Home Sweet Gnome.
"So have to ask, where exactly were the Gnomes during the First War?" Falstad asked as he and Mekkatorque rode from Ironforge toward the gates of Gnomeregan.
"After Stormwind fell, we knew it wouldn't be long before the Orcs attacked Dun Morogh," Mekkatorque explained. "We knew we'd suffer greatly if we fought them openly, so we simply closed our doors and braced for a siege."
"Ah, well we dwarves are a more stubborn lot than ye Gnomes," Falstad chuckled. "We chose to fight the buggers, but we also ensured that Ironforge didn't fall."
"I'm guessing you also closed that big door?" Mekkatorque asked with a smirk.
"O'course, it's there for a reason."
The two had a good chuckle at the mental image of the formidable Orcish horde coming up short at the gates of Ironforge. As they rode into Chill Breeze Valley, Falstad witnessed the true results of the crisis facing Mekkatorque's people; from Shimmer Ridge to Frostmane Hold were row upon row of tents and ramshackle gnomish homesteads, interlaced with Gnomish mechanical creations of all shapes and sizes, these had clearly been deemed important enough to some Gnomes that they brought them with them as they fled the city.
"By Modimus' beard!" Falstad breathed, bringing his ram to a halt as he took in the sight before him. "What exactly happened to cause all this?"
"Much like Ironforge, our subterranean home came under attack by Troggs, and their numbers began to overwhelm our mechanical defences." Mekkatorque explained, encouraging the Dwarf to continue riding alongside him. "Someone I thought I could trust came to me with a solution to unleash a radioactive toxin to kill off the Troggs, promising me he had tested it, and that it would be one hundred per cent lethal to the invaders."
"Lemme guess, he lied to ye?" Falstad raised a hand.
"Either he lied, or didn't proof his results, but the results speak for themselves," Mekkatorque agreed. "While it did kill some of the smaller Troggs, most were unaffected by it or became rabid when exposed to the gas."
"And that caused ye to evacuate the city?"
"Not entirely." The gnome said hesitantly. "The irradiation didn't just poison the Troggs, its consistency wasn't as advertised, and the gas rose up from the lower levels, quickly poisoning my people too. If I hadn't acted and ordered a mass evacuation, we may have lost more innocents to the upstart's coup."
"Coup?"
"Sicco Thermaplugg planned all this," He gestured to the closed doors of Gnomeregan, and the encamped Gnomish refugees. "In a vain attempt to besmirch my name and assume leadership of our people instead."
"Where is this vile bugger?" Falstad growled, feeling enraged at the betrayal the Gnomish High-Tinkerer had suffered.
"Holled up in Gnomeregan, surrounded by the irradiated results of his failed bid for power." Mekkatorque sighed. "I now know how the Orcs felt when they besieged the city, we're struggling to break back into our home to overthrow the usurper."
"So what's yer plan then?"
"That depends, how in contact with the elements are you?"
Falstad quirked an eye brow.
"If we can open the vents all the way, could you ask the air elementals to clear the radiation from Gnomeregan? Or at least dillute it enough for us to enter without requiring gas masks."
"I thought Magni didn't want you irradiating Dun Morogh?"
"If you can funnel the gas up into the upper atmosphere it will disperse and lessen the chance of radioactive poisoning." Mekkatorque quickly reassured him. "Can you do it?"
"I can try," Falstad sighed. "Ye may want to clear the area around the vents, things may get a little windy."
Mekkatorque clapped his hands together excitedly, before gesturing toward the vents.
"Excellent, why don't you set up whatever you need to around the vents, I'll corden of the area so no one gets in your way."
"Are ye not worried Thermaplugg will try and stop us?"
"Of course, but we've placed mines around the entrance and..."
Mekkatorque was cut off by an earth-shattering explosion to the south-west, and they both turned to see a cloud of dust rising from that direction.
"... We've decided to collapse the tunnels in Frostmane Hold, in case any Troggs crawl out of them to ambush us."
"Let's get to it then," Falstad perked up at seeing how the Gnomish leader had clearly thought ahead with this plan, and wasn't winging it.
As the two leaders parted ways; Falstad rode toward the vents, while Mekkatorque rode toward the refuge camp. When Falstad reached the vents, he noted the radiation was already beginning to leak out of the city and into the surrounding environment. He was thankful that since the founding of the Alliance, Falstad had taken time to learn shamanistic techniques and rituals from the Orcs, Tauren, and Trolls, as he felt this gave her a better connection to Azeroth's elemental spirits.
Mekkatorque returned to find several totems had been strategically placed around the largest of the vents, and Falstad was busy carving runes into the ground between the totems.
"Are you ready, Shaman?"
"Aye," Falstad walked quickly over to the Gnomish leader. "How are ye going to open the vent?"
The moment he asked, Falstad realised how silly the question was, but Mekkatorque just gave her a knowing grin, before signalling to a small group of gnomes standing nearby.
"We're gonna make a strategic hole in the top of this sealed vent, it should be big enough for you to siphon out the toxic fumes." One of the gnomes informed him, as the rest heaped a small pile of dynamite in the centre of the vent. "Apologies if the resulting explosion damages any of your totems."
Falstad took a few cautious steps back, and summoned an Earth totem to protect him from the oncoming explosion. Once Mekkatorque and the gnome squad had also retreated, they didn't wait long before they detonated the dynamite; as he expected, the explosion was a lot bigger than was strictly necessary, but thankfully Falstad's totems withstood the explosion, and his wards weren't damaged.
"We're going to have company!" A voice cried, and all eyes turned to the gates of Gnomeregan, as they began to open slowly.
"Falstad, you take care of the radiation, we'll handle the traitor's mechanical minions!" Mekkatorque called, before leading his people in a charge towards the gates.
The gates, however, did not open all the way. The huge metal door stopped opening when there was only a metre high opening, but before any of Mekkatorque's forces could enter, a lone robot scurried out; in the silence that followed the strange robot's appearance, the door quickly closed behind it.
"Is this thing on?" a voice said from within the robot, and in the stunned silence the words carried to Falstad, who was furthest from the entrance.
"Thermaplugg! Come out and face justice for your crimes against the Gnomish people!" Mekkatorque called, suspecting that the contraption before the gates had a microphone built in.
"My crimes? MY CRIMES?" the voice exclaimed. "You ignored my warnings and activated the irradiator before it could be properly tested! Then you convinced a fraction of our people to flee rather than fix the problems you created!"
"The radiation has driven him mad!" Mekkatorque reassured the soldiers standing with him. "It was you who lied to me about the readiness of that radiation bomb Sicco! And it was not a 'fraction' of my people who fled, most of our people managed to escape the city before it fell, and they stand with me in wanting to reclaim our home from you and your new people, the filthy Troggs your bomb was meant to kill."
"You'll never get into my city, traitor!" Thermaplugg laughed, before coughing. "Initiate traitor subroutine!"
"Traitors detected!" the robot suddenly announced, a red light flaring to life atop the mechanical creation. "Activating self-destruct sequence..."
"Fall back!" Mekkatorque called, and the soldiers quickly followed their High-Tinkerer in retreating from the whirring droid.
Seconds later there was a deafening bang, and when the Gnomish king turned to look back at the entrance all that remained of the droid was a blackened crater.
"If Sicco's condition is anything to go by, I fear any Gnomes that weren't killed by the radiation were also driven mad; death is there only escape now."
He was distracted from his morbid thoughts by the winds whipping against his face, he turned his attention to where Falstad stood by the shattered vent, in time to see a small tornado forming around it, and the vile green clouds of radiation were slowly being drawn out of the vent and into the swirling vacuum.
"It's working!" Falstad cheered, as the plume of whirling green grew thicker and taller.
Mekkatorque's eyes moved to the top of the cyclone, and he felt his spirits lift at seeing how the green clouds dispersed into the atmosphere as he had hoped.
"Still doesn't solve how we get in to deal with Sicco." Mekkatorque noted, his mind quickly returning to trying to grapple with the main problem before them.
"Not got a bomb big enough for that door?" Falstad chuckled, taking his eyes off the tornado.
"I'd rather not destroy something that could protect my people from the Legion's assault."
"Sir, why don't we magnetise the door open?" an engineer hurried over, clearly aware of their dilemma.
"Do we have magnets strong enough to overpower the door's locking mechanisms?"
"We have plenty of magnets, but on their own they won't be powerful enough to open the door." She replied, pulling out a pad of paper and a pen from her pockets.
"What would be needed to make them work?"
"Electricity. A strong enough voltage run through the magnets will increase their polarity, the force of which will break the locking mechanisms and open the door."
"Why do I sense a 'but' comin'?" Falstad sighed, his good mood punctured by his foresight.
"Even if we stripped all the batteries from the camps, and drained all the generators have left, we'd still need more power to open the door."
"How much more would ye..."
Falstad was cut off by a rumble of thunder from above. All eyes turned to the whirling tornado, which had stopped siphoning oout the poisonous green radiation, but was growing in density and size; the Dwarf was the only one who would have known his wards and totems were in place to prevent such an instance from happening, but before he could explain this, lightning arced down and destroyed his totems and wards in a single strike.
"Who dares befoul the winds?" a thunderous voice boomed.
"Well... This just got complicated," Falstad muttered, as the tornado sprouted arms, a head, and bolts of lightning became eyes that he could feel glaring down at them.