Two chapters tonight, why not?!
Auriana
The remaining Alliance forces moved higher into the citadel, until they finally came across another large chamber that held the strangest looking ogre Auriana had ever seen. He was tall and bulky, as ogres inevitably were, and was tattooed with odd, moving marks, the likes of which Auriana had never seen. His eyes were shrouded by a dark, shifting cover, and a lone horn thrust upwards from the top of his head. Auriana reached out cautiously with her senses, only to recoil a second later in confusion. The ogre seemed to be of magic, but somehow outside it, and she felt her stomach shift uneasily.
"You dare enter these halls?" the strange ogre called, turning his eyeless gaze upon her. "You dare face Ko'ragh the Breaker?"
"I would speak to your Imperator," Auriana said. "Your ogron lieutenants refused my offer of clemency and paid with their lives. I suggest that you do not make the same mistake."
To her surprise, the ogre laughed harshly, sending gooseflesh running up her arms.
"Mage," he said, rolling the word slowly over his tongue as if tasting it. "You don't know what I am, do you?"
"Quite frankly, I don't care," Auriana said threateningly. "If you intend to keep me from Mar'gok, I'll teach you the price of your insolence."
She dropped into a fighting stance, her gaze implacable. She hadn't really expected Ko'ragh to take her up on her offer of mercy, and was entirely unsurprised when he drew his heavy weapon.
"Your magic is powerless here!" he shouted, and leapt forwards with an infuriated snarl.
Auriana's men responded immediately, moving to to engage the ogre head on. For her part, Auriana summoned her will and hurled a terrible bolt of frost at the strange ogre, ready to show Ko'ragh what true power looked like. To her utter shock, however, the frostbolt hit some sort of invisible barrier around the ogre, and simply vanished into thin air. Auriana started in shock, unable to remember the last time she'd failed to cast an offensive spell. She tried a second time, throwing all her concentration behind the spell, but it was to no avail. Ko'ragh hadn't appeared to have taken any sort of damage at all, and he grinned widely at her increasingly panicked confusion.
Auriana looked about frantically, and met the gaze of several other bewildered casters. It appeared that she was not the only one whose magic had failed. Every single magic user, from warlocks to priests, was either staring around in wild confusion, or looking down at their hands in shock. Auriana's heart sank, and somewhere in the back of her mind she heard Varian's voice reminding her that one day she might have to fight without her magic.
How is he always right? she wondered, banishing the thought with an irritated growl.
"Casters!" she ordered, quickly re-gathering her composure. "The ogre is immune to magic! We cannot fight him directly. Defend the melee!"
Still recovering from the shock of their now-uselessness, her casters were slow to respond, but they managed to eventually rally. Auriana quickly learned that her hunch was correct, and that while Ko'ragh couldn't be directly affected by magic himself, he couldn't stop her spellcasters from successfully targeting their own comrades. At her command, Auriana's casters summoned a range of shields and spells to boost the power of those who were able to damage Ko'ragh with their non-magical weaponry. They also managed the influx of volatile anomalies that flooded the room, while the melee engaged Ko'ragh directly.
The fight was a long one, given that they didn't have the benefit of magic to aid in the destruction of Ko'ragh. The warriors that fought with swords, bows, and axes were powerful, but they couldn't ever hope to match the pure devastation that someone like a warlock or a mage could bring to bear. Nevertheless, her men worked tirelessly, hacking and slashing at Ko'ragh relentlessly until he succumbed to the brutal assault. Auriana breathed a sigh of relief as the ogre breaker finally tumbled to his knees, and she prayed fervently that there were no other breakers in the citadel. She couldn't even remember a time when she'd lived without her magic, and the thought of losing it scared her more profoundly than she would have ever thought.
She walked over the corpse of Ko'ragh and nudged it with her foot, her brow heavily furrowed. Her men had wrought a victory, but it had been a narrow one.
"I've never come across such resistance to magic," Lansing observed as he joined her, great concern evident in his tone. "I wonder what Mar'gok did to this one to have given him such power?"
"I don't know," Auriana said slowly. "I've never had my magic just… fail… like that."
"Nor I. It's very concerning," Lansing said, rubbing a hand over his chin. "Two of my mages are injured. I thought I might send them back to Dalaran with the body, so that the Kirin Tor might study it further. With your permission, of course."
"Good idea," Auriana agreed quickly. "The sooner we can figure out a way to counter a breaker, the better. The rest of us will press on as soon as we're able, however. I don't want to give Mar'gok time to build up his defenses. This ends tonight."
After a short rest, Auriana's forces ascended higher, making quick work of the Imperator's remaining bodyguards. After Ko'ragh, there were no real powers left standing to keep Auriana from her goal, and at long last, she found herself outside the Imperator's sanctum. She could feel the swelling power from within, and she turned to prepare her men for the final assault on the formidable Mar'gok.
"Lansing, we're going to need an arcane shield to protect our forces from Mar'gok. Hold back as much of his magic as you can, and we'll do the rest."
"Auriana, we should link," suggested Lansing. "We'll have a far better chance of countering him together."
"As you wish, Lansing," she said. "Make your preparations, and I'll…"
"I meant you, too," Lansing interrupted. "Surely you can feel Mar'gok's power, even from here. I'm skilled, but you're the only one among us who might come close to matching him in terms of raw ability. Our melee will be like lambs to the slaughter if we can't provide an effective counter to his magic."
Auriana bit her lip in frustration. She'd much rather engage Mar'gok directly than provide a defensive line for the rest of her forces, but she could see the wisdom in Lansing's argument.
"Very well," she said in agreement, preparing herself to open up to his control.
She didn't particularly like being a link in the chain, rather than the person controlling the flow of magic, but she understood the practicalities of deferring to Lansing's greater experience. To her surprise, however, he shook his head and opened himself up instead, ready for her to forge the link.
"You should be the nexus for the spell," he said firmly.
"You're more experienced," she pointed out, furrowing her brow.
"But you're stronger," Lansing countered. "As I said, if anyone has a chance to match Mar'gok, it's you. Finesse isn't going to mean a thing if he can break through our defenses."
Auriana nodded nervously, knowing how much linking tested her fury, but opened herself up nonetheless. Lansing joined with her almost immediately, and the other members of the Kirin Tor soon followed. Auriana could feel each of them in the back of her mind as a bright point of light, and she was soon surging with raw power. It was a heady and intoxicating feeling, and it took several deep breaths before she was able to regain a semblance of control. These mages were far more powerful than those she had linked with at Grommashar, and her temptation to abuse the link grew exponentially stronger. She could feel her hands shaking with excess energy, and hastily tucked them into her robes before anyone saw. Kinzie, however, had seen, and was now looking at her curiously, her normally bright expression unusually dark.
"Auri? Are you alright?" she asked slowly.
Auriana turned to face the gnome mage and blinked. For a second, she didn't see her friend, but only the raw power that Kinzie represented, raw power that she could take…
"I'm fine," she snapped, more to herself than Kinzie. "Let's get moving."
Without any further fanfare, Auriana extended her will to shatter the wards protecting Mar'gok's arcane sanctum, and forced her way into the room. The Imperator rose to his feet as the Alliance forces fanned out, his twin heads both lifted in haughty arrogance.
"You dare assault the seat of my power?" he demanded, his voice echoing off the stone walls. "Is this the work of that traitor Cho'gall? Kneel and swear fealty to me, and I may yet spare your lives for my coliseum."
"Imperator Mar'gok," Auriana called, her voice ringing with more confidence than she actually felt. "Highmaul has fallen. Your city is mine. Surrender the Sigil and I will spare your life."
"Do you really think you can take me, mageling?" Mar'gok snarled. "Who are you to stand against the might of the Gorian Empire?"
"We are the Alliance, and we bow to no-one," she declared, with fierce pride. "In the name of High King Varian Wrynn, I order you to stand down, or be destroyed."
Mar'gok's twin faces darkened, clearly unimpressed by her refusal to simply roll over and die. He took a menacing step forwards, and Auriana's heart chilled as she felt the sudden surge of power within him. She exchanged a glance with Lansing, the senior mage's expression doing little to reassure her that they could actually defeat Mar'gok.
"You will learn why I am king, and you are little more than peasants," the Imperator proclaimed, and launched into a brutal assault without any more preamble.
The room was suddenly alive with flying magic and the clash of steel. Auriana drew on her linked mages, and channeled their power into a formidable arcane shield. She directed the shield cleverly, protecting her men from the worst of what Mar'gok had to offer. She caught every spell she could, matching Mar'gok's power with her own steely eyed determination. Emboldened by her steadfast protection, her men fought with alacrity against the furiously casting Imperator. Mar'gok was clever, positioning both himself and his spells well to avoid the worst of what the Alliance had to offer, but Auriana was confident that her forces would wear him down eventually. With the linked power of the Kirin Tor mages, Auriana felt as if she could hold her shield forever, and the second Mar'gok made a mistake, it would cost him his heads.
For an all too brief moment, Auriana reveled in her inevitable victory, until she felt a strange, electric burst of power run up her arms. Her eyes met those of the ogre king, and with a falling stomach, she suddenly realised that Mar'gok had merely been toying with them.
"My power knows no limit!" the Imperator screamed fearlessly, doubling the intensity of his attacks as if it cost him nothing.
Auriana felt her shield weaken, and she tried desperately to direct the dwindling construct to those who needed it most. Unfortunately, this left a large group of her forces unprotected, a lapse that Mar'gok punished to the full extent of his ability. In a moment of pure horror, Auriana felt one of her links break, and she screamed in agony as she realised it was Kinzie who had been erased so unceremoniously from her mind. The gnome mage simply vanished, caught in the chest by a stray arcane mine. Mar'gok laughed his victory, his two pairs of eyes alive with savage glory.
"Learn your place!" he snarled, crowing over Kinzie's swift and sudden demise.
They're all going to die, Auriana realised, fighting back a rising sense of panic as she watched another group of soldiers fall.
She now understood that Mar'gok was simply too strong, despite the best efforts of the Kirin Tor. He'd had decades of experience, and he wielded the arcane with the strength and finesse of a true master. Auriana knew she'd never have a chance of beating him, unless something changed drastically. She wracked her mind for any spell, any strategy that might save them, until she realised that she only had one choice. It was a choice that might cost Auriana her life, if not her very soul, but she realised that she'd do whatever it took to save what remained of Lunarfall's forces.
"I'm sorry," she whispered.
She had no idea who she was talking to - herself, perhaps, or the fallen Kinzie, or her brave men, or perhaps even Varian - but she felt the need to beg for absolution, given what she was about to do. She heard Mar'gok's laugh, high and cruel over the screams of her dying soldiers, and the decision was made.
Auriana closed her eyes, muttered a quick prayer to the Light, and willingly unleashed her rage.