The following short story is based on a setting created and copyrighted by Blizzard Entertainment. All other characters were created and copyrighted by Roland Lowery.

The author gives full permission to distribute this work freely, as long as no alterations are made and the exchange of monetary units is not involved. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or complaints should be sent to esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com. Thank you.

Horror of wounds and anger at the foe,
And loss of things desired; all these must pass.
We are the happy legion, for we know
Time's but a golden wind that shakes the grass.
-Absolution, Siegfried Sassoon

Netherchase
by Roland 'Jim' Lowery

"Delgo?"

"Yah?"

"Go faster."

"Yah."

Delgo opened the throttle to its maximum, sending a heavy stream of processed ethereal mixture burning through the engines. A sharp kick of sudden speed sent shivers through the ship's fuselage and pushed both gnomes back into their seats. The dark, twisting clouds ahead of them blurred and stretched as reality itself warped around them.

Was it safe to pour that much power through the ship's delicate systems? No, certainly not. But being caught by the cosmic horrors chasing the small craft through the Twisting Nether was by far the more dangerous option.

"I never should have let you talk me into this!" Pedro Bottlesocket yelled at his brother, his face contorted by both the inertial forces and the bending of space/time.

Delgo kept his eyes on the metaphorical road as he laughed, the typical gnomish pilot mania tinging his voice and drawing his lips back in a wild grin. "You know you love it!" he yelled back. "'Sides, if we hadn't done this, there wouldn't be anybody left on Azeroth to hear your 'I Told You So's!"

Though the entire ship was shuddering from the straining engines, the gnomes could immediately tell that the impact that suddenly rippled through its frame was of a different quality. The sound of a wet slap accompanied a tentacle smacking into the front windshield. Pedro fairly screamed and Delgo's grin cranked down a few notches.

"It's got us! It's got us!" Pedro screeched.

"I know! I know!" Delgo yelled back.

"You should have let me put that weapons pod in!"

"I told you, it would have imbalanced the the entire system! Re-entry to our reality would have stuck us into a wall!"

"Like you know, you twisted gear!" Pedro snarled at his brother. "This whole thing is based on draenei designs! We could come out of this as twisted protein sacks, or just reduced to our base elements! I don't really feel like living the last few seconds of my life as a ball of fire, water, earth, and ai-"

The gnome's tirade was cut short as an extremely loud creak sounded through the cockpit. He looked up at the tentacle still pressing against the glass, then squeled when he noticed the entire bulkhead in front of him buckling in. The creature outside the ship apparently intended to squeeze him and his brother out like engine grease from a tube.

"Delgo! It-" was all he managed to get out before the windshield gave way and the tentacle tore its way through the metal and wood of the ship's fuselage. The alien wind of the nether buffeted the cockpit, stealing some of the air from Delgo's lungs. He turned his head for just a second to make sure his brother was alright, only to find that his brother was gone, torn out along with the chair he had been sitting in.

"Peeeedrooooooooo!"

The tortured cry flew through the massive hole torn in the ship's hull and out into the uncaring nether. Delgo slammed his fist against the dashboard and raged impotently. But after only a few moments of pointless cursing, his anger turned into steely determination.

After checking the package in his pocket, he reached under the ship's control panel, gripped the section containing the throttle, and roughly jerked it out of its housing. He took a quick look in the rear view mirrors to ensure that the monsters chasing him were far enough back not to cause any immediate trouble, activated the auto-pilot, then began to tear the throttle assembly apart with his bare hands. Within a few seconds, he had torn out all of the system's governors and opened the fuel line 100%.

The original maximum allowed throttle had been dangerous enough. Now Delgo was essentially sitting inside an entirely unstable keg of dynamite the size of a small house and ten times as potent. But despite the danger, with another surge of speed it easily left the beasts chasing after him in the dust.

All but one. The creature that had thrown Pedro out into empty space had finally managed to regain a good grip on the hull and was sending its ropey, slithering limbs back into the cockpit.

Delgo tried to reach back for his blunderbuss, but quickly gave up. The inertial forces pushing on him wouldn't allow him to aim properly, and he might end up hitting some important system in the back of the ship as a result. He had to be content with gripping the steering mechanism as if his life depended on it and hoping that the eldritch beast would be similarly hampered as it quested about for his soft, vulnerable flesh.

With a horrible sick feeling, Delgo closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and prayed. He - like most gnomes - had never been particularly religious, though he'd often found himself interested in the Light that humans always seemed to be going on about. With little to no time to go probing his heart for solid beliefs, however, he settled for blindly asking for any help from any source whatsoever.

He opened his eyes, which were now moist with tears, and barked sudden mad laughter of pure relief. The dimensional vortex lay just ahead, just within reach. Either his gambit with the throttle had paid off or some higher being had heard his desperate pleas and taken pity, but either way he was going to make it. He strained forward to toggle the shift matrix that would take him and his ship back into realspace, ideally right above the Ironforge airstrip.

Delgo jerked slightly as one of the beast's probing tentacles brushed against his cheek. He cackled madly and slapped it away.

"Get sprung!" he yelled at the abomination. "I win! I WIN!"

The shift made everything lurch. The ship, Delgo's stomach, and reality itself. Everything stretched thin and then peeled back bit by bit. The clouds of that in-between space dispersed as realspace started to reassert itself. But something was wrong . . .

Consciousness slammed home like a knife sliding in between two ribs. Everything was pain. Existence was nothing but a gigantic ball of torturous hurt interspersed with white hot misery.

He opened what was left of his eyes and took stock of the situation. If his direction sense could be trusted, he was looking down from a great height. If his fragmented memory was right, he was looking down at the promenade in Ironforge, just near the auction house and city bank. Gingerly turning his head to the side, he saw that his twisted body was partially melded with the city's ceiling.

Slowly, the neurons in his melted brain started to fire. The tear in the side of the ship along with the added mass of the Twisted Nether denizen - and likely the extra power running through the engines - had imbalanced the shift matrix and seeded the whole thing through solid rock instead of in empty sky. The roof above where he was encased almost certainly contained whatever was left of his craft and the creature that had attacked it.

Another memory sparked and he looked down at himself as hastily as he could. He managed a short sigh of relief when he saw that the device he and his brother had stolen from the creatures was still safely in what was left of his jacket pocket. Whoever might get it in this world, the beings in the nether would never get their hands on it. Azeroth was safe.

At least, as safe as it ever normally was.

As he began to drift off, overcome by pain, he looked down one more time and happened to notice a dwarf - accompanied by a gnome and both wearing bright green that hurt his eyes - looking up at him in surprise and horror. He opened his mouth to shout something down to the dwarf, but the only sound that came out of his crooked throat was "dfgfjihjgjgj".

Too exhausted by the effort, the gnome once known as Delgo Bottlesocket sagged into unconsciousness, never to wake again, his heroism rewarded by the sweet release of death.

END

Roland 'Jim' Lowery
esn1g(at)yahoo(dot)com