Gul'dan, de Facto leader of the Orcish Horde, leader of the Shadow Council
Earthside Dark Portal, April 13th 1918
Azeroth was not at all the place his master had depicted to him. Yes, he had expected a blasted land on the other side of the portal, but he had not anticipated two vast armies to be waiting for them. Gul'dan recalled the agitation that had briefly spiked in his master prior to a sudden withdrawal of contact. He came to the conclusion that this was not a ruse played by the master—something drastic must have happened to cause him to give slightly skewed coordinates. He could not tell this to Blackhand, leader of the Horde. Although he was highly malleable, he would spread news of the disaster to less malleable individuals. Furthermore, to admit they were on the wrong world would be a fatal embarrassment for him, especially as he had persuaded an entire race to come with him. It would wreck the tireless effort he had put into advancing his social position. He had backstabbed his mentor, he had backstabbed his race (not that they knew of it yet), and he was not about to be backstabbed by anyone.
Gul'dan had to do something. Reports came in everyday reporting mounting losses. The Horde as a whole seemed to disregard this but if they were to conquer the humans, they would have to play smart. Yes, they had entrenched the area immediately surrounding the Dark Portal and all human attacks caused little to no damage, but if they were to turn the tide, the Horde required the very weapons used against them. But how to go about it?
It was obviously not magic of any kind, merely far advanced forms of the weapons the Orcs themselves fielded. However, the Horde did not have the ability to manufacture any siege equipment or additional weapons. Indeed, the defences that were being set up necessitated swathes of the Tanaan jungle on the other side of the Dark Portal to be harvested. Then logically, captured weapons would have to be reproduced on the other side.
Considering that these humans sorely lacked magic, it would make sense to advance the importance of the warlocks, and thereby strengthening the position of the Shadow Council—its members primarily of warlocks. Warlocks had already prevented some of defeats from being far more devastating and had in fact managed to supress further human offensives for the time being. Just yesterday they had caught a human trying to sneak into their base. A hellhound had caught his scent and almost killed him before his handler arrived and instead locked up the human. Along with his person, they had captured one of the firesticks and two mallet like objects. Remembering his quest to reproduce the human weapons, Gul'dan concluded that only one weapon not enough since there was a chance they might break it before they could figure out how to make more. They needed more. Maybe the human knew a cache of weapons? Time to pay a visit to the cells.
Feldwebel Tobias Reiniger, Stormtrooper
German Trench outside Ypres, Exactly the same time
Tobias sat with his squad waiting for the intel to arrive. Yesterday had been a total disaster: one of the stormtroopers under his command had been captured by the orks before they could fully infiltrate the base. In his report, he had credited the lack of accurate information on the area as the primary factor for their failure. Someone up the chain of command had mercy (and a brain) and gave clearance for a zeppelin with fighter escort to provide reconnaissance over the orkish base. The fighters were necessary as various flying demons roamed the skies above the base, occasionally harassing the troops on both the British and Germans and flying off before the men could collect their wits.
A messenger came into the poorly lit room, flooding the dark confines with the dull brightness of the outside. In his hand was an envelope, which could only contain one thing. The intel had come. Thanking the messenger for completing his task, Tobias took the folder and spread the pictures on the table. At the very centre was the foreboding shape that could only be the Dark Portal. A wooden palisade ringed the area that enclosed several watchtowers and unidentified buildings. Artillery had been pounding at an invisible barrier that refused to crack for days now. Yet as proven yesterday, people could slip into it. It blocked things that exceeded a certain velocity?
Gefreiter Metz pointed at a spot in one of the aerial photographs. "That's where Infanterist Herz was hiding before we lost sight of him."
"So some sort of patrol comes by this place."
"You saw those four legged demons they have, like rabid dogs."
"So the best thing is to completely ignore that place."
"Not necessarily, our mission is to provide more details to the information we now have as well as rescue Infanterist Herz."
"We could enter the same way as before, from the unfinished portion of the palisade in the west."
"That is no longer an option, they either patched up the wall or posted more guards to that place."
"If they posted more guards, wouldn't that mean some areas now have less guards?"
"True. Do I have any suggestions?"
"There is a watchtower that's attached to the wall. If we can get rid of the guard before he alerts anyone, we can come in through a spot no one would expect."
"Any objections? Seeing as there are none, here is what we are going to do…"
Garona, Orcish spy for the Shadow Council
No Man's Land
Garona was doubly thankful for the warlock Gul'dan had provided her for this mission. Despite her initial misgivings, Numz'kull Phardeye was perfectly capable of shadow-based magic, cloaking both in an field of shadow that made them invisible to all but the most powerful of warlocks. If the warlocks learned how to be even stealthier, assassins like herself would be out of business. At the moment they were travelling to the location provided by Gul'dan. He had not said how he had gained this information, only saying that the source will now serve a higher purpose.
Garona cast that thought out of her mind to better focus on the task ahead. Despite being cloaked in shadow, physical disturbances like stomping heavily on rocks could still alert the humans. Numz'kull was keeping pace evenly, although he made much more noise. For a former shaman, the warlock was very quick to disregard the forces that he once worshipped. Then again, the spirits of the ancients abandoned them, so they had a right (she supposed) to completely sever all ties to their shamanistic heritage.
After another fifteen minutes of sneaking about, Garona and Numz'kull had safely passed the extensive human battle lines. Their target was in the human base nearby. Entering the base, they stuck to the shadows, avoiding the patrolling or loitering soldiers.
Upon seeing the building that fit the description Gul'dan had given her, Garona ushered Numz'kull to the rear of the building, hoping to find some sort of exploitable point. Then, turning around the corner was a soldier pulling down something in his pants. Just at that moment, Numz'kull lost control of the invisibility field.*
The soldier's eyes widened as he saw two orcs, one in black robes and another that was clearly a female materialise in front of his eyes. The one in black slumped to the ground in what appeared to be exhaustion. His thoughts sluggish, the soldier clumsily reached for the rifle slung onto his back. But the female orc dashed forward, a dagger in each hand. Two points of pain in the neck. For the brief moment before he lost consciousness, the points of pain seemed to draw towards each other.
Garona wiped the blood on her daggers off using the soldier's uniform. She found a small bush and, stealthily to lessen the risk of detection, stashed away the body and severed head of the soldier. After dragging the unconscious Numz'kull into another bush, Garona scaled the wall of the building, opened the window, and climbed in. There were over two hundred wooden crates stocked in the building. Climbing down and investigating their contents confirmed that they were the things Gul'dan had sent her to retrieve. Time to go wake up the warlock.
Once the warlock was inside the building, he drew a pentagram using the blood of the soldier and the human's head as an offering to the demons of the warp. Succeeding in his ritual, a dimensional rift to a storage dimension opened above the pentagram. Garona and Numz'kull then proceeded to shove some boxes into the rift.
After placing some twenty boxes in the pocket dimension, the large front doors of the building suddenly burst open and twenty humans rushed in, weapons raised. Garona drew her daggers and said to Numz'kull, "Get yourself back to base, I'll handle this." Numz'kull quickly complied and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
Garona threw a throwing knife at the lead human, hitting him in the throat. He was dead before he hit the ground, a growing pool on blood on the floor. The soldiers behind him began to open fire, forcing Garona to hide behind one of the crates. A human was shouting something, einfangen, einfangen?**
Garona jumped, executing a backwards flip while throwing three more knives. Two hit their marks, causing the targets to slump to the ground. The last one was evaded, but in doing so, the soldier slid on the blood puddle and collapsed heavily onto the ground.
Six soldiers were attempting to flank her, three on each side. Making a decision, Garona threw herself to the feet of the soldiers on the left flank, confusing the flankers. In three quick slashes, she hamstrung each of them. Dashing past the men no wriggling on the ground in agony, Garona slipped behind some crates.
More soldiers were coming in now, obviously having heard the commotion. Garona attempted to get to the window, but someone released the rope net bound to the ceiling, causing it and several crates to come crashing down, trapping her.
As she struggled to get free, a soldier and someone who was probably their commander approached, the harsh light from the outside causing their faces to be shadowed.
"Es ist eine Frau?"***
On the steps of the Violet Citadel, Dalaran, 529 King's Calendar
For a major city, Dalaran was a monastery. Rather than being a political or commercial hive most cities eventually became, Dalaran was a place of learning and the citizens set on a quest for ultimate knowledge. Due to such ambitions, almost everyone had a strict schedule to adhere to that brokered no distractions. So imagine their surprise when a dishevelled old man materialised half a metre above the stairs to the Violet Citadel and landed heavily face first. Binksy Bolts, a student of the Arcane from Gnomreggan, hustled over to help the man up. Must have been a teleportation spell gone awry, she rationalised.
The man groaned loudly as she helped him to his feet. His robes were strangely those of an apprentice spellcaster of the Kirin Tor. Apprentices were never of the advanced age of the venerable gentleman to her side. Something was wrong. Then she looked at his face and her brows furrowed.
"Khadgar?"
"Binksy, it's good to see you." A gasp and a wheeze, "I need to speak with the Council."
*Numz'kull had at this point run out of mana and was using his lifeforce to sustain the spell. Just as he was about to deactivate the spell, the sudden shock of seeing the human delayed his deactivation, just barely going over the time limit for safe use of lifeforce-draining spells. That's why he fell unconscious at that moment.
** capture it, capture it
*** It's a female?