Chapter 7: The Battle of Azjol-Seraq
Ranilok appeared in a more composed state than he had the last time that he came to Nerub'Itjahz. Looking around, Ranilok knew he was not in Nerub'Itjahz, but he was somewhere that he recognized. The elf was in the cavern that he had defeated Anub'Ikthil in; he recognized it from the raised door that led into the upper kingdom. As before, Neru'Rekan stood above him. Dropping to one knee this time, he waited for what his orders were, hoping he could strike a bargain to get back to Cin'donia.
"This will be the battle that will reclaim the colony for us." Neru'Rekan began. "The place behind this door is known as Azjol-Seraq, a great library of our scrolls and history lies within. You will burn every hint of undeath from the colony so that we may reclaim it as our own."
"Cin'donia was captured again. She tried to free a naaru that was held prisoner in the blood elf capital, Silvermoon. I need to save her, master." Ranilok mentioned.
"Oh?" The spider questioned. "Are you forsaking your oath of service to us over a concern of your own?"
Realizing what this might mean, Ranilok thought for a while. He wanted her back because he loved her, but if he were to forsake everything for her than would he be any better that when he began? The elf still owed the spider kingdom more than he could ever repay. The cave was silent for quite a while as Ranilok considered the repercussions of his choice. Finally, the request that Cin'donia had made came back to Ranilok's memory. Nia had asked him to trust her; Ranilok would have to trust her to stay alive while he performed his duties in the spider kingdom.
"Of course not." Ranilok stood up. "If I were to do that, I would be greedy. Where is the construct? I will take it and…" the elf's eyes lit up with a bit of fire magic within him. "…they will all fall! They will cease to exist so quickly that you won't be able to comprehend it!"
Nodding in approval of the elf's lawful choice, Neru'Rekan extended a pincer towards where the shell was waiting. The infernal shell had mostly been returned its original state, except it had been given hands that could retract and extend from the thick ends of the rock. Ranilok was pleased with the change; he knew that he could turn the hands into whatever weapons he needed for the battle. Climbing into the chamber, Ranilok grinned as the troops lined up behind him. The construct stood in between the great door to Azjol-Seraq and the floor where he had slain the crypt lord.
Ranilok approached the door in the construct and looked at the shoring that the nerubians had constructed. The door opened inward, so it consisted of bars set into the ground with ropes joining the bars and the door in order to keep it from opening inwards. The elf had no idea if the undead were waiting on the other side to attack or if the door had been sealed on the far side. Remembering the stories that the lich king had once been an orc and knowing that humans and elves alike had been raised into the undead army, Ranilok considered the tactics at hand.
"Stand back. The door may be trapped." He called back to the leader that had congratulated his victory the last time.
"We do not back down from a battle!" The nerubian called back.
"I'm not asking you to back down." Ranilok was slightly annoyed. "Come in from the side after the doors are open."
Agreeing, the nerubian general moved the troops to either side of the stairs and waited for Ranilok. The elf knew that this would be a definitive battle, and he had to do it quickly enough to save the woman he loved while still completing it cleanly.
"Hold on, Nia… I'll be right there." Ranilok said quietly to himself as he lit the construct up and put a shoulder into the door.
The door creaked, but didn't open fully. Ranilok could hear the yells of angered ghouls on the other side as he jammed into the door once more. As the elf pounded the entryway a final time, it burst through, triggering a cascade of meat wagons that were seated in the main cavern. Thinking quickly, Ranilok used his fire magic for something aside from lighting the shell and cast a fireball on each plagued corpse, cooking the disease and rot out of it before it smashed onto the stairs or against the construct.
Ranilok quickly took a gauge of the scene: the room beyond was full of meat wagons and dark acolytes that were busy loading them with the broken bodies of beasts from the depths of the caves. Above the meat wagons, gargoyles circled and screeched at the intruders.
Not wanting to have to endure another round of corpses, Ranilok made ready to charge in. "Take down the gargoyles once the meat wagons have stopped."
Leaving the shell in the form it was in and retracting the hands, Ranilok charged into the fray, ignoring the gargoyles above and began bashing the wagons apart. The gargoyles immediately descended to try and claw at the construct. Ranilok thought that he would be able to burn them off, but their stone skin was resistant to his flames. As the elf bashed through the last wagons, the gargoyles lifted him from the ground in attempt to drop the construct and use its weight to against it.
Bracing for the impact, Ranilok suddenly felt the construct start to slowly lower again as the gargoyles fell off. The nerubians had charged in and snared the gargoyles to the ground, killing them easily. There were still a few wagons remaining that Ranilok quickly dispatched before he returned to the general of the spiders to question the action.
"There were still meat wagons. Your warriors could have been in trouble." The elf brought up.
"This is no time to talk. You were sent here with an army at your back because you need it. If you were powerful enough to charge in and clear this colony alone, we would not waste the resources to support you." The general reminded the elf.
"I see." Ranilok commented simply as he turned towards the inner side of the colony.
As soon as the elf had turned, the doors to the inner side of the colony swung open and ghouls began to flood out at such a speed that they nearly got stuck in the doors. Lighting back up, Ranilok turned and rolled the infernal into a ball, controlling its path to sweep through the scourge ranks as the nerubians kept a wall of web and ice between the ghouls and the main army.
The nerubians fought fiercely to retake their colony. A library of scrolls from Azjol-Nerub was not a prize to be passed up; their blood and toil would earn it. After the main cavern had been cleared, the nerubians webbed every door to the inside except one with enchanted webbing. The spiders were smart enough to know that they should only leave one opening for attack and only clear one area of the colony at a time.
With Ranilok in the lead, the spiders rampaged through the tunnels of the ancient spider kingdom, turning plagued flesh into ash. The number of ghouls and other undead horrors that had taken residence within the halls of Azjol-Seraq was unnatural compared to any previous force that the spiders had faced; something was important in this colony. Ranilok did exactly as he had sworn; the undead fell faster than leaves on a windy and cold autumn day as the elf drove the construct onwards. No cavern was left untouched and no tunnel unclear.
After clearing the entire colony except for the passageway that led from the entrance hall, the army moved in to finish the battle. The rooms beyond the final door were the halls used for feasting and audience along with the great library that the nerubians desired. The force of nerubians was greatly diminished as spiders had been left behind to close all other passages out of the colony permanently. The spiders of Nerub'Itjahz wanted to isolate this colony from the rest of Azjol-Nerub so that it would be safe from the scourge forever.
Stopping on a ledge above a stairway down into the main feasting and audience hall, Ranilok stared at the floor in surprise. "By Nerub, what are those?"
The general of the nerubians quickly came forwards and looked into the chamber, gaining an expression that was not normal for any of the spiders… fear. "They are called faceless ones."
The floor below was filled with strange creatures that had only shapes coming off of their necks; no mouths or eyes. Purple runes of warding swirled around them cast by necromancers that stood around each of the beasts. A portal in the room center produced more of the faceless ones as the necromancers continuously failed to control the ones that they had summoned and had to destroy them. The portal was held open by four obsidian statues that sat on raised pedestals.
"Isn't it wonderful?" A cold voice issued from across the great chamber. "Even these ancient beasts will be bent to the master's will."
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"Oh no! They got her!" Lily walked into the court of the sun and saw the near-army of guards around M'uru and the smaller group restraining Cin'donia.
It was horrible to see her friend in a fix like this. Not wanting to be found and captured too, Lily instinctively hid in a tall hedge that stood next to one of the buildings. Cin'donia still tried to resist as they led her off, despite the pain from being punched so savagely by Lady Liadrin.
"You're so much braver than any elf I know, Nia." Lily sat down in the hedge and hugged her knees, disappointed in herself.
As the elf moped there, she didn't realize that her foot was barely sticking out of the hedge. Lily only noticed as someone on the road side of the hedge tripped over it and called out in surprise. Quickly, Lily pulled her foot in and scooted back, trying to hide.
"Ey! Who be in dere?" A trollish voice came from by the road as Lily looked out under the hedge and saw blue feet walking closer.
The troll began to pull aside the hedge as Lily scooted back behind it into a small dark pocket between the building and the hedge. Cowering again, the elf hoped that she wouldn't be discovered. Lily couldn't hope for long because the troll came through the hedge a moment later and looked down at her.
"Why yah be trippin me? Ah dun like dis citah alreadah an now elves be trippin me." The troll asked about what had just happened.
"I didn't mean to! Please don't hurt me!" The elf girl didn't look up at the troll.
"Ah dun be hurtin yah if yah din't mean it… Ah prollah dun hurt yah even if yah did mean it. Why yah be back 'ere anahway?" The troll innocently inquired.
"The guards took my friend." Lily cried. "I didn't want to be caught too… but someone else asked me to look after my friend for them. What's your name anyway?" Lily finally looked up at the troll. The troll who stood over her was a red-haired female troll with intricately stitched robes that were many shades of purple.
"Mah name be Xainia, wha bout yah?" The troll sat down in front of Lily.
"Lily." The elf crawled forwards and peered out of the hedge. "Oh no! They're opening a portal! I'll never be able to find her!" Lily looked disheartened again.
"Yah can find 'er. Gah in dah portal." Xainia looked out of the hedge also.
"But it could go anywhere! I've never even been south of Tranquillen." Lily complained as she still shook a bit.
"Yah wanted tah help dis friend ah yahs? If yah din't yah'd not be watchin' ova em." Xainia continued as Lily struggled to decipher the troll accent.
Lily still pouted as Xainia tried to talk her down. "I did… but I didn't know she'd be getting into something like this. She tried to free that Naaru they're leading back into the square."
"But yah took alla dat up when yah offa'd tah help." Xainia looked over to the crowd of guards leading the Naaru away. "Dat definitely be sometin heroic."
Still shaking her head, Lily tried to disagree. "I'm just a common girl. Adventures like this aren't for me."
Xainia, who had been through more ordeals than anyone could explain in short, saw a bit of herself in the elf and tried to offer some advice. "Yah be whatevah yah make yahself. C'mon." The troll stood up and offered her hand. "If she tried tah free dat naaru den ah can't let 'er be hauled off eithah."
Lily took hold of Xainia's hand and was instantly pulled up as the troll ran out of the hedge and dragged her along. The common girl was still slightly hesitant, especially since this troll had so suddenly taken to helping her, but she moved along as quickly as she could. Just as the portal began to shut, Xainia jumped through it with Lily and whisked the both of them away to whatever stronghold Cin'donia had been transported to.
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Across the cavern from Ranilok on the ledge that led into the great library, a lich stood and stared across at the army that had nearly scoured the scourge from the colony.
"So… this is the killer of Anub'Ikthil. Abandon your hope. You will fail in stopping the master from controlling these faceless ones."
Responding as Neru'Rekan once had, Ranilok made the construct glare back at the lich. "Hope does not exist here, only action."
"So be it. Face our wrath… our actions." The lich retreated into the library as the faceless ones glared up, some of them partially under the control of the necromancers.
Looking at the situation, Ranilok issued orders. "I'll take the faceless ones. I should be able to destroy them."
"No, elf." The general, Neru'Delgan, stopped Ranilok. "You have power, but you are not equipped to face these creatures. You cannot let the power you have been given blind you. We will destroy these ancient enemies while you dispatch the lich."
Realizing that he was letting the power get to him, Ranilok cast aside any notion of pride and began to walk around the raised outside of the room as the spiders flooded down into the center. Using ancient spells that ran in the bloodline of the race, even the warriors were able to easily combat the chaos of the faceless ones. The necromancers attempted to fight alongside the faceless ones, but the faceless ones that were not fully controlled targeted the necromancers before the nerubians. One of the more powerful casters in the group shouted dark words in nerubian, causing the obsidian statues to close the portal and break free of their bases and attack the scourge instead. Ranilok entered the hallway to the library and looked back at how well the battle was going. It was obvious to him that he had underestimated the spiders; he would never make the mistake of being so prideful again.
As he stared out of the hallway, an arcane door suddenly formed between him and the army. Ranilok pounded on the door a few times, realizing that it would not budge even to the construct; he would have to face the lich alone. Slowly, Ranilok piloted the construct down the hallway towards the lich. As he moved, Ranilok changed the infernal into a more humanoid form to facilitate dodging the lich's spells. The elf had faced a lich years ago when he had crossed Northrend with Methuselah, so he knew what they were capable of.
"Why do you fight me? These insects pressed you into service and took who you were." A dark voice entered Ranilok's head.
"You…" Ranilok thought for a moment as he kept walking and looking about for the source of the voice. "The Lich King." The elf stopped dead in his tracks.
"Ah good, you are not completely daft." The dark voice continued.
"Where are you? I'll kill you in the name of Nerub." Ranilok called out as he looked around the hallway that surrounded him again, walking further along to search the later parts of the hall.
Laughing scornfully, the Lich King continued. "Oh I am nowhere near you… and you are nowhere near worthy of facing me. My stare would reduce your construct to dust. I can see you in there… elf."
Thinking back defiantly for the leader of the undead to see, Ranilok replied. "I don't care if you can see me. I serve Nerub and my master Neru'Rekan because it is my duty to. I have wronged the spider kingdom and I will repay them and my old friends by destroying your armies."
"Repayment? Repayment is only admitting that you are weak. I was enslaved by the legion to 'repay' them for my attempts of escape and my betrayal… but my power… my raw uninhibited power!" the Lich King yelled almost emotionally. "My power destroyed the meaning of restitution. Power is existence! If you have no power, you cease to exist. Now my powers are limitless and my existence is eternal!"
"Your point?" Ranilok shot down the undead's bravado as he had once to Neru'Rekan.
"You want power too don't you? Join me and I could grant you the power to forget the spiders and take everything that is theirs as your own." The fallen king continued.
"Your power? You don't share power… you enslave!" Ranilok stopped walking as he yelled back. "What do you want out of this anyway? Peace? You'll never have peace because your peace is when everything else is dead or controlled. You will never kill us all."
"I don't want peace, stupid elf. If there were peace, then I would be bereft of the sweet sounds of the suffering of the innocent. I would be deprived of the melody of pain and torment that I enjoy as revenge for my suffering. It is my destiny to be a scourge upon this world… no… upon the entire great dark beyond!" The voice that Ranilok had been arguing with began to rant.
"Destiny… I thought that I had a destiny once." Ranilok thought back to how he had been so short ago and then remembered what Cin'donia had said to him. Confidently, Ranilok repeated it for the Lich King. "Evil beings pile together the failures of their lives, take the opposite, and call it destiny."
Ignoring the philosophy, the Lich King continued to try and push into Ranilok's psyche. "Good and evil don't exist. Only dominance, submission, and resistance exist in this world. You can't deny that you desire power. My victory over your race couldn't have been more complete. I not only ravaged your population and lands, my actions caused your race to turn to corruption. The sorrow that I sowed into your people by taking your pitiful Sunwell corrupted every soul among you into power craving demonic zealots. If I were to offer any of your leaders enough power, they would gladly submit to me."
"That is where you're wrong. There are those among us who are not corrupt… there are even those who have given up corruption. I was a blood elf… I am one no more. My eyes shine blue and they glare hate at your very existence! Your power is a power that I would never desire!" The elf exclaimed disdainfully as he pushed the construct on into the great library of Azjol'Seraq.
"Then you are doomed… along with all of your friends and the spiders that foolishly back your efforts." The voice of the Lich King faded from the elf's mind.
The library was a circular room that was taller and wider than the feasting halls of both Nerub'Itjahz and Azjol'Seraq combined. The books and scrolls were only stored around the outside of the chamber while the floor was filled with broken stone pedestals and raised areas that had been used for reading and practicing magic. Ranilok was immediately hit with an ice bolt as he entered the room. Grunting at the cold, the elf lit up the shell and thawed himself out as he looked for where the lich was in the room.
"You will die for defying my master!" The faithful servant called as he caused a great dark circle of decay to open underneath Ranilok.
Jumping from it quickly, Ranilok used his magic to light the torches in the dark chamber and reveal the lich. "You're the only one left. What kind of chance do you think you have if we've gotten this far?" The elf tried to dishearten the lich.
"Ah, careful, careful. We can't have you burning the scrolls that I plan to use later." The lich raised an arcane shield around the shelves, not shaken by Ranilok's words. "By the way… how is it that you exist in such a shell, elf?"
Ranilok suddenly unlit the shell as he diverted all of his power to the chamber of the construct; the lich was using arcane spells to try and crush the chamber around Ranilok. Straining as he tried to utter spells quicker than the lich, Ranilok slowly established a shield around himself. During the time that he had been protecting the chamber, the lich had been busy doing other things to the construct. The great and powerful titan-like body that the shell had resembled was now nothing more than a solid pile of crystal on the ground with Ranilok inside of it.
Ranilok realized that he was no longer able to see or move the limbs of the construct as he once had. The lich was winning through superior skills in magic, something that was rare among the mindless members of the scourge. Agility had beaten the strong and thick-shelled Anub'Ikthil, but Ranilok had nothing to counter the magic of the lich.
"Do you accept defeat yet, elf?" The voice of the Lich King started back up in the elf's mind.
"Damnit!" Ranilok thought as he tried to influence the crystal but found that the lich was still suppressing any change in the crystal structure. "I have to destroy him. If I don't then he will call re-enforcements and destroy all we have worked for. I can't back down… Cin'donia would never back down." The elf noticed his spell to keep the chamber open rapidly unweaving. "This is it… I've tried so hard, is this the end?"
The elf's mind raced as he thought over all that he had done in the past months; he had gone from being a greedy and self centered blood elf to the high elf that he had once been. He had become more confident than he had been when he went to Northrend to save Methuselah, he had found a cause to serve and realized the deceptions of having power, and he had also discovered what it really meant to love someone. Ranilok knew deep down that he loved Cin'donia, he knew that love was putting the wants and concerns of the one that you love ahead of your own.
At that instant, the chamber squished shut and a small rivulet of blood bubbled from the pile of crystals on the ground. The lich walked up to the pile triumphantly and looked at his defeated enemy as both he and the lich king laughed at the foolishness of the elf. Uninterested, the lich walked away and began to cast a portal to bring in scourge from the Icecrown to destroy the nerubian army that sat outside of the door.
"Shall we follow the spiders back to their colony and wipe them out?" The lich asked his master telepathically.
"Yes, of course. This crystal that they use is intriguing… I will possess all of it." The Lich King replied greedily.
"The first sample is right here…" The lich turned back to the crystal pile but noticed that it was gone. "It was right here… was? Where is he! I saw his blood and I crushed him!" The powerful undead was on guard again as he looked for Ranilok.
"It seems that he was not as dead as you believed… destroy him or be damned in my eyes!" The Lich King's voice left his servant and waited for action.
"Come out little elf…" The lich floated around the room, looking where the pile of crystal used to be.
Suddenly, a flash of fire appeared in the center of the room as blue arcane spirals twisted around it. The core of fire in the room grew larger and mingled with the arcane shapes, which bent and began to spin around the center like rings. Soon, the ball of fire was as much taller than the lich and a humanoid form became visible in the middle of it. It was said that liches and undead could not feel fear; they had been through so much that the emotion no longer existed for them. On this day, the lich that faced the ball of fire and arcane energy in the center of the room felt complete terror at what he saw.
In the middle of a cloud of orange and red flame that was surrounded by great rings of blue arcane energies, Ranilok floated and looked down scornfully at his enemy. "I'll not forgive you. You don't have an ounce of remorse in your being, and neither does your master."
The lich tried in vain to control the energies that swirled around Ranilok, but as he tried to tap into the cloud, fire flowed back down into the lich and blew him against one of the arcane shields on the bookshelves. Ranilok quickly moved the cloud of pure fire and arcane magic towards the lich and stretched out his hand at the undead.
"Mercy! I'll serve you and only you! Together we could destroy the Lich King and rule the undead!" The lich pled for his existence.
"You'd serve any master who would give you power… the only thing that I will grant you is eternal rest." Ranilok swore as power began to coalesce at his hand.
The elf shot a direct beam of destruction at the lich. The spell cut through the lich's core and dissipated off of the arcane shields behind it. Slowly the destruction spread out across the lich's body, turning its bones to inanimate dust. The soul of the lich screamed as it flew upwards from the body, but Ranilok reached out with is other hand and trapped the soul in a globe of fire, burning the lich's essence from the world. The phylactery of the lich disappeared as the soul ceased to exist, along with all of the shielding spells the lich had cast.
Quickly flooding the tunnel at the disappearance of the door, the nerubians came to the chamber and saw the great energy ball that sat at the center. Ranilok looked back at them as the thoughts filled his head… he could overtake them, but he wouldn't. The elf could destroy the Lich King and every undead on the planet for Nerub with the power that he had found. Wouldn't they be pleased with him then? Wouldn't his masters and friends like him if he used all of this power for good? Before the Nerubians could grasp what they stared at, the fire and arcane power ceased. Ranilok slowly floated to the ground and approached the general.
"The lich is dead." Ranilok looked over himself, wondering how his body was intact after the enormous crushing weight that he had felt from the construct.
"Where is the construct?" Neru'Delgan questioned him, not seeing it around.
"Give me a moment to figure it out." Ranilok closed his eyes and concentrated on the power that had flowed through him moments ago.
A great blue light filled the chamber as a blue aura flowed from Ranilok and the shell slowly began to re-construct itself several feet behind him. After a few minutes of this spectacle, the glowing stopped and the construct was standing unharmed behind the elf.
Ranilok breathed heavily as he faced the general and pointed. "There it is."
With his jaw slacked in amazement, Neru'Delgan approached the construct and tapped on it to make sure it was real. "I will not ask what you did to make this happen, Ranilok." The spider used the elf's name as he did not often do. "It will go down in the stories of Nerub'Itjahz for generations to come."
The crowd around Ranilok let loose a thunderous cheer for him and for their own victory, lifting the elf above them and carrying him out of the room. Azjol-Seraq belonged to Nerub once again and the spiders intended to keep it that way forever. Ranilok hardly understood why the spiders would lift him high and act this way over what he had done, but he cheered with them to celebrate their victory, his victory, and his triumph over the temptations of power.