Chapter 4: Kemdri and the dragon heart.
"Though undead, it is still inexorably human. Look… it is curious now. It no longer fights against the barrier." The deeper echoing voice in the depths of the cave spoke to the others standing in the darkness.
"Curious. Are you going to continue to treat it that way after the end?" The voice that had spoken of remembering questioned the deeper one.
"That depends how well the spell works. With the containment power waning, you may not have enough to fully overcome."
"I will have enough, won't you lend me some if I do not?"
"That is what I am here for, if I can find a way to tap the ley energies of this cave." The first voice that had spoken interrupted.
"And you also assume that I have a heart to make a sacrifice with." The deep voice challenged the voice of memory. "You would be better in oblivion. I only do this because you have earned the respect of my people."
"Look he's coming closer… let us continue this work."
-------------
Two months had passed since Methuselah had embraced the light and saved his friends from the fiendish Drakkari ice trolls. Sadly, the situation that the party was in hadn't improved much. They had wandered West across the grizzly hills of Northrend, and finally come out of the heavily forested hills onto a great tundra that stretched as far as the eye could see. Small hills interrupted the landscape, but overall it was completely barren. The name of this place was the Dragonblight; a great graveyard for all of dragonkind to come to for everlasting peace. With two mages among the party, food and water was available, but simple breads and the like were beginning to get old and unhealthy.
The biggest change over the two months was Arisia. The elf girl had learned how to use her magic more offensively through the hardships of hunting and living like a ranger as her mother did. She adored Methuselah and how he had saved them, but still couldn't bring herself to act any more than childishly infatuated with the man. Ranilok couldn't understand any of it; he had known her for longer than this man had been alive and she didn't show the same interest in him. Nonetheless, the magic concerned Ranilok more, he sensed something of immense power on the Dragonblight and was leading the party across to try and find if it might be away to get them back to Quel'thelas. With the months that Northrend called summer fading, it would be unbearable for them after not too much longer.
"Is it really going to get colder?" Arisia asked Methuselah as she walked beside him.
"I'm afraid it will. We usually stayed in the town during these months, it was always a small expedition, a winter in the town, and then another before we sailed back to Quel'thelas." Methuselah responded, almost dropping into reminiscing.
Snapping his fingers, Ranilok handed Arisia a warm sweet roll. "T-thanks." Arisia stammered back to him out of chill rather than timidity.
As he had months ago with the trolls, Methuselah suddenly paused and turned to them candidly. "Are either of you holding a fireball to stay warm or something?" the paladin referenced a trick that Ranilok had tried a few times, singing his clothes each time.
"It isn't me, I need these clothes to not burn off me." Ranilok looked to Arisia.
"Well it's not me either." Arisia looked to the others as if she had forgotten they couldn't wield fire.
"Then someone is here… I smell a fire."
"I-I hope it's not tr-trolls." Arisia's teeth kept chattering.
"Well we can face that if they are. Let's go see." Methuselah lit off towards it with true confidence.
As they crested a small hill that was sheltering the area below from the wind, the party was met with a startled shout. "Aye! Who ye be tae be sneakin up on me."
Startled by the voice in return, the party stopped in their tracks and looked around in confusion. The camp had one occupant, a dwarf; he was tending to a pot of stew.
"Aye brother, what brings ye out this place." Gevran stepped to the front of the group and called out to the other dwarf.
"What clan ye be? Ye not a brazenfist. Ah can tell." The other dwarf looked to Gevran.
Arisia studied the two of them, making a mental note that there were different clans of Dwarves. Moving closer to see better, Arisia found herself next to Methuselah. She stopped, half content to just be standing there and not necessarily studying this new acquaintance.
"Aye. Ah not be one of ye kin, but still a dwarf." Gevran puzzled as to why this other Dwarf was so stand-offish.
"So then what do ye want from me." The dwarf looked up from the stew pot
"We're lookin fer a way tae get off this icy rock." Gevran answered.
"Yes, our caravan was destroyed upon reaching the coast." Methuselah added in.
"Ye weren't followed bah what did it were ye?" the dwarf looked up with an odd look in his eyes towards Methuselah.
"I don't think so." Methuselah shrugged.
"Why do you ask?" Ranilok looked to the dwarf warily.
"Undead." The dwarf said simply. "Come on ye, sit down. If ye be too dense ae too lucky tae have found 'em, then ye need tae know."
Entering the camp and sitting on a large dead tree limb that the camp's occupant had pulled up to the fire, the party prepared to listen.
"So what do you mean undead?" Beatrice questioned first.
"I've been travelin this wasteland fer years, but only in the past few it's been bad. Walkin corpses, some smarter den others. Ye can't defeat em cause if ye come near they try tae make ye one of em."
"Oh my..." Arisia murmured in a fright.
"So if they're so dangerous then why are you out here... ummh... what was your name?" Beatrice asked.
"Kemdri, Kemdri Brazenfist." He paused for a moment. "And I'm out here after something."
"An what'd that be?" Gevran queried eagerly.
Kemdri's face changed from serious to astounded. "Ye mean ye don't know?"
"No, we don't." Ranilok looked to be growing impatient with the dwarf's incredulous manner.
"At least where ye are?" the dwarf continued in disbelief. "Ye see, the Dragonblight where ye be now be where all dragons come tae die. Legends tell ae this one dragon, Stroyagos ae the blue flight. 'e couldn't deal with dyin, when 'e died, 'e was one ae the last blue dragons."
"Blue dragons are dead, they only exist in legends." Ranilok asserted.
"Not 'round 'ere, boy. tae blue flight hae returned to tae skies nah, ae seem em wit me own eyes. Stroyagos couldn't hae forseen this. 'e took all de power in 'imself an sent it tae one place... 'is heart. 'e died an 'is body faded tae nothin but bones... 'cept 'is heart. 'is heart became ae solid rock ah arcane energy." The dwarf paused for a moment. "Thats why I came 'ere. Aet will be mine!" Kemdri grinned.
"Ye know I 'aven't seen a dwarf wha be lookin fer the arcane before." Gevran shot a strange glance at Kemdri.
"Aye, in the mountain ae Blackrock none be afeared ae the arcane." Kimdri answered.
"Blackrock ye say?" Gevran's expression changed and he got up from sitting.
Confused, Arisia was about to question Gevran, but he cut her off. "Sorry tae disturb ye brother dwarf, we must be goin." Gevran ended the conversation.
"But we've only just arrived Gevran." Ranilok mentioned.
"Yae. Whae dun ye stay fer some food." Kemdri stirred the pot of stew.
"Nae, we be losin time in findin ae way outta dis place." Gevran started walking away from the camp on his own, Methuselah picked up and followed as to not have his friend look insane.
As soon as the party was out of sight of the camp, Arisia approached Gevran. "Why did we leave..? That stew smelled nice."
"Aye, if ye like eatin' hot death. That one be dangerous. 'E be a Dark Iron dwarf. All them be rotten, makin war on the other clans." Gevran informed the party.
"Well I wouldn't say it was entirely unprofitable." Beatrice showed up behind the group with several apples in her bag from Kemdri's store.
"I see...then it's good we left." Arisia shivered again, remembering the nice smell of food.
"In their greed fer power, they summoned the lieutenant ae an old god intae this world. They be the reason that Blackrock mountain be burnin with lava an all the lands around it be scorched. We dwarves ain meant ta be mages like ye... but Dark Irons try tae be em anyway"
"That's horrible." Arisia tried to put the nice notions that she had of Kemdri out of her head.
"Well he was our only source of direction. What's your next bright idea." Ranilok said sarcastically.
"Be quiet ranilok!" Arisia snapped at her fellow mage for his crass remarks once more. She had found herself doing this with increasing frequency. "Gevran had a good reason for leaving. Your comments aren't needed unless they're helpful."
Slightly taken aback by the only other elf with them berating him, Ranilok stopped digging his hole deeper immediately. "Well, there was that power source I sensed… maybe it's that heart he was talking about. It's almost due west still.
"Well there's something helpful. Let's go." Methuselah suggested. "Let's get that heart before Kemdri does. It could have the power to take us home."
"B-but isn't it bad to get it?" Arisia asked.
"Well ae ain gonna touch it. Ye all can carry it." Gevran spoke up.
"I could care less if it gets us home." Beatrice looked up at the rest of them.
"As some elven scholars would say... such a source of arcane power can't go ignored." Ranilok smiled.
"So shall we start now?" The paladin asked.
"Ummh… no.. please? Let's camp for now… it's getting colder." Arisia tried to make a suggestion through her awkward way of talking to Methuselah.
"Sure. we need to." Methuselah agreed.
As soon as they found a small bit of shelter as Kemdri had, they set up a camp in the wilderness. Since it was a quick setup, they only set up three of the random sheets of cloth that they had come to call tents over their journeys. Only three would be needed as two of them were always on watch. Once the camp was set up, they all sat around the fire for a short time before starting the watch.
"The orcs used undead in the second war." Methuselah mentioned, remembering his time in Lordaeron.
"Aye, I remember that too." Gevran thought back to the death knights that had ravaged the land under the direction of Gul'dan.
"But why would they be showing up here?" Arisia questioned, still shivering at the thought of undead.
"Well, I don't know." Methuselah thought for a moment. "They must have been the ones responsible for the caravan burning. I've never seen anything like what I saw that day."
Nodding in silence, the group thought about the caravan and the attack that day. Breaking the silence, Gevran moved towards one of the tents. "We could think about this all evenin, but we need tae rest if we're tae gae after this heart thingy taemarra."
"Yes." Methuselah got up also. "Ranilok, Arisia, take the first watch."
The other three went to their separate tents as the two elves remained sitting outside by the fire. One thing that mages couldn't create from mana was wood. They wouldn't have enough to keep fires going for that much longer out on the tundra.
"So what do you see in him?" Ranilok asked Arisia.
"Eh?" Arisia blushed. "What do you mean?" the girl tried to act innocent.
"You know that you're head over heels for him. You can't hide it." Ranilok looked to her candidly.
Blushing more, Arisia tried to deny him once again. "I have no idea w-what you're talking about." She tried to pretend to read a book, but couldn't help letting her thoughts drift to Methuselah; that confident look he now carried in his eyes.
"I don't understand… he may be a good being, but he's a human." Ranilok spoke, letting some of his ingrained xenophobic nature show.
Snapping out of her thoughts, Arisia turned to look at her companion. "And if I did have feelings for him why are you concerned?"
"I'm just curious." Ranilok played off his interest in her.
Arisia waited out the rest of her watch in silence, slightly embarrassed that she was being read so easily. When the time came, Beatrice emerged from one of the tents and walked over towards them. Arisia quickly got up and went to the tents, but she thought as she approached them, she had no idea which one Beatrice has come out of. Stumbling into the first one that she found, she laid down to sleep for the night.
"Isn't that Meth..." Beatrice whispered to Ranilok, pausing and changing her line of thought. "Does she realize it?
"I think it is...and I don't think she does. " Ranilok chuckled to himself.
In the morning, Methuselah was out by the fire with Gevran, trying to toast some of the conjured bread. "Arisia, we need to get moving." The paladin called to her.
Snapping back to consciousness, Arisia looked around the tent. The elf girl knew he had gone to go on watch, and even though she didn't fully admit it to herself, she was glad that she had walked into the wrong tent that night. She was the last to come out of the tent, the others were already packed up and ready to go. Once Arisia was out by the fire, Methuselah went to pack the tent up.
As they were packing up, preparing to set off for where Ranilok sensed the powerful artifact, a splattering noise reached them from only a few yards away.
Looking up at the noise, Methuselah saw what made it and turned to the rest of them. "Am I crazy or did a seal's corpse just fall from the sky?"
"Aye. ye not be dreamin sonny." Gevran looked around the camp.
Stumbling off and getting sick at the sight, Arisia tried not to look back at it. The carcass was rotten and smelled strongly of death. Looking back east, Gevran was the first to notice something.
Gevran gasped in terror at what he saw, something a dwarf didn't often do. "What the hell that be? Someone's comin'"
As the dwarf spoke, another abused corpse hit the ground a bit closer; this one was of a Grizzlemaw furbolg. Taking hold of Arisia's hand, Methuselah called out what to do. "Forget the last tent, lets get out of range of whatever threw that. Grab what you can carry, lets go."
"What's going on!?" Arisia called out in surprise while moving with them as the body of an ice troll smattered what remained of their camp.
"Something over there can throw corpses... I don't want to stick around to find out what it is." Methuselah kept moving.
As they ran, various rotted and partially eaten corpses slammed into the ground behind them in a trail. After they were far enough away from the camp to not have their view obstructed by the ridge that had protected the camp from the wind, they saw what was doing it. An army of shambling corpses was making its way west, just marching into their now distant camp. Several mechanical monstrosities moved in front of the army, taking aim and firing bodies of the fallen towards them.
"By the light what are they?" Methuselah looks back at them.
"Thart must be the undead Kemdri was talkin about." Gevran regretted.
"O-oh god..." Arisia looked back at them also.
"I think running would be a good idea. They can't move to fast with those wagons." Beatrice spoke up.
"I think you're right. This battle we can't fight right now." Methuselah led the group in almost a dead out sprint away from the army. The paladin lowered his head in prayer asking for them to be unhindered in their escape.
With his help, they were able to get ahead of the army, but there was no telling where the undead would stop. As they came to the edge of a small crater, quite ahead of the army now, they are met with a worse sight; a small detachment of undead around a dragon skeleton with a strange tall skeletal looking one among them.
Methuselah paused in thought. "Well... army one way... small group other. We might have to fight." He sighed.
"Hey... look over there" Ranilok called, turning towards the south side of the crater.
Kemdri was on the south end of the depression, taunting one undead at a time towards him and killing it. The tall undead at the center had caught sight of him and was calling each of the undead back when they were close to being destroyed; as if he were toying with the dwarf.
"'e is no match fer them. I wonder why 'es tryin ta get in there" Gevran thought outloud.
"That must be Stroyagos." Arisia figured out for the group.
"Ah'll krush ah'll ahve yah wee bastards!!" Kemdri yelled out at the undead, obviously heavily drunk and very furious from his efforts being toyed with by what appeared to be the leader of the undead around the skeleton.
"Only we can take them out; only the light." Methuselah's hammer glowed at the thought of striking into the shadowy ghouls once more. "Arisia, are you up to fighting?" Methuselah decided to ask this time instead of charging into battle.
"I think I can this time." Arisia beamed at the chance to impress Methuselah.
"Whatever stops them from moving. I know you can do it Arisia."
Smiling slightly, Arisia ran with the rest of them as they approached the skeleton in the center of the crater. Kemdri saw them running, but was too absorbed with the two skeletons that the icy powerful undead that was commanding the others had sent at him to do anything about it. Methuselah hits the camp like a freight train, shielded by Gevran's powers he was immediately beset by two ghouls. Turning one and exorcising the other he started to pound away with his hammer.
"Well it's cold up here, they must not like fire either." Ranilok reasoned as the ground below them glowed with fire and a great pillar of flame shot up in the middle of the group.
As they fell, more undead who had been inside the skeleton ran out and joined combat. They seemed limitless, and then they fell they just seemed to get picked back up again somehow.
"It's gotta be that big one." Methuselah said. "Cover me!"
Seeing Methuselah move towards him, the commanding undead, a Lich, raised his hand and called several of the Undead move to protect him. All throughout this battle, Gevran was casting spells that locked the undead in place while Arisia was slowing the free ones down and blasting them with arcane missiles.
"Light, protect me! Defend me in battle!" Methuselah called down the intervention of the light and charged through the masses of undead. As soon as he reached the lich he dropped his protection and started pounding away.
The undead were quick to react and turn to hit him, but as soon as they did, the ground beneath them lit up with holy light as Methuselah consecrated it; the undead let out horrible screeches as their bodies caught aflame and burned to ash. "This is holy ground, leave this place or die!"
"'e's gonna get himself killed like that." Gevran started healing Methuselah rather than smiting the undead.
Becoming angered, the Lich began to shoot ice at Methuselah in an attempt to protect him self now that his troops had failed. Creating a barrier of ice he blasted the paladin backwards and attempted to flee.
"Ranilok!" Methuselah called out to his friend.
"You got it." The mage called back, shattering the barrier with a firebolt.
Charging once more, Methuselah called up to the obviously aware undead. "I call the retribution of the light upon you!"
With this powerful ability called forth, the lich was now hurting him self by taking any action against Methuselah. The paladin's hammer smashed through the different parts of the undead's armor and bone. As he chipped away, Beatrice came up behind the lich and jumped onto his back, scrabbling up it and slicing at the back of his head with her swords. In one final powerful hammer stroke, Methuselah executed the lich.The Lich released a deafening wail, the sound bounding off the walls of the Crater as his Skeletal figure crashed into the ground, struggling to get back up and finally losing all cohesion. The other undead turned and ran from the scene with the defeat of their leader, except for the two that were fighting Kemdri.
Breathing heavily in the cold air, Methuselah looked around, the dragon skeleton was empty. "Where is it?" he looked about.
"I still sense it." Ranilok looked around to the far side of the skeleton.
The familiar sound of splattering corpses reached the side of the crater as they looked, finally setting sights on a trio of undead horses that were tied to part of the dragon's long wing bones. A large leather satchel was strapped between two of them.
"That must be it. We gotta take this with us. We can't let the undead have it." Methuselah started to untie the horses.
"You mean we have to ride those?" Arisia looked over.
"Unless you want to stay around for that army." Methuselah reminded her as Gevran and Beatrice got onto one of the horses and Ranilok another.
About in unison, both Ranilok and Methuselah spoke up. "C'mon Arisia, get on."
Hopping on behind Methuselah, Arisia sent one last arcane shot at a straggling undead. Ranilok looked a bit jealous at her choice, but was more concerned with living at the moment. The five of them quickly rode off to the east and away from the undead army.Kemdri saw them riding off with the heart in tow, he could sense its power moving.
Dropping the Ghoul that he had just finished beating back to death with his fist, the dwarf cried out. "Ah, ye bastards..."
It was too late for them to hear Kemdri's objection, they weren't even thinking about him anymore as he ran after them. Methuselah and his companions were far too quick on the skeletal horses as they continued to the east.
"DAHMNIT!" was the only exclamation they could hear echoing from the dwarf as he ran to the south to escape the undead army.