After another day of waiting for the mine appraisal, and no word from Q_T, a note was delivered from the College to Axoy with the notice that a team was arriving at the site later that evening to inspect the sealed mine. Pran and Natalie met him at the charred doors and together they waited for the mages to show up. The mine felt eerie without the usual crowd of people bustling around.
They didn't wait long. Hoofbeats echoed across the gravel path coming up from the city and Axoy could see two riders dressed in blue and silver making their way towards the mine.
"That must be them. I'll go meet them," Natalie said, and hurried away. Axoy took a deep breath and drew his sword. Pran looked nervous, but did the same. Neither of them wanted to relive their harrowing escape from the horde behind the iron doors.
The first thing they heard was the lead rider shouting at Natalie.
"All right, all right! Get out of my face! Just get these damn doors open. I've got one f***ing job here and I don't want to be around this godforsaken place longer than I have to." The cryomancer swung off his horse and threw the reins around a pole.
"Which asshole did they send us?" Pran asked quietly.
"No idea. He sounds like every damn mage stereotype and probably fights like it too," Axoy whispered back. "We'll make it really quick. They'll get a look at these bitches, piss themselves a little, and then we'll leave. Ten minutes, tops."
He thought he heard Natalie say "Good luck" nearby, but when he turned around, she was already walking away with the second mage's horse towards the makeshift stables.
"You in charge of this s***hole?" the cryo snapped at him.
"More or less." Axoy pointed to the doors. "Once we open these, you either kill everything that's in there or we all die. Got it?"
"Sounds fun. Actually I'll open it myself, just stay behind me. Heatran, move your ass out of the way." The cryo tapped his Frostbite on the doors. "Seems like a pretty trivial seal; I'm shocked it hasn't been broken."
"The House basically just threw warm bodies with a basic understanding of pyromancy at us. I wasn't expecting miracles. Who are you, anyway?"
"I'm Sheer. This is Heatran. He needs to gather some data on the mine interior, and it's gonna be our job to protect him while he does that because he's more useless than usual when he's busy. We had a third, but he decided to go be useless somewhere else."
"Okay." Axoy was dubious, but he tried not to let it show. "Where exactly?"
"He's in the dead mine on the other side of Stormwind near the passage to Doriven. Cthuko wanted 'control data' so that he can compare the information when we get back. Honestly I could have just told him that he's not gonna find s*** in a dead mine, but Creaam takes any excuse to not pull his f***ing weight." Sheer put his hands on either side of the welded seam. "Stand back and cover your eyes. This is going to shatter."
Ice poured off his fingers and flowed across the metal, coating the rusted iron with pure white frost. Axoy could hear the joints creaking and groaning as it froze. Sheer wedged the point of his Frostbite into the crack between the doors, and kicked hard. Dark fractures spread out from the impact, but it didn't break. He scowled and hit it again, with the same result.
"Well that didn't work. Uh, give it a ground slam. Nothing too violent." He moved out of the way as Heatran shot him a judgmental glare. "Don't look at me like that."
Axoy tried not to think about what might be waiting just behind the door, and cast the spell right in front of the doors. The ground heaved as they tore and shattered. Metal shards flew in every direction and he felt a few stinging his arms and face. He blinked the dust out of his eyes and raised his sword, ready for an onslaught.
"This… looks empty," said Sheer. He looked down into the mineshaft and shrugged. "Are these stairs safe?"
"They're broken at the bottom so watch your step. I think there's still some lights burning down here. At least the pyros knew how to light a damn torch." Axoy and Pran went inside first, with Sheer and Heatran following and Natalie bringing up the rear. "Do what you have to do and let's get the hell out before they actually do show up again."
The cryos wandered down to the end of the staircase and poked around at the defunct equipment. Axoy's nerves were raw from stress. He looked around again and again, watching for movement, but nothing happened.
"Okay, time for guard duty. I don't know how long this is going to take." Sheer tapped his Frostbite against a dark purple vein in the wall. "Are these void shards?"
"Yeah. We didn't clear this mine out before the incidents got too close together to keep working. Do you need a sample of them?"
"I'll get it." Sheer picked at the crystals with the point of his sword, crumbling away the softer rock. Heatran was waving his own Frostbite and mumbling inaudible words. Tiny streaks of icy energy trailed through the air.
"Is this… smoking?" Sheer asked. "Huh, it's like this wall is on fire or something. It's spreading everywhere."
"Get away from there!" Natalie screamed.
Axoy knew what it was before he saw it. Sheer stumbled back and managed to block the first few claw swipes of the void monster as it billowed out of the broken crystal. Two others followed in quick succession. Heatran was still muttering obliviously in the background.
"S***! Pran, keep him alive. Sheer, I don't know what contact you have with your third teammate, but tell him to get his ass in here now. Natalie, stay with me. I don't know how many are about to come through. We need to keep them from getting to the surface. Those doors aren't going to close anymore."
The first three were easy to deal with. Sheer blasted the group with bolts, blinding the glaring purple eyes. Axoy stabbed one through the head, and Natalie cast a seismic wave over the remaining monsters, forcing them down. Sheer blew a powerful freezing breath over them and swung the Frostbite, slicing through where their necks should have been. The smoky forms crumbled into bits of ice and vapor. But more were coming, flowing out of the shard vein.
There was a soft thud. Ethereal silvery shields flickered up around each of them as Pran's last stand spell took effect. Natalie struck at another pair of lidless eyes as the claws swept down, missing her by inches. Heatran's mumbling was getting louder, but Axoy wasn't sure whether that was good or not. The mine was crowded with misty forms and slashing claws; ten maybe, or fifteen.
"He's almost done. Hang in there." Sheer looked battered and a little bruised, but he was still on his feet. Two monsters shattered into heaps of ice.
"Did you have a plan for closing the doors?" Axoy gasped. Another monster howled and its claws ripped through his arm. He ignored the pain and tried to look for Natalie, but she was behind too much of the nearby equipment.
"I figured we'd cross that bridge when we got to it!" Sheer flickered and vanished, reappearing across the room next to Heatran. "He's done! Grab that crystal and let's get out!"
Axoy managed to scoop up the broken void shard as Pran cast an intervene over him. Natalie grabbed his hand and they ran for the entrance. Heatran aimed a frostbolt over his shoulder, knocking a monster off of the stairwell, but they were surging up from the base. The intervene broke off and agony tore across Axoy's back. His vision went black and he almost fell.
A hand grabbed him by the back of his armor and dragged him into the fading twilight. Unbearable cold washed over him and he managed to roll away from the source. The third cryomancer stood at the destroyed mine entrance, raising walls of blue ice across the tunnel mouth. Heatran was brushing himself off while Sheer gasped out almost inaudible insults at his teammate.
"Take the L and shut up. I saved your life and all I get is this s***." Creaam finished closing the mineshaft and jabbed Sheer with the business end of his Broccomace. "Next time I won't bother."
"Fine. I don't care." Sheer wandered over to Axoy. "Here, I'll take the shard."
Axoy passed it to him and he tucked it away in the pocket of his armor. "When are we going to hear about a solution?"
"When we figure out what the hell happened in there, and how to stop it. Might take a while, though. In the meantime, stay safe and don't tell the House that we were here. Fontn's already on bad terms with them." Sheer rolled his eyes. "He's not exactly subtle about the fact that he's sheltering the Fallen Princess at the College. Now that Serena runs things, I won't be surprised if he gets ordered to give her up for execution next week."
"Gods," Axoy muttered. Natalie and Pran came over, wounded and bloodstained but alive.
"Let's get the hell out of here. Nothing to do now but wait."
NO COMMUNITY DECISION NEEDED