Seekers of the Epitaph: Frozen Wastes

Chapters

Fate of the Damned
Jaqueline Appleblight
Journey to the North
The Vrykul
The Pinnacle
Exploring Northrend
The Spider Kingdom
Fallen Stronghold
Magical Prison Escape
The Wrathgate Incident
The Old Kingdom

Fate of the Damned

After returning home from the Isle of Quel’Danas and bringing an end to a demonic invasion before it even started, things had settled down for the time being.

Shortly after the Battle of the Sunwell, Flutashe brought Raida to Darnassus and though the demon hunter was met with the expected hostile looks, being around her respected sister had kept the matter from escalating. Raida was brought before Tyrande as one of the heroes who helped drive Kil’jaeden from Azeroth. Tyrande never held any particular hatred toward demon hunters as she still cared for Illidan, though it still frightened her of the lengths that he would go to achieve victory against the Legion. Maiev was with them, though the grumbles that were heard told everyone that she would rather be any place but here.

Maiev bitterly spoke on behalf of Raida, pointing out her contributions in the elimination of the treacherous Kael’thas Sunstrider. As much as she hated Tyrande for involving their people in the affairs of the Alliance and the Illidari for defiling themselves in demonic taint, she also had her honor and she would not see it tarnished by welshing on a bet. As much as she hated to admit it, Raida played a big role in the Legion’s downfall.

After fulfilling her end of the bargain, Maiev quickly moved to leave the city before something else came up to aggravate her.

However, she would have one more before she was left in peace. As she was leaving, Maiev was stopped by Sophia who leaned on a pillar nearby. “As commendable as it is to strive in the pursuit of justice, is it really justice that you are pursuing? Or is it the illusion of justice shrouding the avatar of vengeance?”

“What could you possibly know about justice, creature?” Maiev snarled.

“I know that pride is the poison that corrupts justice. It doesn’t take insight to know that your pride has clouded your vision, Maiev. It’s the kind of hubris that will provide our enemies an advantage in the days to come.”

“You dare accuse me of arrogance!?”

“I dare because it is the driving force behind our enemies. The Gurubashi and the Amani trolls remembered their glory days in ancient times and they lost themselves to that past and became a threat to everyone. The kal’dorei–”

“The kal’dorei do not seek to reclaim a dead empire and all elements that represented that line of thinking were exiled millennia ago!” Maiev snapped.

Sophia continued, “--like you believe that they can survive in this world without outside help and that in itself is arrogant. If every night elf thought like you, your civilization would have been crushed by the Legion during the last invasion and this world would have fallen. Don’t try to deny it, you know I’m right. The Battle of Mount Hyjal was won with the aid of orcs and humans. Let’s be honest, do you seriously believe that the night elves alone would have delayed Archimonde long enough for Malfurion to set his trap?”

As much as she didn’t want to admit it, she had to concede that point to Sophia. She didn’t like the thought one bit but she couldn’t deny the necessity of allies at that time.

Sophia walked ahead of Maiev, pulling out a tiny crystal shard. She gave one last sidelong glance to the warden and left her with a warning, “Times are changing, and the kal’dorei can no longer afford to stagnate. You need allies and can’t afford to pick and choose who your allies are. Thanatas said that the Lich King will soon become active once again and he will bring his endless tide of undead upon us all.”

With that, the templar charged her psionic power into the crystal before her entire body twisted and warped into the shard. The shard fell to the ground and shattered to dust.

Maiev was left alone and her mood was even more foul than before; not for her hatred of those around her, but for the frustration that the templar gave her a lot to think about.

The following weeks were busy for everyone. As promised, Bella and Lokosh got together and forged armor and weapons for their friends. Since Farra’jin, and Feloma preferred scale mail over leather armor, Bella fashioned armor using the scaly creatures of Outland. The fel taint reinforced the durability of the scales. She also made new robes for Talia and Groun as well as some plate mail for Lokosh.

From Lokosh, he crafted weapons that matched the preferences of the others as well as a new shield for himself and Bella. Bella asked the orc to make her a war hammer for those times when she didn’t need to protect or provide support.

Lokosh struggled to create a warglaive for Raida because it was a type of weapon that he had never crafted before, even as Steel Edge. He would need to learn from an Illidari weaponsmith to make a weapon for the demon hunter.

As it turned out, the radiance from the Sunwell had given Mena enough light to balance her void power to allow her to use the wings that A’dal gave her. She had a feeling that she would need to think of an alternative means of flying in the future, especially as the eldritch horror within her consumed more Old Gods.

Feloma showed off the power of her new bow which she discovered was named Thori’dal. While the weapon resonated with the power of the Sunwell, no blood elf alive knew how it was made or where it came from. It was still one of the most powerful bows out there. The huntress admired the weapon for a while but made sure not to neglect the needs of Autumn and Summer, her lynx and dragonhawk pets.

Stella was back in Dalaran as the mages celebrated the full restoration of the city and the lowering of the shield that had taxed the ley line for years. However, she had other concerns at this time.

Apparently several Kirin Tor mages were sent to investigate a magic disturbance in Northrend but never returned. The dracthyr could only hope that this wasn’t an ill omen, especially since they were sent to a place that was reportedly the home of the Blue Dragonflight and Malygos’ seat of power.

It also didn’t help that the number of natural disasters were on the rise lately. The disasters were also reported to be magical in nature. Stella couldn’t help but wonder what the Blue Aspect was doing by allowing all these disasters to happen.

Everyone else made their preparations for the days ahead. The next big threat was right around the corner and they needed to be ready.

The last month of the year came but the denizens of Azeroth were perplexed about an event that had occurred lately. Apparently, everyone was ordered by their leaders and rulers to receive a mandatory vaccine injection. The neutral towns like Booty Bay or Gadgetzan were also subjected to the vaccines. When the goblins asked why they needed to take them they were told that they received a tip that the Scourge might be distributing plagued goods again like last year.

When Booty Bay received a mysterious shipment with no identification on the source, Baron Revilgaz, the ruler of the town, ordered the shipment burned and blasted by cannonfire. As much as he would have loved to make a quick gold selling anything of value, zombified customers held no long term profit potential.

When Stormwind received the vaccines, Sophia knew where they came from and assured Varian that they were necessary to combat the latest Scourge plague. The King was reminded of what could have been if last year’s plague hadn’t been halted before it spread.

The vaccine distribution had prevented a massive zombie outbreak but the week after the distribution was when the situation escalated.

One day, a number of floating Scourge necropoli appeared over the airspace of Orgrimmar and Stormwind. Not only that, but Thanatas alerted her through the link that they were attacking Theramore as well. Thankfully, Thanatas’ sister, Zoias volunteered to defend the town.

When the Scourge attacked Stormwind Harbor, the defenses were quickly disabled when a large number of frost wyrms swooped in and froze them with their icy breath, leaving an army of abominations to be teleported into the harbor by the necropolis. Bella, Mena, Flutashe and Raida were there to assist the guards against the stitched horrors and the assistance of the Illidari made quick work of them. Sophia dealt with the wyrms by jumping on one and forcing it to attack their allies. The city’s mages attacked the necropolis with fire and frost spells to drive it over the water before Sophia shattered its control crystal by grabbing her dragon’s head and hurling it with enough force to shatter it, causing the large structure to fall into the sea.

Once the last of the Scourge forces were defeated, the defenders cheered in celebration while Varian knew that this attack was a declaration of war by the Lich King…by Arthas.

Of course, he had already made his response months ago. He was recently notified from Bolvar that they had nearly finished the construction of Valgarde on the eastern side of the continent and was in the middle of constructing another foothold called Valiance Keep on the western side.

In Orgrimmar, Thanatas sat next to Sylvanas in the arena and watched with boredom as she saw Garrosh and Thrall dueling. The brash brown orc was irritated with the warchief for his inaction against the Scourge and the humans while Thrall wished to assess the situation before making action. Thanatas partially agreed with both of their sentiments but it seemed that Garrosh was going to be as much of a headache as she knew he was going to be.

When the gates of the city came under attack by the Scourge forces, she left the two idiots to their fighting and walked out of the gates for some open space before she cast off her flesh and armor form to assume her giant bone dragon form before taking the fight to the frost wyrms above them.

With Lokosh and the others as well as the city guards defending the ground, Thanatas handled the air by shattering the dragon skeletons one by one before attacking the necropolis itself.

Once the structure was rubble and the undead forces defeated, Thanatas landed and saw the two orcs who saw most of the fight. Though instead of waiting for the two to answer the questions that she knew were coming, she cut them off with her own response, “So are you two going to stand there and take what just happened or are you going to act like orcs and get your asses to Northrend?”

Garrosh didn’t need to be told twice as he began to gather an army to march on the frozen north. Thrall decided to let his friend take the lead on this one. Thanatas knew that Sylvanas had already sent her forsaken to Northrend months ago.

The battle at Theramore was over quickly with the abominations wiped out in seconds from being impaled by earthen spikes and the frost wyrms were knocked out of the sky by high velocity boulders. Jaina destroyed the necropolis crystal herself.

The situation in the Plaguelands had not improved over the last year but neither had it become worse. The Scourge and the Argent Dawn had reached a stalemate in their ongoing conflict.

Jaqueline had been with the Argent Dawn for nearly a year now and the lack of progress had begun to annoy her. Whenever they made a push against a Scourge holding, the enemy defenders were fortified with forces from Naxxramas which drove their forces into a retreat.

The massive necropolis hovered over the Plaguelands like a symbol of oppression. As long as that floating fortress stood, the Argent Dawn was stuck defending Light’s Hope Chapel.

To make matters worse, Jaqueline had been having brief bouts of chest pains for the past few months. She guessed that they were related to her battles against the undead but she felt the pain while resting as well. In the past few weeks the pain had intensified and lasted longer each time. The warrior had been struggling to get any restful sleep in the past few days because of the pain.

When she told the Argent medics about her pains they suggested staying out of the field for a while and resting but Jaqueline wasn’t about to heed that advice. As long as her farm was still in control of the Scourge, she would never stop fighting.

A few days after the Scourge assault on the main cities of the Alliance and Horde, the Argent knights received some intel that brought them hope in this war but also a sense of dread. They learned that Naxxramas had just vanished. They also learned that the ruler of Stratholme, Baron Titus Rivendare, had left his son Aurius in charge while he vanished with the citadel.

The Argent knights knew that this would be their best chance to reclaim the City of Stratholme from the Scourge. For this, they assembled a vanguard to assault the city. Despite her health, Jaqueline stubbornly volunteered to be a part of the vanguard. Lord Maxwell Tyrosus, leader of the Argent Dawn, was reluctant to allow her to go to Stratholme. He knew about her failing health and that this mission might be too much for her.

He didn’t deny that she was one of his best knights, though. Weighing the options and what he knew was lurking in the city, he went against his better judgement and allowed her to join the assault on the condition that she take it easy with the fighting. He knew she wouldn’t; she always pushed herself too far. Regardless, he needed her for this operation.

A few hours later, a group of Argent knights, composed of a few paladins and Jaqueline, dismounted their horses in front of the city’s eastern service entrance.

The lead knight who carried a shield that proudly displayed the order’s emblem pulled out a key that they acquired from the city magistrate during a prior assault on the city. Upon inserting and turning the key in the lock beside the portcullis, the metal door opened with a clunk. The knights then lifted the gate and proceeded inside.

At the other end of the small entry tunnel, they had to lift another portcullis to enter the city proper. The burnt out remains of the city were still on fire. It was a mystery how the fires could still burn for years without the entire city turning to ash.

Greeting the vanguard was a horde of zombies and skeletons looking ravenous for their flesh. The Argent protector charged into them with his shield before blessing the ground around him which burned the unholy fiends. Two paladins who wielded war hammers rushed into the horde and blasted them with holy magic and scattered their bones across the street. Jaqueline swung wide and decimated many more zombies and a few skeletons.

Once the horde was defeated, the vanguard proceeded past a chapel that appeared empty but also gave them a feeling of welcome. The paladins could sense that the chapel remained hallowed after all this time. It made sense since this was the very chapel where the first paladins were ordained before the Second War.

The vanguard moved to the end of the street and lifted another pair of gates that would lead them into another section of the city. The new section was infested with all manner of undead, featuring ghouls, banshees, crypt fiends, low-flying gargoyles and necromancers.

The group had their work cut out for them as the protector ran in and drew the attention of the undead before Jaqueline and the others joined in the fighting. During the fighting, Jaqueline saw a shade manifest and call out that the living were in the city and attempted to summon more gargoyles but the warrior rushed in and destroyed it with a single strike.

At a fork in the road, the group took a left and faced more undead until they encountered a building that was unlike the architecture found in the city. They recognized it as a Scourge ziggurat that the undead used to fortify their holdings. This one had a giant black crystal floating above it. The front entrance was guarded by a crypt fiend.

Little did they know, this was a particularly fierce nerubian named Nerub’enkan. Upon spotting the intruders, she unleashed a number of scarabs to attack them. The protector burned the insects with consecrated ground. Nerub’enkan skittered down the steps of the ziggurat to engage them in combat. She barely jumped out of the way of a slash from Jaqueline before she raised the fallen scarabs from the dead so they could attack once again. This distracted Jaqueline to deal with the bugs again while the two war hammer-wielding paladins struck the nerubian with powerful force, sending her back a distance.

Wounded, but not deterred, Nerub’enkan waited for her enemies to come to her. The protector ran toward her which was what she was hoping for as she leaped over the protector and behind the two war hammer paladins. She grabbed both of them by the neck but ended up with one of her claws cut off by Jaqueline which released one of the paladins.

Nerub’enkan leaped to the wall of a nearby gatehouse with her prey who was screaming in panic as he tried to strike her with his hammer. She slammed the paladin’s face into the wall hard enough that he dropped his hammer. With her prey disarmed, she wrapped the paladin into a silk cocoon and tossed the victim into the gatehouse. She then dropped the portcullis to trap the paladin inside.

By this point, Jaqueline managed to get close enough to the nerubian for her to hurl her sword at the crypt fiend. The undead didn’t have time to react after the gates closed and ended up impaled on the wall. Struggling to free herself, Nerub’enkan found that she lacked the strength to do so. She was forced to watch helplessly as the remaining war hammer paladin smashed her head to pulp in with his weapon.

Before they could help their struggling comrade from his silky prison, their attention turned to a pile of nearby crates as a swarm of insects emerged from them and entered the cocoon through openings in the silky prison.

The vanguard was forced to watch in horror as their comrade screamed in agony as the swarm feasted on his flesh. The healer paladin tried his best to heal their comrade until they could get the gate open but the insects were voracious and devoured faster than the healer could heal.

Unfortunately, they were unable to save the paladin as when the insects had their fill, they skittered away as the cocoon slackened. They couldn’t detect any movement so the group could only conclude that the poor man was now nothing more than bones and armor.

They had no time to mourn their fallen comrade so they went into the ziggurat to take care of any scourge inside. They ended up dispatching a number of cultists which caused the sound of a crystal shattering above them. The group left the ziggurat to see what happened and saw that the crystal was no longer there.

Unfortunately, they were unable to get the gatehouse open so they had to try an alternate route through the city. Returning to the fork, the group took the other path and fought through more banshees, ghouls and necromancers.

They soon approached another ziggurat where this one was guarded by a banshee. Not wanting to underestimate their enemy this time, the group approached this one cautiously.

Indeed, this banshee was known as Baroness Anastari and she was powerful for a banshee. She began the fight by placing curses on all four of the party members. They quickly realized that the curse often made them miss their swings which gave her plenty of openings to blast them with her wails. The healer did his best to heal through her attacks while Jaqueline and the hammer paladin did their best to strike at the banshee.

Eventually, Anastari reached out with her spectral claws to touch Jaqueline but the hammer paladin shoved her aside and the hand touched him instead. The banshee then disappeared while the paladin slumped over. The protector and healer cautiously moved to see if their friend was alright. However, to their horror, the man looked at them with eyes black as the void and teeth bared like a wild animal.

The hammer paladin swung his hammer at the healer who managed to jump away from the swing while the protector slammed his shield against the possessed paladin. Jaqueline swung her blade at her former ally only for his hammer to block the attack. Anastari gave the paladin a boost to his strength which allowed him to overpower the warrior and push her back. He then swung wide which was blocked by the protector’s shield. With the hammer paladin’s increased strength, the force knocked the protector back a couple of feet.

Anastari could feel her host struggling to regain control of his mind and her remaining enemies didn’t appear to be showing any sign of falling any time soon. She knew that once she left the body she would be hit hard by holy magic which would destroy her.

Knowing this, she decided to take the hammer paladin down with her by sacrificing herself and let the rest of the denizens of Stratholme have their way with the other three. Using one last curse in her arsenal, she connected her soul to the paladin’s soul and placed a doom curse on herself. Once the curse triggered, the banshee self-destructed and the paladin’s soul was destroyed with her thanks to the connection.

Outside of the paladin’s body, Jaqueline, the protector and the healer stared at their possessed brother as he suddenly stopped attacking and fell to his knees. Cautiously, the protector moved closer to inspect his comrade and checked his eyes for any signs of life in them. It only took a few moments before he let go of the man and shook his head.

“Can’t y’all resurrect him?” Jaqueline asked.

The healer attempted the resurrection spell but the paladin was still unmoving. He tried again a few more times before he gave up and realized that his soul couldn’t be saved. The healer sighed, “The banshee must have destroyed his very soul. The spell would have worked as long as his soul was still intact.”

Realizing that their comrade was gone forever, the three took a moment of silence for him. For Jaqueline, it was a moment that was shared by a bout of agony as her chest pains flared. She also saw the world spinning before her eyes. It took all of her willpower to not faint on the spot. She struggled to breathe for a few moments and she broke out in a cold sweat, though she could have attributed that one to being in an area rife with death.

The healer noticed this and used the Light to heal her though it only made the symptoms go away for a time.

“Are you okay?” the protector asked.

“Yeah,” Jaqueline answered breathily. “Let’s keep going.”

“We need to retreat, we’ve already lost two of our own and I don’t know how much farther we have to go.”

“Our forces are already establishin’ themselves at that chapel. If we pull back them Scourge will just fortify themselves and it’ll be that much harder ta defeat their leader.”

Despite the protector’s protests, Jaqueline stubbornly started moving toward the ziggurat to clear them out. The two paladins didn’t want her to continue alone so they had no choice but to follow.

Thankfully, Jaqueline’s skills made up for the lack of their fallen members but this also meant that the warrior would end up fighting harder and this would be even harder on her failing body. After clearing the second ziggurat. The three moved deeper into the city and defeated more undead and necromancers before quickly arriving at the third ziggurat.

A large number of cultists guarded this structure and zealously carried out the attack commands of one human who stood before the door. Jaqueline pulled out her longsword and began sweeping through the summoned skeletons while the protector bashed a few heads with his hammer. The healer struggled to keep the others healthy but his job gradually became easier as the enemy numbers lessened.

The cultist leader who observed this knew that he would be defeated at this rate so he tried to turn the tables when he hurled a powerful bolt of frost at the healer and followed up with an ice lance.

Jaqueline saw the mage’s attack too late as he hurled the lance that shattered the unfortunate healer’s icy tomb and scattered his frozen body parts all over the street. The warrior cried out in rage before she charged at the mage at such a speed that gave him no time to react before she ran her sword through him. The cultist grinned as he coughed up blood and collapsed to the floor.

Knowing what the Scourge do to their powerful mages, Jaqueline beheaded the man and smashed the head until it was a pulp of bones and viscera. The last thing the Argent Dawn needed was another lich in the world.

Unfortunately, with the healer’s body in pieces, reviving him was not possible so now they were down to the two of them.

The protector was more adamant about retreating since it was just the two of them and Jaqueline’s symptoms could return at any time. However, the woman was not about to back down, not until the mission was complete. No matter what he said to try to convince her she continued moving deeper into the city. The paladin growled in frustration and knew that this woman was marching toward her death and she was going to drag him along with her. He swore that if he ever survived this that he would have her kicked out of the Argent Dawn.

At this point, Jaqueline was mowing down undead without a care in the world. She wanted to tell the protector that she wasn’t doing this out of some stubborn pride. She saw the proverbial writing on the wall. She didn’t need a doctor to know that her heart was failing her and it could go out on her at any minute.

After clearing out the ziggurat, she moved down the street cutting down every crypt fiend who tried to send their scarabs at her and stomping the scarabs, slashing banshees and reducing them to orbs of ectoplasm, dividing ghouls in two and smashing their heads, and brutally massacring every necromancer who dared cast a spell at her.

They soon came upon a thick metal gatehouse leading into a city square that was teeming with abominations. A nerubian slaughterhouse, a tall building with a large wooden wheel with spikes above the main structure, stood in the back of the square.

The two remained out of sight of the stitched golems while the protector gave the woman an enraged glare. “This has gone on long enough, we can’t possibly take on all of that by ourselves. We need reinforcements.”

“Go back and tell ‘em what happened,” Jaqueline said evenly.

“Are you planning on charging in there on your own? It’s suicide!”

“Ah’m dead either way. Ah know ah ain’t survivin’ today, victory or defeat. Don’t ask me why, I can just feel it’s true. Ah’m sorry we lost so many o’ our comrades because o’ mah stubbornness, but ah ain’t dyin’ on no deathbed. If ah’m goin’ down, it’ll be in a blaze o’ glory. So get on outta here an’ report what transpired before the enemy reinforces what we cleared out.”

The paladin couldn’t argue with what she said, he knew that she wouldn’t last much longer. He wasn’t about to object to that sentiment so he simply began backtracking his way through the city but not before giving her a sidelong glance, “Give them hell!” he said before he left.

Jaqueline silently nodded. Gathering all of her resolve, she prepared herself as she moved into the square and charged at the abominations. Each golem carried bloody cleavers and bloody hooks and chains.

The stitched horrors shambled toward Jaqueline with their weapons raised while the warrior relied on her speed and reflexes to avoid getting butchered as her blade tore through the stitching of one abomination and reduced it to a pile of flesh.

Other abominations tried spitting poison or belching a green substance that took a life of its own but the warrior used other abominations as shields before disassembling them while using their falling bodies to crush the slimes. One by one she tore the flesh golems apart where some created several slimes upon their destruction but were splattered on the pavement when she delivered a powerful shockwave with her sword.

Once the last of the abominations were defeated, a voice from inside the slaughterhouse sounded a little irritated that the Lich King’s creations were being toyed with so he called for someone called Ramstein to give Jaqueline a “proper greeting”.

“Ramstein hunger for flesh!”

Jaqueline heard the voice of another abomination as the door to the slaughterhouse opened to reveal an abomination who didn’t seem any different than the others she had taken down but she wasn’t about to let her guard down.

The warrior began to grow concerned as she was beginning to feel pressure in her chest again and was breaking out in a cold sweat. It wasn’t from the fear of facing the stitched horror.

As she was fighting Ramstein, Jaqueline found that the abomination was built to attack faster than others of its kind. However, she was still more agile. Her blade tore through its stitches and she managed to avoid its swings since she knew that her armor wasn’t protecting her from the golem’s heavy attacks.

The battle took longer than the warrior would have preferred but she soon managed to tear enough stitches with her blade to cause the abomination to fall apart. She was breathing heavily after that but she couldn’t afford to let up. She was too close to taking out the leader of the Scourge in Stratholme.

A nearby gate opened and a swarm of ghouls emerged from it. The warrior was undeterred as she swung her blade to mow down the undead. Using her Bladestorm technique, where she spun around for a few seconds with her blade pointed in front of her, she made quick work of the fragile undead.

Jaqueline had a few seconds to regain her wits after using the technique and to regain her breathing which had become shallow as her chest pains worsened. A number of skeleton warriors emerged from the slaughterhouse to engage the warrior in battle. The warrior pushed herself to her limits by swinging her longsword with all of her might to overpower the skeletons while dodging any counter attacks. She quickly dispatched the skeletons before rushing inside to face the leader.

She could feel that she didn’t have long before her heart shut down on her so she forewent any rest in hopes that her body would hold together long enough for this last battle.

Lord Aurius Rivendare, son of the death knight Baron Titus Rivendare, was once a Knight of the Silver Hand, a paladin, until he succumbed to wounds inflicted upon him by his father in his attempt to kill him. The father was risen again by the archlich, Kel’thuzad, and the son ended up joining him as a death knight.

The pain in Jaqueline’s chest was blinding and her world was spinning because of it. However, she powered through the pain and charged into the room where the death knight sat mounted on his skeletal horse, a gift to him from his father. The death knight unsheathed his sword and released a dark aura around him that caused shadows to burn Jaqueline’s skin.

Enduring the pain like a berserker, Jaqueline charged forward and ran her blade into the horse’s peytral and into its barrel. Using all of her might, she slashed upward and caused the horse’s head to fall off which caused the horse to collapse and Aurius to fall off his mount.

The death knight recovered quickly and swung his blade at the warrior which was parried by her own blade. The two repeatedly clashed blades for a moment before the two backed away where Aurius swung his blade and launched a Shadow Bolt at her which she deflected with her sword.

Before Jaqueline could close the distance, Aurius raised his sword for a moment and several skeletons within the chamber rose from the bone piles in the room to attack her. The warrior continued her charge while spinning her blade in a full circle to strike all of the skeletons attempting to surround her.

Jaqueline wasted no time. Fighting the agony without and the agony within, she furiously slashed at the death knight without rest and without care for her own well-being. Despite undeath granting him greater strength, Aurius found himself being pushed back by the relentless onslaught. He was soon pushed into a wall where the warrior slashed downward with all of her might and shattered the death knight’s blade and delivered a deep vertical cut from head to abdomen. Jaqueline wasn’t finished as she furiously slashed into Aurius before she decapitated him and plunged her sword into his fallen head to be sure that he wasn’t coming back. For good measure and in her blind rage, Jaqueline smashed the head repeatedly so that not even the scientists of the Scourge could restore it.

It was on the last strike that she felt the inevitable occur. Her breathing soon came to a stop and her world blurred. The colors of the world around her darkened and her consciousness began to fade. In her final moments she knew that her heart had finally stopped beating and as her eyes drifted toward the destroyed body of Aurius, she felt that this was a good way for everything to end. Her eyes then rolled to the back of her skull as she collapsed.

Her thoughts drifted toward the friends she made last year and the great adventures she went on with them. Bella, Flutashe, Stella and Mena…they helped her find the strength to get this far. She regretted that she wouldn’t get to see them one last time. She thought of the family who were slaughtered by the monsters around her and smiled at the thought that she would join them shortly.

With that last thought, her consciousness faded as the last of her life withered away.

Moments later, someone entered the slaughterhouse and slowly descended the steps into the inner chamber. This man wore dark gray chain mail with an outer layer of plate mail. His leggings, gloves and sabatons were dark brown leather with an outer layer of dark gray plate. A pair of metallic laughing skulls protected his knees. His pauldrons and belt also had skulls on the front and he wore a black cape. Most iconic of his appearance was the black crown-like helm with a blue gem on the forehead and the jagged sword in his hand with blue glowing runes along the blade and a hilt in the appearance of a ram skull. A blue mist drifts from his eyes.

The man, Arthas Menethil, took in the scene in the chamber and found the state that Aurius was in. “Pity, I doubt that I will be able to restore that one. No matter.” He then looked at the sight of the female on the floor. What surprised him was that it wasn’t the wounds from the death knight that did her in. He could only cackle at the irony of the situation. “It would seem that your own heart has betrayed you just as mine did. For you to defeat one of my death knights on your own speaks well of your potential. You shall make for a worthy replacement for this one.”

Arthas raised his sword into the air and a volley of violet necrotic bolts were emitted from it. A number of ghouls emerged from the floor and stood before their master. “Bring the girl to Acherus and begin the preparations for her rebirth into the Scourge. I must begin preparations to scour the last traces of life from this land.”

The Lich King summoned a dark portal with his sword and walked through it, leaving the ghouls to carry out their task of carrying the corpse of Jaqueline Pomerton toward her destiny.

As the undead carried the corpse out of the slaughterhouse, a certain lone female figure stood atop the city walls observing the scene. A smile graced her face, knowing that everything had been going according to plan. She chuckled, “Soon our game shall begin, little puppet.”

Her gaze shifted toward a black runeblade that she was carrying, one that was not meant for her. It was a greatsword with a number of dormant runes along the blade. The hilt appeared as an apple with a skull on it with roots branching out to form a cross guard. Three more runes surrounded the skull on the apple. The blade slept as it awaited its true master to wield it.

She had painstakingly forged this blade herself with the assistance of the finest weaponsmiths in the Shadowlands. The smiths dreaded what they had created because of its immense potential but she assured them that it would be given to its destined recipient very soon.

Author's Note

Starting off on a sad note, but it had to happen.

Each arc is lengthy so I've decided to start dividing them up into installments. I think it's too late to split the previous story in two and I'm not sure the admins would like reposting already posted chapters into another story.

Anyways, I'd like to hear some opinions, either about the story or about this new direction, if you have any.

Jaqueline Appleblight

“Resist…”

“Arise…”

Obeying the compulsion, Jaqueline rose from a hard surface that she found herself laying on. As she sat up, she tried to remember what had happened to her and how she ended up here. The last thing she remembered was fighting a death knight and somehow emerging victorious despite the pain that her enemy and her own heart had put her through.

She instinctively checked her chest to feel her heartbeat, only to find that she didn’t feel a heartbeat. In fact, she didn’t feel anything at all.

Every inch of her body was numb which ended up taking precedence over the fact that someone had stripped her out of her armor and left her wearing only the bare minimum of clothing to protect her modesty. She also noticed that her skin had become completely pale. It didn’t take a genius to know that she was dead, her very soul refused to allow her to deny it.

She knew that she should be freaking out about being left unarmored and unarmed since her swords and shield were missing, yet she couldn’t bring herself to feel any panic. She couldn’t feel anything but cold and analytical. Of course, given that she usually wasn’t the thinking type, that wasn’t saying much.

Jaqueline took a moment to examine her surroundings. She appeared to be on a wooden surgical table and spotted a number of surgical instruments. She spotted the torso of an abomination on a nearby table. A number of tesla coils were hanging from the ceiling. Some part of her told her that they were for reanimating abominations.

Her sightseeing was abruptly brought to an end when she spotted a skeleton carrying what appeared to be a pile of clothes in their hands. They then left them on the floor and left.

Before Jaqueline could question what was going on, she heard a dark and ominous voice in her head, “Get dressed, there is little time to prepare before the attack commences.” Jaqueline wanted to question who that was but instead found herself getting off the table and heading to the pile of clothes. She wanted to stop for a moment and question what was happening but her body wouldn’t listen to her. She silently picked up the clothing and began to get dressed.

Because her body wasn’t listening to her protests, Jaqueline concluded that her free will had been taken from her. She might as well be a passenger in her own mind.

The armor that she had been given resembled black sleeveless robes with plate mail reinforcement with spiked shoulderguards and a reinforced hood as well as a black cape. Unfortunately, the getup didn’t come with a weapon. At least she was fully clothed again.

“Resist…”

Now that she was decent, she left the chamber and entered an area built of dark stone and was occupied by cultists, ghouls, necromancers, skeletons, death knights and abominations. They were all preparing for battle. None of them paid her any mind as if she belonged with them, though as she thought about it she probably did.

Jaqueline quietly walked out to the balcony overlooking the land where the man responsible for her reanimation stood. His back was turned to her as he observed the land below. A large part of her wanted to strangle him from behind and try to snap his neck but those thoughts would never see the light of day. Instead she moved to the Lich King’s right side and stared at the landscape.

“It is unfortunate that I did not have time to condition you like my other death knights,” Arthas said, his voice deep, rumbling and bone-chilling. “Each one I conditioned by tormenting them with shades from the Realm of Shadows. Though recently I have found that some of the shades do not obey me like before. It is something that I will have to investigate later.

“Until I have time to condition you, I have made sure that your will is tightly bound. You may have noticed that you are unable to feel anything physically and emotionally. This is a side effect of that. I will have more time to properly condition you once we have finally brought an end to the blemishes upon these lands: the Scarlet Crusade and the Argent Dawn. Now, go and speak with Razuvius. He will begin your training as a death knight.”

Jaqueline silently bowed to Arthas before retreating into the necropolis and moving around a pit area to meet with the death knight instructor.

Razuvius was a human with a gray flat top buzz cut with markings on his face. He wore icy blue plate mail all over his body. He stared at their newest recruit for a few moments, sizing her up. “Your name?” he asked.

“Jaqueline Pomerton,” she responded in monotone.

“Hmph…very well. Let us begin by forging yourself a runeblade. It is the single most important piece of equipment in a death knight’s arsenal. The powers of blood, frost and the unholy are channeled through runeblades and through using our runes do we gain power to unleash more suffering upon our enemies. The blades are an extension of our very being. Without one, a death knight cannot do battle. Now, go to the runeforge behind me and pick up a weapon. Use the forge to make it into a proper runeblade.”

Without another word, Jaqueline walked over to the runeforge. The forge was designed to look like a giant skull with a number of pipes connected to it. Inside the mouth was an anvil engulfed in a roaring blaze of blue flame that seemed to lower the temperature of the area around her. Of course, she couldn’t feel the cold but something told her that this was the case.

Picking up a sword from a nearby rack, she held the worn blade into the forge. The otherworldly flames licked the blade as she saw a number of icy blue runes form along it. She had no idea what the runes meant, only that she was to use them for battle.

Once the runes were fully formed along the sword, Jaqueline showed her work to Razuvius who nodded in satisfaction. He then went on to explain about a concept called the “endless hunger” where a death knight will experience untold suffering unless they inflict suffering upon others. He then gave Jaqueline a key to the shackles of the unworthy initiates in the pit in the center of the room. Her task was to free one of them so they could equip themselves and fight her to the death.

Jaqueline’s sense of empathy may have been suppressed along with many other emotions that the Lich King found unnecessary, but he still left her with her desire for a challenge. She looked around the pit to find people of various races shackled to the wall, all clad in next to nothing like she was earlier. Wanting to challenge the most skilled of the unworthy, she chose a night elf.

Once she freed her from her shackles, the elf collected a set of robes like the ones she wore and picked up a runeblade before she turned to Jaqueline with her weapon raised.

Jaqueline raised an eyebrow at the stance she used. Her instincts as a warrior had not been suppressed so she could tell that the elf had a number of openings. The elf charged forward and swung her sword to deliver a heavy slash but Jaqueline blocked it with her sword. The clash lasted for a second before the former human overpowered the elf and kicked her into the back wall where she fell to her hands and knees and dropped her weapon.

“Get up,” Jaqueline demanded. The elf struggled to get back to her feet but this took too long and Jaqueline’s patience was short. Just as the elf grabbed her weapon and got back on her feet, Jaqueline grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the wall. Her opponent dropped her sword again which made Jaqueline growl in disappointment.

Angered that she wasn’t getting her challenge, she threw the elf on the floor where she quickly moved to stomp on her victim’s leg. The elf screamed in agony but Jaqueline’s sense of mercy was suppressed so she continued stomping on her leg until she heard the sound of three bones breaking before doing the same to her other leg.

Jaqueline saw that the elf was struggling to crawl away from her with her arms desperately grabbing onto the stone. She was about to move to shatter her arms but she paused for a moment as she heard a strange, yet faint, voice in her head.

“Resist…”

Her anger drained in that moment which gave way to utter disappointment. She couldn’t make out what that strange voice was but now she wasn’t in the mood to prolong the one-sided battle so she ran her blade through the woman’s back and through her heart.

Leaving the corpse to rot on the floor, she returned to Razuvius who seemed pleased about how she made the woman suffer though he commented that she could have done so much more before she ended her wretched life.

Regardless, she had the basics down and she would learn the rest in the field. When Razuvius told her that, Jaqueline returned to the Lich King for her next task.

Arthas informed her that what separated a death knight from a mindless ghoul was to know her enemy. She was granted use of the Eye of Acherus to investigate her future targets.

Walking up to a pedestal that held a giant transparent blue eyeball, Jaqueline used what knowledge that was instilled upon her by her master to mentally take control of it. It soon flew toward the nearby town held by the Scarlet Crusade.

After some investigation, she learned that the town was called New Avalon where she found a few targets to attack, including a forge, a barracks, the town hall and a chapel. There was also a small hamlet closer to their location that she learned was called Havenshire.

Arthas saw what she saw. He noticed that the Scarlets were preparing for battle but he also sensed an enemy that he thought he had destroyed years ago. However, he decided to leave that thought alone for now and focus on unleashing the Scourge right away to give the enemy no time to properly evacuate and establish their defenses. For this, he sent Jaqueline to Highlord Darion Mograine to order him to begin the assault.

With a bow, the new death knight moved to a teleporter and stepped on it where she ended up on the lowest floor of the necropolis. She found the highlord atop his mount going over the attack plans alongside Baron Titus Rivendare who didn’t seem pleased to see the newest member. Jaqueline relayed the Lich King’s orders to Darion who sounded the horn to call the Scourge to battle.

She also noticed the runeblade on Darion’s back. It was a greatsword that gave off an eerie green aura with a guard in the shape of the symbol of the Kingdom of Lordaeron. A circular crystal in the shape of a skull hovered over the back of the blade. She could tell that the weapon held immense power, but she had no idea what the weapon was nor why it held such power.

She headed to the aviary where the death knights kept their skeletal gryphons for transport. She borrowed one to get her on the ground where the Scourge had established a forward base. Once landed, Jaqueline dismounted and reported to the one in charge of the base.

Prince Valanar was one of the San’layn, a sect of undead elves referred to as the Darkfallen, with the distinction being their powerful blood and shadow magic combined with their vampiric tendencies. He wore bluish green robes with sea green gemstones with a mask over his mouth that had the image of sharp fangs. She spotted the wet spots on his mask that told her that he was salivating about something in the Scarlet town, likely the blood of the living.

Valanar noticed her approach and turned to address her, “Good, you’re here. I have already been informed about the bindings our master has placed on your mind so I will simply give you your instructions. First, I want you to sow terror upon the populace by slaughtering soldiers and civilians alike. Show no mercy, even if they beg for their life. Second, Salanar the Horseman wants you to steal one of their horses so he can convert it into a proper deathcharger for you. Orithos is requesting more arrows but we don’t have time to waste on equipping his archers so recover as many arrows as you can. Also, before you leave, Olrun wanted me to inform you that your worthiness shall always be tested. As such, she believes that you should challenge a few of the death knights around here to a Death’s Challenge. That is all.”

Jaqueline recalled the information instilled upon her mind and realized that the Death’s Challenge was a simple duel between death knights.

After a few duels, Jaqueline realized that her fellows were too reliant on their runeblades while her warrior instincts were still intact. She found that their movements were too slow and their attacks were telegraphed. She couldn’t help but wonder if Arthas turned anyone who could wield a sword into a death knight.

Having enough of humiliating the initiates, Jaqueline left the base camp in pursuit of her other objectives. Once she entered the nearby farming community of Havenshire, she slaughtered every man, woman and child in her sights. Like a machine, she butchered them all with ruthless efficiency, even as they begged and pleaded for their lives. She finished off any civilian who was unlucky enough to get pinned by an arrow before she collected said arrow. Once she collected every arrow she could find, she proceeded to her last task of stealing a horse and delivering it to Salanar.

Once she delivered a horse, the horseman cast a dark spell which caused the horse to vanish as they were enveloped in darkness. Salanar indicated that he had banished the horse to the Realm of Shadows where his dark rider would slay them and raise them as a deathcharger. She would need to enter the Realm of Shadows to retrieve the deathcharger for her to call upon as her mount.

Before she proceeded any further, Jaqueline informed Valanar that she had completed her tasks. As a sign of her progress as a death knight, he rewarded her with a new cloak to replace her initiate’s cloak. A skeleton appeared who took the old cloak so that it would be given to the next initiate who joined their ranks.

Jaqueline returned to Salanar who cast the dark spell on her where she was engulfed in darkness for a moment before her vision returned to see a darkened version of the world around her. She saw nobody around her, as if the camp was just abandoned.

She began her search for the horse by heading into Havenshire where she spotted a number of shades wandering around as well as a mounted horseman, the dark rider.

A few shades moved to attack her but her blade tore through their phantasmal bodies with ease. With the interference out of the way, she charged at the horseman who was knocked off his horse from the death knight’s first strike. She didn’t wait for the horseman to get back on his feet before she swung her blade down on him but was blocked by his blade. The horseman rolled to the side to avoid another strike only to be struck by a blast of frost which slowed his body enough for her to deliver a slash that left a deep hut in his side that she caused to fester using an unholy rune on her blade.

Still on the ground, the dark rider tried desperately to defend himself only to have his weapon knocked away before she plunged her sword into his chest and out the back.

With the dark rider dealt with, Jaqueline prepared to mount the now abandoned deathcharger. Before she lifted herself onto her new mount, she heard the sound of slow clapping nearby. Looking around, she spotted Thanatas who was walking toward her while continuing her clapping.

“Well done defeating that dark rider, I see you are beginning to grow accustomed to your new…unlife.”

Jaqueline knew that she wasn’t part of the Scourge and her compulsions told her to kill this person. Despite knowing that Thanatas would crush her, she had no choice but to fight this one to her death.

As she prepared her blade however, her opponent only smiled before she raised her hand toward her in a grasping gesture. Suddenly, Jaqueline could actually feel sensations again. She could actually feel her hatred toward the Lich King surface and boil furiously. She also felt the guilt over slaughtering those innocent people.

As tears flowed down her face, she fell to her hands and knees as she dropped her weapon. “Wha…what did ya do to me?” Jaqueline asked.

“I simply loosened the Chains of Domination that were binding your soul. Arthas’ power in the Realm of Shadows is not as secure as he thinks it is. Unfortunately, I cannot break your chains, only you can do that. Once you leave this realm the chains will bind your soul again.”

“How do ah break ‘em?”

“Resist…”

“If your will is weak, you don’t. Though if you do, I’ll give you a prize. To encourage you to do your best, I will tell you that it’s a good one,” Thanatas chirped. Her cheerful expression soon darkened as she became serious. “You should probably get back before they consider that you died again. Stay away too long and they will wonder if you are worth keeping around. Remember, only you can set yourself free from the Lich King.”

Jaqueline sighed, “Ah really don’t wanna go back to bein’...that…again, but at least ah know ah ain’t forgotten. By the way, what’s this weird voice ah keep hearin’?”

“Frankly I have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe it has to do with that magical core you have in your body. That thing is pure death magic.”

“What!? So this thing actually killed me?”

“Yep, from what I can tell, the seed slowly fed on your life force as you grew up and the more you fought the more it took from you. The seed was useless while you were alive, but now that you are dead it’s time for you to start reaping the benefits.”

“How do ah do that?”

“I’m afraid we have run out of time. Get on your horse and get back. We will meet again.”

“Wait!” Jaqueline called out but the death knight dispersed into the shadows. With no other choice, she returned to the camp where she called for the huntsman to pull her out of the realm.

Once she was back in reality, the physical and emotional numbness returned, but not completely. She had hope that she would break free from the Chains. Of course, her initial attempt to break free didn’t budge the Chains, but she was stubborn and determined. She needed to keep trying.

In the meantime, she was stuck doing the bidding of her jailors. She was tasked by an elder necromancer named Gothik the Harvester to use a portable plague spreader that turned the miners in a nearby mine into ghouls. Some turned into hostile unbound spirits but she had no trouble destroying them.

The chaos at the mine gave the Scourge an opportunity to destroy the Scarlet Fleet. Since the workers were too panicked to check their mine carts, Jaqueline was able to hide herself in one of them. Because of this, she was snuck aboard one of their ships where she used one of their cannons to decimate an army of Scarlets who were so foolish as to gather together.

Once the entire coastline was a graveyard of unburied corpses, Jacqueline returned to the camp. Once she reported her accomplishment to Valanar, he laughed maniacally, saying that the Lich King will give him a commendation for his leadership. He then ordered Havenshire to be burned down so they could move the line forward to New Avalon.

Valanar gave Jaqueline a pair of bracers and legplates made out of a strange metal. When she found a private place and put them on, she had a strange feeling that someone other than the voice she had been hearing was whispering into her mind. It spoke in a weird and creepy language but she was incapable of concerning herself with it.

With nothing to do for the time being, Jaqueline wandered around the camp humiliating more initiates in duels.

Over the next few hours, the sky turned dark as the smoke from the flames coming from the village rose to create a burning sky like in Burning Steppes. The minions and cultists also set up a stage with a Scourge banner in the back. Valanar took his place there where he beckoned for Jaqueline to come to him to give her next task.

With the village destroyed, the Scourge took over a nearby crypt that was now being used as a forward command center where Valanar’s brother, Keleseth, was leading the assault on New Avalon. She was to report to him.

Summoning her new deathcharger, she quickly mounted it and rode toward the crypt. Once she entered and reached the depths of the crypt, she spotted the san’layn. While Valanar and Keleseth wore the same design of clothing, Keleseth was dressed in dark crimson with reddish orange gems. Titus was also there glaring daggers at Jaqueline again.

Ignoring the baron’s issues with the new servant, Keleseth gave Jaqueline her new orders which involved obtaining a few things for a necromancer named Noth the Plaguebringer to set up a plague cauldron to blight the land as well as assaulting the town hall and slaughtering anyone who got in her way of getting the town registry.

With hundreds of ghouls rushing the entrance to the town, Jaqueline had no problem getting around the beleaguered humans and attacking all of them from behind. Unable to fight the swarm before them and the enemy behind them, the defenders easily fell, allowing the ghouls to rush into the town.

Jaqueline’s rampage began as she went into people’s houses and scoured it of all life. It didn’t matter if they were unarmed, elderly or a child, she butchered them all the same. She knows that she should feel crushing guilt about this but she couldn’t feel that.

She assaulted the blacksmith, taking some iron chains, she assaulted the inn and left none alive while locating a cauldron that would serve Noth’s purposes. She summoned ghouls to carry the cauldron and the chains to the necromancer while other ghouls were ordered to tear off the heads of the citizens she slaughtered and deliver those to the necromancer.

Jaqueline killed a few more Scarlet combatants before attacking the town hall where she murdered the officials, including the mayor, then searched through the books until she located the town registry.

She left the bloodstained town hall and returned to Keleseth, who was pleased with her progress. He awarded her with a girdle and greaves, again made of the strange metal that whispered strange things into her mind. If there was one benefit of being emotionally numb, she didn’t feel disturbed when the equipment she was wearing whispered directly into her brain.

As the vampire looked through the book, he discovered that a few ships had set sail to Northrend along with the words “Crimson Dawn”. Since they needed more information, he had Jaqueline return to New Avalon with a pair of magically enchanted pokers to use to torture any soldiers that she hadn’t slain into telling them about the meaning of the term.

It didn’t take long to find a soldier who was still holding out against the ghouls. However, the ghouls backed away as a death gate, a portal usable by death knights, opened next to the soldier before Thanatas emerged from it.

With Jaqueline still bound to the Lich King, she was still compelled to try to kill the enemy death knight. However, she quickly found herself frozen from the neck down by one of her spells.

The soldier tried to take advantage of Thanatas’ distraction by striking her down but she reacted too quickly by shattering his sword. Thanatas then used her runeblade and pointed it at the soldier, pulling his soul from his body. With a wicked grin, she interrogated the poor soldier, “In death you shall tell no lies. Now what is the Crimson Dawn?”

As if compelled, the soul spoke of how High General Abbendis was spoken to by the Light itself and that those who were worthy would go with her to Northrend. He also mentioned a courier from Hearthglen was due to visit. Once he had nothing left to say, she ripped the soul free from his body and let her blade claim it.

Turning her attention to Jaqueline, who gave her a blank stare, Thanatas gave an innocent smile, “There you have it, take that information back to that pompous elf. Also, do try to avoid mentioning my involvement.”

As Thanatas opened a death gate to leave, Jaqueline heard the voice. She noticed that it was getting stronger each time she heard it.

“Resist…”

Jaqueline finally managed to break free from Thanatas’ spell. Though with the information obtained, there wasn’t much need to finding someone to torture so she returned to the crypt.

Keleseth thought the mention of the general’s communication with the Light was just crazy talk but figured that they might get some information from the courier. He looked at the death knight who appeared that she had something else to say. “What else?”

“That was all he said. What’s my next task?” Somehow, her will had won that battle since she didn’t mention Thanatas. It gave her hope that the Chains were starting to weaken.

Keleseth stared at Jaqueline for a moment and shrugged, “Very well, I sent Orbaz Bloodbane ahead with Thassarian and Koltira to establish a base of operations in a tavern near the chapel. Check in with them and inform them to be on the lookout for the courier.”

Jaqueline left the tomb and mounted her deathcharger, riding back into New Avalon where she raced across the town that was beginning to look like a literal ghost town with all the ghouls roaming about hunting down any stragglers who were hiding.

She soon found the building near an apple orchard. Seeing the orchard reminded her of her old farm near Andorhal. She had joined the Argent Dawn to try and take it back but later realized that there was nothing left to go back to since the Scourge had burned down her old home and plagued the land which killed the orchard. Since then she fought the Scourge to avenge her farm.

As she reminisced, her body mechanically moved on its own and entered the tavern after killing a pair of Scarlet soldiers who were skulking around. She went upstairs and found two of the three death knights she was looking for. She recognized Orbaz and Thassarian but didn’t see Koltira anywhere.

“Where’s Koltira?” Jaqueline asked.

“Does it even matter? That deadweight got himself captured. He’s worthless!” Orbaz stated. She noticed a look of irritation on Thassarian’s face as he said that, though Orbaz was looking the other way so he didn’t notice.

Despite Orbaz’s protests, Thassarian asked Jaqueline to go look for Koltira and rescue him if possible. Since the captive was at the barracks, Orbaz requested that she look around the building for the patrol schedule so they might find some info on when the courier was supposed to arrive.

She left the tavern and summoned her deathcharger before she rushed toward the barracks, barreling through any Scarlets on the way. Once inside, she cut down any soldiers she came across as she ascended to the second floor and into the command room where she overpowered the commander and infected him with several diseases before she beheaded him once he was weakened.

She looked through the books and papers on the command table and found the schedule she was looking for. She then returned to the first floor where she heard the sound of someone being tortured in the basement. She had a feeling that it was Koltira. A part of her felt conflicted about whether or not to rescue him or not. She decided to at least investigate.

In the basement, she slaughtered the Scarlets near the torture racks before looking upon the pitiful elf in his underwear.

“Get me out of this thing!” Koltira demanded. “The high inquisitor will notice the racket you caused and investigate.”

The Scourge part of her wanted to brutally eviscerate the elf in front of her for his weakness but this warred with her desire to rescue him. At the moment, she was left uncertain about what she should do.

“Resist the Chains!”

Her will won out in the end and she freed the elf from the rack. Checking his wrists, he then moved to a nearby chest which contained his armor and weapon. “You shouldn’t have come. I failed. I should have been abandoned.” He sighed. “If you are here, then it’s probably because of the fool, Thassarian. No matter, if we survive this and kill the inquisitor, then bring his head to that fool.”

To Koltira’s surprise, Jaqueline chose not to play it safe and channeled her inner berserker before rushing forward. Any acolytes that came down to the basement were dead before they knew what attacked them. When the inquisitor came, he tried to cast a holy attack spell but lost the chant as his mind suffered a painful case of brain freeze before his shoulders became several pounds lighter as the head flew off and landed in her hand.

Koltira slowly walked up the stairs, his body weak from torture. “You are a strange death knight. Reckless, yet somehow you emerged from that unscathed. Leave me, I am burning this place to the ground.”

Jaqueline decided that her task was complete so she returned to Orbaz and Thassarian. She showed the head to the more caring death knight which prompted an eye roll from Orbaz. Once he received the schedule, he quickly looked through it to find the courier’s route. As Jaqueline stared at him, Orbaz pointed to a nearby table where a pair of gauntlets and a breastplate were placed.

After replacing her armor, he told her to go two hundred paces east and ambush the courier as he heads toward the coast. He also told her to take everything on him, not just the letter. She raised an eyebrow when he handed her a wooden board made in the shape and painted to look like a tree. A huge part of her wanted to question why he would think this tactic would work but decided to let the Chains have this one since she didn’t like Orbaz anyway.

When she arrived at the ambush location and placed her strange tree, she waited for the courier to arrive. She didn’t have to wait long. What astonished her was that the mounted courier was an idiot because he thought it was a good idea to investigate what was obviously a fake tree. When he got close, she struck by running her sword through the tree and the horse’s barrel to eliminate the courier’s means of a quick escape. The messenger got to his feet quickly and tried to run away, only for a bolt of necromantic energy to wrap around his body and yank him back to Jaqueline who thrust her sword into his chest upon his arrival.

With the courier dead, she relieved him of all of his belongings, along with his clothes, and the message. Since her sense of curiosity was suppressed, she didn’t bother looking at the message and simply reported the information to Orbaz.

The death knight grinned as he read the letter, mentioning the armies of Tirisfal and Hearthglen marching into a massacre. This told her that the Scarlet Crusade planned on sending their armies to defend this place. Orbaz then went on to order her to use the clothes she stole from the courier to deliver the message to High General Abbendis and to get as much information from her as she could.

After going into an adjacent room to change into the courier’s clothes, Orbaz used some dark magic on her to transform her into the complete likeness of the courier, voice and all. The magic also created the illusion that her deathcharger was a living horse.

The Scarlets appeared to buy her disguise since the ones protecting the nearby coast let her through. As she rode down to the coast where the general was located, she found the general speaking with a pair of bishops about something before her presence gained their attention.

Upon delivering the letter, Abbendis gave a message for her to deliver, saying that the armies must turn back and prepare to sail for Northrend. She handed her a journal that she said would explain everything while also declaring that the Scarlet Crusade was no more and this was the rise of the Scarlet Onslaught.

Deciding that this was enough information and that pressing any further might arouse suspicion, Jacqueline returned to Orbaz with the information and the journal. He told her to deliver it to Highlord Mograine while opening a death gate to Acherus to speed her way.

Once she stepped through, she gave the journal to the highlord and informed him of the coming Scarlet armies. He looked through the journal for a moment before he laughed uproariously, pleased with the information he had been given and her contributions to the coming apocalypse of the Scarlet Crusade. He then gave her a pair of spaulders to replace the ones she was wearing.

The next few hours were spent with her practicing her abilities while the Scourge waited for their enemies to come to them. Jaqueline suddenly felt the Lich King’s icy presence in her mind as he spoke, “Come to me, the time has come to bring about the end of the Scarlet Crusade.”

Heeding his call, she headed toward the aviary to requisition a skeletal gryphon to take her back down to the ground. What she saw filled Jaqueline with so much rage that she could have sworn that her body expressed her feelings for a brief moment. A pair of plague doctors were standing near the corpse of a gryphon whose hind quarters were a dark shade of brown with the upper half having snow white feathers and a dark brown beak and brown feathers around the eyes.

“Winona…” she thought.

She approached the doctors who were preparing to spray plague on the corpse. “What is going on here?” she demanded.

“This one foolishly attacked this necropolis by themself and paid the price,” one of the doctors said. Without wasting more time, they sprayed the vile substance on the corpse, washing away their fur, flesh and feathers until only a skeleton remained.

Jaqueline desperately wanted to ruthlessly hack apart the doctors with her blade until they were beyond recognition but the will of the Lich King prevented her from having her vengeance. She screamed from the prison within her own mind, though her body didn’t mimic this sentiment.

“Take this one to be reanimated,” one doctor ordered.

“Let me handle that,” Jaqueline said. This only further enraged her as her body was still doing things on its own. She really didn’t want her beloved gryphon to be brought into this hell but it appeared as if the Lich King had a different opinion on the matter.

Against her will, she pointed her sword at the skeleton and channeled necromantic energy into the bones for several seconds before the bones began to move and assemble themselves into the position they once were when Winona was alive.

Soon the skeletal gryphon was moving on her own before she proceeded to the aviary. “Winona…forgive me…” she thought.

She proceeded to ride a different gryphon to the base camp where the stage where Valanar once stood was now elevated even further to a tall platform where Arthas stood. She proceeded up the steep ramp to meet her master.

Arthas glanced at her for a moment before looking at the burning remains of Havenshire and New Avalon. He seemed pleased by the destruction and handed Jaqueline a bone white horn. He claimed that it would call one of his frost wyrms to aid her in destroying the Scarlet armies.

Once she blew the horn, a skeletal dragon landed near her. She quickly mounted it and set forth to unleash icy death upon the army. The Scarlets were not prepared as more dragons appeared, mounted by Thassarian and Koltira. Together, the three of them wiped out the Scarlet Crusade in minutes.

Upon her return, Arthas presented the final piece to her whispering armor set: the helm.

With the Scarlet Crusade finished, there remained only one final task before the Plaguelands were secured. They would soon burn Light’s Hope Chapel to the ground and end the Argent Dawn.

Jaqueline was furious that the Scourge would go after her comrades in the Argent Dawn. The Scarlet Crusade was one thing since they were a bunch of fanatical zealots who killed anyone who didn’t wear red, but this was another matter entirely.

Arthas chuckled as he sensed her rage. “I will take great pleasure in breaking you by making you butcher every person you ever called a friend. Now, take the tunnel to the Noxious Glade and meet your brethren at Browman Mill.

Jaqueline bowed to the Lich King against her will before she called upon her deathcharger and entered a nearby tunnel leading into another Scourge camp. The exit would take her to the abandoned sawmill.

She halted her deathcharger when she spotted a strange weapon planted in the ground. It looked like a runeblade and it was much nicer-looking than her own. The weapon looked heavy with a broad blade and the hilt had the design of an apple with a skull with roots branching out for a cross guard.

As interesting as the blade looked, she had to get going to the battle. However, she also felt a second compulsion telling her to claim the blade which seemed to conflict with the Lich King’s compulsion.

“Resist the Chains of Domination! Reach out and take what belongs to you and free yourself.”

It then clicked into place for her, whatever that sword was, it was the ticket to her salvation. She dismounted her deathcharger and walked toward the blade.

However, as if something was pulling her back, she felt her movements toward the blade slowing as if she was walking through tar, and it was getting thicker the closer she got. Whatever this sword was, Arthas really didn’t want her to have it and that was all the motivation she needed to force herself toward it.

The phantasmal Chains continued their attempt to pull her away but with each step she made, Jaqueline’s hopes burned brighter. As she neared her prize, she could almost swear that she heard the sound of chains snapping. With each snapped chain, a part of herself could be felt. She soon began to feel the pain of the Chains pulling her back but she endured and continued to push forward slowly. Soon she could feel herself expressing the rage and hatred she felt toward the Lich King as she screamed in fury.

Jaqueline reached out toward the sword and upon grasping the weapon, she felt the final chain break. Thoughts flooded her mind as her desires for vengeance against the Scourge came to the forefront of her mind. She swore to herself that she would not let Arthas get away with what he made her do.

Discarding her previous runeblade, Jaqueline pulled out the new sword and gave it a few test swings to get a feel for it. Surprisingly, it felt like it was made for her style of fighting, as if the blade was forged just for her. Just holding the weapon felt like she had her mother, father and brother supporting her. It gave her the same feeling as if she were holding a Pomerton family heirloom even though she knew it wasn’t.

The memory of her family made her smile, knowing that they would always be there for her from beyond the grave filled her with confidence.

Unbidden, a word came out of her mouth and it was then that she learned the name of the sword, “Appleblight…”

With new resolve, she mounted her deathcharger and raced toward Browman Mill. When she got there, she saw that the battle had begun without her. She could see that the Argent knights were getting overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of Scourge attacking them.

Before she could run toward the battle, she spotted Orbaz fleeing on his deathcharger from the battle like the coward she knew him to be. She quickly intercepted him and slammed into his mount with her own to knock him off before dismounting.

As she glared at him, Orbaz got over his daze and glared back at Jaqueline. “What is the meaning of this? How dare you knock me off my steed!”

“Ah aim to send a message to Arthas. Your corpse will do,” Jaqueline replied.

“What? You dare turn against the Scourge? Wait…did you free yourself?”

“Ah did, and now ah get to deal some payback, startin’ with you.” She pulled out her Appleblight while Orbaz drew his sword. The male tried to back away to get some distance while he assessed his opponent. However, he was caught off guard when one of the runes on her sword awakened with a dark green glow. An arm sprouted from Jaqueline’s back that was equipped with an abomination hook and chain. The arm threw the hook and the chain wrapped around his sword arm, the hook piercing his gauntlet and cutting into his arm, and yanked him back to Jaqueline who was ready with her own strike. The arm and chain faded away once he was flying toward her.

Orbaz tried to defend himself from her strike with his runeblade. Unbalanced as he was, he still managed to avoid taking damage though he looked in horror as his blade had cracked.

He rolled out of the way from a follow up strike before he hastily cast a death gate and threw himself into it. The gate closed before Jaqueline could pursue. She spat on the ground in disappointment.

Instead of dwelling on the coward’s escape, Jaqueline turned her attention to Light’s Hope Chapel and observed the battle. She noticed that Darion’s sword stopped before he could cut down a single paladin. However, he was on the receiving end of several holy strikes from the Argent Dawn. A mysterious light from the chapel suspended the death knights in the air and dropped them before the chapel.

She spotted who she suspected to be Tirion Fordring, supposedly a former paladin who was excommunicated and exiled from the order because he protected an orc. She remembered that he aided in the previous battle of Light’s Hope and committed himself to reforming the Order of the Silver Hand after the death of his son.

Tirion went on to lecture Darion about him becoming the very thing his father fought against before his blade began to glow. An image, or perhaps the soul of a man with dark red hair emerged from the blade. Darion called him father. An image of a younger version of him emerged from Darion and spoke with the soul, wishing to do battle against the Scourge but his father told him that he was too young to go into battle.

The scene was cut short when Arthas emerged from his own death gate and pointed Frostmourne at the soul of the man…

…only to be drawn to another blade.

Arthas spotted the perpetrator, a certain female death knight with pale skin and snow white hair pointing her runeblade, Evermourne, where the soul was.

“You dare steal my prize?” Arthas growled.

Thanatas gave him a cheerful smile, “I dare, this soul is coming with me to the Shadowlands where he belongs.”

“Who are you?” he demanded.

“Let’s just say that I am going to be the biggest thorn in your side for the coming year, little puppet.”

“Puppet? What are you talking about?”

“You don’t know? How unfortunate.” Thanatas shrugged. “I wonder how these death knights will react once they realize that you were planning to use them as cannon fodder so you could kill or at least weaken Tirion. It’s as he said, you knew that the chapel was a powerful bastion of the Light that couldn’t be approached by the unholy so easily.”

“What!?” Darion shouted, his anger pointed toward the Lich King. “You were planning on using us as disposable pawns for this?”

Arthas chuckled, “It seems that you are already proving yourself a troublesome issue, woman. Yes, though I am surprised that so many of you survived the chapel’s defenses.”

“You…betrayed me,” Darion growled. “You betrayed us all, monster!” He was about to attack the Lich King in blind rage. However, the only one who saw what was coming next was Thanatas as she saw Jaqueline rush in for a strike at Arthas. The Lich King barely had time to react to her attack and the fact that his mind-controlled slave was attacking him was shocking enough that he didn’t have time to assume a proper stance before Appleblight clashed with Frostmourne with enough force to send him flying, landing on his back.

“Impossible, you broke free?” the Lich King asked as he got back up.

“Eeyup, why don’t ya stay there for a few more moments an’ ah’ll show ya how free ah am,” Jaqueline quipped.

Not liking his odds at the moment, Arthas opened a gate and retreated into it. “This isn’t over, Jaqueline Pomerton, when next we meet it will be on my terms.”

Once the presence of the Lich King had faded, a quiet settled over the area. Darion mulled over his thoughts and made a decision. He walked up to Tirion before plunging his sword, the Ashbringer, into the ground. “Take it, I am unworthy of this blade.”

Tiron smiled as he picked up the Ashbringer. His strong connection with the Light allowed him to transform it into the holy weapon that it was always meant to be, a radiant runed greatsword with a holy crystal in the shape of a glowing disc with the image of a hand on it on the back of the blade. He then turned to the paladins behind him. “On this day, I propose a union of the Argent Dawn and the Knights of the Silver Hand. We shall succeed where many before us have failed. We will take the fight to Arthas and we will tear down the walls of Icecrown. For we are the Argent Crusade!”

Darion stood next to Tirion as he spoke his piece. “On this day, we of the Knights of the Ebon Blade swear vengeance on the Lich King. Even if our kind has no place in this world, it is enough that we have a purpose to guide our blades.”

The Knights of the Ebon Blade rallied around Darion. He knew that the first thing that needed to be done was reclaim Acherus from the Scourge. They would have no hope of survival without their flying fortress.

“I would like to have a few words with Jaqueline, the rest of you should be able to handle liberating your necropolis,” Thanatas said. Darion decided to leave them to their conversation while he opened a death gate to Acherus. He and his Knights entered the portal.

Author's Note

First time I actually played around with the color and font size settings on this site. I wonder if anyone will figure out who the mysterious voice belongs to.

Yes, I did leave out that part with the barracks filled with Argent knights. Given that Thanatas has been giving her assistance here and there as well as the voice, I found that some knight begging her to break free would have been a bit redundant for this chapter.

Next time: The Northrend Campaign begins!

Journey to the North

After the battle at Light’s Hope Chapel and the Lich King’s embarrassing defeat, the death knights who swore revenge on him organized themselves into a group called the Knights of the Ebon Blade. At the same time, the paladins of the Argent Dawn and the Knights of the Silver Hand formed a union called the Argent Crusade.

Both forces were making preparations to travel to the Lich King’s domain of Northrend. For the Knights, it meant that they needed to free Acherus from the Scourge.

Jaqueline was pulled aside by Thanatas to discuss matters. Jaqueline began, “When ya mentioned that ah would receive somethin’ for freein’ mahself, ya meant this blade, didn’t you?” She pulled out her runeblade, one that she learned was named Appleblight.

As she spoke, she suddenly became conscious of her multi-tone voice that seemed inherent in all death knights. With all the destruction, slaughter and chaos, she never had time to think about how she sounded.

Thanatas nodded, “Correct, that blade carries immense potential. In time you will learn its secrets and your power will grow with it. I don’t know the full potential of that weapon but it will definitely surpass the likes of Arthas’ Frostmourne. The might of the Shadowlands courses within it. Appleblight will answer to no other master but you.”

“Sounds impressive, but how do ah tap into that power?”

“You will need an instructor. I watched you fight the Scarlet Crusade and everything you did. You seemed to rely more on swinging that sword around and seldom accessed the runes on your old blade. It’s fine to utilize your warrior skills but you need to learn to use your new necromantic powers on top of that. I can only guess that in his haste to get his invasion started, Arthas didn’t even bother to instill the knowledge all death knights have which left you stumbling to discover your powers when you showed some of your rage.”

Jaqueline thought about her experience as a death knight and realized that she didn’t know how to use her powers properly. Her thoughts turned to Thanatas who seemed willing to teach her. Though from what she had seen of her in action, Jaqueline understood that the figure before her was a sick and twisted individual. And yet, if she was forced to choose between her and Arthas, she would choose to be trained by the woman who seemed invested in helping her old friends and herself to grow stronger.

Her thoughts suddenly turned to her friends. Realizing what she had become, Jaqueline couldn’t go back to them. With Flutashe being a druid, death magic would certainly drive her away. Bella being a paladin, the two of them would be mortal enemies. Stella would probably reject her too since the mages of Dalaran always had a problem with necromancers.

Jaqueline sighed, “Ah can’t go back to mah old friends.”

Thanatas raised an eyebrow, “Sounds like you’re assuming that they will reject you for being a death knight. I think you give them too little credit. I’ve been observing their adventures in Outland and they fairly quickly allowed a demon hunter, a practitioner of fel magic, into their group.”

“Why would they do that? Aren’t them demon hunters all crazed with the green stuff that they would kill everyone around them?”

“Apparently not, the demon hunter is Flutashe’s sister and she seems to work well with the others. Stella was probably the most wary of them but she warmed up to her all the same. Besides, you have all traveled with me over your past adventures so seeing another death knight probably won’t be nearly as shocking the second time around. Don’t let your fears drive you to inaction, Jaqueline Pomerton, you need to know before you can come to grips with what you have become.”

“It ain’t that easy to just walk up to ‘em an’ tell ‘em ah’m a necromantic warrior with all sorts of evil powers.”

Thanatas rolled her eyes, “I could wax philosophical with you, but I won’t. They accepted a demon-infused force of chaos and Mena has an eldritch horror, my daughter I might add, in her head. It would be hypocritical of them to not still be fine with accepting a ‘necromantic warrior with all sorts of evil powers’ at this point. Besides, even in the unlikelihood that they do reject you, you still have the Knights of the Ebon Blade who will still treat you like their sister.”

That got Jaqueline thinking about her own sister. Blossom Pomerton was still living happily in Stormwind. She dreaded what her little sister would say if she saw what she had become.

Regardless, she had paths before her and she had a choice to make. There was no way she could go back to the Argent Crusade, as they called themselves now. She could choose the safe route and return to the Knights as they make their march to Icecrown where the Lich King lives, or she could choose the riskier route and return to her old friends. Jaqueline chuckled to herself, she wasn’t fooling anyone. Safe choices never suited her.

“Alright, so where are they right now?”

Thanatas smirked victoriously, “Good, you seem to be on board. I will make sure to train you in how to fight like a death knight. Now, give me a few minutes, I need to have a long distance conversation with my cousin.”

Turning away from Jaqueline, Thanatas opened the psychic link. However, Twilight Sparkle was the one to begin the conversation, “Is it over? Is Applejack back to normal? I cut the feed because I couldn’t bear to see her killing those innocents.”

“Yes, princess, we have secured her from the Scourge and her mind is her own again. As for her future, there is no returning her to life. Her destiny is in the realm of death. That Maldraxxian Seed will feed her runeblade and bring out its full potential as well as Applejack’s. It will be up to me to guide her growth.”

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. Applejack may be part of the living dead, but her soul remained intact and that was what really mattered. “Alright, then despite this setback, the project still appears to be on track.”

“Now with that settled…Sophia, what’s the status of the others?” Thanatas asked.

“My observer has been keeping tabs on Crystal’s group,” Sophia reported. “They are making preparations for their Northrend adventure. They will be taking a zeppelin there. The Horde’s expeditionary force is being led by Garrosh Hellscream.”

“We will need to keep an eye on that orc, he’s bloodthirsty and reckless. What about the targets?”

“Starlight decided to join her friends on the voyage. Apparently, some of their mages disappeared when they investigated the source of a global magic drain coming from a place in western Northrend. She will be investigating the disappearances.”

“That would be Malygos’ doing,” Thanatas explained. “Ever since he regained his sanity from absorbing the essences of several nether dragons, he came to some flawed logical conclusion that the world’s mortal spellcasters were to blame for the rampant magic in the world. He’s causing more harm to the world than they are in his idiotic crusade that’s only going to get the other flights pissed at him.”

Sophia continued, “The others are making preparations for their exploration of Northrend.”

“Alright, make sure they don’t leave yet. Have them come to the gates of Stormwind where they can reacquaint themselves with Jaqueline. You may also want to warn them of her new status.”

Once Thanatas closed the link, she turned to Jaqueline again, “I will open a Death Gate to Stormwind for you but I will not be accompanying you. Politically, I am still a member of the Horde so I can’t be seen with you.”

Jaqueline nodded, “Ah understand, so when are you plannin’ to train me?”

“We will have plenty of time during the voyage for training. I will drag you into the Realm of Shadows so we can train in secret. Now, let's return you to your friends.” She created the dark rift with a skull above it before gesturing toward the portal.

“Room for one more?” another voice asked. This one belonged to Thassarian, whom Jaqueline had come to respect during her brief time among the Scourge, alongside Koltira. “Some of the Knights of the Ebon Blade have decided to return to their people and lend them their blades in the war against the Lich King. Koltira and I shall negotiate with our respective leaders.”

“Provided they don’t kill us on the spot,” Koltira added.

Jaqueline and Thassarian walked through the Death Gate and entered the lively forest of Elwynn just in front of the entrance to Stormwind. The lush foliage of the trees and the brilliant sunlight that filtered through the canopy used to fill her with comfort and joy. With her recent transformation, it filled her with anxiety.

The guards at the entrance spotted the two and their pale skin and figured that they might be undead. Given the recent Scourge attack on Stormwind, the city was on high alert for further attacks.

Just as the guards were about to sound the alarm, they heard the snap of a teleport spell where they turned their heads to spot the heroes of the Sunwell incident.

“Thank the Light you are here, we’re under attack from death knights,” one guard said.

“No, we’re not, guardsman, we were just informed to expect them as guests,” Stella said. “I understand your confusion since we were only just informed of their coming. Sophia is explaining everything to King Wrynn as we speak. We are here to catch up with our friend while we wait for the king to send his envoy.”

The group approached Jaqueline who could see mixed expressions of joy and sorrow on their faces. Flutashe, Mena, Stella and Bella moved close to her like they were still friends which gave her a feeling of hope that her changes didn’t change their bonds. Raida stayed at a distance, which was reasonable since the two had never met before.

Bella scanned Jauqline’s new armor and weapon and gasped. “By the Light, that armor looks so dreary and I can tell it’s made of something I have never seen before. What is it?”

Jaqueline rubbed the back of her neck in embarrassment, “Sorry Bells, ah have no idea what this stuff is either, all ah was told was that ah needed to put it on to complete mah ‘terrifyin’ visage.’ Though for some reason ah keep hearin’ weird voices in mah head, been doin’ that since ah put on the first piece.”

“Violetta says that the metal is called Saronite,” Mena explained. “She also says that the whispers come from the Old God locked away in Northrend and that the metal is actually his blood mixed in with other minerals from the land. She can get rid of the whispers but it would weaken the durability of the armor.”

“Which would mean that crafting anything out of this metal would be risky to the bearer’s mind,” Bella concluded. “This is likely one of the new types of minerals to be found in Northrend. Once we explore the continent, I should be able to make something much better for you than that.”

Stella decided to address the elephant in the room, “So what happened? I heard from Sophia that you ended up becoming a death knight for the Scourge then broke free from their control, but how did you end up like this in the first place?”

With a sigh, Jaqueline recounted her ill-fated mission to liberate Stratholme from the Scourge while struggling to keep her heart beating. The others gasped in horror when they learned that the magical core caused her demise and that the Lich King brought her back to life as a death knight under his control. She included the horrifying parts of what he made her do as she recounted her efforts to destroy the Scarlet Crusade. She also mentioned that it was thanks to her new runeblade that she found the will to free herself.

“Arthas really has become a monster, hasn’t he?” Bella questioned. “To think, someone that I trained alongside in the past when we were Uther’s students would turn out like this. It makes me sick just thinking about it!”

“Ah hear ya Bells, ah ain’t lettin’ him get away with these atrocities anymore.”

Once she finished catching up with the others, Jaqueline decided to meet the demon hunter who kept a respectable distance from her. For some reason, she had an urge to tease her a little. “So you’re a demon hunter? Ah didn’t know they came as scrawny as an imp.”

Raida’s eyes widened in shock for an instant before she glared at the death knight, “You wanna repeat that? I thought I heard some chump ask me to kick their ass.”

Jaqueline couldn’t help but smirk as she brought her retort, “With those skinny legs? Ah wouldn’t feel a thing.”

“You wanna try me?”

That was when the death knight’s eyes widened as she realized what she was doing. She shook her head to clear it. “Uh, mah apologies, dunno what came over me there. For some reason, lookin’ at ya roused mah competitive urges.”

“Nah, don’t sweat it. I think I actually felt the same when I looked at you,” Raida responded. The two stared at each other for a moment before they shared a laugh.

Thassarian stayed quiet as he looked at the group. Jaqueline seemed really close to the group and he didn’t want to impose himself. Seeing them getting along like that made him consider if he should find his sister, Leryssa, and explain himself to her.

When the envoy arrived, he escorted the group to Stormwind Keep. The citizens had mixed feelings about the death knights, given how they were once of the Scourge. With a group of heroes escorting them, they decided to keep a neutral stance toward them. It wasn’t long before they stood before Varian.

Varian chuckled as he looked upon Jaqueline. He remembered when she and her friends rescued him from the Dark Iron Dwarves. Seeing her kneeling before him helped him to see that her status may have changed but her loyalties to the Alliance have not. “First warlocks came to Stormwind offering their dark magic to aid the Alliance, then demon hunters entered my throne room and kneeled before me to swear fealty, now we have death knights reestablishing their old ties. We certainly live in interesting times.”

“Glad to see you’re in good spirits, Your Majesty,” Jaqueline said. She and Varian shared a laugh together. “Also, with all due respect, Your Majesty, would you please not let Blossom know that ah’m a death knight, at least not yet. Ah’m not sure she would take well to knowin’ that she’s the last livin’ Pomerton left.”

Varian nodded, “Very well, I take it that you will tell her though? She will find out eventually, especially since she and my son are close friends.”

“Ah got mixed feelings about that, Your Majesty. Blossom is twelve and Anduin is eleven, nearly twelve, but the protective big sister part of me wants to give your son the usual threatenin’ speech while the part of me that knows better would prefer to not be in the Stockade for threatenin’ royalty.”

Varian laughed uproariously at that comment, “You may be an undead now, but you haven’t changed on the inside. It’s good to see that you have returned. I’ll make sure the citizens understand that some of the Lich King’s death knights have joined the Alliance. Now, all of you should head to the harbor once you are ready. The first ship to Valgarde will be departing soon. I need you to provide assistance there since they seem to be having trouble with some new enemies we have never encountered before.”

Once dismissed, the party of seven, Sophia included, traveled to the other side of the city where the harbor was. The harbor was a spacious area about the size of Stormwind’s other districts with several docks and a number of supply crates in piles around the area.

The ship they were headed toward was their newest naval destroyer. Unlike their usual ships, destroyers had a fortified hull with a steam engine to keep the ship going in times of unfavorable conditions. The bow was equipped with an icebreaker since they would be sailing into freezing waters.

The crew welcomed the party aboard alongside a number of other soldiers and adventurers seeking to be the ones who defeat the Lich King. As they mingled, the crew prepared the engines for the long voyage to the southwestern coast of Northrend. It wasn’t long before the ship left the dock and they were underway.

During the voyage, Jaqueline let her friends know that she would vanish every now and then since Thanatas needed to train her in how to use her powers. Every few days she would be pulled into the Realm of Shadows where she learned about the runes on her blade and the general use for them. However, Thanatas also mentioned that the runes along the blade had more than one purpose.

Usually, a runeblade was only capable of bearing six runes that pulled magic into itself to replenish the runes once used, however, there were thirteen runes on the blade with three more on the apple part of the hilt. Six of the thirteen could be used for general necromancy.

At one point, Jaqueline mentioned the strange arm that grew from her back and hooked a chain around Orbaz’s arm which yanked him to her. Thanatas explained that she stumbled upon one of the runic powers of the blade. It was called Abomination Limb and it was the easiest rune to access because it was attuned to her power as a death knight.

Thanatas instructed Jaqueline on how to unleash devastating diseases, icy destruction and bloody fury with her runes while informing her that each rune used provided power to her body that she could unleash in the form of crushing strikes. She also showed her how to create a barrier of flesh and bone to protect herself instead of using a shield.

Other than the training, nothing else of note happened during the month they spent on the voyage. By the time they got to Valgarde, they were already a few days into the new year.

The settlement was built along the bay with an inn and a tower serving as the only structures with a stone wall serving as a defense from land-based attacks. Most of the settlement had a number of tents set up for the soldiers.

Once they disembarked from the ship, the group reported to the one in charge of the settlement, a vice admiral named Keller. Keller had informed them that ever since adventurers began sailing to Northrend, the situation had begun to improve.

He went on to explain how the adventurers dealt with a nearby village of half-giant people called vrykul and liberated any Valgarde prisoners they had captured.

The vrykul, as they discovered, were actually the ancestral race of humanity that was born when vrykul began giving birth to deformed children. Those who couldn’t bear to have their children butchered to keep their race pure sent the children to distant shores where they developed the first civilizations of humanity.

Keller explained that the vrykul worship the Lich King as a death god which made Jaqueline scoff which the vice admiral noticed and smirked in response. The leader of the vrykul in the region was an ancient king named Ymiron who had recently awoken from a sort of stasis slumber and was now leading the vrykul from atop the massive tower to their north which was named Utgarde Keep. Keller decided to let the job of clearing out the keep be the role of the party. He wanted them to start with the lower level and eliminate the one leading the raids on Valgarde, Ingvar the Plunderer.

Keller then went on to explain more of what occurred in the region known as Howling Fjord. The Forsaken had set up a couple of settlements in the region and were experimenting with some dangerous substances. One vrykul village ended up as guinea pigs for their latest strain and the way he described it told the group that they wouldn’t wish such a thing on their worst enemy.

The next point Keller made was that they made contact with a race of walrus people who called themselves the Kalu’ak which translated to tuskarr in their language. The tuskarr were a friendly race who really enjoyed fishing.

Another report about the Horde was that they had made contact with who appeared to be a subrace of tauren who bore a resemblance to bison known as the taunka. It didn’t take much convincing to get them to join the Horde so they would likely be treated as enemies.

There was one piece of information that piqued the interest of Violetta. An excavation team of dwarves had dug into a canyon and had reportedly lost their minds, attacking friends and foes alike in a crazed frenzy. The eldritch horror suspected that the dwarves dug too deep and discovered a rich vein of saronite which likely meant that the Old God on this continent was whispering into their minds.

Finally, Keller reported that they discovered a new race of dwarves made of metal. These iron dwarves were hostile to everyone and reports from the Explorer’s League informed them that they answered to a mysterious figure known as Loken. However, they didn’t have any further information at this time.

With the group briefed about what was going on in Northrend, it was time for them to get to work and their first task was defeating the vrykul residing in Utgarde Keep.

Lokosh and the others soon arrived at Warsong Hold, a towering structure of fire, stone and steel built into a quarry. When they spotted the leadership discussing strategy, they secretly rolled their eyes when Garrosh gave his definition of strategy. It wasn’t hard to figure that the other leader, Varok Saurfang, would roll his eyes too. Garrosh believed that the solution to free their supply lines from the Scourge and Alliance was to apply brute force.

“Is this a bad time?” Talia asked.

The two noticed their entry and turned to face them. Garrosh grunted while Varok addressed them. “Good, you’re here. I will brief you on the situation.”

Varok then discussed what was happening in the region of Borean Tundra. He pointed out an Alliance stronghold not far from their location but had not given them any trouble. Some Alliance deserters were recently handed over to them. “Cowards like that aren’t worth killing, we should have just fed them to the spiders below,” Garrosh commented.

Saurfang also mentioned that they discovered a strange race of half giant people who shrouded themselves in mist and wrapped themselves in seaweed. When they died they left nothing but a pile of seaweed on the ground.

Not too long ago there was also a Scourge presence at the landing site that appeared to be led by a powerful lich that matched the description of the archlich of Naxxramas, Kel’thuzad. It was originally thought that the archlich and the citadel were still assaulting the Plaguelands but recent reports suggested that the flying fortress had returned to Northrend.

There was also a brief mention of a radical offshoot of the Cenarion Expedition called the Druids for the Ethical and Humane Treatment of Animals. Garrosh referred to them as a joke and not worth their time, a sentiment that Varok agreed with. The organization agreed to not engage in any hostilities against the Alliance or Horde as long as they didn’t harm the wildlife.

Other than that, the Horde had been harassed by the Blue Dragonflight demanding their spellcasters in exchange for leaving them be. Naturally, this resulted in hostilities.

“Now, let’s get underway,” Garrosh said. “Report to our stablemaster on the upper level of the hold. They will provide for you transport to our taunka allies in the northeast. Aid them however you can. If you end up breaking the Scourge stronghold in this region while you are there, it will go a long way in our campaign against the Lich King.”

With their assignment given, Lokosh, Talia, Groun, Farra’jin and Feloma proceeded through the Horde stronghold to find the stable master and begin their new mission.

Author's Note

The Northrend campaign is finally underway and as usual, the players with no life...err, I mean the adventurers who got there first have done most of the field work. I will be doing most of the dungeons but there is a couple I decided to leave out because of something I want to do.

Hope you all had a great Christmas!

The Vrykul

Once they had been briefed of the situation in the Howling Fjord, the party of six made their preparations to assault the massive tower to the north. Flutashe, Bella, Mena, Raida, Stella and Jaqueline gathered what resources the settlement could provide.

Sophia decided to stay behind in the settlement and gather intelligence. She was confident that the group could take on anything that was inside the keep at this point. Of course, Twilight would get upset if she didn’t get her observational data so she made sure to have a Protoss Observer follow them.

Getting to the keep required going through a village of the half-giants who were still numerous despite the previous adventurers tearing through the place.

The males of the half-giants known as vrykul resembled a burly version of humans who carried large weapons to match their stature and some wore their hair long and braided while the females were more inclined toward casting magic. Their buildings were crude while their decorations bore an equally crude resemblance to dragons.

Stella looked up and spotted a few vrykul riding what she knew were dragons in their original state, proto dragons. The beasts had thick, red and black, armored scales and smaller bodies than the Titan-blessed dragons. Their wings were huge but their forearms were tiny and seemingly in the process of atrophy. Seeing the dragon riders in the air told the dracthyr that this particular tribe of vrykul had used the proto dragons as part of their culture.

“What are those beasts?” Bella asked.

“Those are what dragon-kind evolved from, proto dragons,” Stella answered.

Stella stayed wary of such beasts since she wasn’t certain whether or not they secretly served the Incarnates. She was glad those three were still locked away.

The group soon reached the stairs leading up to the keep and took down two vrykul guarding them. They entered a hall that appeared well designed compared to the crude buildings from before. The stone walls were roughly cut and numerous large wooden support beams went into its construction.

The group moved deeper into the halls without resistance but knew that there would be at some point.

After turning a corner, the group found a set of stairs leading up to where they spotted the first guards. Two vrykul wearing iron armor and carrying longswords were their first opponents. Bella and Raida each took one where the demon hunter blocked her foe’s sword with one warglaive and slashed with another and the paladin hurled her shield at hers which struck him in the chest and made him stagger. The shield returned to Bella’s outstretched hand.

Raida’s opponent jumped back to avoid another slash but she replied by empowering one warglaive with fel energy and throwing it at him. The warrior wasn’t expecting that and received a deep cut for his troubles which turned into burning agony as the fel flames burned him from the inside out.

Bella dealt a heavy blow to her opponent with her hammer which sent him flying back and falling on his back where a hammer of light fell on his head and crushed it.

The area behind the two warriors was a workstation where numerous vrykul blacksmiths were at work forging weapons for their brothers. There were quite a few of them ahead so most of them figured that they would each have to take on one or two.

“Mind if ah handle this one?” Jaqueline asked. “Ah’d like to get a handle on these new powers.”

“Are you sure you can handle them all?” Flutashe asked.

“‘Bout to find out.” Moving forward, Jaqueline shouted to the blacksmiths in the area, “Hey meatheads, y’all ready to face your deaths?”

That got the vrykuls’ attention. Each one picked up their smithing hammers for a fight against a challenger. “A puny thing like you wishes to challenge us? You had best be prepared to back up your words!” one of the smiths shouted back.

As the blacksmiths rushed in to attack, Jaqueline called on the powers of her runeblade where numerous snaking trails of a sickly green pestilence jumped from the weapon and struck all of the vrykul. The half giants halted their attack for a moment and coughed as their skin began turning a pale shade of green. Two more runes activated which struck one vrykul with a chilling ailment that spread from him like a contagion. The diseases they had been afflicted with had greatly weakened their strength. Another rune activated which caused all of them to howl in agony as they felt their insides boil. Blood began to flow from every orifice on their faces; it was a horrific sight. The final blow came when Jaqueline used all of the runic magic she stored from using her runes to deal a powerful slash that cut down all of the vrykul at once.

Sighing, Jaqueline put away her blade for the time being. “Ah don’t like these powers, would be better if ah didn’t have to use ‘em.”

Jaqueline wasn’t expecting a hug from behind, least of all from Flutashe. “It’s okay, you don’t need to hold back on our account. Just don’t use those powers on innocent people.”

“I gotta admit, that was pretty awesome,” Raida said. “You made all of them keel over from sickness without any of them touching you. That’s pretty badass.”

Jaqueline chuckled weakly as she embraced her friends’ support. “If’n y’all say so.”

The group proceeded into what appeared to be a forge area with a giant contraption in the center of the room that looked like several skulls breathing fire continuously with what appeared to be giant bellows in between each face. One nearby vrykul appeared to be operating part of the forge with two more working on weapons.

Flutashe shifted into her cat form, which made her about as tall as the vrykul, and grabbed the two weaponsmiths by the arms before she hurled them into the furnace. The bellows operator stopped what he was doing and grabbed his own weapon but was turned into a sheep and set on fire. This strategy was repeated two more times until the forge was shut down and they were allowed to move forward without risk of being incinerated.

The next area was a giant stable of sorts with several piles of hay in sections of the room. A number of vrykul were taking care of several red proto drakes. Unfortunately, Flutashe was unable to use her powers to tame the drakes which informed her of another limitation of her ability. She didn’t like that they now had to kill the proto drakes but understood that they didn’t have a choice since she couldn’t get them to listen to her.

Because of this, the group had to get through the area the old fashioned way. Everyone else took down the vrykul tamers while Jaqueline got the attention of the proto drakes before she afflicted them with a severe case of hypothermia and cut them down.

Beyond the stable they fought a trio of vrykul where one was wearing robes but fought with his staff while inscribing quick runes on his allies. Another used bombs and rogue-like tricks to defeat the party but Jaqueline shoved a bomb into the runecaster’s mouth where it blew his head apart while Raida ran a warglaive through the chest of the rogue-like vrykul. Stella froze the remaining fighter and shattered him with an icicle.

They entered a large room that looked like a conference room with a huge round table in the center. Four vrykul stood around it along with a figure whom Jaqueline was very familiar with.

“Keleseth…” Jaqueline growled.

“You know him?” Stella asked.

“He tried to get me to torture some poor Scarlet soldier for information usin’ searin’ hot pokers. If Thanatas hadn’t gotten the info for me ah woulda.”

“So what do you wanna do?” Raida asked.

“You girls take out the vrykul, Keleseth is mine.”

Before the others could object, they took one look at her blue glowing eyes and they could tell that their death knight friend was determined to crush the elf before her. “Kill ‘em quickly,” Jaqueline added. “They’re more useful to me dead than alive.”

With their plan made, the group ran into the hall where Keleseth and the vrykul noticed their entry. The elf chuckled, “What an unexpected surprise, the woman who slighted my master with that audacious attack and now she rushes headlong to her true death.”

“Ya might wanna win this fight first before ya say that,” Jaqueline countered.

Keleseth was a skilled mage and a decent necromancer so his protective spells did offer some protection from Jaqueline’s attacks but his shadow bolts were also deflected by her sword. He also teleported around the hall to attack her from different angles but was caught by surprise when he was yanked toward her by necromantic energy. He managed to teleport behind Jaqueline before she could follow up.

“So, it seems that you picked up on how to use runic magic pretty quickly after our abrupt departure,” Keleseth noted. The elf also noticed that the other vrykul were being quickly dispatched by those who accompanied her and he didn’t like the odds of facing all of them by himself. To keep things fair, he summoned several vrykul skeletons from the next room to aid him and keep the others off of him.

Once the vrykul were defeated, Jaqueline put her plan into action. Using a spell that Thanatas taught her, she raised her sword in the air and directed black bolts of necromantic magic into the vrykul corpses, stripping them of their flesh and organs which disintegrated and turned into a dark green and black energy which wrapped around her as a protective barrier. She then pointed her sword at the now unmoving vrykul bones and channeled necromantic magic into them, reanimating them and ordering them to attack Keleseth’s skeletons.

Seeing an opportunity, Keleseth encased Jaqueline into a block of ice. Confident that she was now out of the way, he then turned his attention to the others. However, they had their attention on the ice. Keleseth assumed that they were looking at their friend and figured that they would suffer the same fate.

The sound of ice shattering took him completely by surprise. He turned around just in time for a number of ice shards to impale his shoulders, legs and stomach and nail him to the wall. The san’layn struggled for a few seconds before he ceased and his head slumped.

“That takes care of one’a those elves ah got a bone to pick with,” Jaqueline said with a smirk.

The group proceeded out of the hall and into what appeared to be a cavern that was currently being excavated by a number of ghouls and small hideous gangrel creatures that moved around by leaping and jumping. Their faces were indistinguishable because each of them wore a hood that had an opening that was only large enough for one eye to look through. They also had a noose around their necks. Jaqueline’s knowledge of undead that she gained from Thanatas allowed her to inform the others that the creatures were known as geists.

Aside from the ghouls and geists, there were also a few vrykul overseeing their digging. Bella and Mena’s holy spells decimated the undead in the cavern while the others tore into the vrykul.

Their foray continued as they faced more vrykul warriors, though as strong as they had become, they began taking turns defeating groups with the exception of the wolves they soon came across since Flutashe could tame them. They climbed a flight of stairs to an upper level where they faced more vrykul along with more undead digging into the rock walls.

At the foot of the steps ahead stood a pair of enemies. One was a shirtless vrykul with a long brown beard and his hair done in a ponytail and carrying fist blades. The other was an elder necromancer in yellow robes and a skull cap on his head.

Investigating the commotion, the two quickly discovered the intruders. “Dalronn, see if you can muster the nerve to join my attack,” the vrykul mocked.

“By all means, don’t assess the situation, you halfwit,” Dalronn replied. “Just jump into the fray.”

Bella and Stella faced these two with the paladin facing the vrykul and the mage facing the necromancer.

Bella’s shield blocked the vrykul’s strikes while he found himself struck repeatedly by Bella’s light-based arsenal. Dalronn summoned skeletons to attack Stella while he fired Shadow Bolts from a distance but a blast of arcane magic scattered the bones and bolts of fire, frost and arcane bombarded the necromancer who pulled the bones to himself to form a barrier.

Feeling confident, Dalronn decided to taunt the vrykul to motivate him, “Having trouble with that one, Skarvald? I knew you were weak!”

The taunt had the desired effect as the vrykul was now fighting with more fervor. In response, Bella wrapped herself in a powerful shield of light that repelled all of Skarvald’s attacks. Bella knew the shield wouldn’t last long so she quickly channeled a powerful surge of light before unleashing it into his chest which seared his body in burning light, causing him to stagger. She then infused light into her hammer and dropped the shield while he was recovering to deliver a powerful blow that shattered his jaw and jumped up to deliver another to the side of his head which twisted his neck and snapped it.

Dalronn rolled his eyes as he saw his partner fall to the ground. However, he had no intention of fighting this battle alone so he raised several more skeletons to distract Stella while he raised Skarvald’s spirit. “Skarvald, you incompetent slug! Return and make yourself useful!”

The fight between Bella and Skarvald resumed except Bella found that she was no longer able to cause harm to the spirit. Even when she blasted the spirit with her light spells, the ghostly vrykul persisted.

Stella decided to end her fight with Dalronn by overpowering him with a Disintegration Beam that obliterated his bone shield and created a gaping hole in his chest. Skarvald scoffed as he watched the necromancer fall, “What sort of necromancer lets death stop him? I knew you were worthless.”

In response to that, Dalronn tore his own spirit from his body and resumed his battle against Stella. The dracthyr realized that her attacks were having no effect on the spirit.

“What is going on?! Why are our attacks not working?” Bella asked.

“Dang necromancer put an anchorin’ spell on their bodies to allow their souls to fight. They can’t move far from their corpses but they ain’t comin’ back to life neither.” Jaqueline realized that a lot of what Thanatas taught her was coming in handy. Focusing her vision on the corpses, she spotted a pair of spiritual tethers linked to the spirits. Acting quickly, she rushed in and cut the line from Skarvold’s corpse. The vrykul’s soul faded away.

Dalronn looked at the death knight in horror as he realized that she could see the tether. He fired several bolts of shadow magic in a desperate attempt to keep her away from his tether but she placed an Anti-Magic Shield on herself to block his spells which made it easy for her to reach Dalronn’s tether and sever it to bring an end to the necromancer.

After Bella and Stella thanked Jaqueline for her assistance, the party moved forward, killing more vrykul and having Flutashe turn the wolves on their handlers. They went up another flight of stairs and out into the open air where they moved along a terrace dealing with more vrykul and a proto drake rider.

Their journey through the keep soon came to an end when they reached an overlook with four stone arches that didn’t appear to hold any significance. A lone vrykul stood at the end of it barking orders to the proto drake riders who flew up to him. Bella could tell that the axe on his back was looking dull. They could see his dark brown and black armor past his bright red cape. His gray hair made him look like an elderly vrykul.

“By the way he’s barking orders, he has to be the leader,” Raida guessed.

“Keller did mention someone named Ingvar leading the assaults on Valgarde, perhaps that is him?” Bella hoped.

“Either way, he’s gonna be a dead vrykul shortly,” Jaqueline declared.

“Mind if I take this one?” Raida asked. “I may have control over my demonic magic but I still get restless if I don’t have a good fight every now and then.”

Flutashe giggled, “Go ahead.”

“Aww, yeah!” The demon hunter ran to the center of the overlook and called out to Ingvar, “Hey, Ingvar! You and me, one on one!”

Ingvar turned around while several proto drake riders flew closer to see the fight take place. “You wish to challenge me? You are unworthy! You shall fall before the Death God’s chosen!”

As they fought, Raida realized that this vrykul was particularly strong and though his axe was a little dulled, the force behind his attacks made up for that. Thankfully, she was a very nimble fighter and was able to avoid his swings while occasionally making him strike the arch pillars which gave her an opening to deliver a deep wound on him.

However, it also turned out that Ingvar was a berserker where his attacks grew in speed and intensity the longer the battle dragged on though she wasn’t going to risk getting too close and getting smashed on the pillars.

One wide swing from Ingvar would be his downfall as Raida took this chance to get behind him and run a warglaive through his back, using fel flames to make sure she pierced his armor.

“Argh! My life for the…Death…God…” he called out before he collapsed as a pool of blood formed under him.

Raida started to walk away casually with her hands behind her head when she noticed her friends looking up. She turned around and looked as well where she saw a figure flying down. The being looked like a female vrykul with large white feathered wings and sky blue skin. Her winged helm covered her eyes.

“Looks like one of Arthas’ val’kyr is payin’ us a visit,” Jaqueline noted.

“What’s that?” Mena asked.

“They’re his winged harbingers,” Jaqueline explained. “They go around judgin’ vrykul and reanimate ‘em as undead whenever they get themselves killed. From what Thanatas told me, the worthy ones become a blue-skinned variant while the unworthy ones turn into a zombie vrykul called a vargul. Fewer still and only the females end up becomin’ val’kyr.”

The val’kyr flew down over Ingvar’s corpse and frowned as she pointed her hand toward him. “Ingvar, your pathetic failure will serve as a warning to all. You are–” As she was reanimating Ingvar, she was forced to fly backward to avoid a flying warglaive before the demon hunter who threw it shot upward to retrieve it. The val’kyr summoned her spear just in time to block a downward double slash. Once Raida flew back a short distance, the val’kyr summoned her shield as well.

Annhylde, as she was named, was renowned for her defensive tactics when she was alive. Her shield had saved her life many times in the past when rivaling vrykul clans tried to take her village. When the Scourge invaded her village, she was the last survivor and defeated a thousand undead before she finally fell. The Lich King saw fit to reward her for her bravery by raising her as a val’kyr.

Raida shifted to the side when Annhylde charged forward with a spear thrust. The demon hunter’s counter attack was blocked by her shield. The val’kyr also blocked a Black Eye Beam with her shield but had to spare a moment to notice the extra weight on her protection to find black crystals on it.

Raida didn’t dare use dark magic to cause fear in her opponent. From what she heard of the undead, they were incapable of fear unless it was induced upon them by light magic. Instead, she fired a mixed volley of shadow and fel magic. Annhylde blocked any shadow bolts with her shield which made the crystal grow but was taken by surprise when a fel bolt struck the crystal and caused the crystal to explode and sent her flying through one of the overlook’s archway pillars. Raida smirked in delight when she saw how quickly Annhylde recovered after that.

Annhylde put out all the stops when she pushed the limits of her power to try to outmaneuver Raida in the sky. Not able to dodge a spear charge in time, Raida used her Fel Shield to block it but the spear managed to pierce and shatter the barrier. However, it did slow the val’kyr enough to allow Raida to dodge the thrust by spinning around and delivering a double slash to her back while her blades burned in fel flame. Annhylde grit her teeth as she endured the pain and spun around to slash at her opponent with her spear. Raida managed to block it with her blades but was thrown back into another pillar on the overlook.

Raida quickly recovered and returned to the sky where the two continued to exchange blows while the other party members and the observing vrykul proto drake riders watched, the latter knowing better than to interrupt the battle of one of the venerated val’kyr. However, one of Annhylde’s spear strikes missed their target and struck one of the unsuspecting proto drakes in the head and sent them and their rider plummeting into the lake below.

The moment Annhylde overextended one of her spear strikes was the moment she made her final mistake as Raida avoided the strike and struck her in the back with a Black Eye Beam along with a torrent of fel breath that struck the resulting crystal. Annhylde’s world faded away as she succumbed to the resulting wounds from the explosion which destroyed her wings. Her body landed hard on one of the lower walls of the keep.

With the val’kyr dead, Raida quickly returned to her friends. None of them needed to be told that the proto drake riders were going to be extra furious once they got over the shock of their val’kyr dying so Stella quickly created a portal back to Valgarde where everyone rushed through just as a distant vrykul began roaring in fury.

Talia and the others arrived at Taunka’le village. During their time assisting the bison variant of tauren, the group had to assist them in their preparations to escape east toward the Dragonblight region where their capital lay.

Mainly, their job was to clear out enough of the enemy forces harassing them which included Scourge nerubians and a radical mechanical gnome who wished to “return them to their original state” which he believed involved removing the flesh they were cursed with and returning it to a stone or metal state.

The biggest threat came from the nearby Scourge stronghold of En’kilah. The undead there would quickly overtake their evacuation efforts. The taunka wanted the party to clear out enough of the stronghold that the Scourge would be trying to reorganize instead of attacking their evacuees. They hoped that taking out the leadership who were overseeing everything from the necropolis hovering over the city would throw the enemy into disarray long enough for the evacuation.

Groun missed some of the plan because he could swear that he could hear a faint voice calling out to him through his real name. The voice was distant so he wasn’t sure if it warranted telling the others yet, though that would change if he decided that it was worth his attention.

Author's Note

Here is a small quiz: Of the nine val'kyr who bound themselves to Sylvanas in the canon, which one was the first to fall and how?

Answer that and you may see the implications that would come as a result of this chapter.

Next time: Return to Utgarde Keep.

The Pinnacle

Bella, Jaqueline and the others spent a day resting after their adventure in the lower section of Utgarde Keep. Vice Admiral Keller was debriefed about what happened and was amazed that the group was able to take down one of the Lich King’s winged harbingers. Defeating the leader of the attacks on Valgarde was certain to cause the vrykul attacks to lose their edge but defeating a val’kyr was sure to send a message to Arthas.

In regard to the threats that remain in the Howling Fjord, there were still several accounted for. The Forsaken continued their inhumane experiments, however their main enemy was still the same as the Alliance. The motives of the iron dwarves in the northeast were still unknown at this time, though they had been subjugating stone giants for some unknown purpose since the giants were traveling north toward Grizzly Hills. A group of pirates who set themselves up in the southwest appeared to be minding their own business so they were left alone.

Keller believed that the time was near for them to drive the Scourge out of the region. Since their fortress in the northwest, Gjalerbron, was dismantled by some adventurers recently, the only Scourge presence left in the region was Utgarde.

Knowing that they would be attacking the pinnacle of Utgarde soon, the party was ordered to get some rest for tomorrow.

Talia couldn’t help but wonder how they keep getting into the messes they get into.

It all started when they had to hunt down a bunch of diseased mammoths and take their pelts. However, none of them had the skills necessary to take the hide from a mammoth so the village had to offer the services of one of their hunters to skin the animals for them.

This was followed by them wandering around the area collecting jars of toxic dirt from around the City of En’kilah so they could cure the hides with it for a stealth operation to infiltrate the city. Once they had the cloaks, they had to scout the buildings in the city while avoiding the abominations who could somehow blow their cover.

They discovered several important individuals in the buildings. One appeared to be a large crypt fiend while another seemed like it looked less like an undead nerubian and more like a scarab beetle the size of a timber wolf. The third was an undead elf mage. Deciding to take some initiative, they decided to take out these individuals and take back to camp whatever they had on hand. Taking down the crypt fiend and the elf were easy but they didn’t have much knowledge on the beetle-like nerubian but found that its shell was thick. They had to use Talia’s demons and Farra’jin’s elementals to crush the creature.

From their persons, the group found three scrolls. Opening them, the group read the words “Shabtir bakh sokhen”. They took the scrolls to the village chieftain and translated the words somehow, which surprised the group since they had no idea anyone was even capable of translating the spider language. The chieftain translated “The servant bows to the master’s authority”. With the words, they would be able to access the Scourge transporter at the bottom of the city that would take them to the necropolis floating above the city where the leaders were.

Unfortunately, with the deaths of the priests from earlier, the city was on high alert and their cloaks were no longer effective. For Talia, it was better this way since she hated everything about that cloak to the point that she nearly fell into her Canterlot noble mentality.

The group tore through the defenders composed of abominations, ghouls and gargoyles while they searched for the teleporter which was not far from the entrance.

Using the words, the group stepped onto the teleporter and appeared in the center of an eerie stone structure. The immediate area was guarded by skeletal mages who were quickly dispatched. A pair of darkfallen death knights were distracted by Talia’s demons while everyone rushed the pair as a group.

After clearing out the entire area, the group wasn’t sure if they defeated the leader or if those death knights from earlier were the leaders. They considered that their work was done until Lokosh spotted what appeared to be a teleporter just above the teleporter they arrived in. He decided to test it out and disappeared. The others followed him quickly where they entered another chamber. This one had a lot more darkfallen death knights.

Once again the group was forced to deal with the elven death knights. Some of them subjected them to painful diseases and others tried to chill them to the bone. Feloma shot most of the death knights in the head while Farra’jin had his water totem cure their illnesses.

They soon reached the upper level to the chamber via the stairs and found a darkfallen who looked different from what they found in the necropolis so far. This one wore blood red robes with teal gems embedded.

The elf looked at the group and clicked his tongue in disappointment. “Pathetic! My servants let a bunch of riffraff run rampant through my necropolis? Are death knights even worth keeping around anymore?” He sighed. “No matter, if I must dirty my hands then so be it. Come mortals and die by the hands of Prince Valanar!”

Talia sent her demons to attack Valanar but were quickly repelled by a kinetic blast that sent the demons flying away and followed up with several black lances that destroyed them in a single wave of his hand.

Feloma’s arrows met a barrier that protected the darkfallen prince. Her pets tried to attack him but he sent the beasts flying off the platform. Summer and Autumn would have met the same fate as Talia’s demons but Feloma’s arcane arrows intercepted the san’layn’s black lances.

It was when the group started to work together that Valanar began feeling pressured as Farra’jin’s earth elemental was large enough to keep him from seeing Talia casting a fire spell that caused fire to rain on him. His barrier blocked it but the fire distracted him long enough that the earth elemental got close enough to punch his shield. The force of the earth elemental’s attack was enough to shatter his barrier.

Valanar staggered from the blow which gave Talia an opportunity to summon her felhound to sneak past the elf’s defenses while he was distracted. The darkfalen was not completely distracted but the demon successfully drained a significant amount of his magic before he speared them with a shadow lance. As he did the same to the elemental, he was slammed in the chest by Lokosh who charged at him through the dust that was kicked up when the elemental was destroyed. The orc jumped away in time to avoid a volley of arcane arrows that pierced Valanar’s chest. He coughed up blood but then ended up pinned to the wall by several more arcane arrows. One last arrow struck him in the head to bring an end to the undead prince.

The group took a few minutes to rest before leaving the necropolis from the way they came.

Flutashe’s dreams were once again disturbed by the cries of more Loa. However, this time there was one that came from someone whom she was familiar with. A wild god who was revered among the night elves.

“Ursoc…” she muttered in her sleep.

The Wild God was famous for his bravery and tenacity, especially during the War of the Ancients. He and his spiritualistic brother, Ursol were two of the most powerful Wild Gods to walk Azeroth.

The druid also heard cries of pain from Loa further north. There were a lot more of them this time. The cries came from a snake, unlike the one from Zul’Gurub, a snow leopard, a polar bear, a mammoth, a wind serpent, unlike Hakkar, and a rhino.

Flutashe had a sinking feeling that it may already be too late. Unlike the last cries for help, these were either faint or distorted. Then her thoughts turned to the trolls who were likely the ones responsible. She trembled in barely contained anger on her bed for several minutes as she struggled to regain control of her emotions.

Raida was in the bed next to her sister and she could pick up on the rage within her. She sat up in her bed and looked toward her enraged sister. “Deep breaths, sis. I want you to explain to me why you are angry without waking everyone up.”

Flutashe was thankful that she still had the presence of mind to be mindful of others when she felt like screaming and she didn’t want to disturb everyone just because she was in a bad mood. After ten minutes of taking deep breaths, Flutashe began to explain her dream and how it and her previous dreams related to Loa led her to making an effort to rescue them. Raida stayed quiet during the entire time her sister vented and listened patiently.

Her time training under Illidan had taught her patience since acting hastily can give an inner demon a weakness to exploit. It also helped that she learned this skill since she had to clean up after her master’s mistakes sometimes.

Raida took a deep breath and told her sister what she already knew. “You know that we can’t just rush to the north to rescue a bunch of troll gods. We already have our hands full dealing with the Scourge and we don’t have enough information on the northern regions yet to push the campaign in that direction.”

“I understand,” Flutashe replied. “I just feel so helpless that we can’t do anything to save them and I still don’t understand why these trolls would torture the gods they were supposed to revere.”

“Right now, we need to focus on our priorities. First we need to secure this region and establish a strong foothold, then we need to aid the Alliance forces in Dragonblight. We can push into troll territory after that.” It saddened her that she couldn’t uplift her sister’s dejected mood.

Then an idea hit her. It was dangerous, but after how well they thrashed those vrykul in Utgarde, she felt a little confident in the combat strength of her friends. “I have an idea, let’s run it by our friends and see how they feel about it. Once we defeat King Ymiron, we’ll see about splitting up. I’ll go with you and we can go punish those evil trolls together.” Raida suddenly found herself pinned on her bed from her sister pouncing on her. She could feel the warmth of the embrace as she chuckled and returned the hug.

The party was rested and ready to go before the sun rose. Raida and Flutashe explained the situation that was going on further north and offered a suggestion of splitting up to deal with more threats.

Surprisingly, Stella seemed more than willing to go along with this. She gave the reasoning that her home city of Dalaran had recently literally uprooted itself and teleported to a region in the very center of Northrend. Her main concern was that she found out that the Blue Dragonflight had recently declared war on all mortal spellcasters and they were likely to make a move on the city in the near future.

They soon agreed to split up into three groups of two. Flutashe and Raida would explore the regions to the north while Stella and one other would protect Dalaran for a time, leaving the last two to provide aid to the Alliance forces in Dragonblight.

Following the meeting, the group utilized their various means of flight. Raida and Stella deployed their wings, Flutashe shifted into her bird form, Bella and Mena summoned their wings of light and Jaqueline blew her whistle to summon Winona.

The group was caught by surprise when they saw that Jaqueline’s faithful companion was a skeleton of a gryphon. The death knight explained what happened which was responded with a group hug for her and Winona.

Once the moment was over, the group took flight and flew around the towering vrykul keep for any other entrances. It took them some time before they found one atop the cliffs halfway to the top. They landed near the entrance and made their final preparations before they moved in.

Once inside, they proceeded through a narrow entryway and found themselves in what appeared to be a treasury filled with all sorts of valuables from gold coins, gems, priceless statues and artifacts. A number of skeletons were digging through the piles of loot that the vrykul had accumulated over the centuries.

“This appears to be where the vrykul leave their tributes to King Ymiron,” Bella noted.

“Not a very safe place if you ask me, this hoard is right next to the entrance,” Mena commented.

The skeletons appeared to ignore the group as long as they stayed away from the loot which was fine by them since they were not here for the riches. The greedy adventurers could have that if they wanted.

They encountered their first sign of enemies further inside the treasury in the form of several vrykul and an abomination. A female among them used shamanistic spells to heal her allies so Stella quickly incapacitated her while the others overpowered the vrykul before ending her. The abomination was as strong as their build suggested but they were also slow. The main bother was a disease it tried to inflict on one of them which Mena quickly cured.

Leaving the treasure room, they walked onto a terrace where they encountered more vrykul and abominations who were dealt with the same way as the first group. They soon reached the end and entered another chamber on the upper level. Looking down from the walkway, they saw a large number of vrykul observing some event going on.

A single female vrykul appeared to be staring into a large mirror at the stage. Jaqueline could feel the familiar dark aura coming from it. “Ah sense Arthas,” she quietly told the others.

Soon an image of the Lich King appeared in the mirror and the female vrykul knelt down to him. “My liege! I have done as you asked, and now beseech you for your blessing.”

Arthas’ deep, gravelly voice resounded through the halls, “Your sacrifice is a testament to your obedience. Indeed, you are worthy of this charge.” He then pointed his sword at the vrykul, a powerful wave of dark magic emerged from the tip of it and enveloped her. Her skin turned pale and her robes were replaced by armor similar to what Annhylde wore. A pair of black wings that faded to white at the tips emerged from her back. “Arise, and forever be known as Svala Sorrowgrave!”

Once the ritual was over the vrykul watching the event left the room to resume their duties.

Svala stared at her new body and felt the incredible power within her. She felt that she could crush anyone who dared disturb the reign of her master. “This sensation is beyond my imagining. I am yours to command, my king!”

The party soon found that their presence didn’t go unnoticed by Arthas as he spotted them on the upper level. “Your first test awaits you. Destroy our uninvited guests!”

Svala then looked where her master looked and spotted the intruders who decided to proceed down the stairs to the auditorium floor where they could fight the newly dubbed val’kyr. A wicked smirk formed on the part of her face that was visible under her helmet. “I will be happy to slaughter them in your name. Come, enemies of the Scourge, I will show you the might of the Lich King!” She then pulled out a large sword that was slightly longer than she was tall.

Jaqueline charged in and clashed blades with the val’kyr. While the death knight was afflicting her with diseases, Svala fought back by causing the nearby braziers to unleash flames on her and her friends. Stella maintained a ward that blocked the flames from getting to them.

Svala soon found the death knight overpowering her with her powerful strikes and was pushing her back. She decided to distract her enemy by summoning one of her friends, the gnome, to the altar on the stage and summoned a copy of her blade to drift downward toward her. To make sure the gnome didn’t escape, she summoned several banshees to maintain a paralysis spell on her. “What will you do now, death knight?” Svala taunted.

“Uhh, a little help here?” Mena pleaded.

“Playin’ dirty, huh?” Jaqueline responded by summoning a ghoul that she sent to annoy an abomination in the nearby corridor by throwing a bone spike at them. Angered, the abomination chased after the ghoul and paid no mind to their surroundings as the ghoul weaved around the banshees while the golem barreled through them, disturbing their spell. Mena quickly jumped off the altar and returned to her friends while the ghoul stood on the altar where the abomination grabbed them and tried to crush them in their grip, not noticing the sword above their head. The ritual sword came down on the stitched golem and caused it to explode.

Svala ended up distracted by the blood and viscera of her ally on her which gave Jaqueline an opening to knock her sword out of her hand. The val’kyr directed the flames of the braziers at the death knight while she retrieved her sword but Jaqueline cut Svala’s wings off when she wasn’t looking and finished her with a powerful slash.

With a fatal wound, Svala stared at Jaqueline in disbelief. She came so far only to die just as she attained her goal which was beyond frustrating for her. “I did not come this far…to…” was all she could voice as her last breath left her.

The group spared no time to pity the val’kyr and continued forward through the small corridor and into a small break room inhabited by vargul and wolves. The latter felt Flutashe’s aura and turned on the undead vrykul. They proceeded up a flight of stairs and the wolves at the top took down more of the vargul while the group proceeded into the next room.

They entered a hall that looked like a display room for various creatures that the vrykul had conquered in the past. The left side of the hall displayed a giant worgen like the ones the Horde group talked about in the past as well as a giant worm-like creature with icy blue hair running along its length and claws along its sides. On the right side was a giant snarling furbolg and a rhino.

At the far end of the room was another creature that they had never seen before. This one looked like a centaur with the thick fur of a wooly mammoth and tusks to match. He carried a spear in his hand.

After the wolves dealt with the vargul in the room, Mena noticed a strange device near the furbolg statue. While she was curious as to what it did, she decided it was best to leave it alone. For all she knew, it would cause the statues in the room to come to life and drag herself and the others into a series of unnecessary fights. The others agreed to that sentiment and left it alone.

Leaving the trophies be, the group walked out of the hall and onto another terrace where they were quickly noticed by a vrykul with icy blue skin and beard. His armor appeared to be growing icicles which seemed unusual for the area. While the temperatures in southern Northrend were very cold, the region wasn’t that bad. The vrykul stood next to a blue proto drake.

“What mongrels dare intrude here?” the frost vrykul shouted. “Look alive, my brothers! A feast for the one that brings me their heads!” He then mounted his drake and took to the air. Raida and Stella took off after him.

Bella, Mena, Jaqueline and Flutashe remained on the ground to face the hordes of vargul charging after them. Using her dragonhawk form, Flutashe breathed a torrent of flame that incinerated many of the undead who charged at them before they pushed forward.

In the air, the frost vrykul, Skadi, was not used to fighting his enemies in the air as he preferred to attack his foes from above using his drake. He did the best he could to block the flying elf’s attacks but he couldn’t focus on her and the dragon-like being at the same time. He was forced to dodge bolts of fire and arcane while fighting the girl with the strangest weapons he had ever seen. Whenever he changed targets, the cowardly dragon thing vanished from his sight while his mount received a deep cut for his troubles.

Skadi’s woes only got worse when he found enemies on the terrace using the harpoon launchers against him. Avoiding them and the dragon thing’s attacks were testing the limits of his drake and he was quickly losing. Two harpoons struck home in his mount’s hide and the proto drake was beginning to flag. He knew that his mount wasn’t going to last much longer but he was too far away from the terrace to make a leap back so he tried to close the distance with what time his drake had.

It wasn’t much time at all as Raida sliced the proto drake’s left wing off and forced Skadi to make a desperate leap to the terrace. For a moment he thought he might barely make it, but Stella teleported him a little further out to make sure he didn’t make it.

“Cowardly motherless knaaaaaaaaaaaaaves!” he called out as he fell from a high altitude to his death. As high up as he was and with nothing but land beneath him, there was no surviving the fall.

Raida and Stella landed near the others and proceeded onward. After taking down a few more vargul, they carefully moved down a flight of stairs that had parts of them broken off. They tore apart an abomination that guarded a landing.

The area they were in seemed like it hadn’t seen proper maintenance in a very long time with all the cobwebs and broken stairs. Piles of snow accumulated in the next room that had a few more vargul and an abomination.

Beyond the room they found themselves in a room that was better maintained and guarded by a few more vargul. The room didn’t have much in it save for four longboats with dragon heads carrying lanterns at the bow. At the back of the room, they saw a single vrykul with a large helmet with huge horns sitting on a throne with a pair of vargul kneeling before him.

Ymiron quickly spotted the intruders entering his throne room and rose from his seat to rush toward them. “You invade my home and then dare to challenge me?” he growled. “I will tear your hearts from your chests and offer them as gifts to the death god! Rualg nja gaborr! (Stand and die!)

The vrykul king called the remaining vargul to his side and attacked the party. The undead vrykul didn’t last long when Flutashe used her cat form to grab one by the leg and used him to bludgeon the other vargul to pieces before she threw him at Ymiron who cleaved him in two.

Now alone, Ymiron crossed blades with Jaqueline. The king was surprised that he was having to use considerable effort to push back someone so small and weak-looking. Even worse, he began to feel himself being pushed back. He couldn’t understand how someone from such an inferior stock was overpowering him.

In an effort to display his superiority, Ymiron used all of his strength to push Jaqueline back. The death knight gave the vrykul a deadpan look, “Ya ain’t all that smart, are ya?” Before he could question her words, he found himself falling forward when Jaqueline suddenly moved out of the way and caused the king to fall off balance. He rolled to the side to avoid any follow up attacks from Jaqueline and quickly got back up to his feet.

Not wanting to suffer further humiliation, Ymiron unleashed an unholy scream that left the group in a daze while he ran up to one of the longboats and began to draw upon a spirit that inhabited it. “Ranulf of the Screaming Abyss, snuff these maggots with darkest night!”

Using the power he gained from the spirit, he created an orb that drifted around the room while pulsing with dark energy. It was easy for everyone to avoid it but Jaqueline now had to deal with Ymiron while avoiding the orb.

It didn’t take a genius to tell Jaqueline that having three more boats around meant that he could call on three more abilities. She really didn’t want this fight dragging for too long. “Someone wanna take care of the boats around here?” she called out.

Ymiron’s eyes widened in horror as he realized their plan. “I won’t let you!” He then turned his attention to the other members of the group and charged toward him, only to have a chain and hook wrap around his arm with the hook digging deep into his wrist. Ymiron shouted in pain before he was yanked back toward the death knight. When he tried to scream and stun everyone again, he found his throat being strangled by dark magic just as he was drawing in the breath to do so.

Meanwhile, Raida and Stella went to town on the boats with the demon hunter summoning her demons who proceeded to smash and burn one boat while she torched another in felfire. Stella bombarded the third boat with fire magic before adding her own fire breath for good measure. They didn’t need to demolish the last boat as it was the one that Ymiron was drawing from and once the magic just ran out, the orb vanished. The boat set itself on fire shortly after.

Ymiron called upon all of his available abilities and generated a dark aura around himself. When Jaqueline struck him with her sword she was struck by dark magic that burned her a little. In reaction, she activated her Anti-Magic Shield that protected her from the dark aura.

The death knight infected the king with her disease abilities while Ymiron struck her with one of his own. Jaqueline ignored the pain and used it to fight harder. She left several deep cuts on the vrykul’s body which bled profusely. She drew upon that blood to empower her blade while using it as an opening to unleash suffering on the king by boiling his blood inside his body.

With her blade fully empowered, Jaqueline summoned several phantasmal copies of her blade and impaled Ymiron in several places on his body which made him cough up blood. Knowing that his end was near, he chuckled as he showed his blood-stained grin to his foe. “Even if I die here, I am a warrior who has proved my worth to the death god and to Odyn. The Halls of Valor await me.” He then collapsed on the floor, never to move again.

Jaqueline sheathed her sword and shook her head at the dead king. “Ah dunno who this Odyn fella is but if ah were him, ah wouldn’t find ya worthy of anything.”

Being attuned to death, Jaqueline saw Ymiron’s spirit emerging from his body. He reached out to what appeared to be a golden light which dimmed and faded. Despair filled his very being before a large number of hands wrapped in seaweed reached up and grabbed his spiritual form and dragged him under what appeared to be a watery vortex. “NOOOOOOOoooooooo…” he screamed as his soul was pulled into the depths.

Jaqueline’s attention was drawn away from the scene when a purple hand waved in her face. “Hello…Azeroth to Jaqueline…are you there?” Raida said.

Jaqueline took a moment to shake her head and clear her thoughts before sighing, “Sometimes, it just don’t pay to be undead, ya see things that are probably best left never seen.”

“What did you see?” Flutashe asked.

“Let’s just say that Ymiron is gettin’ his just deserts.”

Stella decided to drive the subject in a different direction, “Anyways, we need to get back to Valgarde and make sure we are all ready for the next part of our journey. Since we are splitting up we need to divide the supplies evenly.” Without another word, Stella opened a portal to Valgarde.

Author's Note

As strong as they have become at this point, it stands to reason that they would crush this dungeon. This is why I am splitting the group up next chapter so they can each tackle two dungeons. Which dungeons will each pair tackle? I will leave that up to you to guess.

Exploring Northrend

Once back at Valgarde, Stella let Vice Admiral Keller know that King Ymiron had been removed as a threat. The naval officer was grateful for their aid in this matter so that they could focus on keeping an eye on the Forsaken forces.

As the officer left, the group huddled together to discuss their next plans. “Are we still going through with this?” Raida asked. The others voiced their affirmations.

“Raida and I will head north and investigate the Wild Gods there,” Flutashe said. “According to a map the vice admiral gave us earlier, the next region to the north is Grizzly Hills. A tribe of ice trolls called the Drakkari Tribe have built an empire in a region called Zul’Drak, which lies north of Grizzly Hills.”

“We don’t have much more info, but Keller did say that the Alliance built a lodge in Grizzly Hills and built an outpost around it,” Raida added. “We will need to report there to get more info.”

“I’d like to take one of you back to Dalaran with me,” Stella said. “Since the city moved to Northrend, they have been under attack by the Blue Dragonflight. I fear that they may try to breach the wards and send a strike force into the city.” The dracthyr’s frustration was clear on her face as she thought about Malygos and his short-sightedness. She hoped to talk some sense into the aspect at some point.

“Ah’ll go with ya,” Jaqueline offered. “Ah may not know much about magic, but ah still have mah anti-magic abilities. Maybe they can help.”

Stella smiled and nodded to the death knight, “Thank you. Dalaran is my home and I won’t let those blue dragons take it from me, not again…”

“So that just leaves Mena and myself to continue on to Dragonblight.” Bella looked at the gnome and saw that she was making various facial expressions. “Is something the matter, darling?”

Mena continued making faces until the paladin tapped her on the shoulder which snapped her back to reality. She chuckled awkwardly, “Hehe, sorry! I was getting into an argument with Vio. She wants me to go north. She says that she’s been tracing the flow of saronite underground and saw that it was coming from the northernmost point of Northrend. I told her that we will get there when we get there and then she got fussy. Then Bella tapped me on the shoulder while I was trying to calm her down.”

For everyone but Raida, their eyes widened to dinner plates as they heard this. A feeling of horror set in as they remembered that saronite was made of Old God blood. It wasn’t hard for them to put the facts together to realize that they would be facing down another Old God before their adventures in Northrend were over.

“And here ah thought the Lich King was bad enough…” Jaqueline groaned.

“Can someone fill me in on what this Old God stuff is about?” Raida demanded. “I wasn’t with you on that adventure, remember?”

Raida got the summary of what they experienced during the battle against C’Thun and all the horror the creature brought before Violetta ripped their essence from their flesh. The demon hunter cringed at the thought of tentacles and eyeballs showing up all around her. “And this is the kind of stuff that Sargeras is scared of?” Yet, some small part of her couldn’t blame him since these Old Gods seemed disturbing beyond imagination.

Changing the subject, Stella reached into a dimensional pocket and pulled out two handfuls of small stones with runes inscribed on them. She handed some to Raida and some to Bella. “I’d like for us to be able to get around Northrend better as our adventures here progress. These stones carry a little bit of my magic and can be used as one-time anchors for my long range teleport spells until I can set up proper anchors. Plant these in places such as Alliance or allied encampments or places that might be worth revisiting at some point. I’ll use the stones to teleport there at some point and establish anchors.”

“How do you even keep track of so many anchor points?” Raida asked.

“I keep a notebook of the locations and coordinates. Whenever we explore some place I memorize the location I intend for us to go once we finish an adventure.”

"Aren't you guys forgetting something?" Mena reminded. "We still need a place to meet up once our separate adventures are done."

"How about Wintergarde Keep?" Bella offered. After some contemplating, the others agreed to the idea.

Once they had their plans settled, Stella conjured a portal to Dalaran. Thankfully an agent was in town to give her the updated coordinates. She and Jaqueline entered the portal, leaving the other four behind. Raida spread her wings and Flutashe shifted into her bird form before taking off and heading north. Mena and Bella created their wings of light and flew northwest toward another Alliance settlement in Howling Fjord named Westguard Keep.

It took the paladin and priest about an hour to reach the keep where they reported to the commander of the settlement, a dwarf called Captain Adams. Bella planted a runestone in the middle of the keep.

At first, Adams was surprised that the insufferable Vice Admiral Keller allowed them to leave Valgarde instead of using them to fortify his defenses against the vrykul but was quickly told that the vrykul leadership had been taken out so they had leave to move further into the continent. The dwarf nodded in understanding and told them that the Fjord was secure enough that he could send Bella and Mena to Wintergarde Keep to support them.

From the last report the captain read, Wintergarde was under attack by the Scourge. The worst part of it was that the most powerful necropolis in the Scourge’s arsenal, Naxxramas, was floating high above their doorstep. Though recently, some adventurers came to their aid and gave the keep’s defenders some breathing room. The necropolis was still a threat, but not as much as earlier.

Adams allowed the two to leave with a couple of their gryphons and head to Wintergarde to see if the beleaguered defenders needed assistance.

After a few hours, Raida and Flutashe entered a forested region. The druid could see all manner of wildlife in the form of deer, eagles, grizzly bears, wolves and even some mountain goats. It always made her heart swell to see animals living peacefully in their natural habitat.

It was only ten minutes after they had entered the region that they spotted Amberpine Lodge where the Alliance outpost was located.

Once they landed, Flutashe and Raida headed toward the lodge where they expected to find the one in charge. On their way, they heard a lot of pained shouting coming from a nearby outhouse, as if someone was trying to move a huge kidney stone. The two night elves winced as they heard that for a few moments before the screaming stopped. Another minute passed as the door opened and an adventurer, given the armor they were wearing, emerged from it. They noticed the shamed look on his face as he carried what the two of them hoped were seeds into the lodge.

Raida and Flutashe followed the adventurer inside where they saw him handing the product of his latest adventure to one of the woodsmen protecting the lodge. He then handed them over to another worker. “Alright Ben, we’ve retrieved the amberseeds again. You know the drill.”

The other man, Ben, sighed, “I know. I know, back in the bucket.” The night elves watched as he placed the grody-looking seeds into a bucket right next to the door and walked back to his post. This ended up begging the question of whether that fiasco was caused by having the seeds right next to the entrance as if they were some complimentary welcome gift.

Flutashe, not wanting to see anyone else suffer the same agony as the last adventurer, decided to ask the woodsman about why they had things set up that way. While the two had their conversation, Raida spoke with the man in charge, Lieutenant Dumont, about the situation in Grizzly Hills.

Realizing who they were, the lieutenant gave them a rundown of what they had discovered. There was a nearby vrykul village that was recently suppressed so they wouldn’t be a problem until a new thane rose up to lead them again.

The Horde had set up their own stronghold to the west which was made of a new design that was unlike the usual stone, metal, hide and bone. Rather, it was made of thick metal and spikes with some wood. The one leading the place was some ruthless female orc who led operations there with an iron fist. Any who disagreed with her ended up in some gladiatorial pit where they ended up fighting bears to the death.

Budd Nedreck’s group was last seen near the western border of the region where they were trying to assist with the troll problem near Drak’tharon Keep which had fallen to the Scourge. When asked about their leader, Dumont could only shake his head as he heard that Budd had lost his mind and thinks he’s a troll, which felt fitting in Raida’s mind after he tried to con adventurers into looting Zul’Aman for him.

Dumont originally tried to get help from the local clan of human trappers to secure the region but that turned out to be a mess. As it turned out, the trappers were all afflicted by the worgen curse so he had to spend much of their resources to burn their holdings to the ground to keep them from turning his boys into one of them.

The clan turned out to be a worgen cult that was led by a man named Arugal who was killed a couple of years ago and reanimated by the Scourge at some point. Thankfully, someone put that man back in the grave recently.

“What about the iron dwarves?” Raida asked.

“Them? They aren’t really a problem for us right now since they seem to be at war with the stone giants. But we did find out a little more about this mysterious master they had been serving,” Dumont offered. “It turns out his name is Loken and according to an eyewitness he looked like a titan construct.”

“That’s not much to go on, we will have to keep exploring the continent for more answers.”

Just as Flutashe joined the conversation with Raida and Dumont, she gasped as she remembered something important. “Sister, I just remembered that Fandral Staghelm was in this region a long time ago as part of his experiments with Nordrassil.”

“Sis, you know I don’t keep up with the druid stuff, what was he doing here?”

“He wanted to create a World Tree in Northrend to stop the spread of saronite so he planted a branch of Nordrassil over a large deposit of it and called it Andrassil, Crown of the Snow. However, the plan backfired and the tree was corrupted by the Old God instead. They used the tree to drive the natives and wildlife insane. With no other option, the Cenarion Circle destroyed the tree and its remains were left to rot. Andrassil was renamed Vordrassil, Broken Crown.”

“How does a tree drive wildlife mad?” Raida asked.

“I’m not sure, World Trees have a deep connection with the Emerald Dream so perhaps the Old God used the Dream to drive them mad.”

“Cut down or not, the furbolgs around that area are still acting like a bunch of bloodthirsty savages,” Dumont offered.

“Wait…” Flutashe’s mind raced as she took the facts that she was given. With the power she felt from C’thun and assuming that this Old God could be at least as powerful, the implications were horrifying. “Could the Old Gods and the Emerald Nightmare be related?” From what she knew about the Nightmare, the symptoms appeared similar. When she added in the continued crazed behavior of the furbolgs, according to Dumont, it could only mean one thing. “Fandral, you fool!”

“Did you figure something out?” Raida asked.

“Maybe, but I need to investigate Vordrassil to confirm something. Follow me!”

Raida nodded and followed her sister out of the lodge where both took flight and headed toward the site of the fallen tree.

Mena and Bella arrived in Wintergarde after a two hour flight. As they flew in, they took sight of the massive floating fortress casting its shadow over the Alliance settlement. They had to take care to not get ambushed by enemy flyers.

When they arrived, the two headed toward the leader of the Wintergarde forces. When they saw him, Bella’s eyes widened in shock when she heard the commander’s voice as he was giving orders to the troops. “Halford? Is that you?”

Halford quickly turned around when he heard a familiar voice. “Miss Cartier? It is you! Only you could look so stylish on the battlefield. It’s good to see another Lordaeron survivor. How has life been treating you?”

“The same as usual, darling. I have made a fortune on commissions through my armorcrafting skills.”

“If you made what you are wearing right now, then I can see that you haven’t lost your touch. But enough pleasantries, I’m sure you didn’t come here to visit me.”

“Sadly no, My companions and myself are exploring the continent to see where we are needed. We are also in need of information before we can come up with a plan of action.”

Halford nodded and motioned for the two to follow him. “The main focus of our efforts in the Dragonblight has been Angrathar, the Wrath Gate. Securing that place would give us a direct entrance into the Lich King’s domicile, Icecrown Citadel. Unfortunately, the Horde had the same idea. Lord Bolvar Fordragon has set up a base there while the Horde have one not far from that.”

“What about the other areas of Northrend?” Bella asked.

“Our forces are spread along the southern regions with an outpost in Grizzly Hills. We had no luck making one in Zul’Drak, but the Argent Crusade and their associates, the Knights of the Ebon Blade, have their own camps in that region. Sholazar Basin is too remote and isolated to hold any strategic value and the Horde seem to agree with that assessment. The same could be said for the Storm Peaks, though I have heard that a small group of goblins have set up their own base camp there at the foot of the mountains. Flying in that region would be difficult unless you knew how to fly steady in blizzard-like conditions.

“As for Icecrown, we can’t establish any bases there, too many enemies and we would get quickly overwhelmed. The bulk of the Argent forces have a base camp near the entrance. Thankfully, our presence in the region is not zero as Stormwind has approved the deployment of the Skybreaker, the latest feat of gnomish and dwarven engineering.”

Bella giggled, “I look forward to seeing it, darling.”

“What do you know about the stuff going on with the dragons?” Mena asked.

Halford shrugged, “We have been keeping an eye on them, but that’s about it. The blue dragons seem to be fighting the red dragons for some reason.”

“Stella mentioned that the Blue Dragonflight has declared war on every magic user in the world, it stands to reason that the Red Dragonflight would be against that,” Bella offered.

“Sounds idiotic if you ask me, but they are the least of my concerns right now.”

“Would there be any assistance that we could provide while we are here?”

Halford thought for a moment as he considered any issues that would need addressing. “There is one, but it’s going to be tough to deal with. We’ve been unable to receive aid from Valiance Keep in Borean Tundra and it’s not just because the Horde have a significant presence in western Dragonblight. There’s also a hole in the ground near the road where countless spider creatures were seen emerging. We have a small outpost near the location called Stars’ Rest that is monitoring the situation. The officer there can give you more details.”

“We will see what we can do. Though once this war is over, I do hope that we can find some time to catch up. I am curious as to your journey up the ladder.”

“I would like that, good day, m’lady.”

Half an hour later, Raida and Flutashe were flying above the remains of Vordrassil.

The corrupted tree had been shattered and its colossal pieces were all over the area. The stump had been hollowed out and converted into a city for the two warring tribes of furbolg: the Redfang and Frostpaw tribes. Looking into the stump, Flutashe could see that the tribes were still busy trying to kill each other. Sadly, there wasn’t much she could do for them, especially if her suspicions were correct.

The two flew to the bottom of the stump where they found a sapling growing from the world tree’s remains. The druid feared that the furbolg were attempting to regrow the tree which would spell disaster for the entire region.

Still, Flutashe needed to be certain of her concerns so she touched the obviously corrupted sapling. Where she normally felt the Dream’s energies through the plants, she sensed a familiar corruption; one that she knew all too well.

The Emerald Nightmare…

“I knew it…” Flutashe growled. “Fandral unknowingly invited the corruption of the Old Gods into the Emerald Dream. The Nightmare is their corruption. This place is where the Nightmare originated.”

“What do you wanna do?” Raida asked.

Flutashe struggled to give the words that she wanted to give. What she would suggest would be a cruelty to nature. Yet, if she allowed this to continue, the corruption would spread and Grizzly Hills would one day be host to a menagerie of Nightmare creatures, which would be an even greater disaster. Her heart was heavy and her expression darkened as the words finally came out of her mouth, “Burn it…”

“Are you sure? I know how much this means to you.”

“Please don’t make me say it again, it was hard enough the first time. I’m going to gather every seed from this place and you will see to their destruction. Vordrassil cannot be allowed to regrow.” Flutashe shifted into her bird form and began scouring the city for any and all seeds while delivering mercy killings to the Nightmare-infected furbolg. Raida, being the supportive sister, flew around the city to collect seeds and execute the crazed bear people.

The druid, however, was not so lost in her sorrow that she didn’t notice a Redfang cub and a Frostpaw cub huddled next to each other. “P-please! Don’t hurt us!” the Redfang cried out. It sounded like a young male.

Blinking in surprise, Flutashe slowly approached the two and knelt down in front of them. “You two are still able to think clearly? Have you been having nightmares?”

“Th-they started a few days ago, just after our parents left to take part in the fighting.” The Frostpaw cub said, sounding female.

Good, it’s not too late to save them from this madness. The Nightmare hasn’t had time to break their minds yet. Flutashe thought. “I’m sorry for your loss, little ones, but you can’t stay here anymore. Your nightmares will only get worse the longer you stay here.”

“But our parents…” the male voiced, sounding on the verge of tears just like his companion.

“There’s nothing anyone can do for them anymore. If they are still alive, they would be crazed like everyone else in this place. There is a terrible evil beneath this land that’s driven your tribesmen insane and will get you too if you don’t get out of here.”

“Where would we go?” the female asked. “This is the only place we know.”

“What about your tribes’ guardians? What about Ursoc’s children?”

“...They can’t help us, mama said that Orsonn and Kodian don’t leave their caves for any reason,” the female said.

“My mama said that we still have Ursoc to watch over us,” the male cub added. “It was the one time our two tribes worked together to bring him back from the dead, or so she said.”

Flutashe’s eyes widened in horror. Ursoc’s revival here could spell trouble for the region, especially if the furbolgs drew on Vordrassil’s power. “Please tell me they didn’t use the tree’s power to revive him.”

The white-furred female cub looked at her curiously, “My mama mentioned something like that…why?”

Flutashe was afraid of this. Ursoc had likely been revived as a corrupted agent of the Nightmare. She absolutely loathed what she had to do. The recent events in the past few years had made her weary with the corruption of nature, tormented Loa and abused animals. She was thankful that her sister had returned to her, she needed emotional support right now.

“I need to get you two out of here, it’s the only way to save you from the madness going on around us.” Pulling out a stone with a glyph on it, she handed it to the red-furred male. “I am going to send you to a safe place that is away from the dark influence. Show this to Keeper Remulos, he has the upper torso of an elf like me and the lower body of a stag deer. He should know what to do. He should introduce you to the Timbermaw tribe which is free from corruption.”

Flutashe didn’t want to take a pair of cubs away from their tribe, but the Nightmare had taken hold in the minds of the furbolgs here. She had a feeling that even if they got rid of the Old God in Northrend, the other two would perpetuate the Nightmare.

The two furbolgs looked at each other for a few moments. Both wanted to protect the other and neither were interested in the conflict between their two tribes. Still, the male had to ask, “Can you get rid of this evil and save our tribes?”

“I don’t know,” Flutashe answered. “Even if I could get rid of the source of the evil, it would be a monumental task. But the madness may have gripped your tribes for too long. I would still like to save the future of the Redfang and Frostpaw tribes. In the meantime, I’d like for you two to grow up safe.”

After some quiet deliberation, the two reluctantly agreed to the druid’s offer. Relief filled Flutashe as she smiled sadly and created a portal to Moonglade. The two reluctantly stepped through before she closed the rift.

“Hey, Flutters, where are you?” Raida called out. Returning to her dutiful mindset, Flutashe flew back down to the sapling where her sister deposited a number of acorns around the young tree. Flutashe pulled out the ones she found and added them to the pile. “I think that’s all of them. Stand back!”

“Don’t use fel fire on these,” Flutashe requested. “I need them purified of the corruption if I’m going to use them to save Ursoc from the corruption and demon fire might add demonic corruption on top of the Nightmare corruption affecting him.”

Once both were a safe distance away, Raida fired a number of Incinerate spells at the sapling and acorns to set them ablaze. Since her Incinerate spell was not fel based, the seeds and sapling were engulfed in regular magical flame. It took about half an hour for them to burn down and Flutashe had to make sure the fire didn’t spread by creating small rain showers to put out flames where they weren’t needed.

Flutashe collected the ashes from the remains of the sapling into a vial before shifting into her bird form and taking off. Raida followed her northward.

It took them half an hour to reach Ursoc’s den. Flutashe was able to sense his location by feeling his presence and the concentration of Nightmare energy within him.

She wasn’t expecting to see a furbolg tied up near the cave’s entrance. A few bears stood guard over the prisoner and the cave. Sadly, her aura didn’t work on the Nightmare-infected so she and Raida had no choice but to put them down.

The furbolg was roused from the fighting and noticed the two night elves. Hope filled him as he called out to them, “Are you here to save Ursoc? Please, untie me! We have a common objective!”

Flutashe, intending on releasing him anyway, began the process as she spoke, “You don’t look like you’re from around here. Your fur looks like you came from a more southern tribe.”

“You are correct, I hail from the Timbermaw Tribe. I am Tur Ragepaw. As I communed with nature, I felt the disturbance coming from here and learned that Ursoc had been corrupted. When I came here through the Dreamway, I was ambushed by furbolg of thicker fur and they quickly tied me up, saying that I was to be an offering to their god.”

“So you are not corrupted by the Nightmare, good. Then you can assist us with subduing Ursoc while I spread the purified ashes of Vordrassil on him.”

Tur nodded, “I can take whatever role you wish me to for this fight.”

Flutashe smiled, “Since it seems like you came through the Dreamway on your own power, that must mean you are a druid too. In that case, you can help us subdue him in what form you’re most comfortable with.”

Once he was free, Tur quickly reviewed himself on the solar and lunar spells he knew as they entered the cave. At first, the cave, which lacked a ceiling, seemed empty. But then, Tur called out to Ursoc to show himself.

That was when a sickly-looking giant bear wearing tribal decorations and lunar markings on his coat appeared. Addled by the Nightmare, Ursoc’s mind was in a feral state and proceeded to attack the trio. Flutashe shifted into her bear form and roared at the Wild God in challenge. The bear god’s instincts told him to accept the challenge and attack the druid. Meanwhile, Raida and Tur went on the offensive with Raida using her fel-based attacks and Tur attacking with solar and lunar magic.

The bear god’s larger form and formidable strength meant that Flutashe couldn’t endure too many of his attacks so she had to avoid some of them. She managed to deliver a few deep cuts to his forelegs with her claws, augmented by Nalorakk’s strength.

A problem that Flutashe would be having in the future was that her bear form might receive multiple blessings from Wild Gods and she needed a medium like the Claws of Shirvallah and Bethekk to manage them all. For now, only Nalorakk’s blessing was what she had to power up her bear form so this problem had not occurred yet. However, she had a feeling that she would be receiving the blessing of another bear Loa in the near future so that was a small concern at this time.

As Ursoc was being bombarded by felfire and celestial light, he decided to go after the other two instead. The moment he turned away from the druid, Flutashe bit into his flank and tore the flesh off, causing the god to roar in pain and anger at the one who harmed him. When he turned back to Flutashe, he was punished further as he was not expecting her to headbutt him on the jaw.

A few more fiery slashes from Raida and a few more blasts of starlight from Tur drove the corrupted bear’s body to the limit with Flutashe ripping his throat out to make sure the deed was done. Once Ursoc collapsed on the floor, the group waited a few moments to see if the bear god would get up again. When he didn’t Flutashe shifted back to her night elf form and strewed the purified ashes over the bear’s corpse. This caused the spirit of the Wild God to be freed from the tainted shell of flesh.

Ursoc’s spirit approached Flutashe and sat down in front of her. “I thank you three for setting me free. The druids of old were wise to tear down Vordrassil, for its roots seep deep into the dwelling of an ancient evil.”

“You mean the Old God in Northrend?” Flutashe asked.

“So you know about him? Then I warn you to beware of Yogg-Saron, the beast with a thousand maws. His evil extends beyond Vordrassil’s roots.”

“We know, it’s in the Saronite that’s spread throughout the continent. The Scourge have been mining it for their purposes.”

Ursoc raised an eyebrow, “How do you know this much about him?”

“Because a friend of mine harbors a powerful dark force within them that seeks to devour the Old Gods in their war against the void. At least, that’s what I got from their story.”

“A force seeks to devour the Old Gods? Do you trust them?”

“No, but I’d rather not have her as my enemy either. She claims that she has no interest in harming Azeroth. I am working with her because I don’t want to risk my friends being harmed. Still, I am hoping that she was being truthful in the matter because being rid of those things would be to the benefit of all of us…as long as she doesn’t decide to turn on us.”

Ursoc nodded, “Keeping your enemies close to where you can keep an eye on them, a wise idea. Anyways, as we fought, I could feel the spirit of the bear in you. I can also sense that you are the one the Keeper of Life has been waiting for, the Alpha. You have already had a number of my kin acknowledge you. Wild Gods and Loa are cut from the same cloth, we are all the chosen of the Keeper of Life.”

“The Keeper of Life? The other Loa had been hinting about my destiny, but avoided telling me anything concrete.”

“You will meet her soon, though I fear that you may have to save her. The other Wild Gods have not been able to contact her for a long time, the last we heard from her was from her temple near the Titan City of Ulduar, at the northern end of this continent.

“Before you go, I have one last gift for you. It is in the Dream so I need you to enter it from here.”

Flutashe nodded in acknowledgement and began to lie down. Before she went to sleep, she looked at the furbolg who was watching everything, “Tur, there are a pair of cubs from the warring tribes that I sent to Moonglade. May I ask that you look after them?”

“Since you helped me save Ursoc, I shall honor your request,” Tur said. He then turned toward the entrance and walked out.

With that taken care of, Flutashe drifted into sleep while focusing on the Emerald Dream. Her consciousness left her body and she entered the verdant realm. The only difference between what she saw and the waking world was that there was an altar in the center of the cave now. Ursoc stood by it.

“It is unfortunate that the Nightmare has claimed the minds of the Redfang and Frostpaw furbolg, I can only hope that they still have a future.” The bear god shook his head. “I wish to bestow upon you my claws. As more Wild Gods acknowledge you, I am certain that these claws will help you to channel their power alongside the claws already in your possession.”

“Your claws?! Lord Ursoc, I am certain that there are druids more worthy than myself to wield these.”

Ursoc chuckled, “There are those who can wield my claws properly, that’s true. However, these claws are drawn to your destiny. I can sense that they wish to be with you.” Using what little power he had left, Ursoc broke the seal protecting his claws, allowing Flutashe to collect them.

Flutashe could feel the weight of power from the Claws of Ursoc. The large weapons shrank to fit her skinny arms. Despite her concerns about wielding so much power, it somehow felt right, as if a piece of herself that she had no idea was missing had been returned to her.

She turned to the bear god and gave a deep, respectful bow. “I will not disappoint you.”

Ursoc nodded, “It is time to awaken, show your enemies the fury of the wilds.”

Concentrating, Flutashe pulled herself from her dreaming state and awoke in the real world. She spotted Raida sitting next to her with a bored look on her face.

The demon hunter noticed her sister waking up and waited a few moments for her to become fully conscious. “How was your nap, sis?”

“Mmm…it wasn’t as restful as I had hoped.” The two shared a laugh. “So, what do you say we find an enemy stronghold so I can test my new power.”

Raida raised an eyebrow at this because she wasn’t sure when her sister got a new power, though she guessed that she found something interesting in the Emerald Dream. She shrugged, “Sure, I heard that the Scourge took over a nearby Drakkari stronghold. Wanna go clear ‘em out?”

With a smile, Flutashe nodded.

Author's Note

Now that the group is split up, I can make things a little more interesting, I hope. Each pair will be tackling two dungeons. For those of you who are familiar with Wrath of the Lich King content, you can probably guess which dungeons they will be facing.

Next time: Two Light wielders descend into the dark depths.

The Spider Kingdom

Mena and Bella borrowed a couple of gryphons to take them west to the outpost of Stars’ Rest. While they could have made it there on their own power, they needed to conserve their strength for the battles ahead. Since it was just the two of them now, things were not going to be easy. This was fine with them since they needed the challenge to improve themselves.

Between Flutashe and her incredibly versatile skill set, Raida and her speed and destructive abilities, Stella and her magical versatility and Jaqueline suddenly becoming a powerful force of death since they last saw her, the two were in need of finding ways to improve themselves as well.

Of course, Bella and Mena were still strong in their own right. In this land of death, their light magic would prove a powerful weapon against the unholy. Surprise’s void magic was quite destructive as well, both physically and psychologically. Bella had no doubt that the gnome’s void magic would skyrocket after her “roommate” devoured the Old God in Northrend.

On their way to the west, they crossed a frozen wasteland with numerous dragon bones scattered about. They weren’t enough to complete a skeleton so Bella doubted that Arthas could properly raise them. There was also the tall tower in the center of the region that appeared to be under attack by blue dragons. Though the Red Dragonflight was doing well in holding them off.

Flying around the aerial battle around the tower, the pair continued west. They spotted three valleys during their flight. Two of them were lush where one of them had a giant tree with red leaves. The third valley was barren of vegetation and instead radiated the telltale pink energy of raw arcane magic.

The two soon flew past a Horde settlement that reports referred to as Agmar’s Hammer. While they could be a potential threat to Alliance supply caravans, they had more important matters to focus on, such as maintaining their position at Angrathar.

It wasn’t long after that when their gryphons descended for a landing at the small Alliance post in some ruins surrounded by trees locked in eternal winter. All that was there were a few tents, a few night elven glaive throwers and a moonwell. The mystical nature of the water ensured that it would never freeze in the frigid temperatures.

The two dismounted from their gryphons and met with the leader of the post, Commander Saia Azuresteel, a night elf. The commander addressed the two with a brief Darnassian greeting before asking why they were here. Bella informed her that they were here to deal with some logistics issues between Valiance Keep and Wintergarde Keep and that the main issue was around this location.

“About time Halford sent someone to help, and I am glad that he sent a pair of veterans like you two,” Saia said. “Where are the others?”

“Stella and Jaqueline went to Dalaran to protect the city from the Blue Dragonflight and Flutashe and Raida wanted to investigate the Wild Gods in the east,” Mena replied.

“So you are spread too? It makes sense with all of the threats that we have to deal with in this blasted land.” Despite her attempts to hide it, a small amount of Saia’s irritation revealed itself. “You will have to do. The supply lines are in danger in this area because of the undead nerubians skittering out of the large hole nearby. Any scouts we send in there never return so we have no intel on what’s down there.”

“Ooh! We get to go down into the icky, creepy spider lair?” Mena asked with a little too much enthusiasm to Bella’s liking.

Bella had her positive and negative opinions on spiders. While they were grotesque to look at and their habits were disgusting, she couldn’t argue the quality of silk that they could produce.

Saia couldn’t tell what the gnome was thinking from the question she asked but decided to not say anything since they had more important issues to deal with. Instead, she pointed them in the direction of a large sinkhole on the other side of the road.

The two thanked the commander and headed for the hole. Once there, the two began fighting through nerubian spiders. Unlike typical nerubians like the crypt fiends, spiders lacked the upper torso of their kin. However, they were still far more numerous than their centaur-like cousins.

The pair’s holy magic easily burned through the undead spiders as they entered the underground beneath the sinkhole. There they encountered a new variant of nerubian. This one appeared less like a spider and more like a giant beetle with a thick, smooth carapace on its back and their legs wrapped in armor. Their arms resembled jagged scythes.

Fortunately, these creatures weren’t as ferocious as they looked, though Bella did have to apply some significant force to shatter their shells. “I have a feeling that these guys are younglings and that the mature versions are going to be very tough to face,” Mena said.

“Then let’s hope we don’t run into one of those too soon,” Bella responded.

The two turned a corner in the tunnel where they spotted a group of nerubians fighting a trio of the beetle-like nerubians which the pair decided to call crypt lords since they appeared more formidable than regular nerubians. As they jumped into the fight between the warring ground, the paladin and priest found that holy magic burned the beetle nerubians from within their shells but didn’t hurt the others as much.

“Peace! Peace! We are not your enemy!” one of the regular nerubians cried in an effort to get the duo to stop attacking them.

Bella drew back on her holy-consecrated ground as the spider people slowly skittered toward the two. “What do you mean? Aren’t you with them?” Bella asked.

“We are enemies of the Scourge like you are. I am Kilix the Unraveler of the Azjol-anak, the remnants of the kingdom of Azjol'Nerub.”

“Remnants? I thought your kind was allied with the Scourge. We certainly have never seen nerubians fighting against them.”

Kilix made a series of hissing and clicking noises before he replied. “It seems you are uninformed of our kind. Perhaps a history lesson will enlighten you.

“Our kind once evolved from an insectoid species known as the Aqir. When the Usurpers came and remade our world, our former masters, the Old Gods, were locked away. The Aqir spread throughout the land while fighting their war with the troll empires. Some of us fled north and gradually evolved into what you see before you. We became known as the Kingdom of Azjol'Nerub.”

“‘Some of you fled north’? What about the rest? Did they move south? Perhaps you might know of the Qiraji?” Bella inquired.

“We know of them, we share a common ancestry. Though some moved even further south. I do not know what became of them. Regardless, unlike those in the south, we cut ties to the Ancient Ones and became an independent society that has lived underground for millennia…until a few decades ago.”

“The Scourge?” Bella ventured.

Kilix nodded, “At first we held them off with our vast numbers, but they raised the ones they killed into undeath and turned them against us. Even our former ruler, Anub’arak, fell before the Lich King and turned into our greatest enemy.

“In a desperate effort to regain the realm we lost to the Scourge, we dug deeper to expand our kingdom, not knowing that this would ensure our downfall. We dug too deep and unleashed the Faceless Ones upon us all.”

“You dug too deep? Did you dig into Yogg-Saron’s prison?” Mena asked.

“His minions were unleashed upon us all, forcing us to face a war on two fronts, something that we could not afford. It cost us the war and our kingdom and forced those of us who remain to go into hiding.”

“So why tell us all of this? Do you seek our assistance?” Bella asked.

“We would not approach you mortals so easily. However, one of you is the vessel of the Huntress of the Void. We may be distant from our wayward cousins, but we still have ways of knowing. The Huntress is the harbinger of the fall of the Forgotten Ones. With the help of the Huntress, we can reclaim our home from our enemies.”

Mena, who was hearing Violetta’s voice in her head, ended up speaking for her, “Umm…the Huntress says that she will help on the condition that you give her a better idea of where the prison is. She has been able to trace the flow of saronite north but hasn’t gotten a good fix on the prison’s location.”

“The Titan Keepers built a complex around his prison called Ulduar. This place lies at the northernmost point of the Storm Peaks. To get there, you will have to brave the frigid winds of the mountains. The complex itself is guarded by four of the five of the Titan Keepers in this land.”

“Four of the Keepers? If Yogg-Saron is as powerful as I believe him to be, he may have all four of them under his sway while waiting for a chance to capture the fifth,” Violetta voiced to Mena. “His prison will probably be in the deepest part of the complex. Alright, let’s help the spiders.” Mena voiced Violetta’s satisfaction with the information and agreed to help them.

Kilix’s bodyguards screeched in excitement while the leader gestured to one passage. “That way leads to the Upper Kingdom where the Traitor King leads our turned brethren. I ask that you exterminate him like the traitor he is.” He then gestured toward a passage leading downward. “This way leads to the Old Kingdom held by more minions of the Scourge who are being led by a strange creature with long ears. There also appear to be a number of other mortals like yourselves down there for some reason. They appear to be worshiping the Faceless Ones.”

“Sounds like the Twilight’s Hammer cult,” Mena figured. “They are devout worshipers of the Old Gods like Yogg-Saron.”

“We shall deal with them after we deal with the Upper Kingdom, Mena,” Bella decided. “By the sound of it, the Old Kingdom has a lot more going on and will take some time to clear out.”

Mena didn’t care one way or the other so she followed Bella down the right passage and into a tunnel sparsely decorated with mushrooms, shrubbery and bones. A few nerubians ahead were facing further in the tunnel. Being honorable, Bella decided to see if the nerubians were friends or foes, “Pardon me, are you with Kilix?”

One of the nerubians turned around and addressed her, “Indeed, so he sent you to aid us in reclaiming this area? Know that the entrance to the Upper Kingdom is guarded by a vizier who guarded this place in life, doing so in death as well. Krik’thir and his watchers will not let you pass him so easily.”

“Thank you for the warning, we shall do our best to dispose of him.”

As the duo moved further into the tunnel, the passage began to narrow but not so much that they couldn’t move side by side.

They suddenly heard a voice coming from just up ahead, “I sense the living. Be ready.”

“Doesn’t look like the subtle approach is happening,” Mena quipped with a giggle.

“I doubt that was an option for us in the first place, darling.”

A pair of nerubians skittered up to them weaving webs and flinging balls of the sticky strings at them. The two dodged before Bella blasted one with holy light which caused them to scream in agony. Mena bombarded the other with bolts of light to the same result. After one last attempt to trap the two in webbing, the two nerubians caught fire from holy magic.

The tunnel soon widened where the duo was greeted by three more nerubians who shared the same fate as the first two. Further behind them was a structure made of gold and obsidian with spider themed styling. Guarding the structure were nine nerubians with a tenth behind them. That one towered over the others by about three times their size. He stood on four long legs and had four smaller arms. His form was clothed in black and gray robes with a cape draped over his arachnid abdomen. A gray headdress with gold filigree sat atop his head.

Spotting Bella and Mena, Krik’thir called out to his minions, “We are besieged! Strike out and bring back their corpses!”

Three nerubians on the left skittered toward them to attack. One tried to weave more webbing to attack with but Surprise had enough and switched out with Mena to burn the web in shadow, also engulfing the nerubian in black flame. The larger of the three used his dexterous hands to shape a glob of poison before sending a wave of it at them. Bella stood in front of Mena and blocked the attack with her shield and holy magic before throwing a hammer of light at him which incapacitated him for the moment. Mena and Bella quickly incinerated the third in holy fire before they focused on the larger nerubian.

Wanting to even the odds against him, the nerubian launched his threads at Bella to imprison her. However, Surprise sent a blade of shadow that severed his hands before sending shadows to attack his eyes. The nerubian screeched in pain while Bella burned the threads to free herself. A powerful strike from her hammer ended the spider.

They didn’t get much time to rest as the vizier called for three more to attack, “The gate must be protected at all costs. Rip them to shreds!” The middle group moved in to attack. While this group suffered the same fate as the last group, they had to be careful of the larger one as he attacked by flailing his limbs, focusing on faster attacks at the cost of putting much power behind them.

Krik’thir quickly called for the last group to attack, “We must hold the gate. Attack! Tear them limb from limb!” The last group was just like the first two except the larger one in this group tried to be clever by flinging webs into their eyes to distract them. However, this only led to Surprise sensing their minds and aiming a phantom eye laser which obliterated the larger one. The two quickly recovered and put an end to Krik’thir’s watchers.

“This kingdom belongs to the Scourge! Only the dead may enter!” Krik’thir began his attack by trying to flay Bella’s mind but the paladin fought through the dark magic while Surprise attacked the vizier’s mind. He called upon a swarm of tiny insects to attack them but Mena unleashed an explosive wave of holy magic which burned the insects while Bella drew upon her holy power and delivered heavy strikes that caused one of Krik’thir’s legs to dislocate and the leg’s chitin to crack and splinter.

Off balance, Krik’thir tried to place his curses on the two but the two endured while Bella jumped up to smash her hammer on the vizier’s head. Adding in her holy magic, Bella shattered the nerubian’s head. The rest of him collapsed in a heap.

The two kept their weapons in hand as they moved past Krik’thir’s corpse and through the gate he was guarding. Bella giggled as the two entered the passage. “You know, despite these things being undead, their silk was still soft and luxurious. It was a shame that I had to burn that wonderful silk.”

Mena didn’t share the same opinion, “Uhh, I’ll take your word for it.”

The two exited the passage and stepped onto a narrow walkway leading to a lower level. Looking beneath them, the two noticed a crypt lord barking orders to more undead nerubians and sending them down a nearby tunnel.

Looking at the chamber they were in, they noticed that there was no stone floor for them to walk on, meaning that they were in for a long drop into the bottomless chasm below if the silk threads the nerubians were walking on were not sturdy.

They would soon test the durability of the threads as they found the stone walkway broken just before a platform on the other side. Bella cautiously stepped on the threads and was surprised that the silk not only held her weight but they hardly budged, as if the silk were made of iron.

Once they crossed the bridge of thread, the two stood on the platform and looked below to find a large group of nerubians battling a giant spider four times their size. Bella had a sinking feeling that they were about to get caught up in this. Unfortunately, since Flutashe wasn’t with them, they would have to fight the giant spider as well.

Jumping down onto the silk floor, the crypt lord noticed them and called out for some of his troops to attack the intruders. While this nerubian was a little tougher than the ones they fought before, it wasn’t by much. Bella still smashed his chitinous shell while Mena burned the nerubian reinforcements in holy fire. It still amazed them that the floor of thread withstood their onslaught.

Two more crypt lords came down the stairs from the upper passageways to fight the two. Though with the Scourge forces distracted between Bella and Mena and the giant spider below, they were quickly fighting a losing battle. Bella smashed one of the beetle nerubians while the other tried to use his claws to slam the paladin through the floor. Surprise put a stop to that by severing his claws before unleashing shadows upon his mind. However, this wasn’t enough to defeat the nerubian since he was still a controlled minion of the Lich King. All that did was make the nerubian a mindless minion. Bella finished him off by smashing his head.

The battle ended just in time as the giant spider made it into the chamber and fired two blasts of web at the doorways at the top of the stairs to seal off Scourge reinforcements. With the endless tide cut off, the spider proceeded to finish off everything else in the chamber that was moving, including Bella and Mena.

Bella made sure to protect the two of them from the spider’s poisonous attacks since they appeared to be releasing green clouds of toxic gas.

Unfortunately for the spider, they were exhausted from fighting the countless nerubians attacking them so they didn’t have much stamina left to give the paladin and priest a proper battle. Surprise used her shadow blades to cut off the spider’s legs while Bella impaled them with a blade of light.

“I don’t think we should tell Flutashe about this one,” Mena said.

“Agreed.”

The two decided not to think any further on the matter and proceeded through the tunnel the spider came from, after finishing off the remaining nerubians.

They soon entered another chamber that didn’t appear to have anything else except a stone floor below the web layer they were walking on. They spotted a hole in the web as well as a bottomless pit in the center of the floor surrounded by many tiny nerubian young. Though the young did not look friendly.

“Could this be the end of this area?” Bella pondered.

Mena shook her head, “Nope. I have a feeling that we need to go farther.”

“Mena, dear, look around. Where could we go from here?”

“Down.” Mena then jumped through the hole in the webbing and into the pit full of ravenous young. The priest then unleashed explosive waves of holy magic around her.

Worrying for her friend, Bella jumped into the pit and consecrated the ground around them. The young were incinerated in holy fire. “Now where?”

Mena giggled, “Where else, silly?”

Bella’s eyes widened in horror at what the priest was suggesting. “Mena have you gone insane?! Has Violetta finally decided to drive you to madness?!”

“Nope. I just have a good feeling about this. Come on!” Mena then jumped into the seemingly bottomless hole, much to the paladin’s horror. “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

If there was a time when Bella needed to rely on her faith in the Light, it was now. What she was about to do was definitely a leap of faith. Closing her eyes, Bella jumped into the hole.

As her body plummeted down a very long distance, enough for her body to reach terminal velocity, Bella had to wonder if this was where her life was going to end, following her mad friend to certain death. She could think of worse ways to go out but this was definitely in her top five.

Thankfully, there was a pool of water at the bottom of this pit that she had landed in. Of course, the impact had also smashed a number of nerubian eggs at the bottom of the pool, but Bella was still glad to be alive.

Swimming out of the pool where her cheerful friend was waiting, Bella gave her the most vicious death glare she could make. “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I will kill you, resurrect you, then crucify you atop the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind as a symbol of what happens to mad fools!” She then spent the next few minutes panting with her hand held to her chest. “Sorry, darling, I needed to vent after what happened.”

“No worries, I know it was a scary experience.” Mena then handed her a towel to dry herself off. “I figured you might need this.”

Bella took a few more calming breaths before she accepted the towel and dried herself, thanking the gnome in the process. Once she handed back the towel, the two proceeded through another passage, ignoring what appeared to be cocoons filled with victims or a lot of spiders, they didn’t want to know which.

They entered another chamber with a set of stairs leading downward where they dealt with a pair of nerubians who tried to use dark magic to drain their strength.

They crossed a web bridge onto a platform occupied by the largest crypt lord they had seen yet. He took up a quarter of the platform by himself.

Once they stepped onto the platform, a group of nerubian flyers spun silk around the edges of the platform using the hooks to hold the threads in place. Bella and Mena suspected a trap, what they got was a monologue from the nerubian. “I was king of this empire once, long ago. In life, I stood as a champion. In death, I returned as conqueror. Now I protect the kingdom once more. Ironic, yes?”

“Who are you?” Bella asked.

“I am Anub’arak, last king of Azjol'Nerub. The living ones call me the Traitor King. Now, you shall face eternal agony!”

For being the largest nerubian they had encountered so far, Anub’arak was fast. Bella raised her shield in time to block one of his claws and batted away the other before she backed away from him. Mena stood back and fired bolts of holy magic which bounced off his shell.

Anub’arak rushed past Bella and stood imposingly over Mena before he reared up with his claws raised. Mena knew what was coming and used a reverse form of her Leap of Faith spell to use Bella like a grapple point to pull herself away in time to avoid a crushing blow that rocked the platform.

While Anub’arak was recovering, Bella raised a sword of light from the floor which would have impaled the fallen king had he not moved out of the way enough that the blade only cut off a small piece of his shell.

The spider king targeted Bella next, intent on smashing her into the floor but he had to move away again as Surprise sent a shadow blade at him which cut into his leg armor.

Needing to reevaluate his prey, Anub’arak dug into the ground while calling for his minions to assist him. A few nerubian spiders jumped into the arena followed by a regular nerubian climbing through the threads blocking their escape. Neither of these enemies were any trouble for the pair and were quickly disposed of.

Meanwhile, the two were feeling tremors from beneath them which told them that Anub’arak intended on striking from underground. They moved out of the way in time to avoid spikes bursting from where they were standing. They could feel the vibrations of the fallen king tunneling beneath them and moved accordingly.

While this continued, more nerubians came in the form of more of the same in addition to one other nerubian who was intent on flinging poison at them. Again, the nerubians were quickly crushed and incinerated, all the while avoiding getting impaled by the spider king.

Soon, yet another wave came with more of what came before, except nerubian flyers were added in who tried to charge at them with stingers. Bella managed to block the sting attacks with her shield while Mena put a shield around herself to block any headed for her.

Eventually, Anub’arak’s tunneling got on Bella’s nerves so she channeled a significant amount of light into her hammer before bringing it down onto the platform, consecrating the rock and soil. With the holy magic burning him, Anub’arak was forced to emerge and resume attacking.

As a last resort, Anub’arak opened his shell and buzzed his wings as a swarm of locusts emerged from his body that attacked the two while trying to peel off their skin. The two raised their holy shields to prevent the locusts from biting at them while they focused on delivering blows to the king’s carapace.

Eventually, Mena managed to get behind him to send holy fire into the exposed parts of his shell where his flesh was vulnerable. The holy flames soon engulfed him and he roared in pain. The locusts were buzzing around confused since their master was too busy trying to put out the fires.

Anub’arak soon collapsed as the flames were too much for his body to handle. “Arrrgh…” However, as his body was shutting down, his mind found clarity after so many years. “Hehe…finally, my mind is my own once more. It’s too bad that I had to die for this moment of freedom…” The two watched the spider king let out one last breath before he stopped moving.

The two felt bad for Anub’arak, he was another victim of the Scourge and their vile tendencies to turn one’s loved ones against them, sort of like what happened to Jaqueline. Bella and Mena muttered a prayer for the fallen king, hoping that he would find peace in the afterlife.

After their moment, the two moved forward, moving down another web bridge and into another tunnel.

Author's Note

Azjol'Nerub and Ahn'kahet are both dungeons that are necessary to show for the narrative because they set up future fights in the story. For you long time WoW players, you know which ones.

Next time: Raida and Flutashe vs. Undead and Ice Trolls (but mostly undead).

Fallen Stronghold

Raida and Flutashe flew west from Ursoc’s lair, having saved the Wild God from the clutches of the Nightmare.

Flutashe continued to wonder why the bear god would give her his fabled claws, a weapon that was a force to be reckoned with during the War of the Ancients. Back then, the claws ripped apart thousands of demons. The Legion saw Ursoc and his brother, Ursol, as threats to their invasion. It was unfortunate that the demons managed to take down Ursoc, but he certainly made sure they remembered him.

She also couldn’t help but wonder who this Keeper of Life was. The Wild Gods her people knew never spoke about someone like that. If they knew, then perhaps there was no reason to tell anyone. Ursoc said that she would meet her soon.

“Mulling over what Ursoc said, Flutters?” Raida asked. Flutashe nodded. “I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Whenever trouble comes, we deal with it. No sense worrying until then.”

Flutashe always admired her sister’s carefree attitude. When they were young, her attitude made the druid feel at ease, knowing that her sister was there to protect her. Now that they were older, it still gave her that sense of ease, even though she was fully capable of taking care of herself now.

After an hour of flight, the two hovered over the entrance to the Drakkari stronghold of Drak’tharon Keep. They noticed that trolls were fleeing the place in droves though some of them ended up getting captured by other trolls who looked like they had seen better days, given how rotted their flesh looked. There was no doubt that the Scourge was raising an army of undead Drakkari trolls.

They also noticed a middle-aged man throwing burning bottles at the undead trolls and setting them ablaze. The man looked inebriated so the two were pretty sure he wasn’t in his right mind for doing something that was likely to get himself killed.

As the troll zombies moved closer to the drunkard, Raida swooped in and breathed fel flame into the horde, incinerating many of them. Flutashe swooped in and grabbed the man in her talons, carrying him to safety. The man protested and shouted obscenities as he was being carried off.

They flew south and away from the trolls until Raida spotted a small camp with mostly humans and other races. They set the man down in the middle of the camp which got the attention of everyone there.

They were soon approached by a dark-skinned man with a bald head and wearing a red vest and black pants. “Thanks for returning him to us,” he said. “Name’s Samir, bad enough we gotta take care of Budd ever since whatever happened to him at Zul’Aman messed him up in the head, we don’t need Mack here going on one of his drunken escapades.”

Flutashe shifted back to her night elf form which caused some in the camp to recognize her. “Budd? What happened to him?”

“Dunno, after he pissed off some troll spirits by throwing ash into a burning hut, he got thrown in there, came out burning and put himself out by jumping in some nearby pool. Physically, he’s fine, but now he thinks he’s a troll. Anyways, nothing we can do about that. You two here for some troll hunting?”

“Actually, me and Raida were heading to Drak’tharon to clear the Scourge out. A lot of Drakkari were fleeing the place,” Flutashe informed.

“Best of luck to you then, the refugees will either end up captured and turned into undead or hunted down by the Alliance and Horde. We get ten gold per troll we capture.”

“I see…” Flutashe didn’t particularly like the idea of bounty hunting since it encouraged unscrupulous behavior but she did her best to not let it show. They had more important matters to deal with than lecturing the group.

“Alright sis, let’s get back up there and see what your new claws can do,” Raida said as she deployed her wings and took to the air. Flutashe shifted into her bird form and followed.

Once they reached the entrance to the keep, they followed the tide of fleeing trolls, who completely ignored them, until they found a passage leading into the keep. They followed the narrow passage for some time as it winded and twisted around. They soon emerged into a well-built, yet somewhat worn passage decorated with designs that the two guessed were typical for the Drakkari Tribe.

As they admired the aesthetics, the duo overheard a pair of panicked trolls heading their way. However, they appeared to be pursued. Just as the two soon-to-be victims turned a corner to see them, they were cut down by a zombie troll with a cleaver.

Another voice behind the zombie spoke out, “Don’t be so quick to escape! I have a parting gift…” The voice belonged to an elder necromancer who walked up to the dead trolls. He then began channeling dark magic into their bodies to reanimate them. “Rise my warriors and fight for your new liege!” Just as he finished, the necromancer spotted the two and pointed his scythe at them, directing his new minions to attack them. “Please enjoy their company, the Lich King sends his regards.”

Seeing as their adventure in the keep had officially begun, Flutashe decided to try out her new power here before she faced any tougher opponents with it. To her surprise, the Claws of Ursoc had altered her bear form to gain an anthropomorphic appearance like her cat form. If anything, she looked more like a furbolg than a bear now. Her form also felt bulkier from muscle mass. Her fur retained its dark gray color though with a thicker patch of black around her neck. A white mark on her shoulder showed a butterfly over a crescent moon.

Flutashe was able to deflect the ax swings from the troll zombies with one arm before she grabbed one and threw him into a wall so hard that he shattered into a number of body parts. She then grabbed another by the head and crushed him.

Not wanting to be left out of the fun, Raida quickly set the third zombie on fire. The necromancer was surprised by how fast his minions fell but before he could try to cast a spell he was quickly slashed into pieces by the demon hunter’s warglaives.

Following the trail of Drakkari corpses, the pair began leaving more bodies in the hallway with each troll zombie and necromancer they crushed. A quartet of zombies awaited them at the end of the hallway which left two for each of them.

They then found themselves looking at two paths to take. A little exploration found that the right path took them into a room filled with ghouls and abominations feasting on the Drakkari corpses while the other passage led to a dead end. With only one path to take, the two entered the next chamber to face the undead inside.

Meanwhile, from the entrance the duo came through earlier, a lone adventurer entered and poured some strange liquid on a nearby brazier. The image of a troll appeared before him with instructions to claim some liquid mojo from the keep’s remaining defenders before using them on the brazier atop the keep.

Back with the duo, the ghouls were roasted in fel fire. Flutashe tested her strength against the abominations who reeked of disease. Her body still had some resistance to it but she wasn’t about to test it out. Instead, she avoided the hooks and cleavers of the flesh golems and lifted one before tossing them into one of the bonfires that her sister had set in the area. Raida’s wrathguard, Truth, did the same to the other abomination.

The two looked at a set of stairs leading up to an upper level where a dire troll stood. He was looking away from them which meant that he either didn’t notice the fighting downstairs or he didn’t care. Seeing as the undead here didn’t notice him, the two figured that he was one of them.

As they reached the top of the stairs, they heard the troll speak, “So hungry! Need food! Need guts! Need blood!” He then shiffed the air and smelled fresh flesh in the two. He turned around and revealed his drooling, purple-marked face. “Food here!”

“We are not on the menu!” Raida replied. Flutashe charged in and punched his face to get his attention.

The druid avoided the dire troll’s slow punches with ease. Even if it was a new shape for her bear form, it wasn’t hard to learn how to move in it after training in her cat form, just slower and less reactive. She would train in her new form later.

A trio of Drakkari bat riders suddenly flew in from an opening in the back of the room and jumped off their bats before readying their weapons. “We gonna take Drak’tharon back from ya, invaders! We kill ya now, Trollgore!” one of the warriors declared. However, Trollgore turned around and easily crushed each one of them with his bare hands, leaving broken corpses on the ground.

Trollgore devoured two of the corpses before an idea popped in his head. He took the third corpse and threw it at Raida while channeling dark magic into it which caused it to rapidly swell up. The demon hunter suspected a bomb and flew out of the way just in time to avoid an explosion of guts and gore.

That distraction gave Flutashe time to grab the dire troll by the tusks and throw him over her shoulder and on his back. She then broke his tusks off before stabbing him in the chest with them.

Since he was undead, a chest wound wasn’t going to stop him. When she noticed that he was trying to grab her she pulled the tusks out and ran them into his eye sockets and into his brain. Trollgore stopped moving after that.

Breathing heavily for a few moments, Flutashe gazed upon the damage she had done while Raida placed a hand on her shoulder. After regaining her breathing, she verbally made a note to herself. “Apparently, these undead need to have their heads destroyed for any physical force to be useful in killing them.”

“Yeah, burning them is easier for me,” Raida replied.

Once they were ready to move forward, they saw one passage had collapsed so they took the one that had a lot of webbing and led into a chamber filled with spiders. However, the spiders gave the two a wide berth, as if they treated them like VIPs, or more like Flutashe was a VIP and Raida was her plus one.

“So even spiders bend to your will, huh?” Raida asked.

“All spiders are the children of Shadra, the Spider Loa. They won’t attack as long as they know you’re with me.”

“Good to know.”

After a brief passage, they entered another chamber that housed a lich like the one the two of them encountered at the Battle of Mount Hyjal. He appeared to be looking at the stairs for some reason.

“I can sense your approach. Come to embrace your end, have you?” the lich said.

“Nah, we came here because we thought it would be good fun to hunt a lich,” Raida quipped.

Flutashe quickly charged in but was thrown back when the lich wrapped himself in a dark barrier with four nearby black crystals channeling power into the field. Raida struck the shield with a Chaos Bolt but the shield completely absorbed it. She then targeted the crystals but they had their own protections. Neither of them could touch it while the lich, Novos the Summoner, laughed at their futile efforts to get to him.

“You know, we could just leave you and move on since you can’t seem to attack us either,” Flutashe said.

“You are half right, I can’t attack you, but my countless minions shall provide you with adequate entertainment,” Novos corrected.

As Novos said that, a stream of undead minions descended the nearby stairs. Countless numbers of human zombies, skeletal mages and wights were moving to swarm them.

Raida quickly activated her self-immolation spell and began burning down the undead while slowly pushing them back up the stairs. She took a moment to address her sister, “I’ll hold them off, find a way to get past this guy’s defenses.”

Flutashe had no idea how she was going to do that. Her sister was fighting what seemed to be an endless stream of undead where she was sure she would tire herself out eventually. Nothing in her arsenal was capable of destroying the crystals that had powerful defensive enchantments on them. What was she supposed to do?

Her answer came when an elder necromancer carrying a staff with a black crystal on it entered the room. Since he seemed intent on bashing her with his staff, she turned things around for him by ripping it out of his hands and slugging his head with it like a baseball bat. The impact destroyed the staff and the crystal attached to it.

To the druid’s surprise, the crystal fired a beam at one of the crystals protecting Novos and shattered it. Now she knew what to do. Though she had to hope more of the necromancers would show up soon like the first one.

Her wait paid off as another elder necromancer entered the room from another passage who was quickly disposed of and his staff crystal shattered which broke Novos’ second crystal.

The lich began to panic when the druid started slaughtering his crystal keepers and weakening his defenses. After two more of his keepers were crushed by the bear druid, his defenses fell apart. By that time, his supply of minions had run out and the demon hunter was free to face him as well.

Novos tried his best to defeat the duo using his frost spells and curses. He even summoned more minions to help him. However, his skills weren’t that much better than the average lich and the druid could break his curses. His end came when the demon hunter encased his head in black crystal and detonated it with fel magic.

“I’ll admit he had an impressive defense, but his overall power was nowhere near Rage Winterchill’s level,” Raida commented.

“From what Jaqueline told us on the boat, Rage was one of the more powerful liches in the Lich King’s service. All liches are formidable, but most of them aren’t quite as powerful as an archmage. The most powerful of them all is the Lich King’s archlich, Kel’thuzad.”

“He’s probably still aboard Naxxramas attacking Wintergarde. We will have to deal with him at some point.”

Flutashe nodded, “For now, let’s focus on our current mission.

The next chamber was occupied by a cauldron of bats and an undead troll bat rider. However, Flutashe’s presence gave the bats the will to turn on the troll and rip him limb from limb. This allowed them to proceed into an outdoor area where undead trolls were riding raptors who immediately turned on the riders.

Raida couldn’t help but be a little freaked out when the raptors started bowing to her sister, but she kept herself under control and watched.

“Excuse me,” Flutashe began. “I heard that the Drakkari have started stealing the powers of the Loa, why is this?”

After listening to a series of screeches, growls and other raptor sounds, the druid nodded in understanding. “I see, it does make sense for the Scourge to drive them to this point. It doesn’t make it right, though.”

“You mean the Scourge has something to do with the Drakkari draining their Loa?” Raida asked.

Flutashe nodded, “The Scourge have launched an invasion of Zul’Drak and the Drakkari are slowly losing the war. They think that turning their prophets into super warriors using the Loas’ powers will help them turn the tide.”

“I doubt it will, the Scourge have numbers on their side and the Drakkari have the disadvantage of experiencing fatigue. Not to mention that the Scourge increases in number for every Drakkari who dies. Unless they can assault the Lich King directly, their defensive war is futile. It’s no different than fighting the Legion.”

After a couple of minutes, the raptors gathered near Flutashe with a devilsaur who appeared to be the leader of this pack. The devilsaur made a series of sounds as he spoke to Flutashe. “You want to help? I don’t know, it might be dangerous for you. We don’t know what lies at the keep’s summit.” More devilsaur sounds. “A Drakkari prophet? He sided with the Scourge? Then that’s all the more reason for you not to get involved. Let us handle this.” More sounds came from the devilsaur. “I guess I can allow that, just let us handle the prophet. Once you clear the way, flee from here. Find a safe place.” The devilsaur nodded.

Once the discussion was over, the devilsaur, King Dred, moved up a tall set of stairs with his pack of raptors. Flutashe and Raida followed after them. However, Dred soon realized that his massive size played against him with the terrace being too narrow for him to safely walk through. Instead, the raptors had all the fun attacking the trolls on the terrace.

The undead were currently trying to finsh off the last of Drak’tharon’s defenders. The raptors attacked them indiscriminately which led to a lot of pained shouting. They went up another level where five undead trolls awaited the pack. They managed to kill a few raptors but they were quickly overwhelmed.

The pack’s advance halted at the base of the next set of steps which told the druid and demon hunter that the way was clear.

Raida and Flutashe proceeded up the flight of steps and emerged onto the temple summit. The Drakkari prophet, Tharon’ja hovered over the summit in a giant skeletal winged serpent form.

“Tharon’ja sees all! The work of mortals shall not end the eternal dynasty!”

“We’ll see about that after we attack Icecrown Citadel!” Raida shot back, thinking that he meant the Scourge.

Tharon’ja attacked with a few shadow and fire spells which the two dodged easily. Flutashe also grabbed hold of the skeletal winged serpent’s tail and slammed him on the stone platform a few times before he managed to break free and shot another shadow bolt at her which she avoided. Raida called on her demons to assist in taking down the prophet so they could be finished with this place quicker.

At first, the two were beginning to think Tharan’ja was all spells and nothing else. However, Truth and Heartswell sensed imminent danger to the sisters and moved to protect them. That was when the serpent began channeling a beam toward everyone around him. All of the demons were struck but the sisters were protected.

A moment later, the demons were now living skeletons who continued to attack Tharon’ja who was now a serpent of flesh and scales. He was now firing lightning from his mouth as well as breathing clouds of poison around him which forced the melee oriented of the demons to back away.

Meanwhile, Raida and Flutashe were continuing their attacks. Flutashe shifted into her cat form and began raking her claws across his scales to tear him apart and make him bleed while Raida took to the air and delivered a series of rapid slashes that ultimately left the serpent with many bleeding wounds.

Seeing how his form was becoming disadvantageous to his situation, Tharon’ja returned the flesh to the demons and returned to his skeletal form.

However, regardless of his form, he was greatly outnumbered and underpowered to handle so many enemies at once. His enemies’ attacks soon shattered his bones until Raida and Flutashe ripped his wings off, forcing him to the ground where the druid grabbed his skull and ripped it off.

The skull stared at the druid in disbelief, even if he was incapable of expressions in that form. “Im…impossible! Tharon’ja is eternal! Tharon’ja is–” His ranting was interrupted once the druid crushed the skull.

“I think that takes care of this place,” Raida said. “Let’s head into Zul’Drak and see what we can do to help the Loa. By the way, those claws are so awesome, sis. You just became twenty percent cooler.”

Flutashe couldn’t hide her reddening face and remained silent as she shifted into her bird form while Raida deployed her wings. After dismissing her demons, she joined her sister in the skies and proceeded into the troll kingdom.

Meanwhile, the adventurer from earlier finally made his way to the summit. He spent some time admiring the scenery and the architecture of trolls as he made his way to the summit. He was surprised that he hadn’t encountered any enemies so far but counted his blessings that he didn’t. He wasn’t even supposed to be here without his party but the troll he met had insisted that he came alone.

After looking at the skeletal remains of a winged serpent, he ignored it and looked for a brazier that was supposed to be around here. He soon spotted it beyond the platform where he pulled out some flasks of mojo that he took from the bodies of several trolls from earlier who looked like they got savaged by beasts. Once he poured the mojo into the fire, the troll he was working with emerged from the blaze.

The troll stretched his arms as he admired the scenery. “Ahh, back in Drak’tharon at last.” He cast his gaze at the scenery of Zul’Drak for a moment. “Ya done well, mon…” He then placed a jewel that the adventurer had helped him acquire earlier on one of the arms of the nine-pointed star platform that marked the summit. “You surpassed my greatest hopes.” He placed another jewel on another point. “For your efforts, ya be gettin’ de greatest of rewards…” He placed a small tablet on another point, making sure all three were evenly spaced. He then moved to the center of the platform. “Revelation!” He then casted a spell from the center which caused a black gate to open. “Be still, friend, and behold de truth of things!”

From the black gate, Arthas emerged and stared down at the troll who kneeled before him. “Master, my mission be complete.” the troll continued. “With da help of dis mortal, dis region be cleansed of all who oppose us.”

“You have done well, Drakuru. Your betrayal of the Drakkari Empire has borne me a new army. Your army…” He pointed Frostmourne at Drakuru and channeled his dark magic into the troll. “Arise, and–”

Another black gate suddenly opened and a sword flew out of it which impaled Drakuru through his back and out his face. Drakuru choked and gagged as the sword pierced his brain. The sword vanished which caused blood to spray out of the troll’s body as he collapsed.

Arthas looked beyond the dead troll to find the woman who promised to be a thorn in his side emerge from the gate. Thanatas gave the Lich King a cheerful, innocent smile. “Woopsie, did I do that?”

“What is the meaning of this intrusion?” Arthas demanded.

“I did promise to be quite the nuisance for you this year, I am simply making good on that promise.” She spared a quick glance at the adventurer. “Besides, as interesting as it would have been to watch this loot-hungry fool run around disguised as a ghoul and making your newest patsy look like an idiot, I simply couldn’t resist embarrassing you again.” She then pointed her sword at the adventurer’s feet which opened a small gate that he fell through.

“You will pay for this!” Arthas threatened.

“Maybe, but it sure won’t be you who collects. Ta-ta!” She leaped back through the gate and it closed before the Lich King could point his sword at her.

Now left alone atop Drak’tharon and with nothing to show for it, Arthas screamed in frustration before he stomped back through his own gate.

Moments later, the adventurer appeared outside of Drak’tharon wondering what had just happened. He contemplated going back to see if he had missed anything when he literally stumbled over a pair of sabatons and a necklace. He spotted a note which he picked up and read.

For your troubles and the amusement you never got to experience.

-T.

Shrugging, the adventurer picked up the new items and returned to his friends to show them off.

Author's Note

Every now and again, Thanatas just can't help but troll Arthas (pun not intended).

Next time: Stella and Jaqueline go to jail...again.

Magical Prison Escape

The Magical City of Dalaran was a marvel for the realms of the Eastern Continent of Azeroth or, as it is also called, the Eastern Kingdoms. It was built as a sanctuary for every aspiring wizard, mage, conjurer or practitioner of the arcane arts to study and hone their mastery of the arcane and every aspect of it. The city-state, before and during the Second War, was primarily populated by humans who built the city into a magocratic city state. The high elves from Silvermoon contributed their magical knowledge to the city archives.

In the past years, the city suffered from raids by the Horde and was once leveled by Archimonde through a strange dark ritual. For years the ruins were protected by a powerful magical dome while they rebuilt. With the resurgence of the Scourge threat, the city had emerged from its isolation and literally uprooted itself with the aid of powerful magic from the most powerful archmages of the Kirin Tor: The Council of Six.

Dalaran now hovered over the very center of the continent of Northrend over a small region of forest and ruins oversaturated with arcane energies called the Crystalsong Forest. The city offered relief and shelter to those who would brave the elements of the dangerous continent, regardless of affiliation.

The anchor point for Dalaran was set in a small circular room near the fountain in the center of the city that depicted several mages in a circle looking like they were conjuring the water continuously. Stella and Jaqueline exited the building with the latter looking around her.

The mage city was well decorated with smooth stone buildings with purple tile roofs and decorative windows. The square had eight tall topiary trees with several benches and chairs. Leaving the square, Jaqueline noticed the street that completely surrounded the square. Shops lined every inch of the street with a few exceptions.

“So this is Dalaran? Pretty fancy place.” Jaqueline commented.

“It is. It’s not as vibrant as the blood elf city of Silvermoon, but I like to think that it comes as a close second,” Stella responded. “Let me give you the tour.”

Stella introduced Jaqueline to the Magus Commerce Exchange which was a place for people to practice their tradeskills while being able to sell what they make. She also showed that the city had two banks and even a toy store for the little ones. Then she showed her the two sections that were recently reserved to the Alliance and Horde as rest areas. Neither of them were allowed to visit the Sunreaver Sanctuary since the Sunreaver faction associated with the Horde. Stella was still able to show her the Silver Enclave which belonged to the Silver Covenant who associated with the Alliance. The faction was led by a high elf named Vereesa Windrunner, sister of Sylvanas Windrunner.

“Where do y’all even sleep? Ah don’t even see any houses here.”

“There used to be a residential area but we couldn’t make the dome strong enough to encompass those ruins so they were left outside. Our workers did try to rebuild them but the Forsaken kept raiding the area and many of our workers died as a result. We ultimately abandoned the area after we decided it would be safer to create rooms in pocket dimensions.”

Jaqueline spat on the ground, “More like Sylvanas didn’t like a city of livin’ people havin’ a city in her territory.” An enchanted rag quickly showed up to clean up the spit and flew away. Jaqueline looked at the rag in amazement. “Huh, so that’s how you keep this place all tidy.”

Stella gave an awkward laugh, “On the surface, sure. The underbelly of the city is another story.”

“There’s an underbelly?”

“The surface is neat and tidy and nurtures a friendly environment. The underbelly is where the shady people go for black market deals and other illegal activities.”

“A hangout for rogues ah guess?”

“Among others. It’s also used for arena battles for people to place bets. The guards would rather not get involved in the mess that goes on down there so it’s practically a lawless society down there.”

“Sounds like a place for me to sharpen mah skills. Ah’ll take a look at some point.”

Stella rolled her eyes. She led her friend to the Violet Citadel where the Council of Six gathered. She spotted her former master, Rhonin, who she greeted and introduced Jaqueline to. She then gave her report on what had been happening on the eastern side of Northrend so far.

“At least the Blue Dragonflight have kept their activities to Borean Tundra, Dragonblight and here,” Rhonin said. “We still need to find a way to deal with Malygos. We cannot offer our full assistance to the Argent Crusade while the dragons continue to threaten us.”

“If it helps, I don’t think the other flights are pleased with Malygos’ decision so they can take some of the heat off of us. I saw some blue dragons fighting red dragons at Wyrmrest Temple when I sent one of my mirror images to establish an anchor over there.”

“So at least it’s only one flight against us,” Rhonin mused. “What about the other flights?”

“Unknown, I haven’t seen any others fielded so they could be remaining neutral.”

Beyond that, Stella didn’t have much else to add to her report other than the Scourge losing control of Howling Fjord. Rhonin had learned earlier that the Scourge lost a major stronghold in Borean Tundra. The campaign appeared to be off to a good start, but they still needed to remove the Blue Dragonflight from the list of problems so they could focus their energy on other threats.

Suddenly, a female mage entered the citadel out of breath and with a look of panic on her face. Stella recognized her as Lieutenant Sinclari, the warden of the Violet Hold, a magical dungeon the Kirin Tor used to contain dangerous threats.

“What’s the matter, Lieutenant?” Rhonin asked.

Once she gained her breath, Sinclari delivered her message, “We are on the verge of a catastrophic disaster, Rhonin! The Blue Dragonflight have breached our wards and are now opening portals into the Violet Hold. My men are doing the best they can to hold them off but if the dragons make it into the city we won’t stand a chance.”

“What about the prisoners? What is their status?”

“That’s why we need to hurry and eliminate them. The guards won’t be able to keep them from the cells. It’s just a matter of time before they release the prisoners.”

“Alright, I’ll summon reinforcements and send them to you when I am able. Meanwhile, take Stellaglim and her friend…”

“Jaqueline,” the death knight offered.

“Stellaglim and Jaqueline and hold off the dragons for as long as you can. I have heard about their exploits and I believe that they are more than capable of handling this threat.”

“Alright, we’ll have this threat contained shortly,” Sinclari declared. “Come along, you two.”

Not wanting to waste time, Sinclari teleported all three of them to the Violet Hold entrance where she ordered a guard to open the entrance for a few moments. The guard saluted and did as ordered, allowing the three inside.

The three spotted the guards fighting off a large group of blue dragonspawn and drakonids as well as a few blue hound-like beasts who had magic circles and arcane runes drawn on their bodies. The guards were looking particularly exhausted from holding the enemy back.

“This is bad,” Sinclari voiced. “I will have to activate a defense crystal to purge the room of intruders.” She then turned toward a ruby next to the door. She then pushed the crystal’s holder into the wall which caused a humming sound to resonate through the prison. Moments later, a large orb of pure arcane energy lowered into the room and unleashed a storm of arcane lightning throughout the prison. The dragonkin and hounds were bombarded by arcane lightning until their bodies gave out, leaving charred husks on the floor.

“These crystals are attuned so that no Kirin Tor personnel will be harmed by the defense mechanism. I had to quickly attune Jaqueline so the energy wouldn’t harm her. Unfortunately, these crystals take a whole day to recharge so you will only be able to use them once. There are five others in here if you need to use them, but use them wisely.”

“What about you and the guards?” Jaqueline asked.

“I really don’t want to leave you two to hold off the invasion on your own, but my men are exhausted and I need to get them out of here so they can recover. Once Rhonin and the Council reinforce the prison’s wards, that will be the end of it. Though I doubt that the invasion leader will take their time, knowing this. I will be back with reinforcements as soon as I can.”

With that, Sinclari led her troops out of the prison and locked the door, reinforcing it with a powerful warding spell. The two were now alone in the room for the moment.

With the prison in silence, Jaqueline decided to spend the brief waiting period talking to Stella while they waited for the blue dragonkin to attack again. Both took a seat at the base of the stairs leading into the main area of the prison. “Ah can hardly believe y’all accepted me so easily with how received death knights typically are.”

Stella glanced at Jaqueline for a moment and sighed, “It’s true that death knights are known to slaughter loved ones without so much as a second thought. Of course, you were a passenger in your own mind for a while. It’s a mystery how you managed to break free of the Lich King’s control by yourself. Hearing that you turned into a death knight, and based on what I learned about them from the Dalaran archives, I was afraid that you were lost to us and doomed to commit atrocities for the rest of your unlife.”

“And this didn’t have to do with mah newfound necromantic powers?”

Stella rolled her eyes, “What does having necromantic powers have to do with being our friend? If this is about Raida, which I am guessing Thanatas told you about, I didn’t trust her at first because I didn’t know her all that well. She may have been Flutashe’s sister, but I have seen families where siblings turn evil for whatever reason. Some dracthyr among the weyrns ended up going mad for some reason, though I think that was because of Neltharion’s experiments. Besides, despite my original concerns about fel, my questions toward her being fel-infused were more for scientific purposes.”

Jaqueline chuckled at that last part, though this did bring up a couple of questions. “What’s a weyrn? Also, ah thought that dragon was evil because of all that void stuff or something?”

“Well, to answer your first question, a weyrn is a faction among my brethren. Each weyrn is a sort of brotherhood so each member of a weyrn count each other as their brothers and sisters. It’s like an extended family led by a scalecommander. Overall there are five weyrns. The Obsidian Warders are the shield of the Black Dragonflight, charged with protecting the flight and allies of the flight. The Dark Talons are the commandos of the Black Dragonflight, charged with being the elite force that uses tactics to crush the wills of their enemies. The Healing Wings are the support force of the Black Dragonflight, using green, red and bronze essence to heal wounds and undo afflictions. The Ebon Scales are the assault force of the Black Dragonflight, unleashing destruction upon their enemies. Finally, the Adamant Vigil are the eyes and ears of the Black Dragonflight, acting as spies and scouts to gather information about enemies and potential allies.

“To answer your second question, Neltharion was always a twisted individual, the Old Gods just made him even more twisted.”

“Huh, so what weyrn did you belong to?” Jaqueline asked.

Suddenly, the floor looked very interesting for the dracthyr, though Jaqueline could tell that it was a touchy subject for her. “I never did get placed into a weyrn. Neltharion wanted to create a sixth weyrn dedicated to research and development, but the incident that broke his control over us happened before he could make it a reality.” She chuckled humorlessly, “I overheard that he was planning on making me the scalecommander of that weyrn. My intellect was probably why he decided to take my frozen self and give me to his son, Nefarian.”

Jaqueline placed an arm around Stella who leaned into her. “Sounds like ya never got a chance to be part of a family. Maybe you can count us as part of it, if ya wanted. Ya also got your fellow Dalaran mages to count on for that.”

That got a laugh out of the dracthyr, “Ha! Most of them are so absorbed into their research that they probably forgot the meaning of the word ‘family’. Though I suppose Rhonin is like a father to me.”

The conversation ended there when Stella sensed what was most likely the first of many arcane rifts that would be opening in this prison in the very near future. She quickly regained her composure and went on alert. Jaqueline quickly followed.

The two rushed to the rift to engage whoever came through which turned out to be a single hooded dragonspawn who channeled her magic to maintain the portal. More dragonspawn and hounds began pouring out of the portal in an attempt to bypass the two and head straight for the door.

Jaqueline spread a contagion among the dragonkin to slow them down while Stella unleashed her magic on the portal keeper. Thanatas had taught the death knight a number of useful spells that she could invoke through her runeblade. One of which allowed her to project a spectral form of herself which outran the dragons before her corporeal body caught up and decapitated the lead dragonkin.

The minions began firing spells at her which she blocked with an Anti-Magic Shell before draining the blood of her first dragonkin victim and firing bolts of blood at them. The dark magic infused into the blood brought agony to the scaly creatures.

After several dragonkin minions had died, Jaqueline gathered their flesh into a shadowy barrier to protect herself while she unleashed havoc upon the dragonkin up until Stella finished off the portal keeper and the tide of enemies came to an end. Stella managed to burn a few before her friend could get to them.

“I’m starting to get a sense of deja vu,” Stella remarked.

“What do you mean?” Jaqueline asked.

“You weren’t with us then, but the others and I went back in time to help the Bronze Dragonflight to preserve the timeline.”

“Ya went back in time? That musta been a strange experience.”

“We’ll make sure to bring you along next time the Bronze Dragonflight calls on us for aid.”

With that out of the way, the two decided to focus on a new portal that opened. The odd thing about this one was that it didn’t send out a portal keeper, but a squad of blue dragonkin. Jaqueline quickly infected them with a disease while Stella kept them from casting.

While the two were dealing with the squad, a lone dragonspawn appeared from another portal. However, instead of maintaining a portal or going for the door, this one headed toward one of the six occupied prison cells in the chamber. With how busy the duo had been, they were unable to stop the dragonkin from opening the cell at the bottom left side by the stairs. They teleported out immediately.

“What in Sam Hill is that?” Jaqueline asked as an ethereal emerged from the cell. Stella took a brief moment to explain ethereals to her.

“Back in business!” the ethereal proclaimed. “Now, time to execute an exit strategy.”

“That’s Xevozz, he’s an arms dealer for the Burning Legion.” Stella informed.

“Of course I would sell to them, fleshling, they are my best customers and they pay well,” Xevozz said without an ounce of shame.

“Rhonin gave me orders to execute any prisoners who try to escape the Violet Hold.”

“So how do ya kill someone made of arcane energy?” Jaqueline asked.

“Destroy the bandages and they won’t be able to hold their form.”

Xevozz didn’t have any weapons but he was skilled at casting arcane spells. However, Stella was great at countering mages which forced the ethereal to conjure arcane spheres to empower himself with. However, Stella stole that energy and let her friend have all the fun.

Jaqueline didn’t entertain any thoughts of inflicting disease on Xevozz, being what he was. However, with Stella keeping him under control, Jaqueline only needed to focus on slicing away the bandages. Even though the ethereal managed to get a few shots of arcane magic on her, Jaqueline’s Anti-Magic Shell prevented the spells from doing anything.

In the end, the duo was a bad match for him and could only look in horror as the death knight slashed up his bandages, causing his arcane essence to dissipate into the arcane energies in the air.

Although they didn’t see any more portals at the moment, neither were planning on letting their guards down as long as the enemy leader was still out there.

“It looks like they are counting on help from the prisoners to help them invade Dalaran,” Stella noted.

“Are they really so hell-bent on takin’ this place that they would let out dangerous criminals for it?”

“Malygos seems to think that mortals are the most dangerous creatures on Azeroth so he sees these prisoners as lesser threats to use to deal with a greater one.”

“Sounds like he needs the sense beaten into him.”

“Agreed, but we will have to focus on this for now.”

Two more portals opened. One was soon maintained by a blue winged dragonspawn and the other deployed another squad.

“Wanna switch roles?” Jaqueline asked.

“Sure, I’ve been wanting to let loose.”

Stella initially froze a number of attackers emerging from the maintained portal while she focused on dealing with the squad. She began using her more destructive fire and arcane magics in addition to her draconic essences. Jaqueline and the winged dragonspawn fought one another with their swords. The death knight used the remains of Stella’s victims as a shield to protect herself from the dragonkin’s attacks. Jaqueline’s shield was fortified whenever she drew blood from her enemy as that blood went into powering her shield.

She soon brought the fight to an end when she dodged a slash and left him open to a thrust that impaled him, followed by an evisceration by cutting open the poor dragonkin’s body. Stella quickly finished things on her end once the portal closed.

While they were busy with the two groups, two dragonspawn snuck toward more prison cells. This time the cell on the far right of the room was targeted while the other targeted one to the far left.

The cell on the right unleashed a core hound, which made the two silently agree not to tell Flutashe about it since they had to kill this one. The cell on the left released three arakkoa.

Jaqueline raised an eyebrow before she turned her attention to the core hound. “Ah can understand the core hound, especially when Flutashe ain’t around, but what’s with the bird people over there?”

Since Jaqueline seemed intent on fighting the beast, Stella turned her attention to the three arakkoa. “These three attempted to assassinate the Council of Six but failed. The ringleader of that plot was Erekem over here. Also, for future reference, they are called arakkoa. The beast you are fighting is called Lavanthor, by the way.”

Since Lavanthor seemed intent on unleashing a blazing hell in the area around him, Jaqueline focused on assaulting him with her frost runes, starting with infecting him with her usual diseases. She managed to roll to the side to avoid a blazing breath attack.

Meanwhile, Erekem was showing off his shamanistic abilities while his allies attacked Stella with their blades. The dracthyr had to raise a barrier to protect herself from their attacks while she delivered icy devastation by trying to freeze the two warriors. However, Erekem was a skilled support caster who knew how to free his allies from bindings. Any damage she inflicted would be healed by the arakkoa. Even worse, he placed earthen shields on his allies to protect them from further harm while enhancing their ferocity with a spell called Bloodlust.

Stella didn’t have much time to attack thanks to her enemy’s relentless assault which was beginning to frustrate her.

“Need some help there, Stella?/Wanna switch?” Jaqueline and Stella asked at the same time.

With both nodding, Stella teleported to Lavanthor where she bombarded him with icicles that drew his attention away from the death knight. At the same time, Jaqueline imposed her dark will on the two arakkoa warriors and compelled them to attack her.

Erekem was surprised that his allies would fall for what was obviously the enemy’s tactics. “No! No! Ra-ak! Attack the spellcaster! Attack the dragon thing! Aak!” However, the two were no longer listening for some reason. With no choice, he continued to support his allies.

Jaqueline knew how warriors fought and she could see the sloppiness in their attacks. It was obvious that these two were not nearly as well trained as her in that aspect. After infecting them with her Frost Fever and Blood Plague diseases, she found that Erekem had no real counter to this so he kept trying to heal them.

Things soon spiraled out of control for Erekem when Jaqueline got through the defenses of one of his guards and delivered a grievous wound. The death knight’s blade unleashed another deadly disease on the poor arakkoa which caused the tissue around the wound to necrotize and weaken the effectiveness of Erekem’s healing spells. The guard screeched in pain as his wound began to fester and spread into his body. Within seconds, the arakkoa went into septic shock and was no longer able to fight.

The other guard tried to defend his brother from Jaqueline’s attacks but the death knight used an unholy rune to spread the infection to him. The other collapsed from the shock and dropped his blade on the floor as he held himself and coughed violently.

Jaqueline was not a cruel person, but her abilities were known to be vicious. She wouldn’t let the two suffer more than necessary which prompted her to decapitate both guards to end their agony.

Meanwhile, Stella was having little problem with the core hound. Her icy attacks were the bane of Lavanthor’s existence as each icicle and frosty blast lowered his body temperature. A spellfrost breath on the beast’s back had caused the flame to dim. Lavanthor began to weakly roar in defiance until a Disintegration Beam blasted a hole in his back and burst through the other side. The core hound collapsed to the floor and moved no more.

Enraged at the loss of his guards, Erekem drew a pair of hammers to attack with. He empowered them with lightning and moved to attack Jaqueline. However, she used a frost rune to bind the arakkoa’s feet to the floor before she created a crimson magic circle around him that began to rot everything within the area. Erekem screeched in pain which was followed by a gurgle before his rotted muscles gave out and he dropped his weapons. The death knight ran her sword through his chest to finish him.

Jaqueline converted the blood on her blade into power for her barrier before she moved to sit on the entry steps while they waited for more enemies to come. Stella quickly joined her.

“Wanna bet they release the last three all at once to try and overwhelm us?” Jaqueline asked.

Stella snorted, releasing smoke from her draconic nostrils, “No doubt they will. Ichoron is a water elemental who resides in that pool of water that’s next to Xevozz’s cell. Apparently the mage who summoned her couldn’t control her and ended up dead really fast. Moragg is the observer demon on the upper level. The most dangerous prisoner here, however, is Zuramat the Obliterator.” She pointed at the large armored voidwalker on the second level. “Malygos is really playing with fire if he intends on letting him out. It took hundreds of Kirin Tor agents to capture him.”

They spent the next few minutes talking up until the next wave of invaders arrived.

That was when all hell broke loose.

If the enemy had not viewed the duo as a threat to their invasion before, they certainly did so now. Many portals opened up simultaneously. Stella made a mental note to strongly suggest to Rhonin about strengthening the wards around the prison because this was becoming ridiculous.

From the portals came five portal keepers while the remainder dropped off squads of Blue Dragonflight soldiers. There was no doubt that the dragonkin intended on rushing them and busting through the door to invade en masse.

Thinking quickly, Stella teleported to one of the defense control crystals in the chamber and activated it, unleashing a sphere of pure arcane energy that blasted every dragonkin in the room. However, the portal keepers protected themselves from the blast. On the bright side, the squads were decimated which bought them some time to deal with the keepers before they tried to overwhelm them again.

“Jaqueline, deal with the portal keepers,” Stella ordered. “I will protect the door. You may need to hurry because there are only four more of those crystals I can activate.”

Jaqueline nodded and proceeded to the right-most keeper first before moving from portal to portal. Stella brought all of her magic to bear against the dragonkin.

Thankfully, Jaqueline was brutally efficient in her attacks and only spent a few minutes at most on each portal keeper. Stella ended up activating two more defense crystals in that time.

However, as the two predicted earlier, three dragonspawn snuck over to the prisons of the elemental, demon and void lord and proceeded to open them. However, the dragonspawn who opened Zuramat’s prison bit off more than she could chew when the void lord quickly devoured her life force.

By the time Jaqueline finished off the last of the portal keepers, the three prisoners were ready to attack. Ichoron was a water revenant, an armored water elemental that looked like a chestplate chained to three metallic buckets with one of them broken to serve as a helm along with a pair of gauntlets bearing a shield and a sword.

Moragg the observer demon focused his gaze on Stella until a chain and hook wrapped around his body and yanked him toward Jaqueline. The rogue water elemental chose to go after Stella while surrounded by a shell of water. Zuramat stayed back to observe the fighting. However, Stella could tell that he was casting something but she didn’t know what.

Jaqueline moved out of the way of Moragg’s bile that he spat at her then he tried to lick her to coat her in acid. However, the death knight used this chance to slash the demon’s tongue and infect the wound. Moragg growled in pain but continued fighting by shooting eye beams at her which she avoided by moving behind him.

Ichoron would have proven a tough adversary for anyone as long as her opponent wasn’t a clever user of frost magic. Unfortunately for the elemental, Stella was clever with her ice magic. She ended up using the same tactic that she employed against Naj’entus where she froze Ichoron’s bubble and unleashed a flurry of icicles to shatter the elemental.

Zuramat could see that his fellow prisoners would not last much longer so he decided to get the most out of this by ripping the life force from the demon and elemental to bolster his form. Like other void lords, Zuramat needed to feast on sources of power such as magic and life in order to maintain his form in the mortal realm. Without either, he would be forcibly returned to the outer realm with his brethren.

Zuramat reached the lower level to meet the two in combat. However, as they prepared to fight the void lord they soon found themselves under bombardment by bolts of shadow that came at them from many directions. Jaqueline placed herself and Stella in a dome of anti-magic.

Stella cursed, “Damn, he must have been creating minions and cloaking them in shadow to prevent us from getting to them. If we don’t find a way to go on the offensive, he will drain us too.”

Neither of them had any ideas on how to get out of this and it was only a matter of time until the void lord broke through the barrier. They needed a plan, and fast.

Thankfully, they finally had some relief when the prison doors opened and Rhonin, along with a large number of magi entered the chamber. Rhonin quickly assessed the situation and immediately ordered his magi to unleash their spells on the void lord. Zuramat was bombarded by hundreds of bolts of fire, frost and arcane magic while the magi defended themselves from the minions by conjuring their barriers.

The force was too much for Zuramat. Being trapped in the prison had left him weakened and the demon and elemental provided some relief to his endless hunger but it wasn’t enough for him to put up a proper fight against the mage army before him. Before long, his form fell apart and his essence returned to the outer realm. The minions faded away with their master banished.

Jaqueline lowered her barrier while she and Stella moved to address the leader of the Kirin Tor. “Thanks for the assistance, master. I wasn’t sure how long we would have held out against that void lord.”

“I’m glad to see you are safe, Stella. Is every–” Stella watched in surprise as Rhonin and the mages were all suddenly left in an arcane stasis field. The two looked around but they didn’t see anyone who looked like they cast the spell.

On reflex, Jaqueline raised her barrier again just in time to avoid sharing the same fate as the mages.

“What’s going on? Who’s doing this?” Stella demanded.

“Tch, I was hoping to deal with this city’s defenses in one fell swoop. No matter, I shall deal with you two myself and fulfill Malygos’ wishes.”

The two turned to see a lone high elf wearing violet robes and an azure cape. Her slitted eyes had blue sclera.

“You must be the leader of this invasion,” Stella concluded.

“Indeed, I am Cyanigosa and I am Malygos’ enforcer. He has ordered this city to fall to rubble and he shall have it!” The dragon shed her visage form to reveal her massive draconic form. “I shall end you both here, aberration of death and spawn of Deathwing!”

As much as Cyanigosa wanted to end the Destroyer’s monster first, she had concerns for the diseases that the death knight could bring against her. She was not about to let Jaqueline rot her from within.

When Cyanigosa attempted to incinerate Jaqueline with raw arcane energy, Stella stole some of that energy away while the death knight protected herself with an Anti-Magic Shield. Stella condensed the stolen energy and hurled it at the dragon with explosive force that caused her to roar as her body rocked.

The dragon looked Stella’s way who teleported out of the way just in time to avoid another breath attack. She had to teleport again when Cyanigosa made it rain ice shards on her while raking her claws to attack Jaqueline.

The death knight moved under the dragon’s claws and summoned her abomination arm to wrap its chain around Cyanigosa’s left forearm and pulled her back. What shocked the dragon was that the human was stronger than she looked.

The reality of Jaqueline’s strength was her years of training as a warrior combined with her undead status releasing the limitations of her muscles, allowing her to surpass a bodybuilder in strength without the bulk getting in the way.

Of course, she was having a one on one tug of war with a dragon the size of a two-story building so Cyanigosa was able to meet the challenge. However, this was only a distraction which allowed Stella to channel her black essence to unleash a destructive magma breath that tore into the dragon’s back scales.

Cyanigosa let out a roar of pain which distracted her from the tug of war and allowed Jaqueline to pull the dragon off balance and fall to her side. The death knight saw the dragon’s damaged back scales exposed to her which she capitalized by stabbing her diseased blade into the opening.

Stella decided to give the dragon one last chance to save herself through a diplomatic measure. “Cyanigosa, you must understand! Malygos will destroy Azeroth if he goes through with stealing the magic from the ley lines.”

“It is you who does not understand, dracthyr. The well being of Azeroth comes second to Malygos’ will! His wishes are my wishes! If his plan is to destroy Azeroth, then so be it!”

“Are you insane?!” Stella shouted. “Azeroth is supposed to come first for all dragonkind! His actions will only lead to him following a similar path to Neltharion!”

“If that is the path we must tread, then we shall.”

Stella facepalmed, it was clear that Cyanigosa was so blinded by zealotry that she was incapable of independent thought. She snapped at the dragon, “I really hope that idiots like you are a minority in the Blue Dragonflight because I am seriously starting to question your Aspect’s ability to lead his flight if he encourages you fools to forsake your duties to Azeroth for the sake of this moronic crusade of his! Is he so shortsighted that he doesn’t see the consequences of his actions?”

“HOW DARE YOU! You dare question my aspect? He who has lived for countless millennia? He who personally witnessed the works of the Makers?”

As Cyanigosa struggled to get up, despite the infections coursing through her body and Jaqueline’s blade still plunged into her spine, Stella’s expression darkened as she muttered “Fool!” under her breath. “Jaqueline!” she called out.

Taking that as the signal, the death knight used her unholy runes to inject her necrotic disease to accelerate the attack on the dragon’s insides.

Cyanigosa used what little strength she had left to get up and fight back. She could feel her organs shutting down one by one. She created an arcane vacuum around herself to draw the two to her so she could unleash her arcane might in one big explosion. “FOR MALYGOS!”

Stella reacted quickly and grabbed Jaqueline before she teleported a safe distance away just as the dragon let loose her arcane fury. After that, the disease reached her heart and soon shut it down. Cyanigosa lost the last of her strength as she collapsed, her last breath leaving her body.

With the dragon dead, the spell holding the Kirin Tor mages came undone. The mages were confused by what happened since they were looking at Jaqueline and Stella one moment and the next moment they saw the corpse of a blue dragon, fully grown for that matter.

“Can someone explain to me what just happened?” Rhonin asked. “I felt temporal magic for a moment and now there’s a dead dragon in my prison.”

“I’ll explain when we get back to the Citadel, master.” Stella offered.

Once the situation deescalated, the guards and mages returned to their duties while Stella, Rhonin and Jaqueline made their way to the Violet Citadel.

However, where one adventure ended, another began. Once the three entered the Citadel, the members of the Council of Six who were there at the time introduced them to a human woman with shoulder-length black hair that curled slightly. She wore white and black robes with gold lining. A halo floated above her head. More importantly, her golden draconic eyes were visible to everyone.

Stella easily identified who this woman was affiliated with and knew that her crazy day was about to turn even crazier.

Author's Note

On the bright side the prison is now empty and has a lot more vacancies which should be filled up again in about 4 years or so.

Next time: An interlude from the dungeon crawling to see what's happening at the Wrathgate.

The Wrathgate Incident

Following the defeat of the san’layn, Prince Valanar, Talia and her group returned to the taunka village to inform them that the enemy was now in disarray with the leadership defeated. This filled the bison people with hope that they may yet make it to a safe haven in their capital city of Icemist.

Preparations were underway as the taunka hurriedly grabbed their supplies and everything they could carry without becoming encumbered. Time was against them and there was no telling how much the group bought them.

This also meant that their job was not done yet since the villagers were now asking them to guard their caravan as they headed east toward Icemist.

It took about an hour for the taunka to gather their young and old as well as whatever they could carry for their journey. Once they made their final goodbyes to their beloved village, that had stood for generations, they were off. It wasn’t long before they reached the road that would take them to their destination.

As they traveled, the group had their conversations with the taunka and learned some things about them, such as their traditions. Of course, none of that mattered to them. It was simply things for them to hear about while they traveled.

Along the way, the blighted animals attacked the caravan which were quickly dispatched by the group. There were also the anguished spirits of taunka ancestors, roused by necromancy, who tried to harry the evacuees. Farra’jin’s elementals quickly dealt with them.

The journey on foot took hours and they had to be careful when crossing several rope bridges along the way. Aside from the few enemies, the attacks were minimal, to the relief of the taunka.

However, that relief soon turned to shock as smoke rose from a fire in the distance. The taunka used smoke signals as long distance communication so many of them could read the signals. The shock soon turned to dread which soon turned into despair as the smoke readers translated and relayed the message to the members of the caravan.

Icemist had fallen to the Scourge.

The caravan continued on the road to reach the refugee camp where ambassadors of the Horde provided aid for the now homeless tauren subspecies.

Once the caravan arrived, the group was put to work dealing with the local threat of nerubian spiders crawling around as well as retrieving their supply crates containing food and weapons. Talia dealt with the nerubians like a pyromaniac with her fire spells while the others focused on gathering crates.

Once they had enough, they returned to the camp where the ambassador had them go around with scrolls to swear in the taunka into the ranks of the Horde.

The promise of vengeance against those who destroyed their homes lit a fire in the taunka. In turn they swore their allegiance to the Horde and armed themselves with the weapons and armor from the crates.

The group was then sent to the Horde settlement, Agmar’s Hammer, to provide further aid for the campaign.

Along the way, Talia and the others spotted Bella and Mena entering the large pit that appeared to be crawling with nerubians. However, they decided to ignore them and proceed to the settlement.

Agmar’s Hammer had a similar design to Warsong Hold in that the walls were thick metal with spikes for walls and the buildings were well fortified. It appeared that the Horde was beginning to embrace this new style of architecture that was an improvement over the stone, wood and hide architecture.

The craftsmen were seen making weapons for the soldiers but the group also spotted a forsaken plague scientist working on some strange and ominous concoction. They also spotted who appeared to be a blood elf with very pale skin and wearing dark plate mail armor while carrying a sword with runes on it. They figured that he was one of those death knights that had joined the Horde recently.

The main building was where they found the leader of the settlement, Overlord Agmar. He sat on what appeared to be a throne as a sign of leadership to those who reside in the settlement. He was flanked by two rather large wolves.

After reporting in, Agmar had the group assist the taunka further by helping them to defeat the Scourge occupying Icemist. This led to a series of missions that involved gathering intel as well as dealing with the major threats defending the city. This culminated in the liberation of the High Chieftain of the Taunka, Roanauk Icemist, and the defeat of a powerful nerubian crypt lord, Anub’et’kan. Roanauk’s assistance was much needed in the defeat of the giant scarab beetle nerubian.

Once they returned to Agmar’s Hammer, the high chieftain was sworn in as a member of the Horde and representative of his people.

There were other tasks to complete before the Horde made a move on Icecrown Citadel, but Agmar had other adventurers handle them. Some adventurers even bragged about having met the queen of the dragons, Alexstrasza.

Talia’s group was tasked by the plague doctor to fly over to the forsaken settlement in eastern Dragonblight, Venomspite, and help them to complete their latest strain of plague. None of the group were too thrilled with helping the forsaken engineer a deadly bio weapon and the Horde command was also reluctant to allow this to happen as well. On the other hand, they also felt that the weapon might give them an edge against the Lich King.

They borrowed a number of wyverns and flew east to Venomspite, taking in the landscape around them.

They arrived at the settlement where they noticed someone testing their plague on a captured human in scarlet armor. To their surprise, they found that the weapon had no effect on them.

From what the group gathered, there was a nearby town of humans bearing the armor and insignia of the Scarlet Crusade, though they were verbally calling themselves the Scarlet Onslaught as part of their newfound determination to bring an end to every unliving being in the world, which would have included every living person who wasn’t wearing their uniform as well thanks to their blind zealotry.

“If people like this existed in Equestria, even I would cheer if Celestia glassed fools like these.” Talia thought.

They soon learned that the source of their immunity came from some special spell that was being placed on all of them that protected them from the disease. The retrieval of the high general’s diary revealed that something was influencing her which drove her to sailing to Northrend. Further reading of the diary also revealed that the admiral accompanying her was behaving suspiciously.

However, the Onslaught forces needed to be dealt with since their zeal could ruin everything for the Horde. This led to the deaths of many members of the leadership, including the high general and her trusted bishops. However, the admiral escaped while protecting himself with a powerful barrier of dark magic which only made him more suspicious.

In past reports, it was said that the Scarlet Crusade was being manipulated from the shadows by nathrezim which ultimately deemed the entire organization compromised when the one who led them was revealed as one in disguise. It seemed possible that the Onslaught was being led by such demons.

Regardless, the final strain of the plague, which they named the Forsaken Blight, was ready for delivery. Talia made Farra’jin carry it since there was no way she was going to be the mule in this and she wasn’t about to carry around something that could turn her into a pile of green goo.

A few hours later, they were back in Agmar’s Hammer where they handed the plague strain to the plague doctor who made preparations for it to be ready in time for the attack on the Wrathgate.

With the preparations for the attack on Angrathar, the Wrathgate underway, the forces of the Alliance and Horde were marshaling their forces for the attack. Leading the Alliance was the expedition commander, Bolvar Fordragon, who was overseeing preparations. Sophia observed the scene with him.

As they watched, the commander had a confused look on his face pertaining to something she said. “You want me to do what?”

“Trust me on this, you don’t want to confront the Lich King directly,” Sophia explained. “In the years he has spent planning his attack on us, his own powers have grown considerably. If anyone can handle him one on one, it would be me or Thanatas. When that gate opens, he will send out his stronger minions which I can leave you and the Horde to take care of. After that, I need you and the Horde to withdraw to your bases to assume defensive positions.”

“You want me to pull back after defeating a bunch of minions? There has to be a good reason for this.”

“There is. Dealing with the Lich King here will not do us much good though. That helm of his is what keeps the vast undead hordes from turning into a mindless tide of destruction that will consume all in its wake. If nobody is in control of it, the undead will wash over the world and butcher anyone with a spark of life in them. Arthas has a reason for not doing so at this point because he wants to test the heroes of the Alliance and Horde to see if they are worth becoming his generals.”

“You say that if he dies here, then nothing will keep the Scourge in check? How are we supposed to stop him then?”

“From what Thanatas told me, someone has to make the ultimate sacrifice. She has a plan, but we must confront him at his seat of power.”

“I see,” Bolvar mused. “So the plan is to drive him back and help the Argent Crusade push into Icecrown for a frontal assault on the citadel?”

“I know that the plan seems very risky, but defeating him means that someone needs to take his place for Azeroth’s sake. To that end, the Helm of Domination and the Frozen Throne need to be in the same place while the wearer’s mind battles the will of the Helm.”

Bolvar sighed, “Alright, I trust that you and Thanatas know what you are doing.”

Sophia gave a light smile, “Don’t worry, things will work out in the end.”

At the Horde camp near Angrathar, the forces were being led by a brown-skinned orc named Dranosh Saurfang, son of Varok Saurfang.

The mag’har orc stared at the death knight in disbelief as he heard what she suggested. “You actually expect me to just stand back and let you personally handle the Lich King? Do you intend to steal my honor?”

“Do you want to die two deaths and make your father extra sad?” Thanatas countered.

“Two deaths?”

“One from the Lich King who will destroy you with one strike and the other for after he turns you into a death knight and the champions of the Horde and Alliance will have to put you down again. I’m sure your father would like to be a grandfather before you have your glorious death in battle. I’m also pretty sure he would prefer to die before you do.

“Besides, you could just interpret this as me issuing a mak’gora to the Lich King if this is about preserving your honor.”

Dranosh thought about it for a few moments. While this would mean that he wouldn’t get his shot at the Lich King, having a member of the Horde challenge him could be seen as the death knight bringing honor to the Horde as a whole. “Very well, my forces will crush the undead under our heels while you have your fun with the Lich King.”

Thanatas nodded, “Good, it looks like we are nearly ready to begin. Once we are certain that we will not be flanked by enemy reinforcements.”

Once everything was ready on their end, Thanatas opened a link to her cousin.

“So, I take it that you managed to convince him?” Thanatas asked.

“He was a bit of a hard sell, but I managed to get through to him,” Sophia responded.

“Good, now all that remains is to rewrite history. I want to be sure that this doesn’t turn into a political incident and set Varian on the warpath against the Horde. I have a squad of undead ready to move in once you make your move.”

“They will never know what hit ‘em,” Sophia said while making her voice sound like it was coming through a breathing apparatus.

After dealing with a matter of the Scourge trying to raise the bones of a colossal ancient dragon, Talia’s group remained behind at the Horde fortress near Angrathar while Bolvar and Dranosh advanced on the ominous gateway.

The Alliance soldiers cheered Bolvar’s name as he moved forward with his fellow paladins. With one command, the paladin leader ordered his soldiers forward, assaulting a number of ghouls, skeletons and geists who were taken by surprise. One ghoul ended up with his jaw shattered by Bolvar’s shield.

The Alliance rush quickly overwhelmed the undead hanging around the entrance. “Back, you mindless wretches!” Bolvar shouted.

With the undead in retreat, the gates opened. However, Bolvar’s forces paused as they heard a battlecry in a language they had never heard before. That was when a large group of vrykul emerged from the gate. The half-giants had blue skin and icy blue beards and carried axes and maces.

Bolvar encouraged his forces to keep fighting to reach the gate. However, the vrykul proved formidable and began tearing through Bolvar’s forces. However, a battlecry was heard from the Horde base as Dranosh called his forces to battle. The Horde forces rushed in on wolfback to engage the undead proto-humans.

“I was wondering if you’d show up,” Bolvar playfully said.

“I couldn’t let the Alliance have all the fun today,” Dranosh replied. He then took out three vrykul with one wide swing of his battle ax.

With the Horde joining the battle, the vrykul had been routed quickly.

“Alright, hold here!” Bolvar ordered his men. The soldiers looked at their leader in confusion.

“Hold position, warriors!” Dranosh ordered. “Someone we know wishes to have their first shot at the enemy.”

A death gate emerged in front of the two forces. Thanatas emerged from it a moment later with her sword drawn. A wicked smirk graced her face as she pointed her sword toward the Wrathgate.

“Come out and play, Arthas,” Thanatas taunted in a singsong tone. “Or do you need me to embarrass you even further? Remember how I stole the soul you coveted? Remember the troll I annihilated in front of you that you wanted to turn into a commander? That was only the beginning. Are you planning on giving me a response, puppet?”

The gates soon opened to reveal Arthas. The Lich King walked through silently with Frostmourne in hand. Thanatas could barely make out gritting teeth through the mouth hole of his helm.

“So, you wish to confront me in front of an audience,” Arthas said. “I will show you the difference between us and you shall serve me for eternity!”

Within seconds, Thanatas and Arthas closed the distance before they swung their blades at each other. Neither Frostmourne nor Evermourne showed any sign of relenting as the two warriors fought for dominance on the battlefield. Both attacked and both defended from each other though Thanatas still had her grin while Arthas wondered why, with all the power at his disposal, his adversary was beginning to push him back.

The Lich King’s attention was further drawn away by a large explosion that happened on an overlook on the opposite side of the Wrathgate from Bolvar’s fortress. Everyone else looked as well and saw a number of ghouls making grunts and groans that soon turned into gurgles as their bodies dissolved into green goo.

“What is this?! That was the Forsaken’s position!” Dranosh shouted in surprise. “How did those Scourge fiends overtake their position?!”

Earlier…

Grand Apothecary Putress observed the battle going on below. He saw the Alliance and Horde battling hard against the vrykul and crushing the giant proto-humans.

However, it wouldn’t matter in the end. Once the Lich King revealed himself, he would bring his master’s plan into action. He was so glad that Varimathras had let him in on the plan so that once the Alliance and Horde were destroyed here, both forces would be in disarray and Sylvanas would be vulnerable. Once she was dead, he could take his place as the true leader of the Forsaken and bring about his war against the Scourge and all who live.

While it was strange to see the two forces hanging back and Thanatas taking the lead, it didn’t matter since the gates were opening and Arthas was making his debut for the last time.

“Ahem!” came a female voice behind him.

Putress turned around and stared in shock as his fellow conspirators were lying on the ground in pieces. Standing in the center of the encampment was a humanoid blue rabbit in azure uniform and an innocent smile on her face. Of course, the high energy beams coming from her palms in the shape of swords contradicted the innocent facade.

“Who are you?!” Putress demanded.

“Does it matter? You’re about to be ash in the wind!” Sophia declared.

Before Putress could react, he felt his body quickly pulled toward Sophia. One of her palms retracted its energy blade in exchange for crackling with intense psionic power. Upon contact, the energy reacted with the forsaken explosively, the sound timed with Thanatas’ first strike against Arthas’ sword to conceal the effect.

The energy tore through the undead’s body and set him ablaze. The contact alone ended Putress’ wretched life. As promised, the body soon turned to ash with the winds carrying the remains to parts unknown.

“Now, let’s set up the framework,” Sophia said to no one. With a snap of her fingers, Thanatas’ ghouls emerged from the snow and gathered around her. “Tear this place apart with reckless abandon and make sure the Alliance and Horde see you do it.”

The plan was to sabotage Putress and his treacherous attack on the armies at the Wrathgate. Thanatas’ part was for her to have a little fun with the Lich King before she forced him to retreat, adding another tally to his record of humiliation.

Of course, Sophia really didn’t want to know what the Forsaken Blight would do to her physiology so she hightailed it out of there before the ghouls started tearing into the Blight Tanks and canisters.

Seeing the fallout of the Blight and the destruction of the Forsaken on the overlook by the hands of her cousin, Thanatas decided it was time to end this pageantry.

Enveloping herself in a blood red aura, Thanatas unleashed her monstrous strength that sent Arthas flying into the gate, slamming into it hard. The aura faded immediately after.

The gate opened as Thanatas advanced menacingly and Arthas began to back away into the citadel.

The Lich King now fully understood how dangerous Thanatas was and would view her as the greatest threat to his plans from now on. “Mark my words, Thanatas, you will suffer atrocities unimaginable for this day. When next we meet, your eternal damnation shall begin.”

With those parting words, the Wrathgate closed. Silence gripped the battlefield as the armies stood dumbfounded for several minutes. One dwarf soon broke the silence with a loud cheer which spread like a plague as both Alliance and Horde roared in excitement.

Following this incident, Sylvanas reported that her pet dreadlord, Varimathras, had committed treason against her which brought the wrath of the Horde down on the nathrezim who tried to take over the Undercity. The dreadlord’s attempted coup failed miserably with the Horde retaking the city and putting down the nathrezim while leaving the Alliance none the wiser that the Horde nearly lost the Undercity.

A major blow had been dealt to the Lich King. But though this was a victory worth celebrating, the war continued and it wouldn’t be over until Arthas faced the justice that had been a long time coming.

The Old Kingdom

After some time crawling through a tunnel that was small enough for Mena to barely walk through, the paladin and priest emerged into a small chamber with several lesser crypt lords who took notice of them once they were in the chamber. Bella quickly smashed them with her hammer.

After a brief exploration of the tunnels they found themselves in, they realized that they were near the entrance of the pit they entered the spider kingdom from. It did explain the numerous parts of the tunnel that ramped upward or forced them to climb shafts. With how deep they were underground when they faced Anub’arak it made a lot of sense.

Regardless, they returned to Kilix who seemed pleased that the Traitor King was dead once again. He assured the two that the attacks from the undead nerubians would weaken somewhat with Anub’arak no longer leading them. However, in order to make the surface roads safe for supply caravans, they would need to deal with the Scourge leaders in the Old Kingdom as well.

According to the nerubian, the commander in charge of the Scourge in Ahn’kahet, The Old Kingdom, was an undead elf named Taldaram. This information made the two consider if this leader was going to be like Keleseth.

Thankfully, the nerubians attacking the surface from Ahn’kahet were less than the ones from the Upper Kingdom the two returned from. This was due to the battle for control of the city between the Scourge and the minions of the Forgotten One which Mena quietly informed her friend was the name the nerubians gave for Yogg-Saron and those like him.

After learning what they could about the Old Kingdom, Mena and Bella proceeded through a decorative nerubian archway and into a small chamber decorated in gold and obsidian with the spider motif being the dominant design.

Through the chamber they entered a doorway that led them through a series of narrow corridors until they found a door on the other side.

What they saw was quite breathtaking while creepy at the same time. They emerged into a vast underground chamber with countless nerubian structures with some webbed paths. A forest of giant colorful mushrooms lie below.

The two could barely make out several figures in the distance. They saw a giant blue pillar of magic with a figure inside but they couldn’t tell who it was. They also noticed another figure that seemed less noticeable but they could see that they were drawing power from a pair of spires.

They proceeded down a walkway of web and onto a small suspended platform and down another webbed walkway to the main entrance of the city.

It was from there that their battles began.

A pair of undead nerubians skittered toward them to attack with their claws but Surprise took over and burned one of the spider people in shadowy flames while Bella blocked the other’s attacks with her shield before countering with her hammer to crush his chitinous body and his head.

The battle attracted the attention of a number of giant spiders with webbed joints and spiked bodies. Surprise severed the legs of several spiders while Bella crushed a few with her hammer.

Once they were clear to advance, the pair moved forward through an archway where they encountered even more nerubians along with several truly horrifying creatures that looked like muscular zombies that mutated tentacles and had a number of disgusting, glowing green pustules on its back.

As they were still unholy creatures, Bella unleashed her holy magic on them which caused them to roar in pain. Mena’s shield and Bella’s holy protections kept her from suffering the effects of getting splashed by their bursting pustules while the paladin and priest incinerated them in holy fire.

After some time they managed to clear out the undead neubians before they moved downstairs to another floor where they faced more nerubians. Some tried to cast powerful bolts of dark magic that would have greatly wounded them if they had ignored them. Thankfully the spell took a very long time to cast so Surprise ended their strategy by silencing them with her spell. They also dealt with another plague eruptor like the one before.

The next room housed a large number of nerubian eggs with a number of nerubian spiders skittering around. Bella’s consecrated ground quickly burned those minions to ashes.

At the far end of the room the pair spotted a nerubian vizier like Krik’thir the Gatewatcher in the Upper Kingdom. Needless to say, the vizier spotted them. “The secrets of the deep shall remain hidden.” the vizier said as he skittered toward them.

Bella quickly caught the nerubian’s attention while Mena began striking him with holy magic. When he tried to spit a diseased toxin at either of them Mena easily purified the disease.

Elder Nadox, as the nerubian was known, began calling on the eggs in the room to hatch with his dark magic which caused a number of nerubian spiders to emerge from the eggs and attack the two. Bella consecrated the ground to burn the spiders as well as Nadox. He also hatched a nerubian that emitted an aura that protected Nadox before they tried to attack Mena. Bella found that the ward the guardian made completely repelled her attacks on Nadox which made the guardian a priority target. Realizing this, Surprise took over and sliced the guardian’s legs off with shadow blades before she crushed their mind with her dark power.

With the guardian dead, Nadox was vulnerable once more. However, Surprise didn’t want this annoyance to go on for too long so she began dismembering the vizier which gave Bella a chance to crush his body and his head with a satisfying crunch.

Overall they found that Nadox was not a formidable opponent, though they had no intention of lowering their expectations with the rest of the war-torn city. They were warned that an undead elf was leading the Scourge forces on this side of the city and since they often had powerful magics they weren’t about to let their guards down.

Leaving the chamber, the pair took down a few more nerubians and plague eruptors before moving down a set of stairs where a number of geists were leaping around. The pair’s holy magic made quick work of them.

After moving down another set of stairs they encountered more undead including variations that they had never fought before.

Aside from the geists, there were also skeletal mages who specialized in frost magic as well as phantasmal shades. While the shades were troublesome for Mena because of their ability to counter her magic whenever she began casting spells, Bella didn’t have the same issue due to her method of channeling her holy magic. When Surprise took over, she kept the skeletons under control using her Silence spell. When the shades were destroyed, the two were blown backward when they used the last of their dark magic to self-destruct.

Other than the skeletons and shades, they also encountered a new type of abomination that was about twice the size of your average abomination but from how the creature was stitched together it implied that the parts that went into them came from beings that were as large as they were. A tube in their right arm was pumping some strange orange fluid into their bodies.

If the creature’s parts came from actual giants from Northrend, the two couldn’t help but wonder what other mysteries the frozen continent had yet to offer.

Fighting the two giants on the terrace was a bit of a challenge for them because of their size. Surprise used her shadow blades to sever the stitchings and the tube on their arms. Bella kept the two giants distracted long enough for her friend to complete her task which ended with the giants falling apart at the seams.

Bella and Mena noticed two suspended platforms connected by web paths but they ignored them for a moment to investigate what was on the other end of the terrace as they approached the blue pillar of light they spotted earlier. At the top of the pillar of light they spotted an elf who appeared similar to Keleseth, including the robes he wore. This one appeared to be drawing power from several nearby spires that fit with the overexpressed spider leg design of the city.

Bella hated to admit it, but for a kingdom of disgusting spider people, their taste in design seemed fitting.

The elf in question appeared to be in a trance so if they were to get his attention, they would have to find a way to cut him off of whatever was feeding him power.

Returning to the platforms they missed, the pair quickly disposed of the skeletal mages and shades inhabiting them, being mindful not to be caught up in a shade’s explosive aftermath. The undead appeared to be guarding strange devices that looked like glowing blue eggs held in a cage of golden spider legs.

Mena, whose curiosity got the better of her this time, touched one of the devices which caused the egg-like object to dim and settle into the device. Looking back toward the elf, they found that the number of spires that he was draining power from had reduced by about half. They decided to do the same with the other device which yielded the same results.

With no more spires to drain from, the elf awoke from his trance with what was likely an unhappy mood since they suspected that they disrupted his meal.

“Intruders! Who trespasses in the Old Kingdom?” the elf demanded, loud enough for both of them to hear.

“That certainly isn’t Kelly,” Mena noted. “I think his voice sounded a teeny bit higher than this guy.”

“Regardless, let’s defeat him quickly,” Bella said. “I would like to be done with this place yesterday.”

Mena giggled, “You can’t clear this path yesterday silly, that was a day ago.”

Bella rolled her eyes as they returned to where they found the elf. As expected, he did not look happy. He was already channeling fire magic.

“You disrupted my meal! You shall be suitable replacements!” the elf growled as he launched an orb of fire at Mena. The orb followed the gnome and fired a beam of red-hot energy at her which she blocked with a shield.

Bella struck the elf with her hammer which had him retaliating with several fireballs thrown at her. The paladin blocked them with her shield before she threw a light hammer at him which he blocked with his own barrier spell.

“I can see that you appear similar to Keleseth, are you two related?” Bella asked

“If you met my brother and survived, then that must mean that he has fallen. I will make you pay for that. Feel the wrath of Prince Taldaram!”

After sending more fire spells at the two while blocking more of his opponents’ holy magic, he turned himself invisible which left the two wondering where he went.

After a few tense moments, Mena was suddenly thrown onto her back as Taldaram pinned her and pulled down his mask to reveal his fanged maw. Opening his mouth, he began drawing on the gnome’s life force. However, the elf only had a few seconds to do so until Bella slammed a light hammer on his head and knocked him away from her. He staggered when the paladin struck him with her flying shield before he could recast his barrier.

Mena quickly got back up and rejoined the fight where Taldaram resumed launching fire spells at the two before he vanished again. Mena was ready for him this time as she let Surprise take over and let her void magic locate the elf. Sure enough, the san’layn could conceal his form but not his mind. She sensed Taldaram creeping toward Bella and conjured a phantasmal eyeball which fired a black beam that struck the elf and slammed him into a wall.

Not wanting the elf to get the drop on them again, Surprise fired several more void beams until she was sure Taldaram wasn’t getting up again. The beams seared his body with dark energy and heavily damaged his robes. Bella made certain he wasn’t getting up again by slamming his back with a large hammer of light.

After a few moments of watching Taldaram, they found that he wasn’t getting up from that so they decided to move forward.

They entered a narrow passage filled with webs and eggs until they emerged into another part of the city.

Looking around, they realized that a massacre happened here recently as the bodies of many orcs, trolls and forsaken were lying around as well as the corpses of several swamp beasts as well as a particularly large one. A number of mushrooms appeared to have grown around the larger creature.

It was apparent that the people were ultimately victorious in the battle since they spotted more of them in the area. However, they were definitely not friendly to the two of them. Some threw fire and shadow spells at them while others showed that they were shamans who could fling elemental magic.

At first they thought the Horde had made it into the city somehow but the violet robes they wore showed that they were not. In fact, it looked like they were using bonfires wreathed in dark flame to commune with a creature that looked bipedal but its arms looked like they were made of tentacles. There wasn’t any clear sign that they had a face.

After they defeated their enemies, who they concluded were Twilight’s Hammer cultists, Mena noted the image over the fires again. “Hmm, looks like one of the n’raqi.”

“What might that be, darling?” Bella asked.

“Violetta says that they are the soldiers of the Old Gods. Apparently the only reason that we never encountered n’raqi in Ahn’Qiraj was because C’Thun lost the ability to produce them. They are pretty formidable and can use a tiny portion of an Old God’s psychological magic.”

Bella shuddered, “I pray we don’t find one of them any time soon.”

“She says that there are several of them nearby. One of them is particularly strong.”

Bella sighed in exasperation, “Let’s just deal with these cultists and get out of here, I am quite done with this place.”

The duo moved up a set of stairs and found what appeared to be a congregation of humans and gnomes kneeling before a female orc floating high in the air above them. She appeared to be drawing power from a pair of obelisks.

“That appears to be the leader of the cultists here. Let’s finish this and get out of here.” Bella said.

The cultists heard Bella’s hasty comment and turned to attack them. However, the cultists were not properly trained for combat and were easily defeated by the two.

Seeing her followers dead before her, the orc stopped drawing power and floated down to the floor. “These are sacred halls! Your intrusion will be met with death!” the orc declared.

The cult leader attacked with wind and lightning which proved hard to block with a metal shield but Bella managed to keep the orc’s attention on her while Mena attacked her with her spells. The orc’s lightning-infused swords sent electricity through Bella’s armor which caused her body to tingle from the electrocution.

As they fought, many more cultists showed up from somewhere unknown and knelt before their leader, ignoring the duo. Knowing that the two could overwhelm her in time, she decided that she needed more power and that required a sacrifice. Moving to the center of the platform that was being used as an altar, she elevated herself into the air again, calling for one of the kneeling cultists to volunteer their life to empower her.

It was upon one of the cultists volunteering that a shadow left Mena and fell beneath the orc. When the volunteer placed themselves underneath the orc for sacrifice, she ripped out their life force for power. However, that power ended up falling into the shadow which returned to the gnome.

“Yogg-Saron, fill me with your power!” the orc cried out. However, she was shocked when she realized that no power was coming to her. “What? What is going on?”

Mena giggled before letting Surprise take over. “It’s simple, zug for brains, your offering wasn’t given to Yogg-Saron, it was taken by his archnemesis.”

The orc gasped in horror at the implications of her statement. There was only one being that her master would call his archnemesis. “The Huntress of the Void! You are her vessel! The master is in danger!”

However, before she could say anything further, a chill ran down her spine as she felt a malevolent presence behind her. "̴̩͌̎ͅT̸͉̖̮̤͕̊̉̿h̶̝͑͛̚a̴̡̤̭̓̄ṫ̶̨̝͔̥͓ ̵͔̎̒̒w̵͖͔̭̌͘ã̴͔s̶̖̣̼͔̒̃̃̏͠ͅ ̵͈̦͉̓̄â̶̡̫̬̈̀ ̵̫͚͈͕̿̈ḓ̶̢̙̙͓̿͒̂̓e̴̢̟̳͈̜̔l̷̡̛̪̐̓̈́͊i̴̢̟͚̝͛̑̋͐͜ĉ̶̖̣̪̎̆̒̌i̵̝̤͌o̴͙̞̫͐̂͘ư̷̢̠̳s̶̝̞̘̟͛̅͌͆̚ ̶͖̻̪̪̈́̅͌s̴͈̘̻̉̎̍a̴͇͔͎͚̲̽͋͗̾̋c̴̠̈́r̴̘͛̌̄͒͗ĩ̸͔̅̄̍f̴̡̲̱̣̮́̍į̵̧̭̪̞̈́͆͘c̶͍̹̅̿e̵̛̻͛͌̀͝,̸̤͓͇̱̟̉̄̉ ̴̯͇̲͕̐Ǐ̷̦̗͂ ̸̢̡͓̼̊̅͐́͘ḑ̶̼̮̗̊́̓o̶̠̗̘͌̀̾͘͝n̸͔̼̱̙̳̒͒̑͛'̷̡̛̗̩̀̑́̐t̵̻̃ ̷̛͔͈̗̹̽͑m̶̧͒́͒͠į̸͋͋́̔n̵̡̮̰̮͎̍̽͘͘͝ď̷̢̡͍̤͜ ̷̫̫̫̀́a̴̫̬̝̓͊͆n̷̛̙͐̊́͝ơ̴̘̠͍̑̋͑͘t̸͈̂́ḣ̵̹̎̓̕͠e̸̢̖̘͙̊̆r̷̛̭̟͎͎͑.̸̩͖̖́͒͌̓.̸̤̥͝.̴̛̹̳̭̗̓̅̋̃"̵̬͕͐

Before she could react, the orc found herself cast into complete darkness as her mind was forever severed from her body. In panic, the remaining volunteers fled the altar.

Violetta returned to Mena’s body while Bella shook off the jolts of electricity that were coursing through her body. The paladin sighed as she thought about the cultists in the area. “I should have known that the Twilight’s Hammer would be in Northrend. They are never far away when it comes to the Old Gods or their servants.”

“I’ve heard rumors that they have been growing over the years,” Mena said. “Apparently, they believe that the end of the world is coming in the near future so Cho’gall is pushing for recruitment. It’s only been in hidden alleys of the cities so the guards have been keeping them in control for now, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they start getting bolder in the coming months.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised that they recruit some of those dreadful vrykul into their ranks.” Bella shook her head. “I know I am going to regret this, but are we actually exploring that last area? I do not look forward to fighting those disgusting creatures.”

Surprise suddenly switched places with Mena to give her opinion on the matter, “Might as well. We are probably going to face a lot more of them as we continue battling the Old Gods. Better that we get a taste of their slimy tentacles and words worming their way into our brains now than when we have to face an army of them…” Surprise cackled as she said that last part.

“I can imagine many better ways you could have worded that, darling,” Bella deadpanned.

Surprise shrugged, “I don’t come with a filter, Bella. You should know that by now.”

Deciding to end the conversation there, the two returned downstairs and headed toward another webbed walkway that led them into what they guessed was a temple of some sort. They didn’t find any cultists inside, but they did discover a trio of n’raqi looking their way.

The three faceless ones created large spikes of shadow in their larger right arms composed of three tentacles before throwing them in their direction. The duo dodged the dark missiles and rushed forward to engage the horrors.

In an attempt to get the two to get away from them, the n’raqi tried invading their minds and compelling them to flee but Surprise’s mental defenses thwarted their attempts and gave Bella a chance to strike one in the head with a light hammer while striking the three of them with her shield that ricocheted between them before returning to its owner.

The three faceless ones made a number of high-pitched sounds that sounded unearthly as they tried striking at them with their tentacles. Surprise severed several tentacles with her shadow blades but found that some of her shadow spells were not as effective against them. Being creatures of the void, it made sense for them to have resistance to dark magic.

Bella’s holy magic engulfed one faceless in holy flames before using her shield to block a shadowy missile and sent it flying harmlessly away. Mena switched with Surprise and bombarded another n’raqi with bolts of light magic before unleashing an explosive wave of holy magic around her which made the horrors back away from her.

The battle soon ended with the three n’raqi lying in heaps with golden light burning their bodies. However, just as they thought it was over, another n’raqi appeared in the back of the temple, as if they had been invisible and watching them fight until now. This one was bigger than the other three and was likely much stronger.

As they approached the n’raqi, they suddenly found themselves unable to move as the horror moved to the center of the temple before speaking. "̴͕͚̂͘T̴̡͒́h̸̗̭̹͝e̵͗͑̉͜ ̸͚̍i̸̡͕̙͆̋̅n̶̖͓͎͑̽s̸̖̙̼͛ē̴̳̩̱c̴͖̣͉͛͆͝t̷̛̗̝̯́̇s̴͚̎̈́ ̷̨̗͗͂͒s̶̪͓̮̒h̸̭͈͋a̷͕̖͛̀͘ĺ̷͍̈́͝l̷̨̂̀͛ ̴͎̤̿̄̚n̴͎̔ọ̷̈t̵͙̤́͠ ̶͓͖̳͒́í̸̾͊ͅn̸̗̝̺̄͊̌t̸̲̆̽͜e̷͇̞̹̽̑̾r̶̢͉̘̆͑f̸̢̉͜͜e̷̩͓̚r̸̻͇̾e̵̡͙̹͑̇.̶͇͊ ̶̪̘͗͌̊T̵̹̖̓̓̕ḫ̴̒ͅe̷͙͐͠y̶͍̌͘ ̵̦̤͓͊̐s̶̛͕̪̎́h̴̪̮̜͒̅ä̴̦l̷̘̈́̇̌l̴͉̞̹̽ ̴͍͙͌́͝ͅs̸̛̱͗̉p̷͕̃e̸̞̽̏́ͅä̸͖k̸̢̬͕̉̕̕ ̷̰͈͗͜ẅ̵͉́́͝i̶̥̊͜t̸̡͍͍͆̅ḩ̷̪̘͐ ̷̮̞̼͋̒t̸͈̀̆h̸͑̏̒ͅé̵̤͊ỹ̸̥́͜ ̷̛͙̭͒͜w̸̙͍͖̽͛́ḥ̴͋̎̇ͅo̴̼̝̿͝ ̸̖̯̉͘ͅd̸̛̻ẹ̷̫̳́́v̷̠̣͝ͅŏ̵̼͒u̷̡͇͍̽̈́͐r̴̛͎̮̕s̵͎̙̥̾͑ ̶̢̟̆n̴̪͊͐̅ö̵͍́t̸͇̅h̸̺̰̿i̷̜̻̫̇̕͠ṇ̵̔̽̽ͅḡ̶̡̖̜͋̓n̴̝̓e̸͚̪̋s̷̭̬̆s̸̗̓.̸͕̜̪́̂"̷̯̤͘

Bella looked at Mena in confusion, “You are the one who understands that foul language better than the rest of us, Mena. Even when their words are spoken into my mind, I cannot make sense of them.”

Surprise quickly took over to explain, “It’s probably best that way. Trying to make sense of the words spoken in Shath’Yar is a one way ticket to an asylum. Basically, they want to speak with Violetta.”

A piece of the gnome’s shadow broke away and moved in front of the n’raqi. Violetta, whose purple, writhing hair moved erratically and bodysuit sporting numerous eyes, emerged from the puddle of black to observe the horror before her. "̴͉̞͜͝S̶̻͋̔͋ơ̸͕͙̭̂̿,̶͙̐ ̵̛̰̘̺̇̔w̴͈͉̾̚h̸̛̹͛̕a̴͎̘̓t̵̰̎́ ̸̥̼̓̌i̵̳͙̎s̶̩̃̔ ̶̞͔͑̄̒͜i̵͍̥̋̓͝t̸͚̾̌͘ ̶͚̀͘y̷͛ͅo̶̡͝u̷͎͖͈̕ ̸͚͔̋̈́̔w̴̥͕̃̌͘í̷̝̪̘s̸̩̜̈́h̸͎̅̿͝ ̷̫̙̐̊t̷͍͖̹̓̓̈́o̴͕͚͛̈́ ̸̭̾̿s̴͉̖͆̅̃p̵̨̛͝è̶̼̤̔͘a̴̪͕͑ḵ̴̩̘͂̀̚ ̵̗̭̃̑̈à̵͓̜͆b̷̗̟̽͆ö̸ͅu̸͆̏̔ͅt̸͕̑̈́,̴̡͕͔̍͠ ̵͇̙͊H̸̫͕͘͝e̸͖̮̻̒̀ŗ̶̬͔́́̈ā̴̬̙l̷̖͙͝d̷̛̤͔͝ ̷͉̦̗̓̂͝V̷͎̚͝o̶̝͉̫̽͘̚ľ̸͔̬̦͘à̶̖̎ͅz̵̼̮̍ͅj̸̹̫͊̍͊͜?̸̱͊͝"̶͕͝ she asked.

Volazj watched the figure before them for several moments before replying, "̴̠̊̽͂ͅT̵̥̓ȟ̷̦͔͝͝ě̸̡̗̓̚ý̸͍͕͕ ̵͙̦̼̀͐͑ŵ̷͖h̸̖̣̒̄o̴͈̔̊ ̶̪̪̼̍d̷̛͕̦̀ḙ̷́v̴̥̓̔̇ọ̵͂̆͊u̶̝̻̮͋̚͘r̶̻͝e̴͓̼͗ḏ̵̜͓͆ ̶̟͋͂̇C̶̝̓͌h̸̜͊͠a̸̢̡͒́ò̵̧̘̠̽s̶̰̀̅̚ͅ ̶̦̪̺͑̔̕s̸̠̖̓͐̒t̴̡̗͖͘͠ä̵̜̤́n̶̳̖̿̾ͅd̷̬̰̲̒̑͋s̵̗͘ ̷̢̩͗͊̑b̴̞̱̲̓͠ë̷̱͈̼́͑͌f̶̺̲̲̒o̴̩͂͋r̴̨̤͂ȩ̸̩͘ ̴̧̱̒͐͊t̶̖̪̀͘h̸͚̋ͅe̶̜̣̥̍̏̋m̴̪͌̉,̸̜̀̃͜ ̶͍̀i̶͙̼͈͆̍n̵̟̘͚͝s̷̢̛͎̹̄̓a̷̼̜̚ẗ̷̹̠ỉ̴̝͔̜͂a̸͓͕̠̓b̵̬͒l̴͚̰͒̇͘e̶̞͙̻̊ ̶͈̣̈́͋̐ͅì̸̳̺̆n̸̽̒ͅ ̷̨̩͌̈́͒a̸̛̭̟̋͠p̵͓͕͙̂p̷̠̲̏̾͋è̴͕͎̩t̴̺̲̽̐i̶̭̻͎̅̓̉t̶̼̘̲̃͐e̴̳̘̓.̵̛̜ ̴͈̭͊͋͝T̷̰̘̺̔h̶̭͕̊͝e̴̯̫̍͐́͜ȳ̶̳͆ ̵̡̪͕̔͠s̸̬̫̳̉̆e̷̛̠̳̻͐̚ḛ̷̡̛̊̒k̶̹͕̾͊̿ ̷͉̓̓̈t̵̺̑̅̍ó̵̩̭̼̓̚ ̶̧̨̥̀̿͝d̴͇͔̭͋e̸̢̪͔͛͛̍v̸̡̏̎o̸̡̘̝̕͠ṵ̸̐̓̚r̴̤͠ ̶̖̦̽̎͜D̴̦̣̫̊̈́̈ḛ̵̑a̷͙̥̰͒͊̓ẗ̶̖̰́́h̶̖͉͓̀̑͌ ̷͇͈̰͌a̷̩̯̍̚s̷̫̠͘ ̸͖̭͕͆̓̏ẅ̸͔̣̉ȇ̷̢̱͘l̸͖̪͌͆̚l̴̠̜̥̅?̵̝͌̃̕"̶̩͔͖̾͆̆

"̶̪̳̈A̷̯̭̦̓̍͋ľ̵̩̉o̷͈̼̩̓͘n̶͚̟͂͆ģ̸̯̔ ̴̭̳͊͆̀͜w̴̤̦͂̕i̴͕̫͆͛͊t̷̛̼̗̮̎ĥ̵͖͙̦͒͘ ̴̪̦͎͗͒̂R̵̖̓å̵͉ĝ̶̢̳̈́ȩ̶̺̩̀ ̴͍̈́a̸̟͙͕̍n̷̠̾d̷͕͋ ̸̥̃̅͝C̴̢̦̾̎̚o̷̲̘͎͛r̶͕͋̑͝r̶̨̝̭̆u̶͙̪̓̚͘p̸̱̿͜t̷͖̀i̴̢̹͎̕̕ȯ̸̗͉͇n̶͓̰͒.̸͉̟̈́ ̴͖͋͋̕B̷̡͝u̸͉͎̽̈̒t̵̜̓̚ ̶̣̳̏̑̑f̷̤̽ỉ̶̛̼̭̿r̴̬̜̈́̄s̷̰̹̰͒͘͝t̴̫͒̋͜,̵͕̼͌̈́̕ͅ ̴͈̘̓̇ͅa̵̧̮͑ ̵͍̻̖͂̓̓l̵̛͔̳̞i̴̥̙̊̓ẗ̶̨͔̝t̷̖͙̐̇ͅl̷͗͜e̶͖̐̾ ̸͕̗̇̌̈́ͅs̶͔̰̈́̆̅͜ń̴̻͙͔ḁ̴̗̥̌c̴̽͜k̴̘͂̅̚.̷͓̖̀ ̵̭͌͗͝S̷̢͕̰͊̌i̶̮̿̂n̴̗̦͖̉c̸̛̼̘̑e̷̗̒ ̷͙̼́͌͋y̵̨͈̎̕o̴̬̙̓̈͠u̸̻̭͌̾̆ͅ ̵͙̄͘d̷͑̃͛͜i̸̓͜ḍ̷̫̰̿ṇ̸̥̙̏͆̚'̴̰̬̆t̸͉̞͇̂̓͝ ̵̹̗̚ȑ̵̗̰u̶̝̳͙͒̑̈́n̷̢̨̓̾̐ ̵̨͈̈́ḁ̵̪̳̉w̸̪͎͓͗̉͘á̶̯y̷̢̝̫̋́,̴͕̈͂̕ ̵̲͒y̸̙͛͝o̸͖̪̖̍u̴̢̩͈͊́ ̴̜́̇h̷͈͚̅a̵͕̥̓̉v̷͙̭͉̉̕ḛ̶̼͗ ̶̭̫͆v̷̡̻̏ȍ̸̢͓͗̅ḽ̵̡͈̍̋͑u̵̧͆͒́n̵̬̽ẗ̸̹̥̥́̉e̵̢͌ͅe̷͎͗̿̃r̵͔̭͝e̶̜͕͓͐͘d̵̤̝͆̂̒.̸̝̤͌͛͠"̷̲̪̱͛ Violetta replied.

"̷̞̓̈́T̸̖͊͐͝h̵͎̎̓e̵͍̺̔̒͝y̸͍̍ ̷͖̤̼̈͂̔h̶̜̝̣̿̅̂â̸̛̬̙͖̊v̶̨͒e̷̡̩̍ ̸̼̰̎ṉ̶̦̖̋̍̎o̷̳͊͝ ̸͉̐c̵̹͋ĥ̷͓̳̻̀ả̴͇͆̿n̸̥̱̦͒͐͠c̴̀͌͝ͅë̸̬͊͑ ̷̖̓̆ǫ̷̅̈́̊ͅf̸̢̠̟̐ ̴̙͂͆͝s̵͍͍̼̎͌̄t̸͇̠̿ͅọ̶̧̮͋͠p̵̗̥͍̄p̴̭̓i̶̮͕͂̅̒n̷̖̥̿͑̑g̶̢͇͇͐ ̴̢̠͙̆͝ṭ̵̏̑͐ĥ̸̼e̴̘͈̍̾ ̶̬͖̯̓̍H̶̟̑̇̐ų̷̳͆n̶̢͕̋̓ṭ̵̀̎r̶̰̒̽e̵̙̖͉͗̆s̷̜̩̼͝͝s̴̞̹̒̇͝ ̷̗̖̳̈́̒ò̴̗̈́͒f̸̛̳̅ ̷̡̓t̶̛̞̀ḩ̵͕̓e̴̩͔͆̍̚ ̶̤̻̅͠ͅV̵͎͋o̵͖̓͂i̶̡͛̀d̵͍̟͐̌̀.̵̮͉̊̅ ̶̼͕̤̑T̶̨́̃̃h̶̘̜͝e̴̠͈̖̔̂͘y̷̯͌̓̆ ̸̨̖̅à̷̛̜̠̒ͅc̴̭̭̀̉̂c̵̢̥̱͝é̷͇̾͘p̸̨͔̰͝t̴͔͌ ̷̧̡̯́t̴̳̟͊́h̴̛͈͙̮̓ḙ̸̑ ̷̨̜̈͊͜ḟ̸̨̪̆͝i̷͎̇̔n̶̡̥͒͗a̸̦͚͠ͅl̴̛̰̙͗ ̵̘̳̽͝e̸̩̱̮͋̉́m̶̠͉̊͝͝b̶̎̒̃ͅr̷͓̙͗ä̷͖́͌̚c̶͙̊̄͐e̴͔̪̝͗̓.̵͕̼̐"̶͖̻̥̇̽͆

With that, Violetta called up a number of her black tentacles to feast on the faceless herald’s flesh. While the n’raqi cried out with sounds that Bella and Mena guessed was agony, the two of them were released from their spell.

Bella was not taking the sight of the n’raqi being devoured very well as her face turned a shade of green. Between the disgusting things she had seen Violetta and Thanatas do, she thought she was used to their antics by now, but she wasn’t.

“May we please leave this place?” Bella begged. “I am more than through with this adventure now.”

“Maybe there’s an exit in the back of the temple?” Mena offered.

The two proceeded to the back of the temple and around the carnage where they proceeded along a walkway of web and past a platform with a burning brazier on it before entering another passage that led into a tunnel that they had to crawl through.

To their surprise, they ended up in the same chamber they ended up in when they left the Upper Kingdom. They had no idea how the two passages connected to the same place but Bella was done questioning anything for a long time. All she knew was that she really needed a bath to get the webs out of her hair.