was forced to back away which left him open to a light hammer in the face.

Growling in frustration that he was slowly being overwhelmed, he turned to one of the tanks near him and opened it, downing the contents quickly. He wiped his mouth as he said, “This is not nearly over!” He then found himself slightly larger and the party found that his attacks hit a lot harder when his trident left a dent in the floor. Claw and Bite tried to endure the attacks with their bear and wildkin forms but they were knocked away and slammed into a wall where they passed out.

“Squirm, surface filth!” he laughed as he swung his trident around. He felt that he had the intruders on the run and would soon take them down one by one.

However, that came to an end when he found that something faster than he could see had delivered a large number of deep cuts all over his body in the span of a second. One last slash cut his wrist holding his trident and forced him to drop it.

Breathing heavily as he began to bleed out, Kalithresh looked for his assailant who pulled back her hood. He recognized that rainbow hair anywhere. “L-Lady Raida!? Why?”

Raida sighed as she gave him a sad look, “I never figured why you naga were so determined to steal Zangarmarsh’s water. I know that the water is slowly spilling into the Twisting Nether, but this isn’t the solution since it would only kill the wildlife faster and deprive us of a food supply.

“But that’s not why I had to kill you. We need that trident so the naaru can give us access to that traitor’s stronghold. You already knew that Kael’thas planned to betray us, Lord Illidan wants me to see to his demise. I don’t know what you did to earn the ire of the naaru to where they would have your demise be used as an objective in some trial of theirs, but I will do what I must to fulfill my lord’s mission.”

Kalithresh said nothing as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed. Raida closed her eyes and shook her head. “Let’s go,” she said sadly.

Flutashe quickly checked the unconscious druids for injuries but was relieved that they were alright and would recover soon. She wrote them a note to tell them what happened and to include her note in the report before she joined the others as Stella quietly opened a portal to Shattrath to report the completion of the first trial.

Author's Note

A little later than I would have liked but here is the next chapter. We have more dungeons coming and more gronn to kill.

Next time: The death of a warchief.

Trial of Mercy

“I thank you for your assistance in this matter,” Rexxar said as he collected the sack behind the gronn’s corpse. “I wish that I could aid you further on your journey, but I have other matters to attend to. My associate is expecting this sack and I cannot be away from Thunderlord Stronghold for too long.”

The group was a little disappointed that the mok’nathal wasn’t able to help them with the remaining gronn but they would find another way to fight them.

“We thank you for assisting us with our quest to vanquish the Sons of Gruul,” Lokosh said. “Before we move on, we need to get to Scalewing Shelf and begin our hunt for Maggoc. Can you lead us there?”

Rexxar nodded. He silently went back the way they came and led them back to Thunderlord Stronghold. From there they left the town and walked down the road they originally traveled, except at the last fork in the road he pointed toward an eastern road that led upward. “Scalewing Shelf is through that pass. Be warned that the wildlife up there is ferocious and there is a gnomish outpost whose occupants are hostile to Horde races, avoid it at all costs.”

With the warning given, the group proceeded up the pass, walking past a broken robot and into what appeared to be a barren wasteland. From the top of the pass they could see some things around them. The wildlife consisted mainly of ravagers and the gnomish outpost could be seen in the distance. To their right they could almost make out what appeared to be crystals and more of those strange dragons like the one Feloma tamed earlier.

It seemed unlikely that Maggoc would be to the south since the dragons were there and gronn like to hunt their kind so they decided to head north, keeping a wide berth from the gnomish outpost and allowing Feloma to cause a few of the nearby ravagers to fight each other for her entertainment.

It wasn’t long before the ravagers became sparse around them as a species of spiky raptors with dark brown scales and an underbelly of yellow and red scales became more common.

“So where do we start looking for this gronn?” Feloma asked. “I’m starting to get bored of watching ravagers fight.”

Nobody could really say where Maggoc was. A massive gronn should be easy to spot but the place they were wandering was even larger. They would have to search all over the place to find him.

Just as that reality began to set in for the group, Autumn’s ears perked as she heard something faint in the distance. A growl caught the group’s attention. “Do you hear something?” Feloma asked. The lynx then ran toward the sound which prompted the others to follow.

They followed the lynx for a few minutes which was enough time for them to hear the sounds of battle in the distance which was followed by a loud roar. They hoped that it was the sound of a gronn so they wouldn’t have to be in the wasteland for any longer than necessary.

Their hopes paid off as they spotted who could only be Maggoc battling a group of who appeared to be brown skinned orcs but seemed to carry Rexxar’s build. However, it appeared that the gronn was slowly gaining the upper hand while the mok’nathal were on the defensive.

Seeing their chance, the group ran in to assist the beleaguered hybrids. Feloma got the gronn’s attention when she struck him in his right ear with an arrow. Farra’jin called on his fire and earth elementals to assault Maggoc while Talia called on her demons to assist.

Seeing the timely assistance by the newcomers, the mok’nathal hunting party fought with renewed vigor as their morale was restored. Their blades and arrows pierced the gronn’s thick hide and left deep cuts into his legs. Lokosh was able to cut deeper thanks to the assistance of their new allies and his experience from fighting gronn.

With Maggoc weakened, Groun was able to tie down the gronn with strong vines and pulled him to the ground where one member of the hunting party delivered a powerful chop that managed to sever the gronn’s head.

With the battle over, the mok’nathal hunting party cheered as a dangerous threat to their village was finally vanquished.

“Lok-tar strangers,” one of them addressed. “We thank you for your timely aid as we would have surely fallen to this gronn otherwise. Come with us, our leader would like to know of the saviors who aided us in slaying this beast.”

The party looked at each other as they began a psychic conversation. “Should we follow them? We do have other things to do,” Misty said.

“They may be hybrids, but they likely have traditions where we would earn their ire if we refuse,” Steel warned.

“Yeah, but on the bright side, free food.” Greenpeace offered.

“Ugh, another detour… Fine, let’s get this over with,” Crystal reluctantly accepted.

Desert had nothing to add so the five of them simply followed the mok’nathal to their village where they ended up spending a night while eating free food and telling a few tales of their adventures on Azeroth.

While they were resting up at the inn on Aldor Rise at the invitation of the priesthood, Stella called for a meeting to discuss what they were going to do next.

“Alright, the two trials we have to complete will require attacking the Shattered Halls of Hellfire Citadel and the Arcatraz. However, based on what we’ve been told, neither location is accessible without special keys.” She looked at Raida. “Raida, you said there is a way into these places, can you elaborate?”

“Getting into the Arcatraz is going to require attacking the other two satellite ships around Tempest Keep: the Botanica and the Mechanar. One half of the key is in the boughs of an arcane-twisted ancient called Warp Splinter. I don’t know if we can convince him to not attack us since the latest reports stated that the ancient was pretty addled. The other half is in the hands of one of Kael’thas’ advisors, Pathaleon the Calculator. He’s not parting with that fragment without a fight.”

“So we have a plan to get into the Arcatraz, but what about the Shattered Halls?” Bella asked. “You said that Kargath Bladefist isn’t leaving his sanctum for any reason so how do we get through the door without brute force?”

Raida pulled out a small stone block that had a hole in it. Pulling it apart revealed that it was evenly split in two which revealed an indent of a key.

“A key mold?!” Bella gasped. “Where did you get that?”

“One of the blacksmiths around the temple grounds had one. I convinced him to part with it.”

“But how do we know that it’s for the gate?” Flutashe asked.

“For one, this mold has the symbol of the Shattered Hand Clan on it, the clan that Kargath hails from. Also, Hellfire Citadel is the only place that clan operates from and there are no other locked gates or doors in that place.”

“In that case, I believe that it is time to turn this over to our blacksmith friend,” Stella said, looking at Bella.

“Hmm…” Bella hummed as she examined the key mold for a few minutes, examining every detail she could. She then sighed with some annoyance. “Say what you will about the orcs’ barbaric ways, but they are really good smiths. This key mold is designed to only work with iron, but it can’t be ordinary iron or the key will be too brittle to use. It would have to be high purity iron or the structure of the iron would have to be magically strengthened.”

“What about fel iron?” Raida offered.

“Pardon?”

“Hellfire Peninsula is lousy with deposits of the stuff. It used to be something called true iron and some egghead blacksmith said that the stuff was more pure than anything you would find on Azeroth. Of course, that stuff isn’t around anymore ever since Draenor shattered and the continent was exposed to nether energies which corrupted the remaining mineral deposits with fel energies.”

“That could work, but I would feel better if I had something to further strengthen the integrity of the key. Magical dust would probably do the trick.”

“Got it right here,” Mena said as she reached into her hair and pulled out several ingots of a green metal and a bag of dust. Nobody questioned where she got that.

Seeing a new kind of metal before her, Bella quickly grabbed one and began analyzing it. She found that the metal felt warm to the touch which she attributed to the fel energies. Her frown deepened when she realized the implications.

“It seems there is another problem, forging the key won’t be a problem, but properly tempering this kind of metal will require a source of heat hotter than a conventional forge. I can’t begin to imagine where we would find a source of heat like that.”

“What about felfire?” Raida offered. “I’ve heard that the Legion’s fel reavers run on the stuff and the heat it generates puts any forge to shame.”

“That could work…” Bella slowly said. “But we lack the means to extract the key mold from the furnace safely. Even going near such a furnace would be hazardous, let alone extracting something from it.”

Flutashe looked at Raida, “Maybe you could-” The demon hunter made silencing motions to shut her up, reminding her sister that her powers were supposed to be kept secret beyond their group and there were too many potential eavesdroppers around at the moment.

“I think we should go ahead and head to Honor Hold,” Stella offered. “We can work out the rest of the issues there.” She opened a portal and the group soon found themselves in the damaged Alliance base once again.

Bella took the key mold and the materials before heading to the blacksmith where she got to work adding the powder inside the mold before she melted the fel iron with the forge and poured it into the mold through a funnel. With that done, now all they needed was the extreme heat source to temper the metal.

The group left Honor Hold and made sure nobody else was nearby before they continued their earlier discussion.

“I know what you’re about to say and I can’t say if I can create that much heat with my fel magic,” Raida said. “If I absorbed the soul of a pit lord it would be a different matter.”

“What about the pit lord in Hellfire Citadel?” Mena offered.

“I have a feeling that we will need our Horde allies for that fight and they are still on their gronn hunting mission,” Stella said.

As the group thought about alternatives, Mena suddenly had another idea. “Ooh! I know! What about that pit lord who’s trying to attack the Dark Portal?”

“Might work,” Raida said. “It doesn’t have to be Magtheridon, just an annihilan powerful enough to allow me to breathe felfire when I claim his soul.

With their plan of action decided, Stella opened a portal to the Dark Portal where the defenders were still dealing with waves of demons, though their numbers were much more manageable since the portals were all destroyed, leaving the pit lord to summon reinforcements on his own power.

The party quickly moved in to attack the demon while the Alliance and Horde soldiers focused on the pit lord’s minions. The demon saw the group coming and moved to step on them but they dodged and moved behind him, causing the annihilan to turn around.

The demon swung his sword down which was met with only dirt. He soon realized that his foes were using their size difference against him since their small size made them hard to hit.

Meanwhile, Raida drew her warglaives and began jumping on the demon and delivering powerful slashes across his body with a black eye beam to his face which blinded him with black crystals. While the pit lord was busy wiping crystals from his face, Raida delivered heavy slashes to his right arm and weakened his grip on his sword followed by an Eye Blast to the open wounds and a Chaos Blast to detonate the crystals that formed. The pit lord dropped his sword as his arm went limp.

Before the pit lord could react to the enemy running around him, Raida cut open his chest which caused felfire to leak from it.

Annihilans had one dangerous feature that made surviving a fight with one even more difficult. When they die, they tend to explode in a burst of felfire. However, Raida began to absorb the leaking energy from his body while using the spell her master taught her to rip a demon’s soul from his body. The pit lord’s power was far from the likes of Magtheridon, let alone the lord of all annihilans, Mannoroth, so his soul was easier to absorb.

Once Raida had the soul drained, the pit lord began to self-destruct. Stella quickly opened a portal to safety which everyone quickly entered. She closed the portal just in time before the explosion could make it through the rift.

They soon found themselves where they were earlier and away from Honor Hold. As they regained their composure, Raida tested her breath to see if she did gain that power. A small burst of green fire exited her mouth as she exhaled, confirming that she did. She would need to control when she did that.

In the meantime, Stella placed the key mold on the ground while everyone took a few steps back. Raida took a deep breath before letting it all out as a torrent of green fire burst from her mouth in draconic proportions and engulfed the mold. It wasn’t the most efficient method since she had to take several breaths to finish the job but after her fifth breath, Bella called for her to stop. The demon hunter stepped back while panting from the exhaustion from using that new ability.

The stone from the key mold was now charred black. Bella pulled out her blacksmithing hammer and tapped the mold until the two halves split to reveal the contents. She then pulled out a pair of tongs to extract the glowing hot key before she allowed the air around them to cool it slowly. After about ten minutes of handling the key like that and a few more to cut off any extra bits of metal she finally grabbed it in her hand. “Alright darlings, I do believe that the key is ready to be tested.”

Wasting no time, the group walked along the ramparts of Hellfire Citadel while dealing with the few guards there. They soon came across a locked portcullis with a keyhole. Bella inserted the key into the hole and with a click, Flutashe was able to lift the gate so they could proceed inside the citadel.

As they entered the interior, they heard a voice not far ahead, “I heard the gate open, to arms! Form ranks and make the intruders pay!”

The moment they entered the party came under attack by a few fel orcs who each received a blow to the head by Bella’s light hammers. Flutashe mangled a few of the orcs while Mena seared a few more with her light magic.

“Reinforcements, quickly!” one of the orcs yelled. This one wore black and red plate mail with lots of spikes on the shoulders and a neck guard in place of a helmet. Each time the party killed one of the orcs, that orc called in more allies. Raida quickly shut the noisy orc up by appearing behind him faster that he could react before running her warglaive through his back and out his chest.

Once the vocal orc was eliminated, the party had no issue with mopping up the rest, giving them some breathing room now that they had taken their first steps into the Shattered Halls.

“The fel orcs here are more organized than the ones on the Ramparts or in the Blood Furnace,” Raida informed. “The Shattered Hand Clan is the most powerful orc clan in Outland which is why Kargath Bladefist is warchief of the Fel Horde. The majority of his commanding officers guard these halls and they aren’t afraid to keep calling in reinforcements.”

“So we have to deal with the ones in plate armor as soon as possible to stem the flow of reinforcements?” Flutashe asked.

“Yeah, now that they know we’re here, we will have to deal with them in squads.”

The group turned a corner and were faced against two more orcs who were defeated quickly. However, Bella took note of the strange weapons they were wielding. “What kind of axes are these? They look like they welded an ax to a gauntlet.”

“It’s more gruesome than you think, Bella,” Raida said. “That’s the symbol of the Shattered Hand. It has something to do with Kargath once being a slave to ogres before he sacrificed one of his hands to free himself and take his vengeance on his oppressors. He later grafted a blade onto the stub where his hand used to be.”

“So that’s why he’s called ‘Bladefist’?” Mena asked.

“Yeah, his example inspired the other slaves to rise up against their oppressors and they formed the Shattered Hand Clan. They ended up creating a tradition where they cut off one of their hands as a show of loyalty to their chieftain.”

“How utterly barbaric!” Bella reeled in disgust.

“Some of them got so zealous with the tradition that they ended up cutting off both hands. Kargath actually did that at some point.”

“How would he be able to grab things without fingers?” Mena asked.

“Don’t know, don’t wanna know.”

The room they entered had a number of weapons and supplies lined up along the walls along with a few fur rugs on the floor. There were also a couple of braziers hanging from thick chains. Bella counted nine orcs in the room plus two more behind them guarding a long hallway. One of the orcs in the room was walking around the room conversing with the others and he was armored like the one who was barking for reinforcements earlier.

“Take out that legionnaire so we won’t have to worry about reinforcements,” Raida said.

The party ran into the room and gained the attention of the large group of orcs. Flutashe used her bear form and assisted Bella with the pressure from the attackers. Surprise took control of the legionnaire and used him to cut down a few of the distracted fighters and with his mind bound, he was unable to call in reinforcements. This allowed the party to quickly defeat the other orcs before Surprise had the legionnaire running down the hall screaming that the invaders were too strong. Another legionnaire did the controlled legionnaire a mercy by grabbing his face and sliding his sword past his neck guard and into his throat, calling him a coward.

Of course, this ended up creating a ruckus in the hall as several more squads showed up. Some of them were armed with rifles and each one was led by a legionnaire.

The party had little trouble with the squads as Bella blocked the shots from the riflemen and Surprise puppeted each legionnaire in turn. Strong as they were, these orcs were lacking in terms of mental resistance. Flutashe mangled some orcs while Stella incinerated or froze more. One squad was burned to cinders when Raida breathed felfire on them.

At the end of the hall the party came across what appeared to be sleeping quarters. The legionnaire in charge of the room tried to shout to rouse any slumbering orcs but Surprise was quicker on the mind control spell. The rest of the squad moved to attack the intruders while Surprise used her latest puppet to murder the rest of the orcs in their sleep.

Unexpectedly, there was a houndmaster in the room as well along with a pair of armored wolves. However, the moment they laid eyes on Flutashe, their training proved insufficient to resist her aura and they ended up turning on their master.

Beyond the sleeping quarters the party came across a locked door. They also noticed what appeared to be an opening that led into a sewage pipe. As they were considering the pipe however, Mena pulled out something from her hair and stuck it to the door.

“Wait, that substance…” Stella noted. “That isn’t seaforium, is it?”

“Yeppers,” Mena said as she attached a fuse to it and lit the other end while the others moved around the corner. “I made some in case I needed to throw a really flashy emergency party, but opening a locked door works too.”

Seaforium was a highly volatile, yet controlled, substance used in high explosives and often used to infiltrate sealed locations by damaging the lock. Once the fuse reached the seaforium bomb, a loud boom rang through the halls followed by a few seconds of rattling chains.

As the sounds of destruction calmed down, the group looked around the corner and saw that the door was being lifted up by a pair of chains. They also spotted a quartet of fel orcs who were wondering what was going on.

However, it wasn’t the orcs or the party who spoke first after that event, but the particularly sinister voice of another orc, “Who dares disturb my fun? Well, no matter, I was getting bored anyway.”

“I recognize that voice…” Raida frowned before she entered the chamber with her hood down. The others quickly followed.

The evil orc quickly spotted the intruder and his eyes widened. “What? Lady Raida? What are you doing here?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Nethekurse, I know that you and your warchief have been planning on defecting to the Legion like Kael’thas did.”

“Why, whatever do you mean, Lady Raida, I have no idea what you are talking about,” Nethekurse said coyly.

Raida’s frown deepened. “You think that Lord Illidan isn’t aware of the missing demon hunters, the very ones who were assigned to perform a routine check on your operations? And before you go blaming Honor Hold or Thrallmar, I already know that they are unaware of any demon hunters and the Legion’s grip in this region is too weak for our demon hunters to be incapable of handling them. The only way they would go missing is if you and Kargath ordered your orcs to capture them.”

Nethekurse had no coy response left to Raida’s accusations so he shrugged. “Do you honestly think some elves who are in over their heads could hope to stand against the Legion? It would take a mind more twisted than my own to even conceive such a notion. The Illidari have no hope of victory. They are outnumbered multitudes to one. Not only that but they are led by the Dark Titan. Why do you fight the inevitable when you can join them and be powerful beyond your wildest imaginations?”

Raida had heard this rhetoric before from the Legion’s minions, so often that she gave him a mocking look while mouthing his lines back at him. “Can we get on with the fighting? I have better things to do than watching a brainless mouthpiece blow hot air.”

Nethekurse growled before he took that anger out on the four other orcs in the room, killing them all with a wave of dark energy. He then unsheathed his sword and launched a dark skull at Raida which was deflected by Bella and her shield.

Seeing as this was going to be a five on one fight, Nethekurse began planting shadowy energies all over the area which erupted into dark fissures. Raida had no trouble dodging them as she struck the warlock hard with both blades and sent him back to a far wall. Bella proceeded to consecrate the floor to close the dark fissures.

The warlock then tried to assault their minds with his dark magic but that only ended up with him being strangled by a strange black tentacle that came out of nowhere. As the warlock realized that using that spell was a very bad idea, the tentacle let him go and vanished.

In one last act of desperation, Nethekurse began to spin around while wildly launching dark bolts all over the place. It wasn’t the most efficient technique, but at least they couldn’t get near him without getting hurt…or at least that’s what he thought before a blast of frost froze him in place. This was followed by the elf, who transformed into some sort of dragon-like creature, stomping the ground and a spire of rock erupted from beneath him, shattering his icy prison and impaling him.

“Glad that guy’s gone,” Raida said. “This world is already in bad enough shape without sadists like him going around making things worse.”

“Raida, why didn’t you say that your fellow demon hunters were in danger?” Flutashe asked.

“The matter of the demon hunters is an Illidari matter,” Raida answered. “Don’t forget that my loyalty is to Lord Illidan so I’m not at liberty to give away everything related to our organization. Besides, we were coming here anyway for several reasons, there’s not much sense adding the prisoners to that list when we are already motivated enough to get rid of Kargath.”

The group was unsure whether they wanted to argue that point right now so they proceeded onward.

Before they continued deeper into the Shattered Halls, Stella noticed a strange book sitting on Nethekurse’s throne. She had a strange feeling that the book might come in handy later so she placed it in a bag alongside the book she found in Sethekk Halls.

As they ascended a ramp up to the next hallway, a voice rang through the halls, likely enhanced by magic. “So, Illidan’s little wench has come this far into my fortress? She even brought a few Alliance dogs to assist her. I’m in a generous mood so bring out the Illidari, Honor Hold and Thrallmar prisoners and call for the executioner. I will show everyone what happens when they face the might of the Legion.”

“Who was that?” Stella asked. “Was that Kargath?”

Raida grit her teeth when she heard that announcement. “Looks like we can’t afford to dawdle now that he’s getting ready to execute the prisoners. Let’s move!” The others nodded in agreement and reached the top of the ramp and into another hallway, one lined with giant statues of orcs, some of them partially shattered.

They were quickly spotted by an orc who began running down the hall yelling that the invaders had breached the defenses. Flutashe shifted into her cat form and leaped over any guards who tried to protect the runner while Raida decapitated the guards in an instant before running after her sister. The rest followed as best as they could.

The runner was fast, but Flutashe was faster and she was able to pounce on the runner by the time he was halfway down the hall. The druid broke his neck. Raida joined her a couple of seconds later along with the rest, via Stella’s group teleport.

“There’s probably a large group of them at the end of this hallway,” Raida figured. “With the runner down we have the element of surprise on our side.”

Stella smirked as an idea came to mind. “In that case…” She concentrated on the end of the hall, looking for a safe spot to teleport to. She easily found one and teleported into the middle of the group of orcs. By the time they registered what was happening, the mage unleashed a huge explosion of arcane energy that sent the orcs flying into the walls. The ambush allowed the group to quickly finish off the orcs in the room before they knew what hit them. The commanding officer, who Raida recognized as Blood Guard Porung, was among the first to be killed in the blitzkrieg.

Not wasting any time, they prepared to face whatever came next which involved another squad led by a legionnaire along with two groups of fel orcs in alcoves who were sparring with one another. Behind the squad were a few orcs who were practicing on training dummies.

“Looks like we found the training area,” Stella said.

The party took to their usual strategy of Surprise taking control of the legionnaire while the others fought the rest of the squad. However, the groups in the alcoves also became involved while the orcs fighting the dummies were so focused on the fake enemy in front of them that they weren’t paying attention to the chaos nearby.

The sparring orcs proved trivial to defeat because they were currently exhausted from their sparring matches and were in no shape to fight the intruders. By the time the orcs fighting the dummies noticed that something was wrong, it was too late to assist and the few of them were quickly overpowered by Flutashe slamming them into the walls and Raida incinerating them in felfire.

The next room was more of the same and soon they entered a hallway guarded by a pair of tough-looking orcs in armor that Bella could tell from a distance appeared to be of decent quality. There was also a houndmaster and his wolves patrolling the hallway.

Flutashe quickly disposed of the houndmaster by turning his wolves against him before she and Bella faced the armored orcs. The orcs traded blows with the paladin and druid but the orcs were unable to get past their enemies’ defenses. However, since the party didn’t have time to waste on watching the battle unfold, Raida had Truth and Heartswell stab them in the back with their swords.

Another pair of the armored guards protected the other end of the hallway. This time Stella froze one of them solid while Surprise controlled the other into ripping his own armor off and doing a backflip into what appeared to be a pit in the next room where he landed on his head and snapped his neck. A Chaos Bolt from Raida shattered the frozen warrior.

Laughter from a deep voice could be heard from the next room. From the sound of it, it sounded like an ogre’s since their voices sound similar to each other’s. Sure enough, the party peered into the next room to find that it was a ring of stairs to make the center of the room a pit with a two-headed ogre standing in the center with an orange warmace shaped like a cube with spikes coming out of five of the six sides. The ogre had bluish gray skin and wore a red loincloth with a red sash. The left head wore a red hood.

“Dat was really funny. (Meh, me seen better.)”

Raida groaned, “Ugh, this guy…O’mrogg’s heads can’t agree on anything and one head has next to no attention span.”

“Hey, dat not nice! (But it true,)” O’mrogg said.

Flutashe charged in and began swiping away at the ogre while dodging or enduring the blows while Bella chose to heal the druid this time.

At first, O’mrogg fought like a warrior by trying to beat her with his mace, but he also proved that he was an ogre mage by imbuing his mace with fire which Stella prevented him from using by disrupting the fire magic with ice magic.

“Me bored. (Finish dem off first.)” Not listening to who appeared to be the smarter head, O’mrogg decided to chase after Mena instead. Of course, this left him open to Flutashe shifting into her cat form and working with Raida to deliver many deep cuts to the ogre’s back. Despite the pain he was in, the ogre continued chasing the gnome.

Meanwhile, Mena dodged each of O’mrogg’s attacks in ways that the ogre thought impossible. Strangely, the variety of methods Mena used to dodge seemed to captivate one of the heads to where he continued attacking her just to see how she would dodge next while the other head was a captive audience to the sideshow.

Another strange thing was that despite all the attacks that the party was throwing at O’mrogg, One head was in agony while the other was giggling like their attacks were tickling. It seemed that neither agreed to how much pain they were feeling, even as Stella pelted the ogre’s back with ice shards in the wounds caused by Flutashe and Raida.

Of course, despite their disagreements, one fact couldn’t be disputed: the ogre’s body had to give with how much damage he was taking. The fun-having head soon felt his consciousness fade for some reason before he angrily looked at his other head. “Why…you no…kill dem? (Me…hate…you…so much…)” The ogre finally succumbed to his wounds.

The party had no time to contemplate the ogre’s contrary nature as they were sure that Kargath was ready to execute the prisoners. They proceeded to eliminate the two armored warriors who watched the spectacle instead of helping before entering another hall that was suspiciously empty save for a houndmaster and his two wolves.

“I can smell Kargath’s fel stench just beyond this hall,” Raida said.

“If their warchief is close, wouldn’t he have more defenders than a few orcs and a couple of wolves?” Mena asked.

“Either he’s confident in his own abilities or there's more to this hall than meets the eye,” Flutashe said.

Not wanting to take anything to chance, Raida focused her vision using her fel magic. She quickly found that Mena and Flutashe’s concerns were vindicated as her Spectral Sight picked up on a number of fel orc rogues sneaking around the hall. “Yep, there’s quite a few rogues roaming the hallway.”

Bella sent a wave of light down the hallway which caused the rogues to yelp in pain as the light burned their feet and blew their cover. Mena burned several rogues in holy fire as the houndmaster turned the corner to investigate the painful light hurting him and his hounds. He only got to see what was happening for a few seconds before Flutashe’s alpha aura made the wolves rip out their master’s throat before attacking the rogues.

Bella repeatedly consecrated the hallway to flush out more rogues as they made their way through. Flutashe and Raida each took out an armored warrior who guarded the end of the hallway.

Once Raida finished her opponent, she spread her wings and leaped into what appeared to be a small arena with a grated floor over a pit of fire. Standing on it was a fel orc with dark red skin and dark armor. Both of his hands were replaced by weapons.

Raida glared at the treacherous orc warchief before her. “We meet again, old orc.”

“I may be old, but I’m more than a match for a whippersnapper like you,” Kargath shot back.

“So tell me, what possessed you to forsake Lord Illidan and side with the Legion? Did we not offer enough felblood?”

“As if you could ever hope to match the Legion’s offer. Sooner or later, Magtheridon will break free and only by the graces of the Legion would we be spared his wrath. You and your allies saw to that when you slew Keli’dan.

“We fel orcs once served the Legion under the guidance of Gul’dan and Lord Mannoroth. Though both were slain at some point, the latter by that coward Grommash, Lord Mannoroth will eventually return to lead us to conquest once more and we will march over the corpse of Illidan Stormrage.

“We, the Fel Horde, the True Horde, will become conquerors of countless realms once we earn the favor of the Legion once again…

“...And it shall start with my display of supremacy as my executioner now slaughters every Alliance, Horde and Illidari prisoner behind me!” Kargath shouted, ordering his executioner to begin.

That never happened.

Instead, Kargath was slammed in the back by a flying block of ice the size of an orc and sent sprawling on the floor. Raida blasted the ice block to shatter it and put the unfortunate orc inside out of his misery.

Kargath got up to his knees before looking behind him to find Flutashe and Stella with the prisoners while the druid was holding up the executioner’s ax.

“How did you get past me?” Kargath demanded.

Stella smirked, “A simple group invisibility spell was all I needed since you were too busy monologuing to notice anything.”

Now enraged, Kargath got to his feet and roared before rushing toward Stella with his blades raised. Before the mage had time to react, his blades came down on her and sliced her in three pieces. The pieces vanished with a poof.

Before the warchief could register what happened, Flutashe grabbed him and threw him back into the arena before a Disintegration Beam from the real Stella struck him in the back. His armor took most of the hit but became greatly damaged in return.

While Kargath tried to get up again, Raida used her warglaives to cut off both of the orc’s forearms, just above the elbows. This left the orc without his weapons and left with only his head and feet to fight with. He never got to use either as he became engulfed in felfire. The warchief screamed in pain as the flames entered the gaps in his armor and licked off his flesh.

As the flames ate away at his body, Kargath cried out that the True Horde would prevail in the end before his form was completely lost in the green blaze.

The party looked at the fire before Raida shook her head. “Fool, you sold your honor for power. I may not know much about orc culture, but even I know that real orcs would never forsake honor.”

“Well, we got the ax and that weird book that Stella picked up,” Mena offered. “It’s about time we get out of here.”

Silently, Stella opened a portal to Shattrath. She saw the disappointed look on Raida’s face but said nothing. One of the leaders of the Illidari had fallen. Then again, it seemed apparent that Kargath had fallen long before his life was ended.

With the Trial of Mercy concluded, they would need to make a long journey to the northern reaches of Outland to reach the next trial.

Botanical Satellite

The Alliance group spent some time in Shattrath, resting up and making sure they were prepared for the journey to the northern reaches of Outland. They also handed A’dal the pristine ax of Kargath’s executioner to complete the Trial of Mercy.

From what they heard about the region from the Scryers, Faralon, now known as Netherstorm, was in the worst shape of all when compared to the rest of outland. The region was composed of a series of floating islands that were bridged by parts stripped from Tempest Keep. Kael’thas’ blood elves also used parts from the naaru ship to construct a series of manaforges to siphon magical energies from the magical storm that’s bombarding the region. Those same energies had bled into the land itself and turned it a sickly shade of purple. Those energies had also ensured that the land was barren and no plant life could grow, short of an herb called netherbloom.

There were places where normal life could still thrive in the region. They were protected by pieces of ethereal technology called eco-domes which were designed to use the same magical energies as the storm to repel the storm and allow life within the domes to thrive.

The good news was that Kael’thas’ mana harvesting operations had been ground to a halt since agents of the Scryers had shut down the manaforges to prevent further ecological damage to the region. One of the manaforges was found to have been run by demons of the Burning Legion. A correspondence from them proved Kael’thas’ complicity. The bad news was that Outland nearly played host to a void lord when one of the manaforges was pushed beyond its capacity and had a meltdown, creating a rift into the void through which all manner of shadowy creatures came through. Thankfully the Protectorate, a faction of ethereals who were tasked with containing the fallout, managed to drive the void lord back to the infinite abyss it spawned from.

Mena briefly felt Violetta rouse from her slumber before she went back to sleep.

Once they were ready to make the long journey to Netherstorm, a journey they had to make on foot since they couldn’t carry Bella all that way, they began to make their way out of the city.

Before they reached the exit, Khadgar appeared before them, urging them to stop. “Before you go, A’dal would like to speak with Bella and Mena for a moment. He has something for you two to make your journey a lot easier.”

To save them some time, he teleported the group back to the central chamber where the naaru awaited.

A’dal thanked Khadgar for his assistance before he turned his attention to the paladin and priest. “I wish to give you two a small piece of my power. It should allow you to use the Light to give you flight. It is all that I can spare as my efforts must remain focused on keeping the evils of this land out of this city.”

With that, two tiny slivers of light separated themselves from the naaru and landed on Bella and Mena. A brief, bright flash erupted once they made contact with their intended recipients. Neither felt anything different though.

“Channel the Light, imagine yourself with wings for flight,” A’dal said.

Doing as the naaru suggested, Bella and Mena concentrated. Soon, a pair of wings took form on the paladin’s back. The strange part of that was that they took the form of numerous strands of light. Mena had a pair of small, feathery wings on her back which were appropriately sized for a gnome. The strange part of her wings was that they appeared to be fluctuating in color between white, blue, violet and black, never settling on any form.

A’dal examined the gnome’s appearance and hummed. “It would appear that the imbalance of light and shadow within you is still present. It shows through your wings. I do not recommend using them until you find balance between the two forces. I will find a way to help you with this.”

“Okie dokie lokie!” Mena said. “I can just let one of the others carry me while I Levitate.”

“Good luck, champions.”

With that diversion out of the way, the party resumed their journey to Netherstorm and proceeded out of the city. Once they were away from sight from the guards, Stella shifted into her dracthyr form, Flutashe shifted into her bird form, Mena cast Levitate on herself, Raida removed her cloak and opened her wings and Bella manifested her new wings of light. The group prepared to take off for the far region.

It quickly became apparent that Bella would need a crash course in flying when it became obvious that the new ability didn’t come with flight skill. Still, she had plenty of time to learn as they made the journey.

Lokosh and the others traveled north along the road of the barren plateau. After saying their goodbyes to the mok’nathal and being thanked for the stories they provided at their village bonfire, the hybrid tribe provided what they could for their journey.

Along the way, they found an open cavern that contained a Legion camp among other things. They passed by an ogre camp and an ethereal camp. Neither were friendly as the latter looked like they were ready to attack if the party got too close to them. There was also a Legion camp that appeared to be in shambles.

Beyond what they saw, they soon found that the wildlife in the next area didn’t look normal. The raptors and wind serpents in the area had a sickly shade of green on their scales. There were also strange robed individuals wandering around. Of course, this had nothing to do with them so they let the matter be as they continued north.

They spotted an area that appeared to have been scorched by imps and there were fire elementals roaming around along with basilisks who had the tenacity to endure the blaze.

They soon found themselves near the end of the road in the region where they discovered a goblin-made bridge, given the needless gizmos on it and the less reliable workmanship that goblins were known for. The bridge connected Blade’s Edge to a region where the land was a creepy shade of purple.

Of course, they didn’t need to bother crossing the bridge since their next destination was just off the road nearby. A ring of broken pillars surrounded a circular area of blackened ground with a ring composed of an alternating pattern of smoldering stones and circles of fire. In the center of it all was a ritual circle.

From what the ogre told them, they needed to stand in the circles of fire to summon the ogre warlock whose grimoire they needed to obtain in order to summon Skulloc later.

Lokosh, Farra’jin, Talia, Groun and Feloma each took a position near one of the rings of fire in the black circle. Upon Lokosh’s call, the five each stepped into the rings, the flames warm but not burning them at all. Scarlet lines of energy formed between each fire circle which took the form of a pentagon with a star inside.

Suddenly, a two-headed ogre in red robes appeared in the ritual circle in the center, a surprised look on his face. “Who dare summon me? Me kill you all!”

Vim’gol began casting a Shadow Bolt at Talia which was blocked by her felguard’s ax. The others began their assault with Farra’jin blasting him with the elements and Feloma hitting him in the back of the head with an explosive arrow. The ogre retaliated by sending a volley of Shadow Bolts at everyone around him which caught them by surprise. Groun focused on keeping everyone healed while the others pressed the attack.

Lokosh rammed his shield into the ogre’s gut which succeeded in making him angry to where he punched the shield. Surprisingly, the attack knocked Lokosh back a few feet which told them that the ogre was as strong as he was magically powerful.

Having had enough, Vim’gol retreated to his ritual circle and began channeling a spell. “Now me grow bigger and crush you!”

The party was warned about this and quickly retreated to the rings of fire and hoped that Mog’dorg was right about the other effect of the circle.

Streams of dark magic traveled from each of the circles and connected with the other circles to form a pentagram before the magic struck Vim’gol and made him yelp in pain as he lost his concentration.

Taking advantage of this, the group quickly unleashed everything they had at the ogre and quickly overwhelmed him before he could recover and retaliate. One final strike from Lokosh’s ax cleaved him down his chest and sent him falling on his back, unmoving.

A bright red tome fell out of the ogre’s robes and landed next to him. Talia could see the dark energy that emanated from the grimoire, likely due to her sensitivity to magic inherent in magically gifted unicorns. The warlock picked it up and kept it in her robes for the time being.

“We will have to speak with that other ogre again to figure out what we need to do to summon Skulloc,” Talia said.

Unfortunately, they needed more information on the remaining three gronn before they could make another move so they would need to return to Thunderlord Stronghold to see if Rexxar had anything else to tell them.

They were in for a long return trip.

The flight to Netherstorm took well over a day, most of that spent giving Bella flying lessons. They could see the twisted, warped landscape of the region, among other things.

During the flight, Flutashe had also noticed something different about her bird form. It was as if she felt lighter than ever while the strength of her flight muscles had improved. As she tested this feeling in flight, she found that she was much faster. She wasn’t certain how she suddenly became this fast, but she could guess that it might have had something to do with that strange room back in the Sethekk Halls.

From above, they noticed that blood elves were scrambling to ship cubes of mana to the east. With the manaforges shut down, they had to make do with what they had. They also saw a goblin town on one island with a massive vehicle in the center of it. Mena called it a rocket. They also noticed the massive purple domes to the north that contained plants and animals that one would find in a jungle.

Further east they saw the ruins of a town. Stella mentioned that the Kirin Tor once established a town in Faralon during the invasion of Draenor twenty years ago but no further information was known about the fate of the village.

“Can we check out Kirin’Var Village real quick?” Stella asked. “I want to write an update to the Kirin Tor.” The others agreed to investigate and flew toward the village.

When they arrived, Stella’s eyes widened in horror at what she saw. The entire village was in a state of disrepair and appeared abandoned. Upon looking closer, the reality became much more horrifying. The villagers were all there but they were in the form of ghosts. Stella tried asking one of them what happened but they didn’t recognize her and quickly treated her like an enemy, forcing her to destroy their spectral form.

Investigating further, they noticed that a number of arcane elementals were wandering a section of the village for some reason. A familiar headache made itself known to the dracthyr, one she remembered feeling at the decimated Cenarion outpost.

“What happened here?!” Stella loudly demanded to no one.

She was not expecting a response to that as a ghost walked up to her. “This was the work of Kael’thas Sunstrider,” he said.

“Kael’thas? He destroyed this village?!” Stella had no idea how the former prince wiped out the village like this, but for this to happen to citizens of the kingdom of Dalaran, she would make this personal.

“Some adventurers before you came around here and helped to avenge us by burning down the nearby blood elf camp. What happened here was caused by a weapon of mass destruction the blood elves made called a mana bomb. It not only obliterated everyone in this village, but it warped the village itself. The high concentration of arcane energies from the bomb’s epicenter is why the arcane elementals roam the land. However, the ghosts of this village come from a traitorous apprentice mage named Naberius who practiced necromancy and revived himself as a lich after the bomb killed him. He’s recently been destroyed and his phylactery with him.

“The only one who survived the blast is Archmage Vargoth and Kael’thas locked him in the mage tower in the center of town with a curse. You can see him at the top of his tower if you want, but the curse still leaves you in a weakened state. Shouldn’t be a problem since the tower guardian was destroyed recently.”

Stella could feel the dark magic at work within the tower, too powerful for her to break. It was a testament to Kael’thas’ magical prowess to be able to place such a spell that could imprison an archmage like Vargoth.

“Wait here,” Stella told her friends. She then made her way to the tower and entered it. She suddenly felt a wave of exhaustion pass over her as she felt the curse take hold, but she powered through it and ascended the tower in her elf form.

Climbing the tower took effort that she wasn’t used to using for such a task but after several flights of stairs, she finally made it to the top. Looking around, she found the mage she was looking for sitting in a chair looking depressed.

“Vargoth? Is that you?” Stella asked.

The mage raised his head and looked toward the new voice but he didn’t recognize the figure. “Who are you?”

“It’s Stellaglim, the infant elf the Kirin Tor raised after I was rescued from Silverpine Forest.”

“That’s you? I remember now, you were quite the tenacious child. I’m amazed that you managed to survive that time when the Horde attacked Dalaran.”

Stella giggled, “Yeah, it was amazing that I survived after everything that happened and a lot happened while you were living here.” She began to recount the things that happened. She mentioned the undead Scourge, how she was to be sent with Jaina’s expedition to Kalimdor for her safety, the Legion invasion and its defeat at the Battle of Mount Hyjal. She also told him some second hand information about Prince Arthas Menethil betraying Lordaeron and how a demon lord named Archimonde destroyed the city.

“I spent some time in the newly founded town of Theramore with Jaina Proudmoore as my teacher until agents of the Kirin Tor showed up and said that the city was being protected by a magical dome and the city was finally rid of its undead and demon infestation. I continued my education under the protective dome of the city and under the tutelage of Archmage Rhonin.”

Vargoth suddenly got up from his chair and turned to his orb. “That’s quite a tale, young lady. It has also rekindled my hope. I cannot give up, not when I’m so close to freedom from this curse.”

“Really?”

“I admit that I lost hope when the adventurer who tried to help me was slain by the blood elves aboard the Botanica. He was trying to retrieve a keystone from one of their commanders. Perhaps you and any companions you may have might be able to succeed where the adventurer failed.”

Stella gasped, “What a coincidence, we were heading to that place because we need to gain access to another of the satellites, the Arcatraz.”

Vargoth chuckled, “In that case, be on the lookout for anything that looks like a magical stone. I need that to break this curse.”

Once Stella bid the archmage farewell, she descended to the bottom of the tower where her friends awaited her.

“What took you so long?” Raida asked.

“Just had a talk with a colleague,” Stella answered.

Once they resumed their flight, Stella explained Vargoth’s circumstances and that they had one more thing to find in the Botanica.

It wasn’t long before they were hovering before Tempest Keep. The naaru fortress hovered just outside the landmass and over the endless abyss below. The structure was of a colossal tower of crystal and metal with an outer ring surrounding the base of the structure. A huge energy pipe was connected to the tower. Hovering around the towering fortress were three satellite ships of different colors: blue, purple and red.

“Well, we’re here but which ship is which?” Flutashe asked.

Raida pointed at the blue ship. “That’s the Botanica.” She then pointed at the purple ship. “That’s the Mechanar.” Finally, she pointed to the red ship above them. “That’s the Arcatraz.”

“Alright, first we deal with the Botanica and claim the keystone and key shard,” Stella said. Everyone agreed with the sentiment and flew toward the blue ship.

Strangely, the outside of the ship was unguarded, though Raida had a feeling that it was done so since the outside was not as defensible as the inside. Because of this, the five of them landed on the platform outside the main entrance unmolested.

“I once heard from Velen that naaru ships were actually larger on the inside but even he couldn’t explain how it was possible,” Bella said.

“Keep your guard up, everyone.” Raida warned. Everyone nodded and entered the ship.

After a short, empty hallway, the party came into a room with walls of purple crystal which formed a pair of subrooms that the blood elves used as storage rooms for supplies. A pair of guards protected the doorway leading further inside with a magical mechanical construct patrolling the hallway beyond.

The construct was composed of pieces of metal that were not attached to each other but connected by arcane energy alone. The parts together composed a humanoid-shaped golem with the midsection containing an exposed core in the form of a charged arcane crystal and two more for the upper arms.

“Intruders!” one of the guards shouted. This was followed by two more of them emerging from the hallway along with the arcane golem.

Thinking quickly, Stella channeled her blue essence into her Disintegration Beam and fired it at the core in the golem, overcharging it and causing it to explode, obliterating the defenders. The party was knocked back by the blast.

The group groaned as they got up and recovered from their daze. “Ugh, warn us next time you try something like that…” Raida said.

“Sorry about that,” Stella apologized. “At least that took care of the guards.”

They proceeded down the hall but encountered two more defenders guarding the entrance to the next room. Stella shot them with a couple of fireballs which were sent back at her when they deflected them with their shields. Flutashe used her bear form and intercepted the returned spells while Bella ran in and attacked the guards. Flutashe overpowered one guard and sent her to the floor where she knocked the shield away and used her teeth to rip her throat out. Bella struck the other guard in the head with her hammer hard enough to stun them before she proceeded to impale them on a sword of light.

Another golem entered the hallway but this time Stella pulled the arcane energies from the golem and powered it down before firing the excess energy at a trio of blood elves ahead who were studying a planter of flame cap herbs. The blast caught them by surprise and sent them flying back. One landed on the planter while the other two were knocked over a railing and fell to a lower level. The survivor tried casting a nature spell at Stella but was countered and they were impaled on an icicle shard.

Two more groups of elves were on the other side of the small room and heard the commotion. Another arcane golem began moving to attack. Stella overloaded the golem and obliterated one group of elves and a planter of dreaming glories.

Bella and Flutashe fought the other group. Two were wielding nature magic and one appeared to be acting as a support caster. Raida quickly reacted to that one by quickly closing the distance, grabbing her and tossing her through a hole in the center of the room. Flutashe and Bella dispatched the casters. They then dealt with a pair of defenders who ran into the room.

The next room featured another group like before except they were experimenting with a couple of alchemy labs and a planter of large mushrooms. Raida tossed the priest in that trio into a large hole in the new room and cut down the nature casters.

The room had a sort of trident shape to it with a curving path and a bridge in the center leading further into the ship. An elf was seen training a flock of draco-avian creatures with scaly bodies and feathery wings with draconic digits and tails. Their only appendages were their wings and tails and their heads were avian.

“Deal with those dragonhawks quickly, those guys breathe fire,” Raida warned.

They knew that the elf would likely coordinate the dragonhawks to attack one of them since there weren’t enough for all of them so Surprise took control of his mind and made him order the beasts to attack him. They were confused by this command but trusted that their master had a plan so they pecked and burned him with their fire breaths until he was charred black. With their master dead, the dragonhawks had no idea what to do next so Flutashe exerted her aura and ordered them to leave the ship.

Another golem was seen crossing the bridge so Stella drained its power core before Flutashe used her cat form to grab and hurl the powerless construct across the bridge which slammed into one of the guards at the other end, crushing him. A Chaos Bolt from Raida finished the other guard, who was taken by surprise by the flying golem and unable to defend against the spell.

Three more elves guarded the corridor into the next room but Stella used the collected energy from before and knocked them back with it, leaving them out of formation and vulnerable to the party’s attacks.

Another trainer and her dragonhawks awaited them in the next room but she was defeated the same way as the last one.

They entered a larger room that extended farther than they could see from the entrance. What they could see was a bridge with about nine elves at one end while a single elf was seen walking along it.

Raida recognized the elf on the bridge. “That’s Commander Sarannis, she’s likely the commanding officer of the blood elf forces in this place.”

“Do you think she might have the keystone Vargoth needs to free himself?” Stella asked.

“Most likely, there are few Kael’thas would ever entrust an artifact to who would dutifully guard it and his advisors would balk at the idea of protecting an artifact maintaining a curse binding some archmage whom they couldn’t care less about.”

With so many troops guarding the commander, the troops needed to be dealt with swiftly. However, Raida felt confident that she could take her. “Here’s the plan, you guys deal with the troops then assist me with Sarannis if I haven’t taken her down yet.”

The others nodded to the plan and Raida leaped to the other side of the bridge from the nine guards. Flutashe changed in and backhanded one of the guards away in her cat form, sending them into the large opening the bridge was suspended over. Bella sent a wave of light which knocked the others back.

Sarannis noticed the intrusion and proceeded to engage the four. “Step forward. I will see that you are-” She was suddenly grabbed from the back of the neck and thrown to the window on Raida’s side of the bridge. “What? Lady Raida? What is the meaning of this?” she demanded.

“Don’t play innocent Sarannis, I know that your ‘prince’ is leading you Sunhawks to servitude with the Legion,” Raida growled.

“Did those traitorous Scryers tell you? Those fools have sealed their fates to withering and Illidan is in no real position to oppose the Legion. Prince Kael’thas made the logical decision.”

“The Scryers seemed alright to me, perhaps the naaru have a way to save the blood elves,” Raida shrugged.

“And perhaps not,” Sarannis countered. “Be that as it may, our path is set and you Illidari have outlived your usefulness. Die!”

Sarannis didn’t get a chance to counterattack as Raida was faster and the commander quickly found a warglaive inside her chest and heart. “I have not yet…begun to…” she whimpered before Raida pulled her blade back and left her to collapse on the bridge, blood pooling around her.

The demon hunter rifled through the dead elf’s person and found a runed stone in one of her pockets. The others soon finished their fight and walked up to her. Raida sighed as she tossed the stone to Stella.

“What’s wrong?” Flutashe asked.

Raida snorted, “It’s pathetic that these elves, who seem so prideful, would so easily sell their freedom away for a tainted source of magic. It’s no different than with the orcs. The Legion preys on their despair and bolsters their numbers by offering these people hope in the form of power.”

Stella placed a hand on Raida’s shoulder. “They made their choice. All we can do for them is show them the consequences of their choice. But don’t be quick to give up on them, the Scryers have shown that there are those who would turn away from such temptations. Even the orcs turned away from that power, since we have a Horde on Azeroth who fights with honor.”

That made Raida feel a little better. She was still a bit sad that so many would be so weak minded, but their fate was their own.

“Let’s continue,” Raida finally said.

The path led into a botanical research section with several planters containing specimens from all over Outland and a tree with golden leaves. The elves studying the plants were all researchers.

“Perhaps they will run away when they see us?” Flutashe hoped.

Raida shook her head, “Not a chance, even the research staff is given some combat training. The fact that they don’t fight like soldiers means we won’t know what to expect from them and that makes them more dangerous.”

Once they entered the research section, as Raida expected, the researchers dropped what they were doing and attacked them. Some fought with a plant creature by their side while others threw volatile or poisonous chemicals around and others used fire, frost and poison spells, likely to test the resilience of the specimens in the room. Surprise took control of a chemist and had them violently shake the volatile mixtures on his belt and made them into a bomb which sent the researchers flying away upon exploding. With the unexpected disruption, the rest of the researchers were easier to deal with.

“The Cenarion Expedition would be very interested in this place,” Flutashe noted. “Let’s be sure not to destroy the specimens.”

The next thing they came across was an elf mage experimenting on a swarm of small plant creatures by subjecting them to various schools of magic in the form of fire, frost and arcane. Surprisingly, the plants changed color whenever they were exposed to a form of magic and walked around as if nothing was happening. When the effects of the spell ended, the plants returned to normal.

“That wasn’t nice, using those spells to force those plants to adapt.” Flutashe growled. “We need to put a stop to the abuse to these poor plants.”

Much to Flutashe’s sadness, the plants were also trained to attack intruders so Raida was forced to use her Felfire Breath to incinerate them. Apparently, the plants were not made to withstand fel magic. Stella bombarded the surprised mage with waves of arcane bolts that obliterated her.

After dealing with a few more researchers studying an overgrown netherbloom, the party looked across another bridge and saw another elf who was completely focused on his research and not paying attention to them at all.

“If there are any research papers on these plants, High Botanist Freywinn would have them,” Raida said. “I have no idea how or why these elves are able to emulate druidic magic since they can’t sustain themselves on nature.”

Flutashe frowned. Seeing the abuse of the plants by that mage and seeing those researchers conducting those cruel experiments to the plants set something off in her. Druids were always compassionate about protecting nature and that included flora and fauna alike. Although Flutashe was more aligned with the fauna aspect of nature, the abuse to plants gave her a new perspective and a righteous fury awoke within her.

Shifting into her cat form, Flutashe stomped across the bridge to the high botanist on the other side. The botanist ignored her. She then forcibly turned him around, causing him to yelp. “What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded. “These specimens are very delicate.”

“Are you the one leading these cruel experiments on these innocent plants?” she asked.

“So what if I am? Even if nature cannot feed our addiction, we can still weaponize them to serve our needs. Think of the gold Quel’thalas could save if we had plants serving our every whim.”

Flutashe snarled at the elf, “You dare to say things like that to a druid? Your experiments will stop! You will not abuse these poor plants anymore.”

“You night elves are hopelessly shortsighted,” Freywinn shot back. “You always talk about protecting nature, and for what? Nothing! What do you ever get in return for your service to a bunch of plants and animals? There is so much untapped potential in nature it would be a waste to squander that resource.”

Flutashe could see that this elf was the worst kind of person for a druid to encounter. Scum like this was part of the reason the Cenarion Circle was founded. There was no reasoning with him.

Before Flutashe decided to rip into him, she looked through the window behind the botanist. She spotted a small forest with a number of plant creatures wandering around as well as an arcane infused ancient who was their ultimate target for their journey on this ship. Getting an idea, Flutashe grabbed the elf by the neck and before he could resist, she defenestrated him out the window and into the garden. As she had hoped, the ancient was startled by the intrusion. “Kill this one!” the ancient ordered before a number of plants and treants emerged and swarmed the unfortunate botanist.

Flutashe removed whatever specimens were on Freywinn’s workbench before Stella incinerated the workbench, research notes and all. “Thank you for doing that,” Flutashe said, a small smile on her face.

Stella smiled, “Any time.”

Moving forward, history repeated itself with another mage abusing more small plants. While Flutashe quickly mauled the mage, her ability to communicate with nature did not extend to plants. Sadly, Raida was forced to burn the plants again.

After a small corridor lined with supply crates, the party saw more evidence of blood elf and Legion collaboration. Walking among the elves were satyrs, demons who were once night elves until the Legion transformed them. They were reviled because they served the Legion of their own free will.

To make matters worse, there were also some elves who were siphoning power from a couple of the ship’s pylons and giving that power to the satyrs. Thankfully, the effects of the spell didn’t last long.

Timing their attacks, the party attacked the elves and satyrs while they weren’t powered up to make sure there weren't any complications.

On a lower stage of the room, two groups of satyrs and elves were standing before a larger satyr. The elves were taking turns powering up their group with the larger one standing on a stage watching them.

Seeing as there was no room for subtlety this time, Raida cast a spell on the large satyr before two black rings appeared at the demon’s hooves and above his horns. He ended up imprisoned in a small stasis cell of fel energy.

“Quick, kill the rest before he breaks out!” Raida cried.

Wasting no time, the party proceeded to engage the satyrs and elves. The satyrs were many but Flutashe, Bella and Raida were still stronger together. Bella’s light incinerated the unholy demons. Surprise took control of one of the elves and made them siphon power from a pylon before the elf empowered the party for a short time.

A moment later, the larger satyr broke free. “What aggravation is this? You will die!”

The demon, Thorngrin, wasted no time and magically teleported Bella to the stage and began siphoning life from her. Stella countered this by magically swapping the elf that Surprise was controlling with Bella, forcing the demon to drain an ally instead.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Bella and Mena blasted the demon with their best light spells which caused him some painful burns. Raida grabbed the satyr from behind by the horns and pulled him onto his back. Thorngrin tried to get the demon hunter to back off by unleashing searing waves of demonfire around him but Raida acted quickly and decapitated the satyr to end his rampage.

Once the satyr was dead, Raida proceeded to absorb the demon’s soul. It was Bella who asked the question that she was expecting, “Is it necessary and perhaps dangerous to absorb the demon’s soul?”

“Kinda, if you don’t know what you’re doing,” Raida explained. “For some reason I can absorb souls better than other demon hunters but the fodder, like the satyrs from before, wouldn’t contribute much to making absorbing them worth the effort. This guy had an ability that could potentially be useful in the future and that’s why I absorbed him.”

“I…I see…”

With that, the party proceeded onward toward another part of the room that was suspiciously empty. Raida and Flutashe sensed demons ahead so Raida used her Spectral Vision to reveal a pair of satyr rogues. Flutashe nodded to Bella who used a consecrating wave to sear the satyr’s hooves and expose them. They were easily dispatched afterward.

The consecrated floor gave Raida a bit of discomfort but Bella assured her that her light magic won’t burn those whom she doesn’t want to burn. This allowed the five of them to cross the sanctified floor and into the doorway into the next room.

More planters and researchers awaited in this room, but worse. These researchers were injecting plants with essence from different plants. None of the party had any idea what they were doing but Sophia, who was observing their progress through her Observer Drone, could tell that the researchers were using a basic knowledge of genetics to cross foreign DNA with the DNA of other plants and hoping to get a positive result. Seeing the horrific mutants on the floor near them, the templar could tell that these guys were complete novices in the science of genetics which made them even more dangerous.

The mutants were misshapen masses of flesh with useless tentacles for legs and a pair of arms. They also had large fanged mouths and no eyes. With no legs, they had to crawl around on their hands.

The party didn’t have much trouble dealing with these amateur scientists between Stella keeping the spellcasters from casting and Raida and Flutashe swiftly crushing them. Surprise used blades of shadow to dismember the tragic mutants. Bella handled the two guards at the other end of the room.

Cries for help came from the next room followed by bloodcurdling screams. Peering into the next room, the party saw the guards inside being devoured by a large group of mutants. There were also a number of empty planters in the room which they had to wonder whether or not the mutants were once plants. There was also a large plant creature overlooking the room from a larger planter.

It was likely that the creature had gone mad and would attack anyone who entered the room so Flutashe knew that they needed to put the poor plant out of its misery.

Raida charged in and began pulsing flames which burned her a little but incinerated the mutants around her. The creature began creeping toward the demon hunter but Stella bombarded it with a few fireballs to gain its attention. However, the fire spells stopped working on it when it changed color, leading them to consider that the plants being experimented on earlier came from this plant. Surprise assisted Raida by dismembering the mutants with shadowy blades. Bella and Flutashe rushed the creature.

The creature summoned a pair of smaller plant monsters who proceeded to fling their thorns at everyone but Raida quickly put an end to that by burning them in felfire. Stella alternated between fire, frost and arcane spells to assault the plant monster while Surprise’s shadow magic pruned the limbs from it which it quickly grew back.

Once Raida was free, she assaulted the plant monster with her Felbreath and her green Hellfire spell. Just like the smaller ones, the creature was unable to resist the fel magic and burned to cinders.

Moving forward, the corridor ahead led into the garden that Flutashe saw earlier from a window along with the smaller plants and the arcane-infused ancient. They also spotted the withered remains of Freywinn; the plants were quick to drain him dry.

As they prepared for the final part of this ship, Flutashe said something that took them completely off guard, “Let me handle this one myself.”

The others looked at her as if she had gone insane, Raida was the only one who voiced that opinion. “Are you crazy, sister?”

“I want to try to reason with him. He’s still a Darnassian ancient and I want to try to calm him.”

“Are you sure?” Stella asked. “His mind might be addled by the arcane energies within this ship, do you want to take that chance?”

The druid nodded, “I’ve had enough with killing innocent plant life and I want to try to save this one.”

Reluctantly, the party moved aside while Flutashe proceeded into the garden in her night elf form. The smaller floral creatures within became agitated as someone intruded in their sanctuary. However, the druid remained calm as she gently spoke to them, “Please, I wish to speak with the honored ancient.”

The plants looked at each other and discussed the matter in a way that they could, which couldn’t be understood by non-plants. Eventually, the plants parted ways and allowed her to continue to the center of the garden.

“Who disturbs this sanctuary?” the ancient asked. “Are you one of those who have invaded this ship?”

“Honored ancient of the arcane, I am Flutashe Lunarwind, druidess of Darnassus. Can you recall your ancient duty to our people?”

“I…I don’t know. So confused…do not know if I should kill you or help you. Maybe I should kill you? I…can’t think straight.”

Flutashe was afraid of this, the ancient’s mind was being addled by an excess of arcane energies. She needed to work quickly to save him.

“If you don’t mind, I have a friend who might grant you clarity in your mind. Please, I need you to trust me.”

The ancient struggled with his thoughts. His aggressive side warred with his reason. For a moment, his reason won out as he spoke, “Make it quick, I don’t know how much longer I can restrain myself.”

Flutashe nodded and called for Stella to come to her. The dracthyr quickly flew over and landed near her. Before she could ask what the druid wanted, Flutashe cut her off, “Can you drain the excess arcane energies off of him?”

Stella nodded, “I can do that.” She then held a hand out and waves of arcane energies began to flow from the ancient and into her hand. A sphere of magic formed in her hand which grew over time. In that time, the ancient realized that he was thinking more clearly than before. As the clouds in his mind receded, he began to remember why he was here.

“Wait, I remember now, the Cenarion Expedition wanted me to protect a group of researchers who were sent to study the plants aboard this ship. There were too many of those blood elves aboard the ship at the time and I was unable to protect the researchers. I killed the attackers but I couldn’t go beyond this room so they left me be. I think over time the arcane storm outside seeped into the ship and my long term exposure to it left my mind addled.” He looked at the dracthyr and nodded, “Thank you, young lady. You can stop now, I still need some magic if I’m to teleport back to Cenarion Refuge.”

Stella stopped draining the ancient. “Are you sure you can make it there on your own?” Stella asked.

The ancient chuckled, “I may not be as skilled as you Dalaran mages, but I still know how to get back to the refuge.”

As the ancient began channeling magic to create a portal, his leaves and branches swayed with his movements. One such movement caused a crystal shard to fall off one of his branches. Stella picked it up and discovered a partial unlocking spell on it that was attuned to a specific lock. However, the spell was incomplete. She concluded that it was part of the Arcatraz key, or so she hoped.

“Good luck with the rest of your journey.” the ancient bid as he finished his cast and vanished in a flash of teleportation.

Author's Note

I hope you guys enjoyed the way I wrote out their experiences in the Botanica. Next up is the Mechanar.

Engineering Satellite

It took them until nightfall to return to Thunderlord Stronghold. Lokosh and the others were exhausted from their trek through the wasteland. A few ogres and ethereals tried getting in their way but otherwise, the trip was uneventful.

Rexxar offered the group a place to rest for the night and told them that they would be visiting his associate who would help them with the remaining Sons of Gruul.

This gave some relief to the party that Rexxar and his mysterious associate would help ease the burden of their mission. Of course, they needn’t forget their main mission. It had been over a year and still they had not seen any sign of the Epitaph Fragments and it wasn’t helping that they were risking their lives getting sidetracked by these side missions. They could already hear Gemini’s mocking laughter in their minds. At least Windwhisper didn’t judge them since she likely already knew when they would find the first fragment.

Somehow, they were able to put their frustrations out of their minds and fell into slumber on their bed mats.

The next morning, Rexxar was the one to fetch them and told them to get ready. The group quickly prepared and met the mok’nathal at the ramp leading out of the stronghold. Silently, he urged them to follow him down the ramp and into the canyon where they proceeded around the left side of the arena this time.

It wasn’t much farther before they saw two individuals, one they met before. Mog’dorg awaited their arrival beside a dark skinned human who wore a set of robes in the colors of bright orange, dark red and a little bright red with a mantle that resembled a trio of snake heads on each side.

The human’s presence gave the group an odd impression, as if there was something imposing about him. He certainly didn’t look like a shaman but the attire did make them think of molten lava for some reason. Another oddity was that he gave a scroll to a black dragon whelpling as they approached. The black hair and the way it was styled seemed familiar too.

“I believe that you are familiar with Mog’dorg, the other is my associate, Baron Sablemane,” Rexxar introduced.

Sablemane put on the air of a noble which made Talia narrow her eyes at him. “Charmed,” he said.

Talia could see through the facade, there was too much coincidence that the human before them resembled that black dragon they killed last year. The robes, the hair and even his attitude, the signs were all there. Thanatas once told them that the Black Dragonflight liked to behave like nobility, this was evident in Onyxia, from what they were told, and from Nefarian’s behavior. Even Deathwing played such a part, once upon a time.

“Excuse me, Your Lordship, would you mind if we spoke in private?” Talia requested.

Sablemane raised an eyebrow at the undead’s request. He had heard about them from Rexxar, though he cared little for lesser beings like mortals. This one appeared to be well mannered enough to respect his title at least. “Very well,” he accepted.

The two moved away from the others while Mog’dorg wasted no time in going over the plan to deal with one of the gronn. Once they were out of earshot, the two stopped and faced one another. “What is it, girl?”

“Please mind your manners, Baron. I will get to the point in due time. I wish to ask if you have a brother.”

Sabellian frowned at being chided by such an abomination, but he kept his feelings to himself. “I cannot say that I do. Is that all?”

“Oh come now, you resemble someone we met last year. He put up a good fight, before myself and my associates killed him. Surely you can say that you are related to someone who went by the name Lord Victor Nefarius.”

Sabellian lost his composure for a moment and flinched, though he kept that reactions as subtle as he could. Once being a Canterlot noble, Talia was skilled in the art of scanning for tells in one’s reactions and and picked up on that reaction.

“So I was correct, your reaction gave it away,” Talia pressed. “You do share similarities to Victor’s appearance, after all. If you are indeed related to him, then that would make you a black dragon.”

The baron growled, angry that he allowed her to outplay him. He growled, “What do you want?”

Talia’s shitty grin was plainly visible, “Only for you and your flight to understand that you may try to muscle your way into human politics, but you will never truly be nobility.” She then turned away to return to the others. “We are finished here.”

Sabellian made a mental note to incinerate that impudent woman at some point. He set that thought aside for now and followed her back to the others.

As it turned out, there was an exit in the back of the garden of the Botanica and the ancient and his expedition came into the ship through there. Yet, when they took the exit passage, they ended up going through a hallway that led them back to the main entrance somehow, telling them that the expedition did come in through the main entrance but found the side passage somehow.

This was one mystery that they were not going to solve anytime soon, if ever.

For now, they exited the Botanica and were greeted by the dismal landscape of the magic-scarred land. They still had two more ships to explore but only one they had access to at the moment. With half of the Arcatraz key secured, they set their sights on the other ship, the Mechanar and the key fragment that was in the hands of a mad elf who needed to be stopped as soon as possible.

According to Raida, Pathaleon the Calculator was not only responsible for the large crystal in Hellfire Peninsula which spawned a number of angry rock giants, but he was also the designer of the mana bomb that obliterated Cenarion Thicket and Kirin’Var Village and would have done the same to either Allerian Stronghold, Stonebreaker Hold or Shattrath had some adventurer not come by and detonated the bomb prematurely, obliterating the elves of Firewing Point instead.

While the others were flying toward the Mechanar, Stella made a detour by teleporting back to Kirin’Var Village where she handed the Keystone to Vargoth who was elated to be free from the tower. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go outside, given the horrific conditions, but it beat being trapped in a tower for the rest of his life. Once the two were outside the tower, Stella opened a portal to Shattrath so the archmage could find a place to relax and catch up with his colleague Khadgar.

Stella then flew back to Tempest Keep and the engineering satellite where the others awaited her. Once the five were together again, they made sure they were fully prepared before they entered the ship.

After passing through the entry corridor, they entered a room that appeared to have a few stairs leading up to a stage with a large crystal in the back with a pair of energy pipes. The room was occupied by six blood elves and three arcane golems, two of whom were patrolling the two side passages beyond.

Stella drained one golem and overloaded another with that energy, sending one group of elves flying forward. Bella slammed her mace into the chest of one of those elves while they were in motion and shattered his ribcage. Surprise took control of an elf wearing blue robes and had them stab an elf in red robes with their dagger. The attack didn’t kill them but the dagger was laced with an anesthetic which caused the red-robed elf to quickly pass out. The other three elves attacked the controlled elf until the priest stopped controlling him. Instead, she assaulted the mind of the sleeping one with void magic.

Flutashe used her cat form and hurled a guardsman into the remaining golem and dodged several thrusts by another blue-robed elf who was decapitated by Raida along with the other elf who was injured before.

The remaining red-robed elf summoned a pair of arcane elementals to attack the intruders but were absorbed by Stella’s ability before she used it to overload the remaining golem. The ensuing explosion sent the red-robed elf flying into a powerful punch from Flutashe, breaking their bones.

With the entry guards taken out, they were left with two options on where to go. Mena, Flutashe, Bella and Stella looked to the one who might have an idea on where to go next.

Luckily, Raida had received a tour of the satellite ships back when Kael’thas was ordered by Lord Illidan to teach her warlock spells. “Either way leads to the same room. The Mechanar is actually much smaller than the Botanica and the Arcatraz. The next room is the production floor where they manufacture mana storage cells. Pathaleon’s office is on the second floor and the left path is the closest to the elevator.”

Going with Raida’s suggestion, the group proceeded down the left corridor and faced a few more elves and a golem. They moved up a ramp to face more defenders and emerged onto a platform that was occupied by a blood elf engineer and several mo’arg engineers and gan’arg engineers. There were also more defenders guarding a flight of stairs leading downward. It came as no surprise that the blood elves and the demons were working together carrying around cubes of mana and stacking them into a pile. A larger mo’arg appeared to be overseeing their activities.

Not wanting the overseer to get in the way, Raida used her stasis spell on him while they faced the engineers and guards.

The elf pulled out a strange gun that struck Bella and shrank her down to Mena’s size. This made defending against the demons’ attacks more difficult. The elf then pointed the weapon at a mo’arg and made him grow, forcing Bella to dodge his attacks.

Surprise took over for Mena and took over the elf’s mind. Thankfully the ray’s effects were temporary so Bella returned to her normal size quickly. Surprise then turned the tables even further by making her grow large enough to allow her to kick her adversary into a wall, crushing him. The guards were shrunk and stepped on by the paladin.

The elf then made Raida grow to where she decided to go after the overseer. She struck his body with a warglaive which broke the stasis spell. The demon claimed to predict that she would die painfully before he activated the buzzsaw on his left arm.

As he charged forward he swiped his buzzsaw arm at Raida who vaulted over him before she planted both warglaives into his back, causing him to howl in pain. She knew the effects of the growth ray would wear off in a few seconds so she took this chance to throw the mo’arg over her shoulders and sent him landing hard on his face. She only had time to cut off the buzzsaw arm before she shrank back to normal.

The mo’arg managed to get up slowly, his face in incredible pain and green fluid flowing freely from his left arm. “An unforeseen contingency…” he muttered as he used a laser on his right arm to cauterize the wound. This left him distracted long enough for Flutashe to rush over and snap the demon’s neck.

In that moment a golem spotted the intruders at the top of the stairs and tried to attack only for Stella to drain its power core.

As the demon fell, a blue crystal fell out of his pocket. Bella checked the crystal against the one they received from the ancient but there was no match. Still, it didn’t hurt to check if it could be useful elsewhere.

Their way forward was down the flight of stairs. More guards and mages protected the bottom but were blasted by the excess arcane energy Stella claimed from the golems.

More gan’arg engineers moved to attack. These demons were equipped with mana grenades which they tossed at the party. After dodging a few blasts, Bella became irritated at their antics so she used her hammer to bat one back at them, burning them with arcane energy. This angered the demons to the point that they activated all of their grenades at once and recklessly charged at them like a suicide bomber. Raida imprisoned one, Bella knocked one out with her hammer and Surprise controlled one into holding the last of them in a grip. The party backed away as the grenades went off all at once.

A golem patrolled near the elevator flanked by two mages. Stella overloaded the golem’s core and obliterated the mages with the energy.

With the path to the elevator free of guards, the party prepared to move to the top floor.

…Or so they thought.

Blocking the way to the elevator was a crossing grid of mana lasers that ensured that nobody was getting on the elevator so easily.

“Looks like we need to find out how to get this thing unlocked,” Raida figured.

Examining the elevator further, Mena discovered two holes on either side of the elevator with the insides of those holes colored red and blue. Bella pulled out the blue crystal and thought for a moment before she inserted the crystal into the blue slot. The crystal glowed but nothing happened, likely because they needed the red crystal which had to be somewhere in the vicinity.

“Let’s keep looking around,” Stella said.

The party had to go around a wall of mana cubes to explore the rest of the floor which was teeming with demon and elf engineers. It took them some time to clear out a fair number of enemies until they found their first sign of real trouble in the central part of the floor.

A giant mechanical construct was walking around the central floor. Its chassis was of a bipedal design with silver-colored armor plating and an arcane core. Its left arm had a grasping hand and its right arm had a large piston. Oddly enough, it looked like something a gnome would build.

“It calls itself Mechano-Lord Capacitus,” Raida warned. “It uses the arcane energy in its core to cast magic so be careful.”

Unfortunately for Stella, this one had its core protected within that armor so she couldn’t drain its energies. They would have to fight it the old-fashioned way.

Flutashe charged forward in bear form to gain the construct’s attention. Bella used her light hammers and swords in an attempt to damage its armor from range. Stella blasted it in the center with fire and frost spells to weaken the armor at a single point while Mena focused on healing.

The commotion got the engineers’ attention but decided to watch the fight since they really didn’t want to get in Capacitus’ way.

Raida’s burning fel magic did cause the construct’s armor to heat up and Stella took advantage of that by breathing spellfrost on the spots glowing green.

Capacitus began counterattacking by releasing a series of clear remote controlled bombs around him. The bombs moved about randomly until they picked a spot and exploded after a few seconds.

Mena’s eyes widened as she felt her hair stand on end. She then began barking out orders, “Stella, stay next to Flutashe. Raida, stay away from them. Bella, stay next to me.”

The others had no idea why the gnome was suddenly calling out for positioning but decided to trust her and hope that she wasn’t leading them into a bad position.

A moment later, Capacitus released a strange wave of electromagnetic energy that washed over everyone nearby. Stella and Flutashe’s bodies had a faint blue glow while Raida, Mena and Bella had a faint red glow.

The demon and elven spectators nearby were huddled next to each other as the wave passed over them. Some turned blue while the rest turned red. The party saw that the spectators were suddenly electrocuted to death.

It took Bella a few moments to think about what happened. When they stood next to each other they were fine and felt much stronger but when the spectators had the same thing, they died of electrocution. She saw that the difference was that she and Mena were glowing the same color and Flutashe and Stella were the opposite color to them and were fine.

It was Stella who voiced the conclusion, “It’s a polarity spell! Being near someone of the same charge powers you up but standing next to an opposite charge electrocutes us.”

This must have been the reason for Mena’s warning. She must have foreseen the attack coming somehow. Mena continued calling out for position changes as the fight progressed.

Suddenly, a large mo’arg came down the stairs to investigate the commotion. This one had a large hammer for his left arm. He foolishly decided to charge into the battle and barreled through the bombs that Capacitus scattered around the floor. Each blast packed a painful kick and his recklessness resulted in his body getting torn apart by arcane explosions. A small red crystal bounced off the floor a few times and landed near Mena.

It wasn’t long afterward that Stella and Raida’s efforts were rewarded with a large hole in the construct’s armor. Arcane energies began to leak from it and Stella forcefully pulled the energy free from the core. In desperation, Capacitus tried protecting itself with a physical and magical barrier but though this did prevent Stella from draining its core, it only made things worse as the energies leaked faster with each spell it cast. Within seconds, Capacitus ran out of power and deactivated.

After Mena grabbed the red crystal, the group returned to the elevator where Bella inserted her crystal again while Mena used her Levitate spell on herself to gain the height necessary to reach the red slot and place her crystal inside. The crystals glowed as the mechanism activated. The mana beams protecting the elevator soon deactivated and the elevator was functional again.

“Be prepared for a lot of fighting when we get up there,” Raida warned. “Pathaleon and his apprentice, Sepethria, will have a lot of protectors guarding them.”

“Who is Sepethria?” Bella asked.

“A mage with a specialization for pyromancy. I’ve heard mages can conjure water elementals, she can conjure fire elementals.”

“There aren’t many mages willing to conjure servants of fire or arcane,” Stella said. “Mages tend to prefer to conjure water elementals because the potential for accidents is much higher for the other two types. Conjured fire elementals leave trails of fire in their wake and arcane elementals are harder to control and often unstable. I could conjure those types of elementals myself but I haven’t had the need to do so.”

The five of them stepped onto the elevator and ascended to the upper floor of the facility. A few mana cubes were stacked in a corner of the room they entered. Two arcane golems patrolled the room and four elves, two guards and two mages, guarded an alcove that they couldn’t look into from their angle. Another group guarded the exit.

Once again, Stella drained the exposed core of one of the golems and used the energy to overload the other golem. The guards and mages were knocked away in the ensuing explosion.

“Who dares interfere with our work?” demanded a female voice that sounded like it came from the alcove. Entering the main part of the room was a female blood elf wearing decorative robes in colors of black, white, red and gold with glowing, spiked shoulderpads. “I will incinerate all of you!”

Sepethrea summoned a trio of fire elementals that began chasing Bella, Flutashe and Mena. When Raida got close to her, a sudden blast of flame and a teleport escape from the mage left the demon hunter disoriented. A fourth fire elemental was summoned and pursued Raida.

“This is the best you have to offer against me?” Sepethrea laughed. “My minions are more than enough to finish all of you.”

Raida was becoming annoyed with the mage’s arrogant behavior. She could have easily overpowered her if this were a battle of power. However, Sepethrea was not about to fall into that type of battle and was more than content to keep control of the battle.

Flutashe, Bella and Mena were struggling to reach Sepethrea as the fire elementals were slowly setting the room on fire and leaving them with little room to move.

Having had enough of this spectacle, Stella summoned four elementals made of ice and sent them to attack the fire elementals. Each ice elemental that came into contact with a fire elemental ended up with the ice elemental exploding and freezing part of the room, putting out the flames and destroying the fire elemental.

“Is that all you have, Sepethrea?” Stella spat back. The nethermancer grit her teeth in anger before she began channeling an arcane spell only to have it countered and several bolts of ice striking her feet and freezing her in place. Sepethrea escaped the ice with a Blink spell.

“You guys go ahead, I’ve got this.” Stella declared. “I’ll catch up before you reach Pathaleon.”

The party could see that Stella was confident that she could win this so they decided to proceed toward the exit. Sepethrea teleported in front of them to block their way. “Did you think that I would let y-” She then vanished and appeared next to Stella who knocked her into a wall with a forceful blast of arcane energy. Not questioning what just happened, Flutashe, Mena, Bella and Raida proceeded through the doorway.

“How…did you…?” Sepethrea asked.

“A snap summon spell,” Stella retorted. “Good for bringing a nearby object to you and can have combat capabilities if you know how to follow up.”

Growling in frustration, Sepethrea summoned five fire elementals to attack Stella who countered with five ice elementals. Both mages blinked away before the icy explosion occurred.

The two exchanged attacks and teleported all over the room. A few teleports in, Stella got a read on Sepethrea’s magical signature and became able to predict her teleports. Using this knowledge, she planted arcane traps in places where she was likely to teleport next while under the cover of launching bolts of frost at her.

A moment later, Sepethrea stepped on one of the traps and the explosion sent her flying into the air. Sensing that she was vulnerable to attacks in the air, she conjured a molten barrier to protect herself.

Stella conjured a sphere of wild arcane magic that was outside of her control but at the location of Sepethrea’s estimated landing point. As predicted, the mage landed into the field and the magic quickly destroyed her barrier and began to tear away at her body. The wild magic also interfered with her own magic and made casting difficult.

Stella prepared her finishing blow by summoning an ice, fire and arcane elemental and had them surround the sphere. Soon the sphere faded and Sepethrea fell to the floor. Before she could react, the three elementals grabbed her by the legs’ waist and arms. Sepethrea’s eyes widened in horror as the elementals made contact with each other. With the arcane elemental added to the imminent explosion, the blast would be amplified. Stella teleported into the corridor beyond the room moments before she heard one last scream and a loud blast that rocked the Mechanar slightly.

Stella chuckled to herself as her experiment with unstable elementals proved a rousing success.

During the fight, the others had their own share of battles as well as they fought waves of mages, guards, engineers and an arcane construct along a crystal walkway. Without Stella, the construct proved more challenging but still couldn’t keep up with Raida’s speed as she infused felfire into her warglaives and slashed away at its armor plating. Surprise used the engineer to give Bella and Flutashe a size advantage, Bella blocked any fire spells sent at them by the mages while Flutashe mangled them. Surprise made her puppet shrink himself before Bella stepped on him.

As they were going around the bend, another few waves appeared and attacked them. Their battle was put on hold temporarily as an explosion rocked the ship. Stella rejoined the group not long after that. None of them were going to question the explosion they heard earlier because by now, they realized that things like that happen when Stella handled a situation.

Once Stella drained another golem and used that energy to obliterate another group of elves, a figure appeared in the room beyond. This one wore dark crimson and black robes with a curved sword and a golden shield like the ones the guards carried around. It wasn’t hard to figure who the guy was.

“You’re the one who designed those mana bombs and killed those innocent people with them?” Stella asked.

“It would have included even more of my prince’s enemies if that meddlesome adventurer hadn’t gotten involved,” Pathaleon replied. It was clear that he showed no remorse for his actions.

“How can you justify mass murder?”

“Everything I do is in the name of Prince Kael’thas. Now, since we are on a strict timetable, I will allow you one more question before we come to blows. Choose carefully, or don’t.”

The party could sense that the engineering mastermind was mocking them, but Stella kept a straight face as she asked him her last question. “Indulge me, they call you Pathaleon the Calculator, can you tell me the estimated time that the last bomb went off at Firewing Point?”

Pathaleon gave her a confused look. He had no idea why she would want that info but didn’t think it was anything she could use against him so he humored her. “The bomb went off three days ago. The bomb detonated shortly after I conversed with that failure of an overseer so I would estimate at about three nineteen PM. Now that you have asked your last question, let us begin.”

Of course, while he was thinking about the incident, it distracted him long enough to not notice that Flutashe had snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the arms. Raida punched him in the gut to keep him from uttering any magical words.

“Get the key fragment from him.” Stella ordered.

Mena quickly moved in and searched the engineer’s pockets and found the crystal shard they were looking for.

Stella then conjured a portal which appeared unusual to everyone as the rim of the portal had an oddly sand-colored rim. The portal led to Firewing Point. The central plaza of the outpost featured a metal orb that had electricity dancing around it with increasing frequency. “Throw him in!” Stella ordered darkly. Flutashe wasn’t sure why the mage had that kind of expression, but went with it as she tossed Pathaleon into the portal before she closed it.

“What was that about?” Raida asked. “You just let him get away!”

“No I didn’t,” Stella retorted. “There was a reason I asked that last question. I just needed that information to know when to send him.”

Bella’s eyes widened in realization, “You don’t mean…” Stella silently nodded in reply.

“Wow, pretty ironic that the guy built several mana bombs only for one to be his downfall,” Raida commented.

Bella let the others discuss what happened while she turned her attention to the crystal shards. Mena gave her the one she found in Pathaleon’s pockets while she pulled out the one they got from the ancient.

In addition to the wings that she obtained from A’dal’s blessing, she also received the knowledge necessary to unite the two key fragments into one crystal. Using the light of the naaru, Bella was able to combine the two successfully.

She then loudly gave a polite clearing of her throat to get everyone’s attention. The others looked at her and saw the crystal key. “I believe that we have overstayed our welcome in this place. We have one last satellite to explore and several tasks to complete aboard that vessel.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a break and rest before we explore the Arcatraz,” Flutashe offered.

Now that they thought about it, they had been feeling some fatigue since they had just explored two of the ships back to back and the experiences were trying them physically and mentally.

Stella opened a portal to Shattrath so they could get their rest in a safe haven.

Raida had a feeling that they were going to need that rest.

Author's Note

If there's one thing I enjoy while writing this story, it is finding interesting and fun ways to kill boss mobs. Back in retail BC, Sepethrea was a pain to deal with, especially on Heroic difficulty. It felt satisfying to nuke her. I also got a sense of satisfaction when I had Pathaleon die to his own mana bomb.

Next time: The Prison Satellite (though the title won't be called that).

Trial of Tenacity

“So, if we do this right, we gonna kill a gronn without fightin’ it?” Farra’jin asked.

Talia glared at the shaman, not bothering to hide her annoyance. “Yes, Farra’jin, all we have to do is kill a few ogres and lure him into the trap. What part of that is so hard to comprehend?” Her irritation was based on the fact that the troll had asked that question five times so far.

“Sorry, it’s just that for all de trouble we went through ta kill four of de gronn, dis method feels like we gettin’ a lucky break. I ain’t lookin’ a gift horse in de mouth, I’m just sayin’.”

“Did you really have to use that expression?” Feloma complained. “We have been in these bodies for far too long and we’re going to be for far longer. I fear I will one day forget what I really look like.”

“That’s because you’re an airhead who likes to show off her body to every stallion and mare who gives you even the slightest attention,” Talia remarked, earning her a glare from the blood elf.

A few hours ago, they were near the arena going over their plan. Baron Sablemane gave them a special device that was made to unleash a burst of dragonfire that would be powerful enough to kill a gronn. Once they used the trap and the gronn was dead, they were to place effigies of ogre heads around him before they returned so they could make their final moves against the last two gronn.

The target that the trap was meant for was called Gorgrom the Dragon-Eater. It sounded like a repulsive name, but fitting for a repulsive creature.

Their journey took them through a Cenarion Expedition outpost on a forested plateau before they proceeded through the forest and across a natural stone bridge toward the next plateau.

It wasn’t long ago that the forest and the next plateau were occupied by a cult of black dragon worshippers who wanted to gain the power of the black dragonflight for themselves and become worthy dragonspawn or drakonid. Sablemane found the cult distasteful and had his assistant, Samia Inkling, work on capturing any black dragon eggs and whelps that she could find from the cult.

Because of recent actions against them, the cult had been decimated by adventurers and any eggs and whelplings had been captured so Sablemane could raise them himself.

Beyond the bridge, the group entered a cavernous tunnel that had a number of orc, human, broken and draenei corpses lying around that the Expedition was working on cleaning up. It made the group feel like the denizens of Azeroth favored death and violence a little too much.

Another forest awaited the group at the other end of the tunnel. The inhabitants were mainly large ravens and ancients wandering around. To their right, they passed by a large village of arakkoa. Of course, that wasn’t their destination.

They continued until they were in what was the northwesternmost part of Blade’s Edge Mountains. A small ogre outpost was their destination. The outpost was called Boulder’mok and it was owned by the Bladespire Clan.

However, their mission was short and simple. Talia had her felguard cut down and decapitate an ogre warrior while Farra’jin had his earth elemental impale another with rock shards before one took his head off. Lokosh quickly dispatched an ogre shaman and cut his head off.

Using the spears that Rexxar provided, Lokosh proceeded to place a head on each spear and had Feloma hold on to them, much to her disgust and Lokosh’s amusement.

It wasn’t long before they found the stone altar that was in the outpost. Talia set the trap atop the altar and waited.

And waited.

After fifteen minutes it was clear that they needed something to bait Gorgrom out of hiding. They decided to go around killing ogre after ogre, hoping that their death cries would have the intended result.

After nearly every ogre in the outpost was dead, a loud roar was heard from one of the buildings nearby. “Who dares disturb my slumber?” the voice yelled.

Gorgrom emerged from the building, looking groggy as he had just woken up from a nap. He looked at his altar and noticed that several ogre bodies were piled around near it. “Who defiled my altar?” He then walked over to it in an effort to move the bodies aside. However, the moment he stood near the altar, the trap was set off, exploding in a raging torrent of dragonfire that burned away his flesh. Given that a black dragon made the trap, the trap would have an effect on earth and earth-based creatures like gronn.

As the flames engulfed Gorgrom, he began to flail around in panic but the flames were especially effective and burned away his body within seconds, turning the brown-skinned creature black as charcoal.

The group stared at the scene for a few minutes in silence until Lokosh spoke, “Anyone else think that Stellaglim would have had a better chance at these things than we do? If black dragon fire can do that to a gronn, she could probably take out the last two easily.

“Let’s not waste our energy on wishful thinking,” Talia said. “Let’s get back to Rexxar and that pompous black dragon so we can get ready to take out the last two.”

After placing the grisly symbols of anti-gronn dominance, the party made the long trip back to the arena.

Once they were rested and prepared, Stella opened a portal back to the front of Tempest Keep. Everyone proceeded into the portal and back to the purple wasteland.

With two satellites cleared and the key to the Arcatraz complete, there was only one place left for them to go. Using whatever means of flight they had, the party ascended high into the sky and toward the red satellite ship that hovered well above the Botanica.

Once they landed they noticed that the entrance was blocked off by energy beams. Of course, with the complete Arcatraz key in their possession, it was only a matter of Bella inserting the key into the appropriate slot and the energy door deactivated. She found that she could then remove the crystal without the door reactivating but nobody wanted to believe that the field would stay deactivated for long since this was a prison ship so they quickly entered.

As they proceeded through the narrow entry corridor, the group could hear fighting up ahead. They rushed ahead into a circular room that was filled with supply crates and spare weapons. Two pairs of blood elf archers were on the left and right side of the room with the guardsmen facing the doorway to the next room.

“Aren’t the guards supposed to be guarding the entrance from intruders?” Flutashe whispered. “Why does it look like they are watching the next room?”

She quickly got her answer as a swarm of white mutants invaded the room led by a larger mutant with black and red skin.

“Stay strong everyone, we must not let these parasites through!” one of the guards shouted.

“Don’t let them touch you lest you get infected!” another shouted.

Though they put up a strong front, Bella could see it in their eyes and Flutashe heard it in their voices. These guys were fighting desperately to survive.

“I’m guessing these guys played around with the prison cells and got more than they bargained for when they released a few of them,” Raida whispered.

“Damn Warden Mellichar to hell!” another guard shouted. “That madman unleashed a nightmare on us all.”

“...Or someone among them went mad for some reason and started setting dangerous prisoners loose,” Raida corrected.

“I can feel Violetta stirring from her nap, there must be some decent void corruption up ahead,” Mena whispered.

Raida sighed, “I hate to say this, but we need to help them.” The others nodded in agreement before they headed into the area.

The elves were taken by surprise by the intrusion especially as the intruders ignored them and began attacking the mutants. Bella stunned the large one with a hammer while Raida rapidly slashed at it with her warglaives. Surprise assaulted the mutant group as a whole with shadows that spread outward and seared them all. Flutashe grabbed a few of the smaller white mutants and crushed them in her paw or hurled them into other mutants. Her claws mangled even more mutants.

Stella spotted more mutants in the room ahead so she raised a firewall to prevent enemy reinforcements before she bombarded the large mutant with arcane energy to finish it off.

The elven guards and archers stared at the scene in confusion. On the one hand, they were intruders who were attacking one of their prince’s ships. On the other hand, they didn’t know who they should be attacking as the intruders were fighting those abominations and they would have preferred not to be eaten or infected by them and the intruders were doing the dirty work for them.

Once the wave of mutants were defeated, Raida turned to who she suspected was the last of the garrison force inside the Arcatraz. “If you value your lives, you will get out of here. We plan on dealing with the escaped prisoners.”

“You are enemies of Prince Kael’thas, our orders are to kill you on sight.” one defender said.

“We cleared out the garrison forces aboard the Botanica and the Mechanar not long ago. We’ve rested since then. Do you really want to throw your lives away fighting us?” Raida countered.

“If we don’t then Prince Kael’thas will kill us.”

“Then you have three choices: death by us, death by your prince if you return to him with your tails between your legs, or seeking sanctuary under Voren’thal of the Scryers. If you hurry, you can get out of Netherstorm before your prince finds out you defected.”

The guards looked at the demon hunter then at each other before the guard looked back at Raida. “Good point. Men, we fly for Shattrath.”

As the prison guards filed out of the entrance, Raida smiled slightly, glad that at least some members of Kael’thas’ forces had some common sense. The guard looked back at the party to give a warning, “As thanks for the assistance let me warn you about those creatures. They will infect you with parasites if you are not careful. If you see the corpses of my comrades, burn them. The parasites within their bodies will detect your presence and burst forth and attack if you get too close.”

Once the guards were gone, Stella lowered her firewall so the party could move forward.

The next room featured several packs of mutants, mostly smaller white ones with a couple of large black ones. Raida called on her demons to assist them in defeating the parasitic creatures. Stella used her red and black essences to burn any mutants near them while conjuring a fiery pillar to burn the more distant ones.

The path took a sharp right from the room and into a hallway with a pair of guard corpses within. Taking the guard’s warning to heart, Stella used her Flamestrike spell to incinerate the corpses with a pillar of fire. As the bodies burned in the pillar of fire, they began to twitch and writhe as if somehow alive. Then the corpses convulsed unnaturally before their chests burst open, each releasing a pair of parasitic grubs who were then directly exposed to Stella’s fire magic and quickly blackened.

Bella found a corner to throw up in while Flutashe looked away from the sight. “I do not know which is worse, Thanatas’ grotesque diseases or this.” Bella dry heaved as she said that.

“It’s probably going to get worse from here,” Raida remarked. “The naaru kept some dangerous prisoners locked up aboard this ship in their travels through the Great Dark. Be prepared for anything.”

“There’s some heavy void stuff going on up ahead,” Mena said. She could tell that Violetta was waking up from sensing the high concentration of void energies.

Entering the room, they encountered gray and red variants of observer demons floating alongside large, horrific two-headed beasts with dark purple scales and one red eye on each head. They wore metal bracers on their forelegs and had small horns growing from the sides of their heads. On their backs were numerous tentacles with red eyes.

The group winced at the sight of the beasts with Stella giving Flutashe a hopeful look. “Maybe you can try to tame one of them?” she said with uncertainty.

“Not likely, that’s a void hound,” said a mysterious voice out of thin air.

“She’s awake,” Mena informed.

“Thank you for that late announcement,” Violetta said as she manifested, setting Raida to reach for her warglaives. “As I was saying, the reason Flutashe’s ability wouldn’t work on void hounds is because they are creatures of the void and outside the realm of life. As druids are aligned with the forces of life, her power allows her dominion over those who are aligned with that same force.

“Beasts aligned with the other five known forces, also known as death, chaos, order, void and light, would be outside her influence. Examples of such things she couldn’t control would be corpsehounds, felhounds, arcane familiars, void hounds and whatever the Light classifies as beasts of their alignment.”

“What about the core hounds?” Flutashe asked.

“Elemental beasts like the core hounds you encountered some time ago were affected by your power because elementals are still aligned with the forces of life, despite their destructive tendencies.”

“So why are you here?” Raida demanded, her weapons ready.

“I would think that Mena had at least hinted to you about all the void energies loose in this place,” Violetta answered. “You can’t expect me to keep smelling the alluring scent in the air and stay asleep.”

Violetta continued sniffing the air and the delicious void energies that saturated it. “Mmm…I smell a voidwraith, and a particularly strong one too.” With that statement, she vanished.

The group had no time to ponder on what the eldritch horror just said as a gray observer spotted them and moved to attack. It was the type to delay its attackers until it could hit them with a powerful spell but Raida’s attacks were too fast for its strategy to be effective.

The void hounds proved to be annoying due to their size and breathing fire from both mouths that imitated felfire. Bella and Mena’s light magic were effective against the void beast. The creature summoned red eyeballs which Bella quickly burned with the Light.

When the beast was weakened, several black tentacles wrapped around the beast’s legs before mouths grew from them and began devouring the creature’s flesh. The grotesque display of live consumption was as disgusting as ever.

The party dealt with a second void hound in a similar way before they cleared the room of observers and Stella incinerated any elven corpses in the room along with a few white mutants wandering around.

With the room clear, it was time to address the void creature in the room that Violetta mentioned earlier. The creature looked like a voidwalker but was taller and more narrow. There were also no bindings on this one like regular voidwalkers had. There was so much darkness around it that it was literally consuming the light around it.

The voidwraith moved toward them, intent on drawing them into its body. “Life energy to…consume…”

Violetta whispered the name Zereketh into Mena’s mind who parroted the name to the others in a questioning manner.

Zereketh began flinging parts of itself onto the floor which created zones of void energy that sought to drain them of their life energies when they stepped in them. The group made sure to avoid the black essence on the floor. Of course, Zereketh made things more complicated by attaching small pieces of itself to them which drained their life energy to the point that the fragments burst violently. It also periodically unleashed dark energy from its body which sent them flying back a few meters.

After its latest explosive burst, everyone was knocked away a fair distance from it. That was when it spotted something it wasn’t expecting, a trio of giant phantasmal eyeballs ready to fire beams at it. Zereketh backed away from the eyes only to sense the presence of several tentacles with gaping maws pointed toward it. Before it could react, the eyes fired their beams and the voidwraith was knocked into the range of the mouths which began to pull its very essence into them. Try as it might, Zereketh was caught in the suction and its body quickly unraveled and divided into several portions for each mouth.

As quickly as they came, the eyes and tentacles faded away.

Violetta appeared before the party once again. “Thanks for distracting it long enough for me to get ready. That voidwraith was delicious for the little snack that he was.”

“So what are you going to do now?” Raida asked warily.

“I’m gonna go back to sleep, with Zereketh in my stomach, the void levels of this place dropped significantly. There are some more void creatures up ahead, but they aren’t worth my time.” With that, Violetta vanished again.

“I still think she’s going to turn on us at some point,” Raida said.

“Perhaps, but it seems that her mother has her under control for the time being,” Bella said.

“That thing has a mother?!”

“Yes, and we will see her at some point in our adventures in Outland, no doubt.” Stella assured.

This filled the demon hunter with a primal sense of dread.

Regardless, the party proceeded up what appeared to be a crystalline ramp that curved toward the left and up to the second floor of the facility.

The crystalline path soon led into another hallway with more dead guards hosting parasitic larvae. This time there was an arcane golem that looked battered and non-functional. The power core appeared to be leaking energy which would be dangerous to those who got too close.

To play it safe, Stella began to drain the leaking power core which prompted the golem to take action and try to attack the group despite its battered state, to the surprise of the others. However, it didn’t get far as Stella reacted by increasing the drain until the core became depleted.

“Oh wow, that was scary how that thing just acted like it was broken then just suddenly moved again to attack us,” Mena noted.

“There are so many things wrong with this place,” Raida commented. The others nodded in agreement.

Meanwhile, Stella disposed of the guard corpses so they could move forward.

The next room had a hexagonal crystal floor in the center and featured a number of voidwalkers and a few small mutants. Half of the voidwalkers were wearing armor while the other half were wearing a tattered cloth hood with a pair of lanterns on the sides of their heads which were hung by what looked suspiciously like part of a naaru except black and dark purple like the voidwalker’s body.

Attacking the voidwalkers proved to be tricky as the ones with armor opened rifts beneath themselves to feed off of the void energies coming from it to heal and empower themselves. The ones with the tattered hoods absorbed magic and threw that energy back at them.

Flutashe and Bella made sure to lure the armored voidwalkers away from the rifts so Stella and Mena could destroy them with their magic. When dealing with the absorbers, it was soon learned that they could only absorb one type at a time which made them vulnerable to the other types. It was also learned that the hooded voidwalkers couldn’t absorb fel magic, even more interesting was that Raida’s fel magic had actually made them physically unstable. Raida decided not to overdo it with her fel attacks as she really didn’t want to see what would happen to the creature with it being so close to the others.

It was as they were finishing off the last voidwalker that Stella suddenly picked up on traces of Khadgar’s magic signature in the room. She guessed that the void energies were cloaking the archmage’s magic. She sensed the magic coming from a nearby corner of the room and investigated. Sure enough, a canister like the ones she saw in the Shadow Labyrinth and the Steamvaults was sitting there.

After her previous encounter with the canister in the Steamvaults, Stella had an idea on how to dismantle the protective wards guarding the container. It took a few minutes, but she managed to undo the matrices protecting it. She figured that her actions would have alerted Khadgar to what she was doing but she was fine with that. She then walked over to the container, burning the guard corpses near it, and opened the canister, shaking out the prize inside, the third fragment of the key into Karazhan.

With the three fragments collected, all that was left was for Khadgar to restore the key.

However, this was only one of three objectives accomplished so they continued deeper into the prison. Stella burned another pair of guards at the doorway.

The next room was occupied by a trio of unusually large draenei except two had red skin and one had dark gray skin.

“Eredar…” Raida growled. “These guys might be tough, watch out for their dark magics.”

As they entered the room, the party felt a dark presence in the next room and that presence was slowly eating away at them. Bella focused on support and used her holy auras to counteract the dark aura that she suspected was coming from the three eredar.

Raida and Flutashe attacked the two red eredar with the gray one casting dark spells from afar. The red ones attacked the two with appropriately sized longswords.

Mena attacked one of the red eredar with holy magic while Stella blasted the other with fire, frost and arcane spells. Raida avoided her target’s swings and exploited the many openings that the demon left. The demon hunter left many deep cuts into the eredar’s flesh in a matter of seconds. Flutashe also left numerous deep claw marks into her opponent’s flesh.

As the red eredar began to waver in their attacks, Mena and Stella focused their magics on the gray one who stole some of Stella’s strength to bolster his own. However, Stella stole that strength back with her Spellsteal ability.

Once the two red eredar fell, the unholy aura that was slowly burning them faded and the party ganged up on the gray eredar who fell quickly after.

Stella noticed the few corpses in the room that didn’t react to their presence. She suspected that the demons’ dark aura burned the parasites from within their hosts. Still, as a show of respect she still burned the corpses.

The doorway at the south end of the room featured several more corpses and a pair of battered arcane golems that were leaking energy like the last one. The group could only guess that the guards made their main line of defense here when the prisoners started breaking out. Stella proceeded to drain the two golems before she used the excess arcane energies to obliterate the corpses and the parasites within.

Beyond the next corridor, the party spotted a felguard and two sayaad demons. Seeker appeared and warned her that there were two other sayaad in the room using their invisibility spells to ambush intruders.

Flutashe entered the room and engaged the felguard with the sayaad coming to help their ally. Raida quickly used her Spectral sight to locate the invisible sayaad before she shot them with a dark eye beam which caused crystals to form on one’s chest and the left hip of the other.

As they were fighting the demons, two more seemed to ignore them and bickered with each other like a married couple. “When I need someone to prance around like an overstuffed peacock, I’ll call on you,” mocked the shivarra in the back.

“Then I’ll commit myself to ignoring you,” the wrathguard in the back shot back.

“What would you know about commitment, sheet-sah?”

“You’re the one who should be…” That was when the wrathguard noticed the intruders in the room, about the time when the other demons had fallen. “Wait, we have company…”

“Oh, don’t let them interrupt you, do tell me what you were going to say, Soccothrates.”

“Do stop embarrassing yourself by wasting the air in this room Dalliah, let us deal with these pests so I can get back to pretending you don’t exist.”

“I hope they kill you before I kill them.” The wrathguard, Soccothrates, and the shivarra, Dalliah, prepared their weapons and faced the party.

Truth and Heartswell appeared next to Raida with their weapons ready while glancing at their master.

“You don’t mind if we deal with these annoyances, do you?” Heartswell asked.

“The way they argue has been giving me a headache and I’m ready to take my frustrations out on them because of that,” Truth added.

The fight between the demons began with Truth attacking Dalliah and Heartswell facing Soccothrates. Raida’s shivarra made use of her six arms to deflect the sword slashes from the former prisoner and shadow magic to blast him when he was left open. Truth was less direct with his attacks and instead slashed at places on the prisoner shivarra’s body that she wasn’t protecting.

The prison couple counterattacked with Soccothrates knocking Heartswell away with a backhand while Dalliah began spinning around with her blades pointed outward to brutally slash Truth. Raida’s wrathguard wasn’t about to get caught up in that and instead jumped away and charged at Soccothrates, slamming into him and stopping his momentum. Heartswell noticed that Dalliah had stopped spinning and was now channeling a healing spell on herself. A Chaos Bolt from Raida’s shivarra put a stop to that.

As it turned out, unlike Dalliah and Soccothrates, who preferred to fight on their own, Truth and Heartswell were much better at teamwork as they covered for each other when the other was hurt. Of course, Mena and Bella contributed some healing as well to make sure the two stayed healthy. The prison couple might have considered going after the paladin and priest, but with them facing members of their own race, their pride wouldn’t allow them to take their eyes off Raida’s demons.

With Dalliah being unable to cast her healing spells, the two soon found themselves being worn down. She soon got her wish when her cellmate went down first when Heartswell deflected both of Soccothrates’ sword swings at the same time with one pair of swords then used her second pair to impale him in the chest while carving a deep gash down his body. She didn’t get to enjoy the sight for long, which was her downfall as his death distracted her long enough for Truth to dismember all six of her arms with a pair of simultaneous vertical slashes. The shivarra only screamed in pain for a brief moment before he ran his sword through her throat and his other sword through her heart.

As the two demons fell, each one dropped a crystal like the ones dropped by the two mo’args in the Mechanar. Looking around, the party quickly noticed a door to their immediate left with energy beams firing in two different patterns along with two slots like the ones used to access the Mechanar’s elevator.

As Raida congratulated her demons for their performance, Bella and Stella collected the crystals and inserted them into the slots, deactivating the field.

“I hope there isn’t much more to go,” Bella said. “Between disgusting worms bursting from corpses, having my life sucked out of me by a fiend of the void and the aggravation of listening to a pair of demons bicker, I am quite through with this place.”

Beyond the door was a long flight of stairs that took them to a third level of the prison ship. Atop the stairs, the path turned and led across a crystalline bridge where another pair of battered golems awaited them, pretending to be inactive. Stella quickly drained the golems before obliterating the elven corpses around the sentinels.

As they entered the next room, the group found themselves facing a group of ethereals pointing their knives at them.

However, these ethereals seemed to be in an interrogative mood. “Where did the void signature go? Did you have something to do with its disappearance?” one ethereal demanded.

“So what if we did?” Raida replied.

“Then we shall make you regret doing that. We shall slay all who deny us the ultimate power of the void.”

“How about this instead?” Raida then breathed a torrent of felfire breath which set the ethereals’ bandages ablaze. The bandages quickly turned to ash and the energy beings could no longer maintain their forms, dissipating into energy and leaving their mantles behind.

“Who were they?” Mena wondered.

“I can’t tell you much about them, but from what I heard, there’s an organization called The Ethereum,” Raida explained. “For some reason, they seem obsessed with collecting void energies for themselves. I’m pretty sure they went insane a long time ago.”

“Why would they be collecting something like that?” Bella asked. “I can’t imagine anything good coming from that.”

Raida shrugged, “Beats me. Like I said, they probably went insane in their quest for power.”

“Hey girls, I found someone over here,” Flutashe called from the other side of the room. The others walked over to see what the druid found. What they found was the corpse of a broken wearing a dull green hood and robes.

“What’s a broken doing here?” Stella asked.

“I’m not sure…” Raida mumbled while she thought about something. She and Flutashe suddenly gasped as they both realized the same thing.

“This is Seer Udalo!” both said together.

“Who?” Stella asked.

“Care to explain, darlings?” Bella asked.

“We were asked to find this guy by Akama back in Shadowmoon Valley,” Raida explained. “Apparently, he discovered something important about the Medallion of Karabor which would allow someone to infiltrate the Black Temple and bypass the outer defenses.”

“Doesn’t look like he can tell us anything now. He’s dead,” Surprise commented. “And given how much he’s smelling right now, I’d say he’s been that way for a while.”

It was unfortunate, but it appeared that whatever lead Akama was pursuing was a dead end. It wasn’t like they could converse with his ghost, after all.

Stella walked up to the body, glad that the parasites hadn’t gotten to him. “I need to burn this body, if only to prevent it from being desecrated by parasites.” Calling on her fire magic, the mage set the corpse ablaze. As rotten as the body had become, the remains burned quickly. Soon, only ashes remained.

As Bella looked at the ashes, she saw something unusual about the placement of the ashes. They appeared to be filling in what appeared to be scratches in the floor. Tracing the scratches, she discovered letters. She gasped as she traced the letters. “Could this be a dying message?” she muttered. “Let’s see…’A’...’T’...’A’...’M’...’A’...’L’...” She pondered the word for a moment before she gasped again. “Is he talking about the Atam’al crystals?”

“Maybe Akama might know more about this?” Flutashe offered.

“Maybe, but for now, we need to keep going,” Stella said. “We still need to rescue that gnome mage that A’dal mentioned.”

The next room appeared to host a number of demons including four satyrs, two ered’ruin doomguards and two of what appeared to be a strange variant of infernal.

“I’ve never seen infernals like that before,” Flutashe commented.

“They’re worse than infernals,” Raida warned. “Those are abyssals, a deadlier version of an infernal. Lord Illidan has a colossal abyssal guarding the main entrance into the temple.”

Given Raida’s warning, Flutashe and the others had a feeling that they shouldn’t tackle the other demons and the abyssal at the same time. Bella decided to try the careful approach and throw a hammer of light at one of the satyrs. As expected, the satyr called his fellow satyrs into battle with him.

The satyrs were not difficult to deal with as Stella kept the ones who casted spells under control while the other two, being archers, were quickly cut down by Raida.

Once the satyrs were defeated, Flutashe moved to attack one of the abyssals. Despite her bear form’s thick body, a punch from the upgraded infernal threatened to break a few of her bones. Thankfully, Mena was there to keep that from happening.

The abyssal erupted in flames and continued trying to punch the druid who resorted to dodging its attacks. Seeing that it wasn’t getting anywhere with its punches, the abyssal raised its arms in the air and conjured a blazing meteor to crush someone. Stella bombarded the meteor with ice spells until it froze. When the flames were extinguished, the abyssal lost control of the meteor and it dropped on its head.

Raida then finished it off with her black crystal laser and a Chaos Bolt which caused the demon to fall apart.

The group took a moment to catch their breath, but their reprieve was short lived as they were spotted by the two doomguards and the other abyssal.

The ered’ruin were not difficult opponents as they mainly focused on trying to strike Raida with their swords which were blocked. The other abyssal was dealt with similarly to the first one with Stella freezing its meteors. Raida’s experience in dealing with doomguards allowed her to quickly exploit their weaknesses and finish them quickly while Stella bombarded the abyssal with ice magic until its blazing body froze and fell apart.

With the demons dispatched, the group proceeded into the room where they spotted a lone elf casting a spell on one of the nine prison cells in the room, one of which appeared to be empty.

They cautiously approached the elf to find out what he was doing when Mena whispered to everyone, “His mind is being controlled.”

“How do you know?” Raida whispered back.

“Because, silly, he’s got weird black strings going to his brain from that cell he’s trying to open.”

Raida was confused by this as she saw no strings, even with her Spectral Vision. However, she decided to trust what the priest said.

As they entered the cell block, the elf had a surprised look on his face. “Master? What troubles you?” He paused for a moment then turned toward the group in surprise. Either on reflex or by the will of whatever was controlling him, he placed a powerful barrier around himself. “I knew the prince would be angry but I…I have not been myself. I had to let them out! The Great One speaks to me, you see.” That was when he realized that the group was not Kael’thas’ guards but a bunch of intruders. “Wait…outsiders! Kael’thas did not send you! Good…I’ll just tell the prince you released the prisoners,” he cackled maniacally.

“Listen, Mellichar right? I have no idea why you are releasing prisoners, but it needs to stop,” Raida reasoned. “Your actions threaten to release a nightmare on Outland.”

“Me threaten? No, no, no, you are the ones going around threatening all of Outland by releasing all these creatures. At least, that’s what I’ll tell the prince. He’ll believe me and I’ll get off scot free. Yes, yes, it’s the perfect plan.”

It was clear that the warden was beyond reasoning at this point, likely due to whatever was controlling him. “Clearly you have some screws loose, buddy. Right now, it's just you and us and I’m pretty sure your little barrier isn’t going to hold forever.”

“Yes, you being alive would certainly be an inconvenience and cause the prince suspicion and I can’t have that.” He clearly wasn’t listening to Raida anymore. “The naaru kept the most dangerous beings in existence here in these cells, let me introduce you to one.”

Mellichar pointed a red crystal at one of the prison cells to the group’s left and it began to shift around and open up. An enhanced version of the imp, a fel imp, slid down to the floor.

The imp had no idea what was going on but since one of his potential targets was protected by a shield, he decided to throw fireballs at the party. However, Raida put him into a stasis cell before decapitating him.

Mellichar growled, “Useless creature! No matter, the next one will surely be more effective than that pitiful imp.”

He then pointed the crystal at another cell which opened up to reveal a dark yellow lizard-like creature with teal markings and spikes on its back. It had a clubbed tail.

“What is that?” Stella asked.

“A warp stalker,” Raida explained. “Exposure to nether energies gave them the ability to phase in and out of the astral plane. They’re a real menace to spellcasters.”

Despite all of this, Flutashe moved in front of everyone before she gave the warp stalker a look that seemed to calm it. As the creature approached her, Raida got her weapons ready. “That won’t be necessary, sister,” she scolded. Flutashe then allowed the warp stalker to move close enough for her to stroke his head. Her touch was pure bliss to him. “There, there, don’t worry, you’re safe now. The naaru won’t lock you up again.” The warp stalker then nuzzled the druid.

Mellichar dropped his chin as far as it could go. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. He grit his teeth before pointing his crystal at a cell on the other side of the room. As it unlocked, his frustration and anger grew as a gnome exited from the prison cell.

“Where in Bonzo’s brass buttons am I? And who are–” The gnome’s eyes suddenly widened before he clutched his head in pain. “Yaaghh, that is one mother of a headache…”

Mellichar screamed in anger, “A LOWLY GNOME?! ARE THE NAARU’S STANDARDS FOR PRISONERS SO LOW?!”

Out of frustration, Mellichar began opening all of the other cells except for the largest cell behind him. To his satisfaction, an air elemental, a flamewaker and two drakonid emerged from the cells.

The gnome didn’t take the insult well, “‘Lowly?’ I don’t care who you are, friend, but nobody refers to the mighty Millhouse Manastorm as ‘lowly’!” Millhouse then looked at the group who were clearly opposing the elf and figured they were allies. If not, he figured he would blow them up too. “I have no idea what goes on here, but I will gladly join your fight against this impudent imbecile!” He then glared at the elf who insulted him, “Prepare to defend yourself, cretin!”

Of course, Millhouse didn’t join the battle right away as he ended up spending a significant amount of time preparing. “I just need to get some things ready first. You guys go ahead and get started. I need to summon up some water…”

Stella rolled her eyes at the gnome, this was clearly not the best time to be conjuring refreshments since they were in the middle of battle. Bella and Mena faced the air elemental, Stella engaged the flamewaker and Raida and Flutashe each engaged a drakonid.

Bella kept the air elemental busy by burning it with consecrated ground and slashing and bashing it with her holy weapon spells. Mena bombarded it at range with her light spells until Surprise took over and ended the fight quickly by using her Shadow Blade spell to destroy the elemental’s bindings, destabilizing it and dispersing its form.

Stella found that the flamewaker was really a weaker version of Gehennas as all he really had going for him were curses and a Rain of Fire spell, the former she could easily break and the latter she could easily dodge. Her frost spells chilled the serpentine fire elemental before a Spellfrost Breath gave him a deadly case of hypothermia. She finished it by freezing him and shattering him with a lance of ice.

Millhouse was still making his preparations as the fight progressed. “Fantastic! Next, some protective spells.” He placed some enhancement spells and some protective wards on himself. “Yes, now we’re cookin’!”

Flutashe faced off against a black drakonid. Using her cat form, the two engaged in a fistfight. Of course, being trapped in a prison cell for who knew how long tended to make one’s combat skills rusty. This had the effect of making the drakonid’s attacks telegraphed and easy to dodge while the druid slashed away at the scales on his body, leaving deep scratches. The drakonid tried breathing fire on her but Flutashe countered the attack with an uppercut to his jaw which sent him on his back. Before the drakonid could recover, Flutashe bit into his throat and ripped it out.

Millhouse’s preparations continued. “And of course I’ll need some mana. You guys are gonna love this; just wait…”

The drakonid that Raida faced was an unusual one. His scales shimmered between red, blue, green, bronze and black. She had never encountered a dragonkin like this before. He even tried to attack her with fire, acid, frost, sand and magma. She skillfully dodged each attack as she cut into the creature’s scaly body. Now that she thought about it, Stella seemed to display such abilities every now and then, but she never had scales that shifted like that. Then again, she had never seen a drakonid with wings before. She really needed to catch up on things when they had the time. She quickly ended her fight using both blades to decapitate her foe.

Coincidentally, or perhaps purposefully, Millhouse had finally finished his preparations and was ready to get into the fight just as the remaining prisoners were taken down. “Alright! Who ordered up an extra large can of whoop-ass?”

Mellichar was beyond furious at this point, he had hoped that the prisoners would be enough to stop them but he set his expectations too high. A whisper into his mind ordered him to open the large cell so the creature within could deal with them. Mellichar complied and opened the cell.

To everyone’s surprise, the occupant of the last cell was a reminder of a place they visited not too long ago. The creature bore the same insectoid features as the others that they encountered in that place, the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj. A mantle of segmented insect shells, antennae like a cockroach’s, six tarantula-like legs, and a robe for clothing.

A qiraji prophet.

“It is a small matter to control the mind of the weak, for I bear allegiance to powers untouched by time, unmoved by fate. No force on this world or beyond harbors the strength to bend our knee…not even the mighty Legion!” the prophet monologued.

“Welcome, O great one. I am your humble servant,” Mellichar said.

The qiraji felt that the elf had outlived his usefulness and was about to execute him before something else did the job for him. A black phantasmal eyeball with a purple iris fired a beam that pierced the elf’s barrier and his head, killing him instantly.

“What is this?!” the qiraji shouted.

Everyone heard the sound of slow clapping as a familiar figure faded into view. “Nice speech you made, Skyriss. Did you have fun playing with your little marionette? I know I had fun when I broke him.”

Skyriss gazed at the newcomer. He could sense the power of his master within her but he had no idea why that was the case. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Why does my master’s power course through you?”

Violetta cackled, “I guess you were captured by the naaru by the time Skeram made his final prophecy. It spoke of one who would hunt those who landed on Azeroth before she would move from world to world, devouring the others. Your master, C’thun, fell before me and the other three will soon follow. Your master’s power is mine now.”

The eldritch horror could sense the qiraji’s fear. Dropping a few names that he might have been familiar with would have either unnerved him into thinking that his home was destroyed or he would think that she read his mind, the latter she doubted because prophets were confident about the security of their minds.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about lady, nor do I care. Let’s just obliterate this overgrown arthropod and be done with it!” Millhouse impatiently shouted.

“Yes, let us send this prophet back to his kin, in the Shadowlands,” Violetta said.

Before Skyriss could respond, a giant phantasmal eyeball appeared and turned red. A near blinding crimson laser fired from it and engulfed the colossal qiraji as well as the cell behind it before leaving a gaping hole in the back of the Arcatraz.

This scene led to mixed reactions between the group and Millhouse along with outside parties who were remotely watching the scene unfold. Flutashe, Mena, Bella and Stella were hardly surprised by this because they had already seen C’thun’s power within the Temple of Ahn’Qiraj. Raida and Millhouse stood there with their jaws wide open with the difference being a sense of dread from the demon hunter and a sense of awe from the gnome mage.

Twilight and her fellow observers had the same sense of dread as Raida but fortified in the knowledge that this was only from one Old God. There was no telling how powerful she would get once she absorbed the other three.

From the Tempest Keep bridge, Kael’thas’ eyes widened when he saw the display of power. The blast was all he saw though as any means of scrying the inside of the Arcatraz had failed. He could only wonder what was going on inside the prison ship.

Once the shock had worn off, Stella turned to Millhouse. “It looks like we’re done here, can you teleport out of here?”

Millhouse snapped out of his shock and looked at the mage in elf form. “Huh? Oh, yes, I should be able to get out of here easily now that I’m no longer in that confounded stasis cell.”

“Then let’s get out of here.” Stella conjured her portal to Shattrath and the group entered and left the ship behind.

The only ones left were Millhouse and Violetta. The former walked up to the eldritch horror, looking like he wanted to ask her something. “You want me to teach you how to wield power like mine?” Violetta asked, reading his mind.

“Umm, yes, I n-need that kind of power for...s-something important,” Millhouse stuttered.

“I can read your thoughts gnome, you just want something to help protect you from your wife’s wrath. But I’m feeling up for making a deal with you, I will let you borrow a small portion of my power and in exchange, I want you to infiltrate a certain cult on Azeroth.”

“And which cult is that, m-ma’am?”

“What do you know about the Twilight’s Hammer?”

Author's Note

Only 2 more dungeons for them to tackle before we start going into the largest number of raids in one expansion than any other. If anyone wants me to upload images to help with my poor way of describing things, let me know. I still plan to do that with the raid bosses though.

Next time: Time shenanigans...

The Infinite Dragonflight

Stella and the others emerged from the portal in the central chamber of Shattrath. They stood before A’dal again and reported what had transpired within the prison ship. While A’dal was pleased that Millhouse Manastorm managed to escape, he didn’t like that Violetta not only became active for some parts of their journey through the ship, but also that she blew up a chunk of the Arcatraz.

Nevertheless, the adventurers before him had fulfilled the conditions for the Trials of Strength, Mercy and Tenacity. Now it was time to reveal the final trial, one that would require more than just the five of them to complete.

“The final trial you must complete will require the assistance of those who were tasked with hunting the Sons of Gruul,” A’dal informed. “Before I can give you the key to Tempest Keep, you must bring an end to the feast of corruption that fuels the fel horde. Your task is to venture into the depths of Hellfire Citadel and destroy the pit lord, Magtheridon. There is no hurry to finish this task at this time, as I am sure that you will have other objectives that will take priority over that.”

Stella realized what the naaru meant. She walked up to Khadgar and presented him with the three pieces of his key into Karazhan. “Can you fix this?” she asked.

“I shall give it my all,” he declared before channeling arcane energies into the broken key. Through the temporal energies found in the arcane school of magic, Khadgar was able to undo the damage to the key. He inspected the key, examining every last detail before he gave a sad sigh.

He shook his head as he handed the key back to Stella. “It’s no use, when I broke the key I also destroyed the enchantment that was woven into it. The enchantment is tied to my old master, Medivh and it cannot be repaired without his consent.”

“But, Medivh is dead,” Stella said. “The only way we can get his permission is if we ask the Bronze Dragonflight to take us back in time to when he was alive.”

“Which is why I am here,” said a voice from behind the group.”

They turned around and spotted who appeared as a high elf in a silvery gown. Of course, Stella and Bella quickly took note of the elf’s blue, slitted eyes, a common tell for a dragon using a visage form. “Greetings, I am Zephyr, representative of the Bronze Dragonflight.”

“Were you sent here by Nozdormu?” Stella asked.

The transformed dragon giggled, “Of course I was, this is the point in time where we ask you for assistance with some problems of ours.”

“So you will take us to a time period where we may speak with Medivh?” Bella asked.

“I can send you directly to the entrance to the Caverns of Time where you will find transport ready to take you to the central chamber. Andormu will have more information for you.”

Seeing as they had little choice since the means of entering the mysterious tower lay in speaking with a man who was currently dead, they graciously accepted the dragon’s offer.

Khadgar stopped them to tell them one last thing, “Once you obtain a key into Karazhan, make whatever preparations you need to explore that tower. You have more important things that need to be done than to come to me to tell me that you have obtained it. I have full faith that you will succeed.”

Zephyr opened a portal to the Cavens of Time and everyone stepped through. Khadgar stared at the spot where they were at for a few moments before he returned his attention to A’dal.

After Lokosh and the others returned to the arena where Rexxar and Sabellian awaited them, they were informed of the final part of the plan to deal with the Sons of Gruul.

Since the last two gronn were in the northern canyon that led straight to Gruul’s Lair, it was decided that they would face them together.

Mog’dorg informed them that Skulloc could be summoned from a special altar located in a place where the land darkened. They needed the grimoire to summon an object called the Soulgrinder and defend the object until Skulloc was drawn into this world. When asked why he didn’t assist them, the ogre said that he didn’t want to take part in the fighting because he was a pacifist.

With their plan made, the group of seven proceeded north through the canyon. Along the way, they ran through a camp of Bloodmaul Ogres. The ogres accosted the group but Talia burned any who got too close.

They soon came across a darkened area of land with an altar in front of four broken pillars. This seemed to be the area that Mog’dorg mentioned.

As they approached the altar, Talia pulled out the grimoire and began to read from it out loud. A circular disc with a ring around it appeared over the altar.

The group took battle stances around the object and waited for the attackers to come. A few seconds passed before a ghostly ogre appeared and ran toward the Soulgrinder with his fist raised to attack it. Misha the bear bit the ogre in the ankle and dragged him to the ground before Rexxar brought an ax down on his head and made him vanish.

More ogre ghosts began to manifest and the party continued to defend the Soulgrinder by making the ogres disappear. As the fight progressed, the Soulgrinder formed a black magic tether and linked it with one of the broken pillars. When this happened, a massive silhouette appeared between the pillars.

The defensive battle continued and Sabellian’s fire magic burned away numerous ogre ghosts while the Horde party blasted even more. As this was going on, more tethers were linking the Soulgrinder to the pillars. With each pillar connected, the silhouette of a gronn became increasingly pronounced.

Shortly after all four pillars were connected, the Soulgrinder disappeared and the ogre ghosts vanished. Skulloc emerged from his hiding place and moved to attack.

Sabellian, who wanted to conserve his strength for the final gronn, focused on attacking Skulloc with fire magic while Rexxar and Misha attacked his legs.

The others would have attacked as well except Skulloc summoned more ogre ghosts to attack them while the gronn tried to pound Rexxar into the ground. Groun summoned several plants to fight the ogres while Feloma used a little magic to enchant them to attack ghosts before she focused on using her arrows to blind Skulloc. Farra’jin assisted with an earth elemental and zapping multiple ghosts with his Chain Lightning spell.

Skulloc counterattacked by casting a Banish spell on Feloma to temporarily send her to a different plane of existence where she couldn’t attack him while he struck the others with a shadow magic affliction to burn them from the inside out. Talia’s felhound quickly devoured the magic.

It was as Skulloc was summoning more ghosts and forcing Sabellian to consider using his dragon form to deal with the gronn that the ghosts were suddenly pulled away against their will. Skulloc turned his head toward the newcomer and saw a female human in dark armor raising her sword. The ogres were pulled into the blade which left Skulloc alone.

Thanatas then swiped the air horizontally with her sword which caused several copies of her sword to manifest and fly toward him. He managed to block the blades with a hand but they embedded themselves deep into his skin. A feeling of numbness in his hand made the gronn discover that his hand was beginning to discolor and the tissue began to necrotize.

As he was staring at his hand, an arrow flew right into Skulloc’s eye and blinded him. He roared in pain which was further worsened when the arrow in his eye exploded and burned the inside of his skull. Blood flowed freely from his eye socket.

Thanatas magically drew the blood toward her and collected it as a large crimson orb floating above her left hand. She then infused a disease within it before she returned it to the eye socket. The sphere transformed into a new eye, albeit a crimson one with a glowing green iris.

“Why did you do that?” Feloma asked. “I had him blinded!”

A wicked smile was plastered on Thanatas’ face. “Wait for it…”

Glad that he could see again, Skulloc was ready to attack again. Despite his arm’s numbness climbing up the limb, he could still use it for something. That was when he saw thousands of ogres climbing up his body and pounding at him. He couldn’t actually feel anything, but his senses were telling him that he was being attacked so he began trying to slap at his own body to get the ogres off but the more he brushed off the more ogres appeared on his body. In a panic, he pounded harder at his body trying to get them off.

The others were confused by what they were seeing. The sight was of Skulloc beating himself senseless for some reason. They couldn’t see what Skulloc was seeing.

“Why he be attackin’ himself?” Farra’jin asked.

“That’s because the disease I put into his new eye was psychological in nature,” Thanatas lectured. “The disease is similar to a severe case of schizophrenia where the patient interprets a warped reality that doesn’t actually exist except in the patient’s mind. In this case, he’s interpreting that the countless ogres he killed in his quest of subjugation are coming back for revenge. The disease also interacts with the patient’s bloodstream to reach and trigger the adrenal glands to produce excessive adrenaline to increase their heart rate. The paranoia is a distraction while the increased heart rate is accelerating the spread of the other disease I injected into his body through my phantasmal blades. Once that disease reaches the heart and lungs…”

A moment later, the necrotic disease ran its course and did as Thanatas predicted. Skulloc’s vital organs soon shut down which left the gronn struggling for air to put into his non-functional lungs. His death was slow.

Sabellian glared at Thanatas. While he wished all gronn a slow and painful death, the death knight’s methods dredged up memories that he would rather forget. His father was insane and the experiments he performed sometimes kept the dragon awake at night. He still desperately clinged to the hope that Deathwing was not always the mad scientist that he was.

“Why did you help us with this fight?” Lokosh asked.

“Because I was bored and came to kill this one since you let Sophia kill that one near Shattrath,” Thanatas answered. She then looked at the ones who seemed like they wanted to get on her case. “And before you go into matters of honor and morality, don’t. I’ve heard it all before so any complaints you have about my methods can be submitted in writing and placed in a suggestion box that I have hanging over a furnace somewhere.

“Oh, and one last thing, once you kill Goc, I suggest staying in Thunderlord Stronghold for a few days if you want to avoid wasting the trip to and from Shattrath. Ta-ta!”

Thanatas then manifested skeletal dragon wings on her back and gave a strong flap before flying away.

Now that she was alone, Thanatas connected to Sphere through the psychic connection. “Hey Twilight, you there?”

“I’m here, did you identify their latest member? She goes by Feloma Brightbow.”

“Yes, her soul signature registers as someone named Misty Wing. According to Sophia’s Observer Drones, Misty has a strange ability to make most people and animals infatuated with her.”

Twilight and Midnight spent some time going through the archives of ponies, living and deceased. There were a fair number of ponies of that name that spanned back centuries but none of them exhibited the ability that Thanatas mentioned. One entry mentioned a supermodel of the same name but that seemed to be a dead end because that model would have died long before the advent of the medical technology that would have made replacement bodies possible.

They soon realized that they were going to have some difficulty locating any information on Misty Wing. She would have to make a call to Princess Celestia to see if she knew anything.

“There isn’t much in the archives that we can use to pinpoint this mare,” Midnight said. “Did you find anything else?”

“Only that her soul has been in the mortal plane for far longer than the other verified members of the ELF. None of the others have lived past a millennium yet, with Crystal Silicon being the oldest among them until now. Misty’s soul has been around for nearly thirteen hundred years.”

“Alright, I’m going to call Celestia to see if she knows anything,” Twilight said. “We were nowhere near having life-extension technology back then, so she would have to either be an alicorn or she would need to have some means of extending her lifespan.”

“I will continue keeping an eye on them then,” Thanatas terminated the link and continued her flight.

The Alliance party appeared in front of the Caverns of Time in a place where Anachronos once stood. They quickly noticed that the caverns were now open and five bronze drakes stood in front of the entrance.

“Greetings mortals, we are here to carry you into the central chamber to meet Andormu,” One drake said.

The party said nothing as they mounted the drakes who spread their wings and flew into the cavern.

The inside was just as strange as the outside. What appeared to be parts of buildings along with part of a ship were lodged into the walls of the cavern. The tunnels wound and spiraled downward as they viewed objects and places now lost to time and ended up here. Part of the cavern walls seemed to open up at the sides to reveal the cosmos. It was all so surreal.

Soon, the dragons landed next to who appeared to be a pair of blood elf children. They were standing in a violet magic circle with several rings of symbols hovering around them.

“Greetings adventurers, I am Andormu and this is my sister Nozari,” the male child introduced.

“What? But…you’re-” Bella stammered.

“You are wondering why a pair of whelps like us are here to greet you. We are the past selves of the caretakers of the Caverns of Time. Our future selves are busy handling other matters so they can’t come to greet you.”

“We were told by Zephyr that you can take us to a time when Medivh was alive?” Stella asked.

“We can, but we need your help with another matter. You see, the timeways are under siege by a group calling themselves the Infinite Dragonflight. Their scales are black and part of their bodies leak a blue light. Cracks appear on their bodies that also leak this light.”

“What are they after?”

“We don’t know. All we do know is that they’re attacking the timeline at three specific points.” Nozari pointed toward a nearby opening. An Alliance watchtower stood near it along with several soldiers and peasants frozen in time. “Our most immediate concern is that they are attacking the point where Thrall was supposed to escape from his captivity in Durnholde Keep through the assistance of a human girl named Taretha Foxton. However, an agent of the Infinite Dragonflight has captured her to prevent Thrall’s escape. We will need you to stage a jailbreak and make sure he escapes. Erozion will provide you with what you will need to accomplish this.”

Andormu pointed toward a large platform where Anachronos was resting beside a massive complex-looking hourglass. However, he was meaning to point toward another opening to the left of the first opening. Looking around the platform, the party saw what looked like a swampy area with what looked like part of the Dark Portal and some animals frozen in time. “That point in time is the fateful opening of the Dark Portal by the magus Medivh. The Infinite Dragonflight is planning an assault on the portal and him, but we don’t need to worry about that just yet. We still have time before then.”

Nozari pointed toward an opening that had a section of forest along with night elf weaponry. “While it is risky to send you to that timeline since a couple of you participated in that event, there is a slight deviation in the events of the Battle of Mount Hyjal that require our assistance. However, the problem is that the opening has not fully manifested so we need something from that timeline to fully open the way.”

Raida’s and Flutashe’s eyes widened when they heard what the whelp said. They still remembered the Battle of Mount Hyjal with some clarity. They remembered that Archimonde had slipped past their defenses somehow and tried to drain the World Tree before Malfurion was ready to spring his trap. If it wasn’t for the assistance of twelve people, whose names and faces were a blur to them, they would have lost the tree and possibly the world as well.

Flutashe began putting the pieces together. Seeing as the Bronze Dragonflight fully intended on them visiting that event, it began to make sense. She soon realized that the people they saw fighting Archimonde were actually themselves, the Horde party, as well as Sophia and Thanatas.

Andormu looked at the druid as he noticed the look in her eyes. “I see that you just realized something important. Our future selves had to place a block on the memories of your younger selves in order to avoid any potential temporal paradoxes. Now that you’re here, there’s no need for that block anymore.”

“So you’re telling me that we need to visit these timelines to not only stop the Infinite Dragonflight, but also to close a few causal loops?” Stella asked.

Nozari eagerly nodded, “Yep, but in order to open the way for the Hyjal event, we need something from that timeline. We’d rather not use people since that tends to get messy. Instead, we need a certain pair of vials that once contained the waters from the Well of Eternity that was sundered ten thousand years ago.

“Illidan Stormrage collected several vials of the water before the Well imploded and used most of them to create a new Well in the place where Nordrassil now stands. He later gave the remnants of those vials to two of his lieutenants: Lady Vashj and Kael’thas Sunstrider.”

The five let out an exasperated sigh as they had found another reason why they had to kill those two.

With more tasks placed upon their shoulders, the party headed toward the cavern with the Alliance tower by it and entered a winding tunnel. Stella could sense space and time warping around her as they traveled through the tunnel.

The exit came into view as they exited into what appeared to be a grassy region with a few trees around. Prowling the area were deer, bears and mountain lions. The party figured that either Tanaris had an area that was completely unlike the region or they ended up in another place, possibly another time.

Their curiosity was soon answered when they spotted a high elf standing next to a bronze drake. They guessed that one of them was Erozion. “Greetings, welcome to Hillsbrad Foothills, set during a time after the Second War when the defeated orcs were forced into internment camps and developed lethargic behavior as a result of the withdrawal symptoms of consuming the blood of demons.

“By this point, Taretha Foxton was supposed to set fire to the internment lodges in Durnholde Keep but she was captured by the Infinite Dragonflight and is currently being held in the town of Tarren Mill just to the east.”

“So do we need to free her?” Bella asked.

“That would do no good, the Infinite Dragonflight warned Aedelas Blackmoore of a threat to the keep so his guards are on high alert. The only option we have now is to liberate Thrall ourselves.”

“So we are to go in and fight the entire keep to free him? Won’t we get overwhelmed?” Stella asked.

“Not if we cause the original distraction ourselves,” Erozion said. His companion, Brazen, placed a sack on the ground. From the sack, Erozion pulled out what appeared to be explosive devices. Mena placed them in her hair, much to the dragons’ curiosity. They decided to let the matter lie because of more important matters. “These incendiary charges should do the trick. Try to place them in inconspicuous places inside each lodge in the keep, such as inside a barrel.” He handed Stella a remote with a button on it. “This detonator will set off all the charges at once and force the guards to focus on restoring order and pay less attention to you. You can slip into the keep and reach Thrall in the keep’s basement.”

“What if the Infinites interfere?” Raida asked.

“I’m certain they will. Once they realize that their plans have gone awry, I’m expecting them to try to kill him directly. Do note that some of the guards around here may be infinite dragonkin in disguise. Once you neutralize the threat, Thrall will be free to pursue his destiny. Return here to return to the Caverns of Time.”

Erozion’s eyes widened as he realized that he nearly forgot something. “Oh yes, to preserve the timeline, I need to place an illusion on some of you.” He cast the spell which turned Flutashe and Raida into humans. “Since the existence of night elves was not revealed yet, you need to take on the appearance of a race known to the Alliance of this time which included humans, dwarves, gnomes and high elves. Stella’s visage form will work here but I must ask for you to refrain from revealing your dracthyr form as much as possible. There are too many individuals in this area who are still alive in the present.

“Once you are ready, myself and Brazen will fly you to a hill just outside Durnholde Keep.”

Once they confirmed they were ready, Raida and Bella got on Brazen’s back while Erozion turned into his drake form and allowed Mena and Stella to ride him. Flutashe shifted into her bird form since most people would mistake her for an ordinary bird. The drakes took off quickly and flew east.

Along the way, they spotted a number of things such as a man riding a horse and wearing a strange black suit and a sombrero on his head. They also spotted some wizards wandering the road and some figures that Bella recognized from the old Scarlet Crusade, back when they weren’t a bunch of fanatical zealots.

After a few minutes, the drakes and Flutashe descended and landed on a small hill near the keep. The group got off and Flutashe shifted back into her illusory human form.

“Good luck,” Erozion bid as he and Brazen flew away.

Looking at the entrance to the stone keep, they spotted a guard at the entrance and there appeared to be no way in short of flying over the walls or going through him. They also spotted a few watchtowers inside the walls poking over them. If they were manned then the group figured that they would be shot down. This left them with the frontal assault option.

Compared to fighting the elementals, demons, dragons and overgrown insects that they were used to fighting, fighting soldiers didn’t seem as intense. Of course, being soldiers, they were also more coordinated. Bella protected the group from the soldiers fighting with their swords while Stella created a few earthen pillars to give the riflemen obstacles between them and their targets. Raida quickly hunted down any soldiers who used holy magic to heal their allies and Flutashe snuck behind the firing lines and mauled the riflemen. The soldiers who were accompanied by trained dogs quickly found that they weren’t so well trained when they turned on their handlers thanks to the druid’s alpha influence. The sword fighters were dealt with last when Surprise attacked their minds.

They continued fighting more guards as they crossed a bridge over the pit area and took a right toward a set of rickety stairs that led into the pit area where the internment lodges were.

The orcs looked at the guards fighting the intruders with interest since it was probably the most entertainment they were going to get for a while. Because of their lethargy though, they continued to act like spectators.

The group proceeded to eliminate the guards protecting the internment lodges while Mena pulled out the incendiary charges and planted them in a barrel in the building. They repeated this for the other four buildings until all five charges were set.

Stella called for the orcs to get clear of the buildings before she activated the detonator half a minute later when the orcs were out of the building. A series of explosions occurred immediately after and the wooden buildings were quite dry and quite flammable. They party watched as the lodges went up in smoke.

All they needed to do was wait for the guards in the keep proper to send in soldiers.

A few minutes later, their wait was answered as a squad of soldiers descended the stairs led by a man in full plate armor colored white and blue and wielding a longsword that had a holy glow.

“Soldiers, fetch water quickly! Get these flames out before they spread to the rest of the keep! Hurry, damn you!” the armored soldier barked.

As the soldiers ran off, the armored soldier remained. Ever since he got that mysterious tip about a potential attack on the keep serving as a cover to help that miserable orc escape. He knew the intruders were nearby and while he would have preferred to have some guards assisting him, the fires were the more immediate concern. He would have to deal with the intruders himself.

“Come on out, you cowards! I know you are here! Face me!” he taunted. “I know what you’re up to, and I mean to put an end to it, permanently!”

With the armored officer guarding the only way out of the pit, the group had no choice but to take him out.

Bella got the officer’s attention by hurling her shield at him which caught him by surprise and sent him back a few feet. The shield, blessed with holy energy, was drawn toward the paladin who grabbed it and re-equipped herself with it.

The officer, who went by Drake, didn’t like getting ambushed like that and charged at Bella who blocked strikes with her shield and parried other strikes with her hammer. Drake then saw the others coming so he tried to push Bella away so he could shoot at the others with his rifle, but the paladin proved stronger than he expected.

Being the simple warrior that he was, he didn’t have any particular magic he could call upon to protect him. He was used to dealing with bandits, rogues and the run of the mill rogue mages. He was not prepared for a gnome who could use dark magic to control his mind.

When Surprise took control of Drake, she began having him behave like he suddenly went mad in the eyes of his soldiers by having him mercilessly slaughter them. This confused the soldiers but made them worry that they might get killed themselves if they didn’t restrain their mad lieutenant.

When he began spinning around with his sword outstretched and moving toward a group of riflemen, the soldiers panicked and began shooting at him. A few shots pierced Drake’s armor while most were deflected by his blade. It was then that the soldiers started to get into formation and work together to defeat their boss before he killed them.

Despite the wounds they were giving him, Drake was not showing signs of stopping his rampage so they had to fight harder. The healing soldiers did their best to keep their comrades in the fight while the hounds bit at Drake’s ankles.

As Drake was about to bring his sword down on one scared soldier, the soldier desperately thrust his sword into Drake’s chest which stopped the lieutenant’s attack and made him drop his sword. Drake collapsed in a heap, but that was because Surprise ended the fight by crushing her puppet’s mind.

The orcs cheered and whistled, glad to see the end of that sadistic madman.

When the priest was finished playing with her toy, she realized that the others had moved on without her so she rushed to catch up.

The others moved ahead to clear the way for when Thrall made his escape. Of course, they found that most of the keep soldiers had gone down to the pit to deal with the fires so the keep was mostly clear, save for a couple of patrols with guard hounds who quickly turned on their handlers.

Mena quickly caught up with the others as they entered the keep. Bella was thankful that the human design for barracks and keeps was universal so there wasn’t any uniqueness to the design which, sadly, never changed after so many years.

Bella quickly led the group into the basement where they found a large prison cell occupied by a bed of hay and a certain black-haired orc in rags. He wasn’t sure what to make of the group. “Who are you?” Thrall asked.

They knew that they needed to convince Thrall to come with them, though they couldn’t say too much since the bronze dragons would get mad at them. Bella figured that a healthy mix of truth and lies might help. “There has been a change in plans Thrall, it would appear that Blackmoore caught on to Taretha’s plan so she hired us to break you out.”

Thankfully, Thrall bought the explanation since he knew that his friend was trying to free him and it would explain how they knew his name. Something must have happened to force her to hire mercenaries. Regardless, these people seemed to be his best hope for freedom.

Raida slashed the lock on the cell door, letting the orc out. “Let’s go,” Thrall said.

The group, now with Thrall included, retraced their steps through the keep hallways before they stopped at what appeared to be an armory being occupied by an unarmed armorer.

“If we’re going with a new plan, I should probably arm myself,” Thrall said. The orc entered the armory and surprised the armorer. Before he could call for more guards, Thrall delivered a heavy punch to his face and knocked him out. “That’ll be enough out of him.” He then went through the equipment available to him and found a full set of leather armor in his size along with an ax and a shield. “I am ready now.”

Unfortunately, Thrall took too long getting equipped as there was a patrol of guards at the keep entrance. The guards probably got the situation in the pit under control.

Regardless, dealing with the new patrols was the same as dealing with the old ones except these had mages which Stella easily kept under control by countering their spells. They had to deal with several patrols, two of which were guarding both ends of the bridge out of the keep.

Once they had torn through their ranks, they reached the keep entrance. Freedom was within reach for Thrall.

That was when they noticed a trio of horse riders approaching them. One was riding a blessed warhorse, which was normally ridden by paladins. He was accompanied by two Durnholde guards.

Thrall recognized the man as Captain Skarloc, Blackmoore’s second. He readied himself for a fight against the paladin as he and the guards dismounted and approached them.

“Thrall, you didn’t really think that you would escape, did you? You and your allies shall answer to Blackmoore, after I’ve had my–”

Skarloc was interrupted when a certain paladin charged at him with her wings of light stretched out and slammed into him, scaring the horses. Flutashe convinced them to only retreat a reasonable distance though.

“Deal with the other two,” Bella commanded. “I shall deal with this charlatan of a paladin.”

“Bring it on, little girl,” Skarloc taunted.

Skarloc began the fight by consecrating the ground around him which began to burn Bella’s feet a little. Her attunement to the Light made her greatly resistant to such attacks though. Both created hammers of light to throw at the other but both were blocked by each other’s shields. Skarloc was forced to back away to avoid getting skewered by swords of light coming from the ground.

Blackmoore’s second was an experienced paladin who could wield the Light in the name of justice and Blackmoore, even if he knew that his leader’s methods seemed cruel. However, Bella was a paladin from the future and made her armor from the best materials she could get her hands on.

Though she did make a mental note to study the minerals of Outland as well as the quality of the leather skins that could be obtained there. She also made a note to study the properties of netherweave cloth as she might be able to create some new armor for her friends in the future.

As the battle progressed, Bella began making dents in Skarloc’s armor. He then attempted to protect himself with a Divine Shield to prevent Bella from attacking him while he attacked in safety. He had forgotten that Bella was a paladin too and though she waited a few seconds while she dodged his sword before she deployed her own Divine Shield to prevent Skarloc from attacking her while his spell soon faded. He expected an attack from Bella’s hammer, he got a sword of light which shredded part of his armor.

Bella followed up with a powerful hammer throw that impacted on Skarloc’s shield and shattered it.

Skarloc knew that he was in trouble so he called on the guards to help him, only to find that they were already down for the count. The last thing he saw was a shield flying at his head which not only knocked out a number of his teeth but also caved his skull in.

While Bella took some time to refresh herself after that fight, Thrall thanked the others for their assistance in his freedom. “Thank you friends, I owe my freedom to you. But where is Taretha? I had hoped to see her one last time before I fled into the mountains.”

Stella had a feeling that Thrall and Taretha were close friends, while his safety took priority, she had a feeling that he wasn’t going to abandon the girl when she was in danger. With a resigned sigh, she answered, “She is being held captive in Tarren Mill. She managed to convince us to free you before she was captured.”

“Then we have no time to waste.” Thrall mounted Skarloc’s horse. “Once we cross the river to the west, I will move north along the river to avoid being detected. Meet me at the outskirts of the town.” He then snapped the reins and the horse took off, guiding it on the road to the west.

“I will go with him to make sure any road patrols don’t harass him,” Bella said before she channeled her holy magic which called forth a glowing warhorse gilded in gold barding.

“Were you always able to do that?” Stella asked.

“Yes, though I usually do not summon him unless necessary. You move on ahead and avoid being discovered by guards.” Bella then snapped the reins and chased after Thrall, confident that her warhorse could outperform Skarloc’s warhorse any day.

The rest of them made sure the coast was clear before Flutashe shifted into her bird form and Stella her dracthyr form. Raida deployed her wings while Mena made herself lightweight to be carried by Stella. They flew directly west while avoiding patrols and soon flew across the river.

Meanwhile, Bella managed to catch up to Thrall just in time as he was being accosted by a pair of regional patrols. As the guards took up aggressive stances, Bella managed to convince them to stand down. The reputation of paladins at this point in time made her more influential so she was able to convince them that he was assigned to be her servant and bodyguard. Thrall went with it so he could avoid unneeded bloodshed.

The guards continued their patrol while Bella and Thrall moved onward. They crossed the bridge and sharply turned right and up the river. They soon reached the outskirts of Tarren Mill where the others were, much to Thrall’s surprise. He decided not to question it as he would need all the help he could get when they would have to face the town’s militia.

Mena’s eyes widened in surprise when she felt something familiar, “Guys, I’m sensing void energy coming from the town. It’s in small and scattered amounts but there are a good number of them.” The others noted this and made sure to be careful.

Thrall dismounted and shouted at the horse to scare it off while Bella dismounted her horse before he vanished in a flash of light. From there they proceeded on foot where their first destination was a barn. Thrall went inside and the others followed.

As Thrall inspected the barn, the group could overhear a nearby militia patrol outside the barn. They appeared to be suspicious that something went into the barn just now. The orc accidentally riled a horse which caused them to neigh loudly. “Something riled that horse, let’s move in.” one of the militia ordered.

“Excuse me, gentlemen. I do apologize for my orc servant’s behavior, I shall–” Bella attempted.

“That’s not gonna work this time, Bella,” Mena interrupted. “I can sense the void energy coming from these guys. I’m not even sure these guys are human.”

The militia jumped in surprise at the gnome’s accusation but continued preparing their weapons to attack Thrall and his supporters. Stella narrowed her eyes before she opened her mouth and unleashed a wave of sand that washed over the guards and their forms, revealing the draconic forms.

Four dragonspawn now faced them where the militia were. As Andormu had described, their scales were a darker pitch of black than black dragons and their feet, claws and eyes had a blue glow, as if their bodies had cracked from instability.

“How did you…?” one dragonkin questioned before he shook his head. His voice was greatly distorted as if he were constantly speaking into a cavern and creating echoes. “It matters not…DIE THRALL!”

Raida swiftly cut one dragonspawn down while Stella obliterated another with her Disintegration Beam. Another tried to channel an arcane spell but the dracthyr countered it before he was grabbed by the tail by Flutashe in her cat form, slammed into the ground and had his head crushed under her paws. Bella and Mena burned the last one to ash with light magic.

“Your abilities intrigue me, friends,” Thrall said. “As much as I would like to inquire about them, Taretha must be rescued. Let us move into town and check the other places.”

The group then followed Thrall into town, the civilians fleeing in fright from the orc. He then entered a chapel which was followed by another infinite dragon ambush which was quickly eliminated. He then inspected the two story house next to the chapel where another ambush was waiting on the second floor. Once that group was dispatched, Thrall entered the bedroom on that floor where he found Taretha bound by dark magic.

“Taretha, what happened to you?”

“I don’t know, one moment I met a strange wizard who kept muttering about time this, and time that and the next thing I know I was bound by this magic.”

“Don’t worry, we will find the one who did this and free you,” Thrall assured.

That was when an echoed voice bellowed from outside, “Thrall, come outside and face your fate!”

“Who was that?” Thrall wondered. “Another of those strange black dragons?”

The voice continued, “Taretha’s life hangs in the balance. Surely you care for her. Surely you wish to save her.”

Taretha began to choke as the dark magic began to restrict her ability to breathe until she fell unconscious. “No!” Thrall exclaimed before he ran out of the room and out of the building. The others followed.

Outside they located a large infinite drake hovering over the town. The drake waited for his prey to come out of the building before chuckling as he spotted them. “Ah, there you are. I had hoped to accomplish this with a little subtlety, but I suppose a direct confrontation was inevitable. Your future Thrall, must not come to pass. And so, you and your troublesome friends must die!”

That was when the remainder of the town militia approached them before removing their disguises and revealing themselves as infinite dragonspawn.

Bella faced one group with Thrall’s assistance. Raida and Stella faced another group which left Flutashe and Mena with one last group to deal with.

None of the infinites were particularly difficult to take on. Bella’s armor and shield protected her well and her holy magic seared into their void-stained scales. Flutashe in her bear form was bulky enough to absorb most of their blows while Mena’s holy magic seared their scales. Raida was a very tough and evasive adversary for her group to face and her fel flames roasted them from inside their scales. Stella remained mobile and countered spells when she could.

The drake was greatly infuriated that his minions were being taken out like they were nothing. It was time for him to take matters into his own claws. “Enough! I will erase your very existence!” He flew toward Thrall with his claws poised but was repelled when a shield slammed into his chin as well as a flying warglaive slicing into his left hind leg.

The drake breathed sand toward Mena who protected herself with a barrier that baely saved her before the shield failed. Surprise burned his body with shadow magic while leeching away at his life force.

Raida grounded the drake using her black eye beam which crystallized one of his wings and forced him to land.

With the drake on the ground, Thrall was able to attack his head with his ax which left several deep cuts on his neck. He tried to breathe sand on the orc but Flutashe grabbed his mouth and forced it shut. She struggled to hold on as the drake wildly shook his head to shake her off but her grip was too strong.

Stella moved in and cast a green mist into the drake’s face which caused it to slow down as drowsiness took over.

“No! The master will not…be…pleased…” the dragon sleepily said.

Raida and Thrall ended the drake’s life by bringing his ax and her warglaives down on his neck and decapitating his head.

The group took a moment to catch their breath. With the assassin dead, Stella and the others hoped that this meant the end of the Infinite Dragonflight’s assault on Thrall.

A few moments later, Taretha emerged from the building and thanked everyone for freeing her.

Thrall approached his childhood friend and thanked her for her efforts in freeing him. “Thanks to the mercenaries you hired, I am finally free from that place.”

“Mercenaries? Thrall I didn’t hire any mercenaries,” Taretha countered.

“What? Then who are they?”

“Excuse me,” a familiar voice called out. “If I could have a moment of your time.” Before the two could say anything, Erozion cast a spell on them. Their eyes rolled into the back of their heads and stood, staring blankly and unconscious.

“What did you do?” Stella asked.

“I need to make sure that the timeline proceeds as it was supposed to. In order to do that, I need to rewrite their memories so that they remember what was supposed to happen without your interference.”

“What will happen to them?” Mena asked.

“Thrall will go on to rally the Horde and lead them as their warchief.” He sighed sadly, “Taretha’s fate is, regrettably, inevitable. She will not abandon her family and Blackmoore will target them if she leaves with Thrall. Blackmoore will eventually execute her in a fit of drunken rage and show her head to Thrall who will slay him in a duel.”

The group could only look at the two in sadness. The two were in for some rough times, far more so for Taretha, and there was little they could do about it without interfering with the timeline.

“Come, let us return to the Caverns of Time,” Erozion said. “It’s almost time for the infinites to make their move.”

Author's Note

I probably could have done something to save Taretha from her tragic fate but that would be just another character on my growing list of characters to keep track of and I had no plans for her so, sadly, I let her go.

One last dungeon to go before we get into the nine raid dungeons of this expansion.

Siege on the Dark Portal

With Skulloc dealt with, courtesy of a certain bored death knight, Lokosh, Farra’jin, Feloma, Talia, Groun, Rexxar, Misha and Sabellian continued north through the canyon and past the Bloodmaul Clan outpost. They quickly found themselves forcefully entering another ogre settlement held by the Bladespire Clan.

Sabellian’s earth and fire magic turned several ogres into molten messes while Rexxar and Misha teamed up to brutally savage several more ogres. The rest handled more ogres through their various skills. Feloma used her pheromones to turn the trained raptors on the ogres as well as incite a lot of infighting between the Bladespire Clan.

After several minutes of searching, once they weren’t being pressured by the clan, Farra’jin located a stone altar like the one at Boulder’mok. Compared to the many ogre structures, the altar was pretty small so it was harder to notice.

Wherever Goc was hiding, he wouldn’t be far. Sabellian knew that he was too cowardly to be too far from his father’s lair.

The dragon briefly looked east toward the massive cave at the far end of the settlement. Somewhere within that cave was the gronn who murdered his brothers and sisters and even held his own against his father. Gruul would get what was coming to him in due time.

Once they were ready, Rexxar pulled out a horn and blew into it. The deep call from the horn echoed throughout part of the canyon. Any ogres who still lived heard the call and moved toward it.

Their advance was stopped when they noticed their master had emerged from the hut he was sleeping in. Goc looked irritated from his sleep being disturbed and the ogres knew better than to be near their master when he was angry.

“Who dares disturb Goc’s slumber?” he demanded.

“That would be us,” Sabellian declared. “The time has come for you to join your brothers in death! As your father took the lives of my brothers and sisters, so shall he pay for such a travesty in the blood of his offspring!”

“I will crush you!” Goc attempted to slam his huge hand on Sabellian which was repelled by an ax swing from Rexxar which cut into his wrists. As the gronn roared in pain, Lokosh, Farra’jin, Talia, Groun and Feloma moved in to attack.

Sabellian had no intention of playing around this time so he quickly transformed into his fully grown black dragon form which was nearly as large as Goc. This was followed by a stream of molten flames in the gronn’s face.

Angered, Goc reached for Sabellian’s neck to strangle him. Lokosh climbed on the dragon and leapt for the gronn’s hand, delivering several slashes to his wrist with two axes before he was forced to land. This had the intended result of Goc pulling away his arm to nurse the wound. Sabellian followed up his breath attack by slashing at the wounded arm with his claws to create more wounds.

Goc responds to the attack by slamming the ground to cause tremors which knocked most of the group down but Sabellian was not affected due to his large size. Undeterred, the dragon moved to headbutt the gronn and proved that his head was thicker when Goc suffered a broken nose and a few loose teeth.

The gronn was now furious and roared at Sabellian which resulted in an arrow flying into his mouth and landing in the back of his throat which distracted him as he tried to cough up the foreign object long enough for Rexxar to jump on Sabellian’s head and leap to the gronn before burying an ax in his skull. The ax broke through the skull and lodged itself into the gronn’s brain, causing him to collapse.

Rexxar removed his ax and shook the blood off of it before he turned to the others. “If he is still alive after all that, he won’t live much longer. Our work here is done.”

“Yes, the last of the Sons of Gruul have been eliminated,” Sabellian added. “All that remains is their father whose lair is nearby. I dare not face him though, he is too strong for me to fight head on. I leave that task to the mortals.”

“And why do we not face him together?” Talia asked.

“I have to ensure the next generation of the Black Dragonflight is raised properly. I will not throw all of that away by fighting Gruul. I wish you good luck, champions.” Sabellian flapped his wings and took to the skies.

“As thrilling as it would be to hunt the strongest of all gronn, I still have my responsibilities as the leader of the Horde expedition in this region,” Rexxar said. “I am afraid that I have been away from my post for too long.” He then whistled for his wyvern companion before mounting him and flying off.

This left the group to consider what to do next. With the seven Sons of Gruul dead, their mission was complete. Though they had a feeling that Thanatas’ suggestion implied that they wouldn’t have to wait long before they faced the final gronn.

Begrudgingly, they decided to take Thanatas’ advice and stay in Thunderlord Stronghold for a while.

Returning to the present from the tunnel they entered from, Stella and the others returned to the central chamber where they returned to rest. Upon their return, the ones who were transformed into different races were turned back to their original forms.

Erosion and Brazen followed the group as the passage began to collapse. Of course, the tunnel didn’t simply collapse, it was as if the rock walls simply grew and met to fill in the empty gap where the tunnel once was. It was soon seen as if the tunnel never existed.

Young Andormu approached the group while they sat down to rest. “Well done heroes, thanks to you Thrall will now fulfill his destiny and become warchief of the Horde. The timeline is safe once again.”

“What’s to stop the Infinite Dragonflight from returning to that timeline to try again?” Stella asked.

“We have that timeline under close watch, if they try again we will be able to counter them before they try anything.”

“What about Taretha? Isn’t there something we can do to help her?” Bella asked.

“You don’t want to go down that road, Bella Cartier,” Andormu chided. “Interfering with the fates of others is dangerous. The timeline has already been altered from the original timeline by your actions.”

“What do you mean?” Flutashe asked.

“Remember when you invaded Shadowforge City? In the original timeline, you were supposed to kill Emperor Dagran Thaurissan in order to spark a bitter resentment in Moira Bronzebeard which would drive her to seek to redeem the Dark Iron Clan. With the emperor spared, we are uncertain where this thread will lead.

“There are other examples, but I think you get the idea. The timeline is a mess thanks to you as well as those unusually powerful anomalies who have accompanied you.”

The group didn’t know what to say about that. They had a feeling that the bronze dragon didn’t actually blame them for their actions but Sophia, Thanatas and Violetta were another matter. Stella suspected that those three were altering the timeline in ways that made the Bronze Dragonflight uncomfortable but they couldn’t do anything about it. With the power those three displayed so far, she had a pretty good feeling why.

Andormu let out a sigh to calm himself before he continued, “When you are ready, please head to the Black Morass.” He pointed at the tunnel that was decorated in swamp plants, animals and an imitation of the Dark Portal. He then returned to his sister.

The party spent fifteen minutes resting before they got back on their feet and ready to go. They proceeded into the next chamber past the time-frozen critters who made Flutashe feel concerned for them.

They spotted who was likely a bronze dragon in elf form standing next to a ship lodged in a cave wall. He bade them to stop as he warned them that they were not yet prepared to face the might of the Infinite Dragonflight. He then introduced himself as Sa’at.

“Uh, hello, we just thrashed a bunch of infinite dragons in Hillsbrad,” Raida said.

“That was a small force to prevent a harmless human from causing an important event,” Sa’at countered. “The Infinite Dragonflight will soon launch a full assault on the magus, Medivh, in order to prevent him from opening the Dark Portal and letting Gul’dan’s Horde launch his invasion of Azeroth.

“Before you question why you should defend the man who was responsible for the ruin of most of the human kingdoms, remember that without the Horde invasion, the Alliance would never exist and the world’s defenders would be too weak and scattered to withstand the invasion of the Burning Legion. There’s also the fact that you need him alive so he can help you with your quest to obtain a functioning key into his tower, and I doubt he will be in a helping mood until he completes the portal.”

The group looked at each other, contemplating the dragon’s words. They nodded in silent agreement before Stella turned to the dragon again. “So what do you have for us?”

Sa’at handed each of them a disc-like object. “These beacons will summon my brethren to aid you in your fight. Use them wisely as they each only have one use. Be careful when using them against any particularly powerful looking foes as they will easily overpower any of my kin.”

“So how many do you suspect will come?” Stella asked.

“I’m not sure, just keep the dragons away from Medivh until he finishes the Dark Portal. They will retreat once they realize that the Dark Portal is open.”

The group placed their discs in their bags and proceeded into the swamp. Flutashe made sure the fauna of the area didn’t bother them as they proceeded south toward where the Dark Portal stood.

Within a few minutes they spotted what they were looking for. They spotted a man in black and red robes with a scarlet cape. He also wore a silvery mantle adorned with black feathers as well as a black hood. He wielded a wooden staff with the carving of a roosting raven on it with a piece of cloth tied to the shaft.

Medivh was going through his spellbook one last time while checking the magic circle he was standing in for errors.

“Uh, hey! Medivh?” Stella called out.

The magus turned toward the intruders while holding his staff ready to fight. “Who are you? Are you here to stop me?”

Stella raised her arms placatingly, “No, we just came to warn you that you will soon be attacked. We also need to ask you about the key to your tower.”

Torn between the completion of his work and dealing with the interlopers, Medivh had no time to deal with them so he turned to the portal base. “Look, we can discuss this when I am through. If there are assassins coming for my life, then protect me. If I survive this, then we can talk about my tower.”

Medivh then placed a shield spell around himself and fortified it with three shield crystals for extra protection. He needed complete concentration to open the portal. He shouted toward the portal, “The time has come! Gul’dan, order your warlocks to double their efforts. Moments from now, the gateway will open and your Horde will be released upon this ripe, unsuspecting world.”

With Medivh’s full concentration on the spell, the group readied themselves for the coming attacks from the Infinite Dragonflight.

It wasn’t long before Mena sensed a void signature in the area which she alerted the others to before she ran toward it, the others giving chase. Stella also sensed a temporal rift in the same place Mena ran off to.

Not far from Medivh’s position, the group spotted the rift which was being maintained by a tough-looking dragonspawn caster. The dragonkin appeared to be channeling temporal energies to maintain the rift.

When Stella and the others first entered the Caverns of TIme and learned about the Infinite Dragonflight, they first guessed that the temporal invaders were some sort of rivaling dragonflight that originated from some unknown point in time. However, Mena’s testimony about void energy being where the dragons were and the fact that they could use the same temporal magics that the Bronze Dragonflight use led them to a different conclusion: The Infinite Dragonflight were void-corrupted bronze dragons.

There wasn’t much that could be done for them now, especially since Violetta didn’t seem interested in helping either, though that could mean that their corruption was complete and their minds were too far gone to save.

As they moved in to engage the dragonspawn maintaining the rift, more infinite dragonkin emerged from the rift along with a few whelps. Though they likely saw the party, they ignored them in favor of going straight for Medivh.

Raida slaughtered the whelps within a second while the others attacked the rest of the attacking force. Bella’s light magic seared at their blackened scales while Surprise assaulted their void-addled minds. Flutashe and Stella attacked the rift channeler who tried to cast spells against them which were countered by Stella while the druid used her cat form to claw away at his scales.

More dragonkin and whelps emerged from the portal but the druid and mage ignored them, certain that their friends could handle them. Stella took a deep breath to unleash a powerful magma breath. The channeler wanted to move out of the way of it but found his body held in place by the druid who intended to use him as a shield to protect herself from her friend’s attack.

A torrent of magma sprayed from Stella’s mouth and the channeler took the full brunt of it. He screamed in agony for a few moments but was quickly silenced as half of his body was turned into slag.

Once the channeler was dead, the rift collapsed. The others wasted no time finishing off the attackers.

“Girls, another void signature appeared nearby,” Mena warned.

“Yeah, I can sense another rift opening,” Stella added.

“Looks like they plan to invade the area by opening rifts so they can overwhelm Medivh,” Raida said.

The party rushed toward the next rift to find it in the same state as the first one. This one was dealt with the same way as the first with Bella, Surprise and Raida dealing with any invading forces while Flutashe and Stella took out the channeler.

The third rift required a slight change in tactics because the channeler was a winged dragonspawn with a huge battle ax. Raida assisted against him by blocking his ax swings with her warglaives. The dragonspawn’s attacks were heavy, but Raida managed to withstand his attacks. He soon tried his luck with one of the others; Raida made him pay for that by leaving deep gashes in his scaly body. When he wasn’t attacking Flutashe, she was leaving deep claw marks on his body and when he focused on Stella, the druid grabbed his head and left his neck exposed for Raida to cut his throat open, bringing an end to him and the rift.

The next two rifts were the same as the first two. It was when they were on rift number six that things became interesting. Mena felt a stronger void signature with this channeler and when they reached that rift, it was being guarded by a drakonid. This one had cracks of blue energy all over his body and he carried a staff.

The drakonid spoke with the same echoed voice as the drake from Hillsbrad. “Mortals, I am Chrono Lord Deja. I ask you, why do you aid the magus? Just think of how many lives could be saved if the portal never opened, if the resulting wars could be erased.”

“Which would leave the world vulnerable to an attack from the Burning Legion,” Stella countered. “Without the Horde, the Alliance will never come to be. Without the unity of the kingdoms, the demons will be able to systematically wipe out each kingdom one by one before they could come together. The night elves alone wouldn’t be enough to stop Archimonde.”

“You have no proof of your claims, dracthyr!” Deja countered. “You cannot see each possibility like my master can. He has chosen to alter the pathways in order to prevent the worst timelines from coming to pass.”

“You can’t be certain of your vision anymore,” Mena said. “The void will blind and mislead you from the truth. All you can see is what the void wants you to see.”

“Enough! If you will not cease this foolish quest, then you will die!” As Deja rushed into battle, enemy reinforcements emerged from the rift to force them to split up. Bella and Mena’s light magic burned the dragonspawn and whelps as well as Deja.

Deja fired arcane bolts at the paladin and priest which sent them flying into a tree. He then electrocuted Raida, Flutashe and Stella with bolts of arcane lightning and forced them to their knees for a moment. He then charged toward Medivh while channeling a powerful arcane bolt.

Mena and Bella recovered in time to heal the other three before they gave chase. Flutashe grabbed the whelps and crushed them under her paws while Stella conjured a pillar of fire that incinerated the dragonspawn.

Their counterattack came too late though as Deja fired his spell at the magus which struck his shield hard enough to shatter one of the protective crystals. He then slowed time for the group so he would have enough time to cast another spell.

However, Stella resisted the slowing spell and dispelled it from the others to allow Raida to plant a warglaive in the drakonid’s back before she pulled it out and sealed the wound with black crystals which sapped his magic and prevented him from casting the spell again.

“Argh! My magic, what did you do to me?” Deja demanded.

“Just a neat combo which leads to an explosive finish,” Raida replied.

Before Deja could say anything else, he was consumed by felfire which burned his scales away and reacted to the black crystals on his back. They exploded violently and left a massive hole in his back.

The drakonid coughed up blood and fell to the ground, breathing heavily. “You may have beaten me…but time is still on our side,” he said weakly before he stopped breathing.

Neither Mena nor Stella sensed any rifts opening at this time but Medivh was still working on the portal. They didn’t know how long they had before another wave would move on the magus so they took the time to rest.

“They’re really throwing the gauntlet at us,” Raida noted. “Fighting rift after rift can be exhausting. At least they backed off for now when that Deja guy was killed.”

“We need to be more careful going forward,” Stella said. “He managed to get past our defenses long enough to break one of Medivh’s protection wards. He won’t be able to restore it while working on the portal.”

“I hope he finishes soon, we can’t defend him forever,” Flutashe said.

Their break soon ended once Mena and Stella sensed another rift opening. They quickly got up and prepared to face the next wave of enemies.

Once again the group was going from rift to rift while dealing with rift channelers and their reinforcements. Over the course of five rifts they faced three spellcasters and two winged dragonspawn. Two of the casters attacked them with shadow magic while the other used fire spells and tried to turn one of them into a sheep. Stella countered that spell and disintegrated that channeler.

They were now on their twelfth rift since Medivh had begun creating the Dark Portal and the magus was showing no signs of finishing. What emerged from this rift was another powerful being with a strong void signature like Deja except this one was a drake.

“Why do you persist?” the drake asked. “Surely you can see the futility of it all. It is not too late! You may still leave here with your lives.”

“Who might you be?” Flutashe asked.

“I am Temporus, now flee here before I am forced to kill all of you and Medivh.”

“We’re not going to let you and your void-addled kin alter the timeline,” Stella defied.

“So be it…you have been warned.” Temporus called his allies from the rift and moved to attack the group. Bella and Mena focused on the lesser attackers while Raida, Flutashe and Stella focused on the drake.

Temporus summoned a gust of wind from his wings and blew the interlopers back while some of the minions advanced toward Medivh. He sped up the time of some of them so they could reach the magus quickly. The minions’ accelerated assault against Medivh resulted in the second protective warding crystal shattering before Raida cut them down.

The drake sped up more of the minions so they could destroy the last crystal but Stella countered this by stealing the magical enhancement which allowed her to rapidly bombard the drake with a barrage of powerful spells from various schools of magic within the span of a few seconds. Temporus had no time to respond to this and Stella ran out of enemies to steal the magical effect from which resulted in the spell enhancing her to soon wear off.

“Let’s see how you deal with this!” Temporus then wrapped himself in a magical ward. When Mena fired a bolt of light at him the spell bounced off and she was forced to dodge her own attack.

Of course, a magical reflection spell was not going to protect him from physical attacks. Raida and Flutashe each jumped up and grabbed one of his wings. Raida sliced one wing off with her warglaive while Flutashe used her cat form to rip the other wing out of its socket and tore it off. Temporus screeched in pain before he fell to the ground. Bella impaled his skull with a sword of light from the ground right as his magical protection wore off. The lesser dragonkin soon followed.

Once the swamp was clear of infinite dragonkin again, the group took the time to rest once again.

Looking at the magus, Raida frowned. “He’s still not done? How much longer is this going to take?!”

“I don’t know, but the spatial disturbance from the portal is getting stronger, it shouldn’t be much longer,” Stella said.

“I hope that means really really really really soon, because I’m sensing a lot of void stuff coming from all around us…” Mena alarmed.

The group looked all around them and spotted five rifts opening up at the same time. Five rift channelers emerged from those portals with three of them being winged dragonspawn.

“This is not good at all,” Bella said.

“We have no choice, we will have to split up and each take a rift by ourselves,” Raida said. “Bella, Flutashe and myself will take the ones with the winged guys while Mena and Stella take ones with a spellcaster.”

“We won’t be able to stop the reinforcements from reaching Medivh!” Bella pointed out.

“We won’t fight them alone,” Flutashe said. “Everyone, get your beacons out and use them. Hopefully the Bronze Dragonflight will keep the enemies at bay.”

With their plan set, the group charged forward separately toward a rift. As they arrived, a number of smaller dragonspawn emerged from the rifts. Each party member pulled out their beacon that was given to them by Sa’at and placed it on the ground before activating it. A bronze drake quickly emerged and began breathing sand on the infinite dragonkin, warping their bodies with temporal magic.

As this was going on, each member faced their respective rift channelers. Flutashe faced a winged dragonspawn by switching between her bear and cat forms; her bear form for when she needed some extra bulk to mitigate any blows she sustained from the dragonkin while she attacked with her cat form.

Raida faced a winged dragonspawn. She made sure to avoid any attacks from the dragonkin warrior using her speed and agility while slashing away at his body from different angles.

Bella faced the third winged dragonspawn. Her shield helped protect her from his attacks while her light magic slowly burned away at his void-scarred scales. Swords of light burst from the ground which slashed his body while hammers of light pummeled his body.

Mena faced a spellcaster dragonspawn carrying a skeletal staff, or rather it was Surprise facing him. This turned into a duel of dark magic users as the dragonspawn fired bolts of shadow magic at her which she dodged and countered with a shadowy attack on his mind. The dragonkin tried to make the gnome flee in terror but found that the spell had no effect on her.

Stella had little problem facing the remaining rift channeler who was a spellcaster carrying a crystal staff trying to attack her with bolts of frost and fire which she effortlessly countered. Stella made use of the hastening spell that Temporus used to speed up her spellcasting. The channeler was repeatedly incinerated and frozen many times in under a minute which threw the dragonkin’s bodily functions into chaos and would soon turn to illness. However, that was not meant to be as a Disintegration Beam blasted him through the chest. The rift keeper collapsed along with the rift.

She was about to assist someone else with their rift when another rift that was larger than the other ones so far appeared before her. Given its size, a feeling of dread washed over Stella. The previous rifts were large enough to allow anything up to the size of a drake to emerge. This one was large enough for a fully grown dragon to emerge from.

“Guys, hurry up with your rifts! Something big is coming!” Stella called out.

A sense of urgency resonated between them as they began to fight harder against their rift channelers. Surprise broke through her channeler’s mental defenses and quickly ended them by crushing their mind. Raida disarmed her foe before she used her Black Eye Beam on his head before a Chaos Bolt obliterated it. Flutashe jumped on her target’s back before she ripped his wings off then grabbed his head to snap it. Bella blinded her enemy with a flash of light before she grabbed him by the horns and forced his head to the ground. A sword of light impaled his throat.

With the rifts closed, the bronze drakes finished off the attackers but not before some of them attacked Medivh’s shield enough to shatter his last warding crystal. Only his personal shield remained.

Everything was cleaned up just in time as the one who may have been the leader of the assault emerged from the rift. As expected, he was a fully grown dragon.

Within moments, the infinite dragon emerged from the rift and stared down at the group, then at Medivh, and back to the group again. “The time has come to shatter this clockwork universe forever! Let us no longer be slaves of the hourglass! I warn you: those who do not embrace the greater path shall be victims of its passing.”

“As if we would let you fulfill the wishes of the Old Gods,” Stella defied.

“Our crusade against the tragedies of the past is righteous, little one. They have shown us how flawed the Titans’ systems on this world truly are. We need not follow this so-called ‘true timeline’ that you and your associates have already altered through your actions.”

“And what does preventing the Horde from coming to Azeroth accomplish other than ensuring its destruction by the Burning Legion?” Flutashe asked.

“The Legion is nothing before the might of those who ruled this world in its infancy. When they are freed from the shackles of the usurpers, they shall regain their rightful place and remind Sargeras why he fears them.”

“If Sargeras fears the Old Gods, then I must be nightmare fuel for him…” said a voice that filled everyone with dread. Though this was outweighed by the pity the group now felt toward the dragon.

In an instant, Violetta appeared between the dragon and the group. “So, your name is Aeonus. Such a shame that you and your aspect fell to the void. Well, your fall is my meal.”

“What is the meaning of this? Who are you?” Aeonus demanded.

A cheerful, innocent smile graced Violetta’s face, “I am what your masters fear, dragon. C’thun’s essence is a part of me now and the other three will follow in due time. I am the Huntress of the Void.”

Aeonus’ eyes widened in horror upon that declaration. His aspect had warned him to never cross paths with the Huntress. He hastily turned around and attempted to open a rift out of this time. Instead, he ended up pausing and lowering his head, remaining silent.

“Isn’t he supposed to be running away?” Mena asked.

“It was too late to escape the moment he heard me,” Violetta answered. “Once someone perceives my existence, I am already in their minds. Once I am in their minds, they are at my mercy.”

Despite being in a catatonic state, Aeonus still had some presence of mind to think. “We shall triumph in the end! It is only a matter of time.” he said.

Violetta simply smiled, "̶̫̪͚̬̭̻̊̔̌̆̾I̵̢̤͚̘̻̰͆̌t̴͖͐̒̈́̓͑̀ ̵̨̙͒̊͝ȋ̵̲̪̩͔̍ͅs̴̲͔̦͉̎̈́̂̔̿ ̷̜̞͇͉̻͊o̷̧͍̪̝̳̓̑̍̄͝n̷̰̭̟̑̆͘l̷̨̮̩̐́̔y̴̘͙̖̰̰͉͊͝ ̷̺͖͙͊̂̇̓ą̸͚̭̐ ̷̿̐͐̌͜͝m̸̹̭̹͙͋́̀͝a̷͇̗͕̒͒͑͒t̷̢̲́̾t̶̳̺̙͕͓̄͗̀̿̈ȩ̴͙̟̩̝͋́̊̅̌͝ͅr̴͇͉̰̣̂́̒̂͒͘ ̴̖̗̫̣̈́̈́̾͗̏̚ö̷̫͙́̀f̷͉̻̫̥̝̆̑͐̓͝ ̸̥͙͚̞̊̇͆͝͝ṯ̵̤͙̤̒ị̵̜̲̟̙̱̆̾͐́̅ḿ̴̼̦̱̭̮̄͐͘ẹ̸̬̩͍̈́̽ ̸̨͎͛b̸̪̗̬̼̰̓͊̇̂ȩ̷̨̞̙͗͌̾f̴̭̣͖͕̄̈́̄͜ǫ̴̜̝͍̉̃̉̾͝ŕ̵̡͎̦̘̮͒͗̏̽̐ḛ̷͖̅͊́̔͋̓ ̸̹̋̑y̶̰̬̞̟̝̺̿͛̆̄̿͠o̵̦̼̗͔̍͐̋ủ̵͇͎̬̹͈̱̈́͊̈r̶̛͕̺̰̓͊͐͑ ̷̪̠̙̗̱͔͠m̴͎̏̉͌̑̕à̵̛̫̟̠͌s̸͇͐̓͆͠ț̵̡͉̀̓̕ͅé̵̬̺̦͉̯̰̎r̶̛̝̝̹͈̤̙̋̒̀ş̶̢̼̭͆ ̵͕͕̿͑́a̷͖̅r̵̥̽͌͒͑̚e̴̟̺̟͉͍͇͒̀́̆ ̸̠̜̟̜̟̗̆͊̋͂̕â̷̡͓̮͕̥̭͌̀́̀ ̵̣̟͌̾̒͑̉̕p̷̰̈̀̾̚͠a̴͔̎̌͛̀ř̷̢͇͇̩́́͜t̵̨̯̋̈́̽͗̆ ̴̻̉̋̓ǒ̵̤̩̰̤̦̽f̴̩̈͑́̀̔̋ ̸̠͔͍̺̯̎̀̊̉ͅm̸͓͇̼̬̦̓̑ẻ̸̻̟̘̰̼̾̀̍̈́.̷̘͍̪̀̀͌̉̓.̶̧̛̯̹͇̟̟̄̍͌̒.̸̡̤̘̆̾̈́̀͝"̵̥̳͍̦̙̑͂̈́͒̓

Eternal darkness claimed the dragon’s consciousness and that was all he would ever know. Aeonus’ body collapsed in a heap. With his mind devoured, he would forever remain in a catatonic state until death and decay would claim what was left.

Violetta vanished once she claimed her morsel. A few minutes after that, Medivh completed his spell and the infamous event came to pass as the sickly green nether energies appeared, surrounded by the frame of the stone around it.

“It is finished,” Medivh declared. He then turned to the group. “I am grateful for your aid, champions. Now, Gul’dan’s Horde will sweep across this world like a locust swarm. All my designs, all my carefully-laid plans will at last fall into place.”

A squad of orcs emerged from the portal. They saw the swampy region around them that was unlike the dark jungle they were in before.

Medivh addressed the orcs, “Orcs of the Horde, this portal is the gateway to your new destiny! Azeroth lies before you, ripe for the taking.”

“Gul’dan speaks the truth!” one orc said. We should return at once to tell our brothers the news!” With that, the squad retreated back through the portal.

Medivh then turned back to the group. “Now, you wished to discuss matters of my tower?”

Stella approached the magus while pulling out the key that Khadgar fixed. Medivh’s eyes widened when he saw it. “That key, I recognize it! That was supposed to be Khadgar’s key, though I have yet to give it to him.” He suddenly realized that he remembered someone he had never met before or heard of. “Strange, It would seem that I have memories of events that have not occurred.”

Stella wasn’t sure why the magus had such memories either. At this point in time, he had yet to meet Khadgar. She could only speculate that the temporal interference by the Infinite Dragonflight had some residual side effects.

“This key once belonged to your future apprentice, though it was recently broken and the enchantment lost. Would you be able to renew the enchantment?” Stella asked.

“It would take some time for me to reapply the enchantment to where it could unlock my tower, though since I have a feeling that you will not be able to wait…” He then pulled out his own key to his tower. “I can take that key off your hands and you can use mine. Since I am granting you use of this key, it should work for you and only you.” He then gave his key to Stella and took the formerly broken key. “I can tell that you and your friends will face some very trying times in the coming years. I hope that you will become strong enough to face what comes.”

Medivh then turned around to stare at the portal for a while. Stella and the others took this as their cue to get out of there as they didn’t want to face the full might of the Old Horde when they emerged from the portal in force.

They returned to the tunnel they emerged from and saw that it had begun to collapse. Sa’at assured them that as long as they kept moving back to the central chamber the tunnel wouldn’t collapse on them.

As they proceeded through the tunnel, Stella decided now was the time to ask them for their assistance with her imminent assignment. “Girls, I need to ask you for your assistance.”

“Does it have to do with Medivh’s tower?” Flutashe asked.

Stella nodded, “I was asked by the Kirin Tor to investigate a demonic presence inside Karazhan. This key is the only way to get into the tower.”

“If the Legion is involved, then there must be something in or about that place that they want,” Raida said.

“Karazhan sits on a powerful ley line. It would be an excellent place for them to establish a foothold on Azeroth once they figure out how to tap into it.”

“Ah, I get it,” Raida nodded sagely. “This seems like something that can’t any longer.”

“If we are planning on exploring Karazhan, we need to rest and prepare,” Bella said. “I have a feeling that we will need to be at our best for this.”

“I’ll make a portal to Stormwind,” Stella said. As she began to channel, Raida put on her cloak and made sure she looked the part of a warlock. She was about to put her disguise to the test.

Author's Note

Look at that, I managed to get a new chapter posted in less than a week this time. Next up is a 3-parter.

Feel free to leave comments. It helps me to know that I haven't lost everyone who has read this.

The Haunted Tower, Part 1: Galas and Operas

“Are you sure you want me to take the lead on this one?” Sophia asked. “You know that you’re more specialized for what they will be encountering in that tower.”

“That would make things much too easy for them,” Thanatas explained. “They still need the challenge to help them grow. Since no external force is controlling the tormented souls within that tower, it would be too easy to manipulate them.

“Besides, I’m still a representative of the Horde. It wouldn’t do well for my reputation if I was seen guiding a bunch of Alliance of my own free will. The relationship between the two factions is still less than ideal and it will be quite some time before we see any real peace between them.”

“Speaking of Horde, do you have any plans for that bunch?” Sophia asked. “I mean besides the larger threats to come.”

“I do have a plan to take them on a field trip to this one place near Quel’thalas before the climactic event of the year.”

Sophia raised an eyebrow, “Climactic event? The siege of the Black Temple?”

“Nope, that will have already happened by then. No need to spoil that though if you don’t know.”

Sophia rolled her eyes which only amused the death knight. “So why not invite those future problems to climb the tower with my group?”

“The tower has challenges more formidable than what they encountered in Outland and the Caverns of Time, but not by much. It’s going to be a long climb for them and you will make sure they don’t end up in over their heads. Most of the stronger ones are not worth mentioning, but there are a couple who might give them a little trouble. Adding Crystal’s group would still be overkill.”

“Has Twilight dug up any information about our mysterious queen bee pony?” Sophia asked.

“Not yet, though she did say that she got a lead from Celestia who mentioned that her niece once knew someone who went by Misty Wing so she is taking a warp conduit to the Crystal Empire to get some information from Cadance.”

“So we will uncover her identity soon.” Sophia observed the clock tower in the middle of Stormwind and found that it was nearly sunrise. “They will be waking up soon. I need to take my leave.” Sophia was gone in an instant.

“I need to get out of here as well,” Thanatas thought to herself. “It would be bad if any guards found out I was in the middle of their city.” She then entered the shadow realm to make her escape.

The sun had risen over the city of Stormwind. Already there were citizens wandering the streets going about their day or opening their businesses. The night guards were changing their shifts and making way for the morning patrols. A few clouds drifted in the sky.

It was around this time that Stella and the others awoke from their slumber and began their morning routines. For Raida, this was the first time in years that she awoke to a sunlit day. Outland occasionally had some bright times when the drifting continent faced a star, but those times were erratic.

Raida was thankful that her disguise kept the guards and citizens of the city unaware of her demonic nature and her pendant kept the more sensitive of the residents, such as the priesthood and the paladins, from sensing the fel energy she gave off.

Bella went into town to do some shopping. After obtaining some provisions, she checked the market for any changes. She discovered that the merchants had come into possession of goods obtained exclusively from Outland. The stores that sold metals were now stocking commonly found metals such as fel iron and a durable metal called adamantite as well as rare metals such as eternium and khorium. The leather stores were now selling something called knothide leather which was skinned and prepared from Outland’s animals and the tailoring shops were selling the newest cloth and thread made from something called netherweave.

She ended up buying up a fair amount of each before storing it in her personal vault in the Stormwind Bank. Just because she was adventuring more now didn’t mean she should fall behind the latest fashions.

The party regrouped in front of the mage tower in the Mage Quarter where they were expecting their draconian mage to bring them to the abandoned tower.

What they weren’t expecting was Sophia being at the meeting location who waved at each of them as they came.

“Sophia? What are you doing here?” Bella asked. “I thought you were overseeing Alliance operations in Outland.”

“Things are stable right now so I will be able to accompany you to Karazhan.” Bella was about to ask something but the bunny templar cut her off. “I have my ways of keeping track of your adventures. I particularly enjoyed how you caved that paladin’s skull in when you went back in time.”

Bella sighed in exasperation. There was no sense in questioning her friend when she decided she wanted to do something.

Stella began opening a portal to the entrance to Karazhan. She was glad to be an agent of the Kirin Tor since it allowed her access to the dimensional anchors established by other agents. Once the rift opened, the group peered inside to see that they were about to enter a very dismal and dark region.

“Huh, reminds me of Shadowmoon Valley, except gray,” Raida commented.

The six crossed over and entered the ruins of a village at the base of a tower in a region that seemed even more dead and gray than they first thought. Ghosts of the villagers wandered aimlessly but became hostile when they spotted anyone who wasn’t a familiar face. The trees were petrified and leafless, adding to the ominous ambiance.

Stella could feel the tower pulling life energy from the land around it constantly. Rumors suggested that Medivh had cast a spell on the tower to make it draw life from its surroundings to empower him; a spell that seemed to be active still despite the caster’s death.

She hoped that this venture wouldn’t take too long since there was a chance that the tower might try to drain their lives at some point.

After dealing with a few ghosts, the group approached the tower’s entrance. The Violet Eye agents were there except there was one more person among them. A human female wearing a violet robe without the Kirin Tor insignia appeared to be arguing with the elderly male. She appeared to be holding an urn and making sure the others wouldn’t get their hands on it.

They overheard the conversation once they were close enough, “...my services don’t come free you know,” the female said.

“Insolent child! You left our order to practice forbidden magic! You should be grateful that we gave you a chance to be useful,” the elder snarled.

“If you hadn’t banned such practices, you wouldn’t be in this situation right now. All I am asking for are those books and then you can have the urn.”

Stella decided to arbitrate the apparent disagreement. “What’s going on here?” she asked.

The mages looked at her questioningly. The elderly male was the first to recognize her robes which informed him that she was a Kirin Tor agent. “Before I answer I must ask: Who asked you to come here?”

Stella could tell that the mage was testing her to find out if she was assigned to the Karazhan exploration team. “I was called to the Violet Citadel by Archmage Rhonin where I met with Archmage Cedric who asked me to find Archmage Khadgar in Outland,” she responded.

The elder nodded his head. “Yes, Cedric did say that he was looking for Khadgar since he is the only one who could open this place again. I take it that Khadgar sent you here in his place?”

“He didn’t have a choice, he shattered his key and broke the enchantment on it. I ended up going back in time through the assistance of the Bronze Dragonflight where Medivh gave me his key.”

The elder’s eyes widened, “Wait, you have his key?!” He politely coughed to regain composure. “In that case, you are now the only one in the world who can open the way into Karazhan. In that case, I will have to entrust our work to you.” He then gave a hateful glare at the woman, “You can start by getting that urn out of that woman’s grubby mitts.”

The woman growled at the man, “I already named my price! Take it or leave it, Alturus!”

“I will not endanger the lives of Kirin Tor agents for some fool’s errand that for some books that would be best kept out of hands like yours!” Alturus shot back.

“Then I am wasting my time here.” Kalynna began casting a teleport spell to leave with the urn.

“Hang on!” Stella called out. “What is so important about the urn and what books are you talking about?”

“That urn holds the ashes of a dragon’s bone that has been infused with Medivh’s essence,” Alturus explained.

“A dragon?” Stella wondered. She then thought back to what that caged naga said.

“The Blazing Signet is the heart of a cursed dragon named Nightbane who is said to reside in the hallowed halls of the prophet, Medivh.”

“This wouldn’t happen to be a cursed dragon named Nightbane, would it?”

“Yes, though he used to go by another name. Arcanagos, if I recall,” Kalynna said.

“And you want the urn to study the magical essence within, Alturus?” Stella asked.

“Yes, when one of my apprentices looked around the grounds and found the bone, I discovered the residue of Medivh’s essence on it. The essence was devoid of life so studying it would prove difficult. Against my better judgment…” He glared at Kalynna. “...I contracted the services of this conniving wench who would have the knowledge to revitalize the essence.”

Stella felt a headache coming so she got down to business before things got out of hand. “Could the ashes be used to summon Nightbane? My friends and I need its heart for the sake of the Outland campaign.”

“If the ashes were burned in the place where he met his demise, he will appear,” Kalynna said. “Like I told Alturus though, I have a price for my services.”

“What books are you looking for?”

Alturus stuttered in disbelief, “What!? You can’t seriously be considering entertaining her–”

“Enough Alturus!” Stella silenced. “As the one with exclusive access to Karazhan, it’s my call.” She motioned for Kalynna to make her request.

“I tracked the books to a pair of shady individuals. I need the Tome of Dusk, which is in the possession of an orc warlock named Nethekurse and the other is the Book of Forgotten Names which is in the hands of an arakkoa known as Darkweaver Syth.”

Stella’s eyes widened when she heard that. She did remember acquiring two such books from those individuals. She had a strange feeling that she would need them later and apparently that time had come. Looking through her belongings she pulled out the two books she found and showed them to her. “My friends and I came across those individuals and eliminated them. Would these be the books you’re looking for?”

Kalynna stared at the books for a moment, a wide smile graced her face. “Yes, those are the ones! Would you be willing to trade them for this urn?”

“If you are certain that this can be used to summon Nightbane, then yes.”

“It will, but only in the place where he was slain. I can tell you that it wasn’t anywhere on the grounds so you will have to search the tower.”

Flutashe looked up at the towering structure and realized that the search could prove extensive if they didn’t have a clue where to look. Since dragons could take on mortal forms Medivh could have killed him somewhere inside the tower for all they knew.

“That could be anywhere in the blasted place,” Alturus said. “Though if we had Medivh’s journal, we might be able to pinpoint the location. The journal is likely to have Medivh’s essence in it and may resonate with places of significant events in his life.”

“That’s only going to add more things that we would have to search the entire tower for,” Stella said.

“Not necessarily, I sent agents into the tower before it sealed itself. They are likely dead by now but their spirits may remain to give us clues to the journal.

“As for the demonic reading, Agent Keanna was making a log of the readings in the tower before it was sealed. Karazhan’s blacksmith, Koren, should have an idea where the log is. I’d expect that he’s on the ground floor somewhere.”

“Is there any more info?” Stella asked. Alturus and Kalynna shook their heads. “Then it’s time to begin the exploration.”

Once they exchanged the books for the urn, Stella opened a small dimensional pocket and placed the urn inside. It would only have been burdensome if they walked around with an urn in their hands.

“I’ll be taking my leave then,” Kalynna said. As she prepared a teleport spell, she left them with a warning, “Be sure not to lose to Nightbane or you could unleash a horror upon the world.” With that, she vanished in an instant.

Before Alturus said anything else, Stella cut him off, “If she becomes a problem in the future we will deal with it.”

Stella approached the locked portcullis that separated them from the inside of the tower. Spotting the keyhole, she inserted her key into the lock. With a turn and a click, the gate magically lifted. The group of six quickly entered the tower since they didn’t want to know how long the portcullis would stay up. Just as Mena, the last one through, made it inside, the gate fell with a small crash.

They were inside the tower now. They entered a small entryway that had a thick wooden door on the other side. No lock was on the door but it opened without resistance.

They entered what they believed was the gatehouse. While the tower had seen better days, given the abundance of cobwebs, it was still in much better shape than Auchindoun. To their immediate right was a passage that was in far worse shape than the rest of the area. The main entrance appeared to be beyond an archway flanked by several support arches carved into the likeness of horse heads. A transparent man stood in front of it. To the left of that was an area that was inhabited by skeletal horses. It was most likely a stable.

“Ah, you must be the newest key bearer.” The ghostly figure said. “Greetings, I am Berthold, the doorman. Any key bearer and their company who enter this tower are treated as honored guests, as per the master’s instructions.”

The group looked at each other for a moment, then decided to go along with it. Since Stella had the key, she spoke for him. “Greetings to you as well Berthold, can you tell me how to get around this tower?”

“To my left, you will find the servant’s quarters. The place is in such a dreadful way though, what with the spiders, bats and darkhounds infesting the place. If you decide to journey through there, you will arrive in the guest quarters where there are servants who will tend to your…*ahem*...baser desires.”

The group knew what that meant. Nobility did visit the tower often, after all.

“I’m sure you can smell the stables to my right,” Berthold continued. Indeed, the stables did smell of rotten hay and whatever the horses left behind that wasn’t cleaned up before everyone died.

“Behind me is the stairway leading to the grand ballroom where Moroes, the tower steward, is entertaining the nobles.”

“Do you know where the tower’s blacksmith is?” Stella asked.

“He should be at the other end of the stables. Do be careful not to upset Midnight, she is a very spirited horse and will call her master, Attumen the Huntsman, if she feels threatened. If you wish to explore that way, you will find the guard barracks which lead into the kitchen where the finest chefs prepare exquisite meals for the guests in the banquet hall.”

It appeared that to reach Koren, they would need to travel through the stables. Stella thanked the doorman for the information before the group proceeded into the stables.

From here, the fighting began. The skeletal horses and the ghostly stable hands did not take kindly to their intrusion. Flutashe quickly found that her Alpha Aura had no effect on the horses because they were all undead. The horses inflicted curses which Stella quickly broke while countering any spells cast by the stable hands who appeared to have been taught a healing spell meant to mend the wounds and broken bones of the horses. The mage was thankful that she double checked to make sure everyone’s equipment was enchanted so they could combat the spectral dead. Flutashe’s claws were able to touch the ghostly beings.

The stable was circular in shape and the group had to travel the circumference of the room while fighting through groups of horses and stable hands.

One ghost was not in a fighting mood and completely ignored the violence in the stable as he patrolled the room. He was largely ignored, despite muttering random things.

They soon reached the center of the stable where they found a horse that was very different from the skeletal ones they fought so far. This one had an eerie green glow coming from her hooves. She wore a tattered, black caparison with a scarlet lining and rust-colored barding. The shaffron covering her entire face gave the impression that the horse had fangs. Her eyes glowed the same color as her hooves.

Midnight was in a particularly hostile mood today and she just found some people to take her frustrations out on. The group quickly found that the horse moved fast. Very fast. Before they knew it, Flutashe found herself bucked into a wall. Raida quickly put her guard up and hurled her warglaive at the horse which bounced back into her hand and earned Midnight’s ire.

Raida’s agility allowed her to barely keep up with the horse’s movements but was able to get some slashes in. Stella struck it with a few fireballs.

Feeling threatened, Midnight let out a loud, unearthly neigh. From the next room, someone emerged into the stables. This one wore full plate armor the same color as Midnight’s barding. He had a scarlet cape and scarf with his helm being decorated in long, curving horns.

“Who dares attack the steed of the Huntsman,” the figure, who they figured was Attumen, demanded. He then drew his longsword and slashed at Raida who blocked it with a warglaive.

Flutashe recovered and struck Midnight with a full body charge which knocked her into a wagon full of rotten hay.

With Flutashe facing Midnight and Raida crossing blades with Attumen, the others began their attacks on the dark rider and his mount. Stella blasted Attumen from behind with fire and ice while Mena smited the horse with bolts of holy magic. Bella consecrated the ground to burn the feet and hooves of the duo before she began striking Midnight with holy magic.

Midnight suddenly turned to face Stella and prepared to charge at her but Flutashe grabbed her by the tail and threw her into the remains of the old hay cart.

Fed up with the way the battle was going, Attumen called for Midnight to quickly get up so he could mount her. “Come Midnight, let’s disperse this petty rabble!”

With rider and mount as one, Attumen continued slashing at Raida with his blade but this didn’t last long before Flutashe grabbed the Huntsman from behind and threw him off his mount with a suplex, slamming his head hard on the floor and denting his helmet.

Raida found an opening in Midnight’s defenses and stabbed the horse where the barding didn’t protect which restricted her movements. Being undead, the horse couldn’t be killed like a living horse could so Raida used her other warglaive to cut off each of Midnight’s legs before bringing both blades down on her neck, decapitating her and making sure the horse would not cause them any further trouble.

“Midnight! No!” Attumen shouted. Of course, he soon followed when Flutashe delivered a back breaker with her knee which would have only temporarily crippled the huntsman since he was undead. Of course, he knew that they weren’t going to let him recover. “I always knew, someday I would become the hunted,” he said as Bella finished him by delivering a crushing blow to his head with her hammer.

The group didn’t get time to take a break as a number of blacksmiths from the next room heard the commotion and tried to attack them while they were exhausted. However, they were all broken up into spectral essence within a split second, courtesy of a Psionic Storm by Sophia. “Rude…” she mumbled.

Raida had heard about Sophia’s exploits from her friends, but seeing such power in action was another matter. In that moment, she felt sorry for her master who would face that kind of power later.

In the next room, one blacksmith remained who didn’t attack them. He was still ghostly so they approached him with caution. The blacksmith heard their footsteps and turned around. “Huh? Who are you?”

“You wouldn’t happen to be Koren, would you?” Stella asked.

The ghost had an unfocused look in his eyes. He clearly was struggling to think about something. “I guess so, all I can think about is making horseshoes. If you are looking for horseshoes I’ll make a few for you in a few minutes.”

“Actually, I’m here looking for Keanna, or at least her logbook. Have you seen either?”

“Keanna? I think I met someone like that. She stayed in the guest chambers. I think I was supposed to keep that a secret…” The blacksmith paused, “Who are you again? If you’ve come for horseshoes I’ll make a few for you in a few minutes.” He then went back to work.

“I don’t think you’re going to get anything else from him,” Sophia said. “Ghosts like him can only think about their final moments. He was likely focused on making horseshoes when he died.”

“How come there are mostly hostile ghosts and few friendly ones?” Bella asked.

“Thanatas says that ghosts live their final memories for eternity and can’t comprehend anything beyond that. Anything that disrupts their memory will drive the ghosts into a frenzy and will attack the disruptive element. I think the reason for the friendly ghosts is because their final memories were orders from Medivh to treat key holders and their companions as guests. In the case of Koren, he was a spy for the Kirin Tor assigned to spy on Medivh while also a blacksmith. He likely responded to Stella’s status as a Kirin Tor agent but the prevalent memories were him working on horseshoes.”

While they knew that the guest quarters were their next destination, getting there was going to be tricky. The only route they knew was the one through the infested servant’s quarters.

They decided to return to Berthold in hopes that he might have more information on other ways to get to the guest quarters and higher in the tower.

Once they returned to the doorman, they asked their questions about the guest quarters and how to go higher into the tower. “The main route to the guest quarters is just beyond the grand ballroom and up the stairs. You should be careful though, I’ve heard that the rampant debauchery there has drawn the attention of a Titan Watcher.

“If you wish to go beyond the third floor, there are two ways. One way is from a doorway on an upper level outside of the tower. However, that door is locked from the inside and your key won’t get you inside from that way.”

That route was certainly out, though it was good to know that there was another entrance into the tower.

“The other way is through the opera house on the third floor, next to the guest quarters. You will need Barnes, the stage manager to let you through. However, he is forbidden from opening the stage door by order of Moroes. You will need to get his permission to reopen the stage.”

The group looked at each other. They had a feeling that Moroes was not going to be in a negotiable mood so they were wondering if they would have to force their way through the stage area.

Berhold continued, “Of course, Barnes and Moroes have not been on good terms since the stage was closed down. If Barnes were to be assured that Moroes would not interfere with the performance then he will gladly open the stage for you.”

It seemed that the only way further into the tower would be through the opera house and they had to deal with Moroes, who was likely in either the grand ballroom or the dining hall, to go any further. They also needed Keanna’s log from the guest quarters and if what Berthold said was true, there was likely an incensed Titan Watcher in there. The magics of the tower may have driven them mad.

Stella thanked Berthold for the information and they proceeded up the stairs toward the grand ballroom. At the top of the stairs the group noticed the ballroom was filled with crowds of ghostly nobles either chatting in groups or dancing as a group. With the sheer number of them, getting by would prove to be difficult. A number of servants were moving between the groups offering hors d'oeuvres to the guests.

“It’s like an eternal gala,” Stella muttered.

They didn’t have much choice but to crash the party since Moroes may have been in the crowd somewhere. Raida rushed in first and cut down a few guests before the ghosts noticed the intrusion. The others rushed in as the ghosts attacked Raida. Mena and Bella’s light magic incinerated many of the attacking ghosts while Stella teleported around the room releasing explosions of arcane magic around her. Flutashe ended up fighting skeletons who were carrying trays around; likely waiters based on their behavior.

While she was fighting a skeleton, Flutashe suddenly began to feel weak, as if she had just suddenly aged into her winter years and feared that the skeleton would be capable of breaking every bone in her body now. Sophia sensed the fear and delivered a roundhouse kick to the skeleton, sending its bones into the dining hall.

Unfortunately, Sophia’s actions only made things worse as the entire dining hall heard the commotion coming from the ballroom and drew the attention of the ghosts and skeletons inside.

With the entire ballroom in a chaotic state, Sophia became more active in the fighting since they were fighting an army of ghosts and skeletons now. Raida cut down many ghosts within a second with her rapid movements and Stella rained ice shards all over the ballroom. There were too many flammable objects in the tower for her to use her fire magic without burning the tower down and she didn’t want to test if Medivh’s fireproofing enchantments held up after decades of decay.

Once she recovered, Flutashe jumped up and grabbed one of the chandeliers that was still fully functional. Seeing what the druid was planning, Mena and Bella herded a large group of ghosts under the chandelier before the druid slashed the chains holding the fixture in place. She jumped away as the fixture crushed the ghosts, which they could have safely phased through had the magical fire lighting the chandelier not set them ablaze. This also showed that the fireproofing enchantments were still working because the gilded rug at their feet didn’t ignite.

After a while, all that were around them were piles of spectral essence left behind by the ghosts. The party took a moment to catch their breath because they had just destroyed hundreds of ghosts. The ghosts may have been lacking in combat training but their numbers made up for their lack of experience.

The ballroom was clear but there was no sign of anyone who appeared like they could have been Moroes. This left them with the dining hall.

Looking into the dining hall, the groups saw several covered tables that were low to the ground, looking like the table legs had rotted and collapsed. The chairs were left in a haphazard state with some turned over, showing that no maintenance was made in the room for years. The tables were covered in rotten food and ruined wine. The overall state of the tables showed that the guests were reckless in their attempts to escape the tower when the chaos happened. Light seemed to filter through a series of windows in the back which should have not been possible given the dark, dismal state of the region.

At the back of the dining hall on a platform, where the host was usually expected to be during a gala, stood six ghosts who were speaking to who appeared to be a forsaken wearing a red and gold shirt and black pants and boots. He also wore a set of black shoulderguards. All of his clothes were tattered.

“Just to warn you, Moroes is completely insane,” Thanatas said through the link. “When someone becomes risen as an unbound undead, they can sometimes go insane as a coping mechanism for their new status.”

“Should I leave this to Violetta?” Sophia asked.

“This is outside her area of expertise. There are different kinds of madness out there. Fel Madness is when someone goes on a power trip when they become infused with the fel. Void Madness is when someone loses their mind as a result of exposure to incomprehensible darkness. This is Death Madness when someone goes insane because they can’t cope with becoming an affront to the forces of life. They are similar to sociopathic serial killers.”

Sophia sighed, “Doesn’t look like we’re going to be able to reason with Moroes.”

The entire group had a feeling that it was going to come to a fight against the steward. Some, like Flutashe, had a false hope that he could be reasoned with. In the end they readied themselves for a fight.

Moroes was still busy talking with the ghosts which allowed them to move closer. Bella gasped as she recognized the ghosts’ face. “Those are the former ruling nobles of Darkshire!”

The others had not studied the nobility so they had no idea what Bella was talking about. Bella recognized the faces of Baroness Dorothea Millstripe, Lady Catriona Von’Indi, Lady Keira Berrybuck, Baron Rafe Dreuger, Lord Robin Daris and Lord Crispin Ference. She also knew that Dorothea and Catriona studied under the Stormwind priesthood while Keira and Rafe received basic training as paladins and were able to wield the Light. Robin and Crispin were skilled fighters.

Since she knew the nobles, Bella took command for this fight. “Raida, deal with the two wielding staves. Mena, assist me with the two wielding hammers. Stella, you can handle the last two ghosts. Flutashe will keep Moroes busy.”

The group nodded while Sophia stood back and watched them work. She would assist if the battle became too dicey.

Moroes finally heard the group approach. If he was surprised to see them he didn’t show it. “Hmm? Unannounced visitors? Preparations must be made,” he spoke in an even butler’s tone.

“What preparations?” Flutashe asked.

“I must prepare you for the gala, of course. All of you are filthy with that revolting flesh and bone covering you. I shall endeavor to scrape it off.” He then unsheathed a pair of serrated red daggers with red cloth on the hilt.

“You are here to see the master? You will have to get in line,” Dorothea said as she began channeling shadow magic. A warglaive struck her arm and made her lose concentration. The warglaive bounced off Dorothea and Catriona before returning to Raida.

Keira attempted to heal Dorothea’s injury but the incantations would not leave her lips as her voice was silenced. A hammer of light struck Rafe in the head.

Robin and Crispin were both pelted by fire and ice. After the first few hits, Crispin raised his shield to block further shots while Robin blocked with his battle ax.

Moroes’ slashes were swift, but so was Flutashe who managed to dodge each one while blasting him with intense rays of moonlight when she had room to cast.

Raida found her fight boring as she made sure the two priestesses didn’t get a spell off. Without their magic they were just a pair of nobles who flailed around with staves that they weren’t trained to use. She decided to put them out of their misery with a Fel Breath which engulfed them and reduced them to spectral powder in a few seconds.

Surprise was also bored fighting Keira. Any heals she tried to cast were silenced by shadow magic and any time she tried to enhance the strength of Robin or Crispin she dispeled. Keira was being burned alive by shadow magic and knew she would not last at this rate so she encased herself in a shield of light that prevented any and all of the priest’s attacks from getting through.

Keira was about to heal herself only to pause when she saw a large phantom eyeball manifest and fire a beam which not only shattered her shield but pierced her body. She quickly crumbled into dust.

Rafe was also having a bad time against Bella as his holy strikes were blocked by her shield while he had nothing to block her attacks. When he saw Keira go down he knew he was done for. That thought became reality nearly an instant later when a sword of light pierced him from below and he turned to dust.

Crispin’s shield failed to hold against Stella’s Disintegration Beam which pierced through the shield and him. Robin desperately slashed at the mage with his ax which struck what looked like her but turned out to be a Mirror Image. He felt a tap on his shoulder before he turned around just in time to be engulfed by a pillar of fire.

Moroes proved to be a skilled rogue as he attempted to use dirty tricks to catch Flutashe off guard but her instincts warned her of when she would have to dodge. She jumped back when the steward tried to throw poison powder into her eyes. He then paused for a moment, thinking about what he was supposed to be doing. “Now, where was I? Oh yes…” He then threw down a smokescreen and became invisible.

Raida quickly activated her Spectral Vision to locate the steward. She was not allowing him to get the drop on them. She spotted him creeping up on Surprise and pulling out some thin wire tied to two sticks of wood. She fired her Black Eye Beam at his chest which sent him flying back and crashing into a table.

The rotting steward got up from the mess, trying to dust himself off, though unable to remove the black crystals on his chest. “How terribly clumsy of me…” he said before he saw a green ball of fel energy crash into the crystals and blow him up, leaving only a few body parts behind.

The group took a moment to recover their strength before they proceeded back to the ballroom and through an opening they hadn’t explored yet. This led them up a flight of stairs and into another large gathering of ghostly guests. Some were dancing like those in the ballroom while others sat at small tables overlooking the ballroom.

After clearing the room, they looked around again to get their bearings. Ahead of them was an archway leading into a massive room with red curtains at the end. They figured that was the opera house. They also spotted a doorway to their right. If Berthold was right, that way led to the guest quarters.

Stella led the way into the doorway and into a marble hallway with several tattered green rugs and golden chandeliers along the path and decorated with artistic busts and lion statues. A rotten bookshelf was on one side of the room.

Inhabiting the area were numerous spectral guardsmen as well as ghostly people in robes. Raida felt something off about some of the robed ghosts.

What they found as they fought the new ghosts was something out of a nightmare. The ghosts were trained to entertain the guests in their beds and satisfy their carnal pleasures but in a fight they use shadow magic to attack or control the fight. When they felt threatened, they shed their forms to reveal the evils within. Some of the ghosts turned into rotten corpses who attacked with dark afflictions, others turned into banshees or wraiths. The ones that made Raida feel the most suspicious turned into sayaad, both female and male types. When she discovered this, Raida cut them down like the demons that she was trained to slay.

As they fought down the hallway, they also inspected the rooms looking for Keanna’s logbook. To their disappointment the book wasn’t in any of the rooms. Only rotten books filled the old bookshelf.

In the end the logbook wasn’t in the hallway or the rooms, which left only the room at the end of the hall. The room at the end was a large octagonal-shaped room with eight pairs of pillars surrounding a golden platform with a number of non-functional fountains along the walls. In the center was a giant living stone woman wearing gold and dark green robes.

“I heard about these Titan Watchers from books written by the Explorer’s League,” Mena said. “The Titans manufactured a lot of constructs of metal and stone when they brought order to Azeroth. This type is capable of using holy magic.”

“More of you deviants dare to stand before me?” the construct questioned. “I will purify you all of your debaucherous ways!”

“Wait, does she think we’re a bunch of sex-crazed fiends?” Raida asked.

Surprise switched out to answer, “She’s probably smoked whatever this tower has been giving all the lunatic ghosts here.”

“So we’re dealing with a crazed watcher…” Stella concluded.

“Your impurities must be cleansed!” the watcher declared as she walked over to them with hostile intent.

As she walked, the ground around her feet became consecrated and burned their feet, more so for Raida and Surprise.

Bella gained the watcher’s attention using several of her light hammers and light sword eruptions. While the watcher was not armed with a weapon, her stone arms still carried an impact. The paladin was still able to block her strikes with her shield.

The construct proved resilient to Surprise’s shadow magic which she figured was because of her holy affinity. Raida and her demons managed to get some strikes in until the construct unleashed a focused light spell that incinerated her demons one by one. The watcher might have gotten her too if she didn’t use the pillars to block the spell.

“Cast out your corrupt thoughts!” the watcher demanded before everyone briefly lost consciousness when they were struck by a holy spell. Raida, Surprise and Stella remained unconscious and were forced into a kneeling position. The light-scorched ground helped Bella and Flutashe to stay awake.

“A repentance spell?” Bella thought. She then hurled her shield into the watcher’s stomach which knocked her back. When the paladin retrieved her shield, she raised it into the air and unleashed a blinding flash of light which roused the others.

Stella used her magma breath to tear into the construct’s stone form which left a long scar on her back. A series of fire and ice spells heated and chilled her body and weakened its integrity. This led to one of the watcher’s punches impacting on Bella’s shield which resulted in her hand crumbling. A thrown warglaive lodged itself in the upper part of the watcher’s arm which was later struck by a Chaos Bolt which not only knocked the warglaive loose but broke the other arm off. One last Disintegration Beam to the construct’s chest broke through the outer layer and exposed the core module which became damaged to the point where the watcher began to deactivate.

“Death comes! Will your conscience be clear?” she said before she collapsed and stopped moving.

“That was a bit overly dramatic,” Bella said. “Was she trying to make us feel guilty for breaking her?”

As they pondered the construct, Stella looked around the room for what she was looking for. She found a book in one of the fountains and looked into its contents. She smiled as she realized that it was Keanna’s logbook.

She peered through the notes the unfortunate mage made during her time here. From what she read, there was an arcane golem guarding a hallway called the menagerie, Somewhere in the tower library was a secret passage behind a bookcase where she sensed a demon, an ethereal dragon guarding the tower observatory and got as far as a room that looked like a giant chessboard. Keanna was unable to solve the mystery of the room, but she could tell that the demonic presence the Violet Eye had been looking into was somewhere beyond that room. The last entry mentioned a Legion agent arriving at the top of the tower.”

“So what does it say about that demon presence?” Mena asked.

“Long story short, we have a long climb ahead of us,” Stella answered.

“Let’s not waste time then,” Raida said.

The group left the guest quarters and returned to the ballroom balcony Where they turned right and entered the opera house.

A pair of skeletons approached them and held their hands out. “Tickets?” one of them requested.

Strangely enough, Mena reached into her hair and pulled out six opera tickets which she handed to the ushers. The skeletons stared at the tickets for a few moments, at least they believed they were since they only had eye sockets. One of the ushers pulled out a hole puncher and punched the tickets. “You will need to go backstage to reach the VIP section,” one of them instructed.

Warily, the group walked away from the ushers who paid them no mind. “Where did you get those tickets?” Bella asked.

“I found them, Moroes had a hidden pocket that had a bunch of them,” Mena explained.

None dared to question how the gnome found a hidden pocket on the steward and simply accepted the explanation.

The seats were packed with guests who had been waiting for a show for who knew how long and they would have preferred not to disturb them for fear of getting swarmed. They moved along the right wall of the auditorium where they spotted a backdoor to the stage. From there, they proceeded down a flight of stairs that led into a pit beneath the stage. As they moved across the pit, the sound of the stage organ was almost deafening as the organist continued playing without pause.

The party quickly moved to the door on the other side before they climbed a long, narrow ramping corridor that was only enough to go through single file. The next room had a wooden floor that seemed a bit rotten and was populated with ghostly actors who were busy rehearsing their lines. The actors and stagehands paid them no mind which allowed them to go through the backstage area without a problem. They had a feeling that the ghosts would have attacked if Mena hadn’t shown the ushers those tickets.

A blonde ghost wearing a white shirt and brown overalls was standing next to the door to the stage. He waved the group over to him. “Ah finally, the actor’s guild finally saw fit to send some new blood our way. Tell me, has Moroes finally decided to let the show go on?”

“Uhh yeah…he did,” Stella lied. Thankfully, there was no way for him to confirm this since Moroes was in pieces.

“Excellent, are you ready for your debut?”

“Debut? What do you mean?” Bella asked.

“You are to be the stars of our next performance of course. I’m Barnes, the stage manager, by the way.”

“But we’re not actors,” Flutashe argued.

“Oh don’t worry about that, you all look spectacular for the role. You are free to improvise as you wish. All you need to do is defeat the actors arranged for the performance.”

It looked like this was going to be another battle for them. Since they needed to get across the stage to move deeper into Karazhan, they had no choice but to go along with it.

“Alright, we’ll give it a shot,” Stella said.

“Splendid!” He then twirled around and he was suddenly in a fancy blue suit with a red cape. “I’ll get the audience ready. Break a leg!”

The stage door then opened and Barnes and the group passed through and onto the stage. The group stood to one side of the stage while Barnes took his place at center stage. A spotlight shined down on him.

”Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to this evening’s presentation! Tonight, we explore a tale of unity and friendship as three equine tribes who have been at war with one another for generations come together in a show of unity against a bone-chilling force that seeks to bring doom to them all.” The audience gasped. “Will their unity drive away the cold or will eternal winter claim their souls? And now, ON WITH THE SHOW!!” The audience applauded Barnes as he walked back to the stage door.

This was a strange occurrence for the group. Sophia raised an eyebrow when she heard the description as she felt like she heard that tale once before back in the real world. She would have to ask Twilight about that later. The others were interested in this show, especially since they had never heard of a story like that before in any of the literature they had read.

The curtain rose to a scene with a painting of an icy cavern for a background and several stalagmite props. In the center of the stage were three ghostly horses. One was a transparent brown stallion with a dark brown mane and white markings on his fetlocks and muzzle. Another was a ghostly silver-colored mare with a light blue mane and had a long horn on her head. She was also wearing a crown. The third was an ethereal pegasus stallion in a full set of barding. His form was a light blue color being emitted from the barding.

If the show was trying to be accurate with the story, Sophia had to guess that the vanilla stallion was Chancellor Puddinghead which would make the silver mare Princess Platinum and the armored stallion Commander Hurricane. She never thought that the theater troupe would use actual horses as actors though.

“I never thought I would have to share a cave with you lesser creatures,” ‘Platinum’ complained. “You pegasi are responsible for this terrible weather and making the dirt farmers hoard their food.”

“We had nothing to do with this weather!” ‘Hurricane’ shot back. “Maybe if you hornheads would do a better job of raising the sun, we wouldn’t be where we are now. Because of you, we have been lowered to raiding the lesser horses of their food stores.

“We only had enough for ourselves!” ‘Puddinghead’ snapped. “We can barely grow anything in this freezing weather. All you condescending horses do is look down on us from your clouds and ivory towers. Why should we give our food to those who don’t earn it?”

Platinum turned her head at the other two. “You two waste the air in here.” She then looked at the party. “More breathers to waste my precious air? I shall rectify that right now!” From her horn Platinum started launching frostbolts at them. Stella countered her casts and became the unicorn’s target.

“As if I would let you have all the catharsis, Platinum, I shall take my frustrations out on you, intruders!” Hurricane said before he swiftly closed the distance and kicked Mena into a wall. His electrified hooves gave the gnome a strong jolt. He proceeded to buck someone else but was lifted by a pair of feline arms and thrown against the background painting. Flutashe growled at him as he rose to his hooves. His spectral wings danced with electricity as he anticipated a challenge.

“I will prove to you both, here and now, why we who tend the land are not to be underestimated!” Puddinghead shouted before he stomped the stage. Several phantasmal stalagmites appeared beneath each party member. Raida, Stella and Bella were able to avoid the spikes by lifting themselves with their wings. Sophia floated over the stage while Flutashe’s instincts warned her of the threat before she rolled to the side. Mena was struck by a pillar and thrown to the other side of the stage. Thankfully the point of the pillar missed her.

Stella continued her duel with Platinum, the two flinging spells at each other or countering the other’s spells. The unicorn put up a barrier when the mage started flinging icicles infused with arcane energy which heavily impacted her shield. The barrier lasted three icicles which left two to strike her in the barrel and her flank.

As Platinum tried to get up to continue the fight, she was suddenly encased in ice. Stella looked around as she wasn’t the one who cast the spell.

Meanwhile, Flutashe continued her battle against Hurricane. She had to evade the stallion’s hooves to avoid getting electrocuted while slashing at his armor with her claws. The pegasus opened his wings and flapped them, releasing a strong gust of wind that knocked her to the background. He moved to strike her but felt the slash of a blade tear through his armor. Looking behind him, he felt several more slashes before he saw the attacker.

As he saw her, Raida knocked Hurricane toward the background where Flutashe was waiting to rip off his peytral to slash at the new opening.

Before the druid could follow up, she and Raida were forced to back away as Hurricane became encased in a tomb of ice.

Puddinghead proved resilient as he tanked several of Bella’s hammer strikes before he bucked her shield hard enough that she nearly fell off the stage. The stallion would have done so had he not paused as he felt his mind under attack by Surprise.

Puddinghead turned around to try to stomp on the gnome which only led to a hammer of light to his head. Not wanting to be in between the two, he leapt over Surprise and lowered his head while scraping the stage with a hoof preparing to charge. Bella positioned herself with her back to a stage wall while Surprise put herself between him and Bella. When the stallion charged, Surprise quickly dove to the side so Puddinghead decided to charge Bella instead. Anticipating this, she dove to the side as well when he got close which resulted in him slamming his head into the wall.

While Surprise attacked his mind again, Puddinghead was suddenly encased in ice.

The party looked around to find what had caused the horses to become frozen when they saw it. The creature looked like a cross between a horse and an air elemental that descended from the rafters above the stage.

“Your hatred will feed me for eternity!” the elemental cried.

The group suddenly realized that the temperature around them was beginning to drop and frost began to form on their bodies. They found that as long as they stayed moving they could keep the frost at bay for a time.

Stella used her fire spells as well as her red and black essences to assault the equine elemental who dodged some of the spells but still suffered harm from others. Raida unleashed her felfire magic on the elemental while the others used their own means to attack it.

Unfortunately, they found their attacks in vain as the creature drained energy from the three horses, healing its wounds.

“Guys, I think we need to free the horses from their prison,” Raida figured.

“Are you mad?” Bella protested. “Won’t they fight us as well?”

“It’s worth trying, we need to cut off its power source if we want to stop it,” Stella said.

Bella continued holding off the elemental while the others went to work attacking the ice imprisoning the horses. Puddinghead was the first to be free, followed by Platinum and Hurricane.

“So this is the source of the storm?” Hurricane figured.

“This uncouth creature dares assault the sacred kingdom of horses?” Platinum shouted, full of indignant rage.

“This thing looks strong, let us set aside our differences for now and show it the folly of its ways!” Puddinghead called out.

Between the party and the three horses, the elemental didn’t last long before its form destabilized.

Once the battle was over, both doors to the left and right of the stage opened with the horses retreating to the dressing room.

It didn’t take long to realize that the performance was over and that the party could move forward. Though they would still wonder where the story of this performance originated from, they had to focus on moving deeper into Karazhan as they still had a long way to go before they reached the top.

Author's Note

This appears to be my longest chapter yet. I'm not sure how this one got so long but it did.

As I was writing out the ballroom scene, this old song from the 70s kept running through my head.

I hope you all enjoyed my deviation from the usual Opera Event fights (Red Riding Hood, Wizard of Oz, Romulo and Julianne). The pictures I used were the best I could find. If anyone has any better images that I could have used then I will consider them.

The Haunted Tower, Part 2: Guardian's Library

Following the audience’s applause for their performance in the play, the group exited stage right and up a ramp to the auditorium’s balconies. They had no idea what that play was about, yet some tiny part of their minds felt that the play seemed somewhat familiar somehow. Regardless, they had a tower to climb.

They emerged from the ramp to a number of ghosts who appeared to be the wealthy patrons who frequented the tower for the plays. At least, that was the impression they got when they found several men in the balcony seats with several women hanging on to him. There were also female philanthropists who had other female patrons around her, likely to learn about the latest gossip, whatever passes as that in this place.

From this point the VIP tickets Mena used to get into the auditorium no longer had meaning as the ghosts were hostile toward them once more. The patrons were not difficult to deal with and the only thing the philanthropists did was throw money at them.

This went on until they reached the other end of the hallway where a ramp took them to the upper balconies where more wealthy ghosts awaited. They didn’t have to go as far on this floor before they found an archway that appeared to be an exit out of the auditorium.

The gilded auditorium with the marble flooring and numerous busts and tapestries soon gave way to dark and dilapidated halls once more. This area was inhabited by wraiths of various colors of green, purple and blue. Bella and Mena’s light magic quickly exorcized them into ectoplasmic orbs.

They soon came across a rectangular wooden double door which seemed to open on its own when they approached. On the other side was a set of stairs leading to a small portcullis which seemed to lead outside.

“This might be the other entrance Berthold told us about,” Stella figured.

They made a mental note of that before proceeding. Not far from there was another doorway under a ramp that appeared to lead to a terrace. However, the terrace appeared to be devoid of anything. Even the undead seemed to avoid this place. Stella had a feeling that something important happened here and she had a good idea what that was. She would still need the journal to know exactly where to put the urn though.

They left the terrace alone and resumed their climb up the tower by going up the ramp. Dealing with more wraiths, they briefly walked outside along a walkway which led back inside where they walked through a ruined section of the tower where the wall had blown out. They ended up climbing a number of flights of slightly rotted wooden stairs. They had to be extra careful not to fall off as the railings, whenever there were any, were not reliable.

They soon entered another arched hallway that led into a new area with a marbled floor and in much better shape.

However, they also encountered a pair of arcane golems like the ones they encountered in the Tempest Keep satellites. Stella quickly found that her usual strategy of pulling or overloading the power cores didn’t work this time as there was a barrier around their cores. Medivh had likely found the flaw in the design and made preventative measures to keep their weakness from being exploited.

Thanks to that, the group was forced to deal with the golems the normal way. Raida rushed in and emitted a green flame from her body that heated the area around her to metal-melting temperatures. This allowed her to deal heavier slashes with her warglaives because her Immolation Aura softened the metal the golems were made of. The others attacked the other golem with Stella using her magma breath to heat the metal on their golem while Bella pounded away at the heated areas with her hammer which left some large dents. Flutashe didn’t need the assistance as much since her cat form was pretty strong. Of course, slashing metal didn’t do her claws any favors.

Once the golems collapsed, the party moved onward past a room with the statue of a dwarven golem in the center and into a hallway infested with arcane elementals and mana wyrms, small serpentine creatures that were filled with arcane energy. The hallway itself appeared to be composed of rows of raven statues with eerily glowing green eyes and lines of chandeliers.

Dealing with the mana creatures was easy enough, even though the serpents tried to steal mana from Bella, Mena and Stella. The elementals protected themselves with a strong barrier that was powered by whatever magic they could afford to give from their forms. Without the shield they were extremely fragile. They also had to beware a massive arcane golem who appeared to be patrolling the room.

Once the hallway was clear the group prepared to face the golem. However, once the construct detected their presence, it moved faster than what they would expect for a huge construct. Though it was what it said that made them realize that they needed to take the fight seriously.

“[The menagerie is for guests only.]” it said in a smooth robotic voice.

They suddenly realized that they were in the menagerie which didn’t really look much different from the rest of the tower. Bella, frankly, expected something more along the lines of a museum of magical artifacts. Perhaps the artifacts were cleared out some time ago.

Though if this was the menagerie, this must be the golem that was guarding it.

Stella made an attempt to avoid conflict by showing her the key into Karazhan, hoping to make it recognize her as a guest. However, this was in vain from what the construct said next.

“[Error: guest recognition program malfunction. Running diagnostics…error: system corruption at sixty-five percent. User maintenance required, please give passcode for Curator system reboot.]”

They had no clue what the passcode could be so they had no choice but to fight the construct, which they guessed was called The Curator.

Given its size, Bella and Flutashe focused on dodging its massive hands while keeping its attention on them. Stella soon realized that The Curator had a thin arcane barrier around itself which dulled their attacks somewhat. Every now and then, the machine suddenly launched a powerful bolt of arcane magic at someone that they had to avoid.

“[This Curator is equipped for gallery protection,]” it said as its hands began sparking. Seeing that the intruders were persisting, The Curator diverted a portion of its mana stores to create a sentient spark of arcane magic. The spark arced lightning for a moment until Stella used her arcane manipulation to contain the spark in her hands.

Over time, The Curator created more sparks from its soon dwindling mana reserves and Stella continued drawing the sparks to her and containing them in her hands. It wasn’t long before its reserves ran out. Without its reserves, the arcane protection dulling their attacks was deactivated, allowing them to unleash their wrath upon it.

In its powered down state, The Curator stopped attacking and seemed to switch into a recharge mode as streams of arcane energy from around the tower began being pulled into it, recharging its systems. They weren’t sure how long they had to do some real harm to the machine but they were sure it wouldn’t be long.

Stella smirked as she came up with a devious idea on how to really do some damage to the machine. She was sure that there was a limit to how much mana The Curator could take in all at once and if she fired all of the sparks back at it, which she figured the thaums amounted to the construct’s full capacity, it would overload its systems. There was also the risk that doing this might cause The Curator to blow up a huge chunk of Karazhan and them with it, but she also considered banking on someone like Medivh putting an emergency mana battery on it somewhere that would mitigate the potential damage caused by a mana surge.

She was glad her hunch paid off because when she unleashed the power at it when its capacity was nearly full, some of its parts erupted in minor explosions and severely damaged the construct. One explosion exposed an emergency core in its head which had likely absorbed most of the excess energy.

“[Danger: power levels within Curator unit at one hundred and ninety-seven percent. Initiating emergency shut down until power levels are within safe parameters.]” Once the machine said that, it stopped moving entirely.

“Let’s get out of here before it bleeds off that extra power,” Stella said. The others nodded and quickly moved past the golem, turning a corner and coming into the next room.

The next room was a librarian’s dream. Bookshelves lined the walls of the area as well as shelves full of experimental concoctions that had likely long since lost their potency. Books that were not on the shelves were either on small tables or thrown out onto the floor haphazardly.

In a certain observation room, a certain unicorn templar made a comment about the library resembling a certain princess’s library a thousand years ago. Of course, said princess was still on her trip to the Crystal Empire at his time.

Once they entered the library, they had to deal with a pair of golems like the two they faced at the entrance to the menagerie. Strangely, they were standing next to a bonfire.

Before they moved forward, Mena looked around the library but when she looked up her eyes shrank by what she saw. “Girls, look up.”

The others followed the gnome’s eyes and had the same reaction. The ceiling of the library looked like it was falling away into the sky but the pieces of the structure were suspended in the air at the same time. The sky above looked like it had a green tint to it.

“What in Elune’s name is that?” Raida asked. She may have been a fel-infused demon hunter but she still held some reverence for the Moon Goddess.

“If I were to guess, that’s probably a rift into the Twisting Nether,” Stella said. “From what I read in the Dalaran archives, Karazhan is where the barriers between worlds are at their weakest. The rift will distort reality in the tower to a degree that depends on how much power is in the area, be it a being or an artifact.”

They then descended a ramp into the library proper and encountered larger golems. These proved to be more troublesome as they had a defense program that allowed them to shoot arcane bolts at whoever hit them with either a melee weapon or a spell. Stella discovered which protocol they used when they mentioned “EL-7M”, which reacted to weapon strikes, and “EL-2S”, which reacted to when it was struck by spells. There was also a mention of “EL-5R” but they found that the golems didn’t react to any of their attacks while in that mode.

The library also had an infestation of arcane elementals and mana wyrms. While the arcane elementals were no trouble, the wyrms proved to be an aggravation as they soon realized that it had an ability that nullified any magic sent at it. Mena and Surprise’s light and void magics were nullified, Stella’s spells and essence attacks, which still had some magical nature to them, were nullified, and Bella’s holy strikes were rendered mundane. Only Flutashe’s claws and Raida’s swift slashes had any real effect on the wyrms. Because of how annoying they were, Sophia also chipped in by grabbing wyrms by their heads and crushing their skulls one by one.

Once the ground floor of the library was mostly cleared, Stella spotted a trio of purple-robed ghosts, the outfits she recognized as Kirin Tor robes. They must have been the missing agents. Despite the commotion, they continued looking through the books and scrolls in the library.

“Hello? Can you three hear me?” Stella asked. The three ignored her.

“Chances are they were looking for the journal but got distracted by the selection in the library so now their ghosts are obsessing over the knowledge,” Sophia figured.

Stella decided to ask the three agents if they had seen Medivh’s journal. She desperately hoped one of them had seen it because if she couldn’t get anything out of them then they were stuck.

The first agent directed her to another and the second directed her to the third. The third, Kamsis, was able to give her the lead she needed. “Medivh’s journal…I think it’s coming back to me. I think I had it at one time until this nice mage named Aran came by and asked for it. I just had to give it to him, he is Medivh’s father after all.”

“Aran? Nielas Aran?” Stella inquired.

“Do you know about him?” Bella asked.

“He was the court conjurer of the Kingdom of Stormwind during the reign of King Llane Wrynn. He’s a powerful mage and the father of Medivh. And I fear that we are going to be fighting his ghost for that journal.”

“Just one more interesting fight to look forward to,” Raida shrugged.

It was time to continue forward. The group ascended a spiraling ramp to an upper level which led them into a large circular room with more bookshelves and more books on the floor. The uncontained magic in the tower had also formed numerous arcane elementals and mana shades, ghostly beings saturated in mana.

“We have to be careful around those smaller elementals,” Stella warned. “They are highly unstable and will be prone to exploding. Even if I drain the mana from them, that energy has to go somewhere and there aren’t a lot of safe places to unleash such energy.”

“So how do we keep them from not blowing up?” Raida asked.

“We need to stun them while we destroy their bindings.”

“I’ll prepare an attack that can stun them all at once,” Sophia offered. “You will have to make sure to get all of them before it wears off since I’m pretty sure it will push them into exploding once it does.”

The mana shades could, apparently, cast spells like a mage so Stella dealt with them. The larger elementals were not complicated to deal with since all they really did was fire arcane bolts at everyone. Once Sophia unleashed her psionic disruption pulse, tuned to the frequency of the elementals to avoid affecting the others, Surprise quickly sliced off several bracers with her Shadow Blades while Raida quickly sliced off the rest using her speed. The smaller elementals harmlessly dissipated back into the flowing magic of the tower.

Once the shades and elementals were cleared out of the room, the group proceeded up a walkway into a smaller room with more bookshelves and a number of mana shades who were quickly disposed of by Stella.

The next walkway led them into a gathering of Shadow Council warlocks and pale gray imps. Their presence was unusual since they were alive and there had been no sign of their presence in Karazhan until now. Regardless, they were quickly dispatched.

As they were about to proceed,Sophia felt the presence of minds that were coming from…inside the walls…? “Hey girls, hold on a second. Do any of you sense the presence of a demon nearby?”

“It’s hard to feel their presence with all this nether energy around us,” Raida said. “But I can feel something. It’s faint, but it’s there.” Using her Spectral Vision, Raida detected demons inside the walls. “Is there some side route to get to them?”

“I think I have an idea,” Stella said. She began feeling around the nearby bookcase, more specifically the one that was more outward than the two next to it. A little bit of force allowed her to move the bookshelf aside to reveal a hidden passage. “Aha! Figures that a place like this would have a hidden passage or two somewhere.”

The group filed into the passage and explored its brief, yet seeming empty, hallway. At the end, they found a room that contained a few alchemy labs and two racks of lit green candles at the back corners of the room along with a demonic ritual circle in the center of the room surrounded by candles. There were also a fair number of imps in the room along with a larger orange imp and a red satyr.

Bella and Mena quickly lured out and disposed of the lesser imps through their holy magic before they entered the room.

“Ah, you’re just in time. The rituals are about to begin,” the satyr said with a smooth voice. “Allow me to introduce myself, I am Terestian Illhoof. Now, let us begin.”

Terestian made the mistake of magically pulling Sophia into the ritual circle and binding her in chains. A precision psionic lightning strike shattered the chains and halted the ritual. In retaliation, she then grabbed the orange imp, threw him to the floor and crushed his skull with her foot.

“Try that again and you can fight them without your arms,” she warned.

Strangely, Terestian grunted in pain, as if killing the imp had caused him some pain as well. Seeing this as a moment of weakness, the others charged in and began assaulting him with their respective weapons and spells.

Despite the overwhelming aggression, Terestian managed to resummon the orange imp again and his pained expression faded. Raida picked up on the connection and quickly summoned Loki who grabbed the imp and self-destructed, killing both of them and causing the satyr to howl in agony again. Raida mentally made a note to reward her imp for that.

Raida used her warglaives like scissors to decapitate Terestian.

With that detour finished, the group returned to the original path. The next walkway brought them to another small room with mana shades which Stella dealt with before they found two more paths for them to explore. One appeared to be a walkway that was built along a wall leading into another room where they saw part of what was likely another mana shade while the other led to a large wooden door.

Suspecting that the former path would lead further upward, they decided to check out the door. They found that it opened with a loud creak and led into a circular library with a few books on the floor and a few tables around the room.

More importantly was the ghost of an elderly mage dressed in ornate robes in shades of purple.

Stella remembered his picture from the archives. She was certain that this was Nielas Aran and if he was going to react to their presence like most of the ghosts in this tower, they were in for quite a battle. At this time, the conjurer was looking through some books with his back turned to them.

Once everyone was inside, the door shut behind them with a loud creak and a bang. Nielas turned around and quickly began channeling magic. “Wh-who are you? What do you want from me?”

“Easy Nielas, we just want to talk,” Stella gently spoke.

“I don’t know you. Are you thieves here to ransack my tower?” Nielas asked, his anxiety showing no signs of letting up.

“I am an agent of Dalaran, we have need of your son’s journal. We believe that it contains information that is vital to our quest.”

“And what quest would that be, girl?”

“We need it to discover the moment of death of the blue dragon Arcanagos. After Medivh burned him from the inside out, his remains have been haunting the tower since. We need his heart for our quest.”

“I would call you fools for trying to take on that beast, but seeing as you managed to get this far you might stand a chance. I will make you a deal, miss…”

“Stella, sir.”

“Miss Stella, I wish for you to end my miserable existence in this tower. However, my pride would not allow me to simply be destroyed. I was the court conjurer of the Kingdom of Stormwind and I refuse to go down with a whimper. Therefore, I challenge you to a magic duel to the death! Destroy my form and you will have my son’s journal, but I will also be trying to kill you as well.”

Stella had no choice but to accept, not only for the book but to honor the old ghost’s wish to be free from the tower’s curse, though she had a feeling that it wouldn’t be that easy.

“I accept your challenge.”

“Very well, your allies shall wait outside then.” Nielas then teleported everyone but Stella out of the library. With any potential for interference eliminated, the two were free to begin their duel.

Nielas began by sending a few fireballs at Stella who teleported away and countered with several frostbolts. Nielas raised a barrier which absorbed the shots. He followed up with several waves of Arcane Missiles which crashed against an icy barrier.

The two spent several minutes firing bolts of fire, frost and arcane at each other before they decided that the warm up was over. “I’ll freeze you!” he declared before he conjured a blizzard that chilled half of the room in a semicircle where the storm rotated slowly. Stella took this opportunity to bombard the conjurer with fire spells which broke through his barrier and burned him a little. Of course, since he was a ghost, he didn’t remain that way for long though it still drained his corporeal stability.

Nielas put a stop to the mage’s fiery assault with a counterspell to lock her mind out of that school of magic temporarily though he underestimated her adaptability when she quickly switched to frostbolts and ice lances which forced him to conjure a molten barrier to block and melt the attacks.

“Impressive, young mage, or are you perhaps an archmage?” Nielas asked.

“I haven’t earned that rank yet, though my master told me that I could become one with some worldly experience.”

Nielas chuckled. “If your skills are as good as you claim, I will need to fight harder.”

The conjurer raised the intensity by conjuring several water elementals around the room before he bound her feet in place with ice and surrounded her with a circle of fire. Stella had a feeling that she would get more than singed if she crossed the circle. Though Nielas wasn’t finished as he conjured another rotating blizzard. Stella really began to feel the pressure when she sensed him gathering a high volume of arcane energy, likely intending on unleashing a powerful arcane explosion.

He was not giving her any room to escape his attacks this time. She could easily escape the situation with her essence powers, but she wanted this to be a fair magic duel. Instead, she raised an icy barrier and performed a short-range teleport to escape her icy bindings, though this also triggered the Flame Wreath spell which impacted and shattered her barrier. The barrier managed to absorb most of the blast.

The water elementals began unleashing their own attacks which forced her to teleport around to avoid them. She then teleported into a small alcove and raised an ice wall just in time for Nielas to unleash his arcane explosion which shattered the ice wall and pushed Stella back to the library wall.

As the elementals closed in on her, she decided to give them something else to distract them. For each water elemental, she conjured a fire and an arcane elemental for each of them.

“You continue to impress me, Stella. I have never been pushed this far while I was alive. Though do forgive me for I need to replenish my magic.” He then channeled a spell that she was familiar with and she was not about to allow him to get his way. Spotting a nearby mirror, she used her telekinesis magic to pull it to her just in time for him to cast the spell which got reflected back at him. However, the spell wasn’t designed to work on the dead so he was unaffected by it. He then tried to launch a powerful fireball spell, a Pyroblast, to incinerate her but she ended up countering that spell before bombarding him with icicles.

The shards pushed Nielas back to the other end of the room from her which gave her room to unleash her own Pyroblast which broke through his barrier and blasted him back into a wall. Stella didn’t let up as she unleashed a barrage of arcane missiles until mana exhaustion took her and she fell to her hands and knees breathing heavily.

Nielas emerged from the cloud of dust which was kicked up by her assault. Despite that, his form was too unstable to continue fighting. He chuckled again, “You are an amazing sorceress, Stella. You have been taught well. If there are more magi of your caliber, I believe the future looks bright.” He then pulled out Medivh’s journal and slid it on the floor to her. “Alas, the magic of this tower keeps all souls bound to it. Every soul who was defeated here shall return in time. Even though I have been defeated, I cannot rest until my son frees me from my captivity.”

“But Medivh is dead,” Stella informed.

“An echo of himself remains to protect the secrets of this tower. You seek his journal to face the dragon he had wronged, but your quest in here is not limited to that, is it? If you seek to eliminate the demon atop this tower, you and my son’s echo are likely to meet soon. Be wary, young mage, the worst that this place will bring upon you is soon to come.” Once he said that, his form fell apart, his soul returning to the magical aether that the tower kept contained, awaiting his renewal.

The door was forcefully opened a moment later as Raida, Bella, Mena and Flutashe fell into the library. Sophia was behind them watching in amusement.

“We might have gotten this door opened sooner if you had helped, Sophia,” Raida groused.

“One, doors that are supernaturally locked are not so easy to open, unless you intend on causing destruction to the tower which, need I remind you, that we are hundreds of feet above the library floor,” Sophia said. “Two, that door was locked so you wouldn’t consider interfering with their duel. All you could really do was trust that Stella would succeed and seeing that she is still here and still alive with the journal at her feet, she did.”

Raida grumbled as she and the others got back on their feet before they moved to congratulate Stella for her victory in the duel. However, they kept the celebration short since they still had a way to go inside the tower before they were done.

Stella looked through the entries in the journal, while drinking a few bottles of conjured water to replenish her magic, to find the entry pertaining to the dragon he encountered. She found an entry related to the dragon and his mother, the Guardian Aegwynn, infiltrating the tower to make him leave which ended with him banishing her and killing the dragon by burning him from the inside out.

Using a memory resonance spell, Stella used the journal to track the location of this memory. As she expected, the spell led them downward, likely toward the abandoned terrace. Wasting no time, she had everyone gather around her before she prepared a mass teleport to the terrace while also leaving an anchor in the library for once they returned.

Once the spell was cast, those around Stella, except Sophia, were overcome by a wave of nausea as they experienced the disorientation of the teleport.

“Ugh…why did we teleport instead of portalling like usual?” Raida asked.

“With the rift into the Nether, it’s too risky that the energies might interfere with portals. I could end up creating one to a distant world by accident,” Stella explained. “We will be doing that again once we are finished with Nightbane.”

The group got to work looking for the location of the memory. Stella continued using her spell to track the location as she moved from one side of the terrace to the other. The journal soon gave off a bright light which manifested into two transparent images. One was the familiar form of Medivh while the other was a blue dragon, Arcanagos.

“Wow, was the journal holding their souls or something?” Mena asked.

“These are memory manifestations,” Stella explained. “We can’t interact with them, only observe what transpired.”

Once Stella finished that statement, the two figures began playing out their confrontation.

“You have gotten my attention, dragon. You’ll find I’m not as easily scared as the villagers below,” Medivh said.

“Your dabbling in the arcane has gone too far, Medivh. You’ve attracted the attention of powers beyond your understanding. You must leave Karazhan at once!” Arcanagos warned.

“You dare challenge me at my own dwelling? Your arrogance is astounding, even for a dragon.”

“A dark power seeks to use you, Medivh! If you stay, dire days will follow. You must hurry, we don’t have much time!”

“I do not know what you speak of, dragon, but I will not be bullied by this display of insolence. I’ll leave Karazhan when it suits me!”

“You leave me no alternative. I will have to stop you by force if you won’t listen to reason.”

The dragon and magus dueled with magic for a short time with Arcanagos deflecting a Pyroblast back at Medivh which injured him. He was not deterred, however, as he poured his essence into a powerful fire spell which struck from within the dragon’s body.

Roaring in pain, Arcanagos retreated into the distance unable to put out the magical flames eating him from the inside out. Medivh used his staff as a crutch as he returned inside his tower to recover his strength.

The memory ended there. Stella sighed at the tragic event that took place. “Neither Aegwynn, Arcanagos, nor anyone had any idea at the time that Medivh was corrupted from birth by the Dark Titan Sargeras. Arcanagos tried to reason with who was, in a way, Sargeras’ avatar.

Raida and Flutashe gasped as they were the ones who had any idea who Sargeras really was.

“I had heard that someone looking like Medivh guided the Alliance and Horde to Kalimdor where they faced the Legion at the climax of the Third War,” Flutashe said. “Why would someone controlled by the Dark Titan aid in the defense of this world?”

“Probably because Sargeras’ influence left him when he died,” Stella guessed. “It may have been some echo of the magus free of dark influence who guided the Alliance and Horde.”

Stella pulled out the urn from her dimensional pocket and set it in the place about where the memory of Medivh stood before. “Get ready,” Stella warned as she prepared a fire spell to set the ashes alight. “Once the ashes are burning, Medivh’s essence will likely call Nightbane here.

Everyone nodded and drew their weapons as Stella set a small Fireball into the urn an instant before the ashes caught fire.

An unearthly roar could be heard in the distance, a sound that seemed familiar to Raida and Flutashe. After about a minute, the group spotted a skeletal dragon flying toward them which refreshed the two night elves’ memories as they remembered fighting such creatures during the Battle of Mount Hyjal, except this one was burning instead of radiating a chilling aura.

Nightbane passed over their heads and turned around as he made a slow descent toward the terrace. Once he was directly above the terrace, he flapped his wings to halt his momentum before he dropped onto the terrace, prompting everyone to dive away from his landing location.

Bella struck the dragon’s skull with her hammer to gain his attention though she had to dodge his claws and fangs. His enormous size caused damage to the structure around him.

Nightbane’s large size made moving around difficult, though the intense heat his body was giving off was making Bella sweat. The heat was likely due to Medivh’s spell persisting long after the dragon’s death. Stella placed fire resistance spells on everyone to make the heat tolerable.

Nightbane breathed ash into the air which created a choking cloud and partially blinded those within the cloud. Stella conjured some chilling winds to blow away the ash cloud before sending several icicles at the skeleton which partially melted before they impacted on him.

Raida used her Black Eye Beam on the dragon which formed crystals on his ribcage. He quickly turned around to face the others before he slammed his side with the crystals into the building to knock them off before he “inhaled”.

Seeing the danger that was coming, Sophia quickly moved in and delivered an uppercut to Nightbane’s jaw which forced his head upward where he released the fiery breath into the air which created another smoke cloud that Stella blew away. Before the dragon could recover, Flutashe jumped over his head and slammed her paws on Nightbane’s skull which heavily impacted the ground, cracking it and Nightbane’s skull.

Now irritated with the way the ground battle was going, Nightbane flapped his wings and took to the air again where he hovered just beyond the terrace. Stella, Mena, and Raida continued firing spells at the dragon before they noticed him pulling numerous skeletons from the nearby graveyard at the bottom of the tower. The group prepared to evade as Nightbane launched the bones into the terrace before placing a little magic into them to animate them.

The group was forced to deal with the skeletal horde while waiting for Nightbane to change his tactics. For some reason, he continued with the same tactic where as the group was dealing with one skeletal horde, he would call on more skeletons from the graveyard to attack them with. Given how many people died in the tower, Nightbane could keep using this tactic all day while wearing them out.

Sophia wasn’t having that so she jumped onto the rooftop of the terrace before leaping toward Nightbane who was pulling another batch of skeletons from the ground. She reached the dragon’s back and began pulling on his wing bones which broke his concentration and caused him to drop the skeletons while also causing him to temporarily lose control of his flying. She then grabbed onto the horns on his head as Nightbane regained control of his flying. However, she forced his head downward which rendered him unable to see where he was flying.

The group moved out of the way as the templar made the dragon crash into the terrace rooftop which caused part of the structure to collapse while the skeletal dragon slid down the domed rooftop and onto the terrace walkway in a heap.

While Nightbane was recovering, the group unleashed their attacks on the dragon to cause as much damage to him as they could before he retaliated. The dragon proved resilient but an Eye Beam and Chaos Bolt to his head shattered part of his skull. This was followed by Sophia slamming her fists into the dragon’s back and shattering his ribcage against the terrace.

That was when Stella discovered the source of the dragon’s heat. Where his heart once was, there was now a ring that radiated flames. That was probably the Blazing Signet that one naga prisoner was looking for.

Nightbane reared up and prepared to unleash a torrent of flames until Stella fired a beam of concentrated frost at the signet in his ribcage. Instead of breathing fire, Nightbane ended up roaring instead as his flames began to weaken. Acting quickly, Stella placed her best fire protections on herself before flying into the ribcage to grab the ring before making her escape.

When the ring was removed, Nightbane lost the source of his magical power and began to fall apart. Within moments, the dragon skeleton collapsed and ceased movement.

Once they were certain the battle was over, Stella stored the ring in a dimensional pocket in case it flared to life again.

“I hope we don’t have much more of this crazy tower to explore, these battles are starting to wear me out,” Raida said.

“Agreed,” Bella added.

The others voiced their agreements while Stella prepared another teleport to return them to the library. “The library should be safe enough for us to take a break and regain our strength,” Stella said. “Let’s make sure we’re at full strength before we tackle what I hope are the last parts of this tower.”

With the spell complete, the group vanished from the crumbling terrace.

The Haunted Tower, Part 3: Netherspace