"Thank you for traveling on the Horde zeppelin service direct from Silvermoon to Brill! For those continuing on to other destinations, please check the departures notice board at the lobby."
Few had waited for the disgustingly cheery undead captain to finish her announcement before rushing to collect their belongings, filling the aisles with their grotesqueness. Since the flight had been on-continent, there were no private rooms available, and everybody had to pack themselves in with each other like sardines. It was just the sort of low class trip that one typically tried to avoid, and another reason why Zanien questioned himself yet again as to why he accepted Bunsenburger's pathetic plea.
"It's 'in' the lobby, not 'at' the lobby," he muttered under his breath as he fought his way among the unwashed masses to exit the flying vessel.
Down the stairwell and into the processing of arrivals, he just tried to tune out all the droning, sullen voices of the undead as he waited in line for his Horde identification to receive the required entry stamps. How he detested seeing his face in a gnomish-produced photograph next to an insignia that belonged to the orcs. In a world of warcraft, no people could survive for long without allies, and Zanien understood full well that the Alliance had outlived its usefulness. But of all other nations...why the Horde? Why a faction including the Forsaken? Why leaders who shared their round table with the Queen of the Damned, the fallen disgrace, the blight on their people's history?
By the time he'd passed customs and exited the central courtyard of the zeppelin station, Zanien had managed to calm himself down and acclimate to his abhorrent environs. A person of his stature traveled frequently to network, and he was no stranger to Tirisfal Glades; he just needed a few minutes in the beginning to overcome the shock of walking among a people who amounted to no more than tamed, submissive Scourge. He'd been to few places as bad, but he'd built up a tolerance over the years.
Zanien's train of thought was broken by the sight of a well-dressed, albeit undead, coachman beside the road holding up a sign with his name written on it. At first he wasn't even sure if he was reading the sign properly; so rarely did services in Horde territory function with any signs of efficiency, and long waits and delays were common. For his chartered transportation from the zeppelin station to Brill to be waiting for him on time was difficult to believe.
"Are you the warlock Zanien, sir?" the undead human asked.
A pleased smile forced its way onto Zanien's face despite his attempt to suppress it. "That I am, driver; did Bunsenburger send you?"
"Yes sir; he was very insistent that your time not be wasted."
"That my time not...hmm, I like that," Zanien allowed to slip out loud before regaining his composure. "Yes, well, my luggage is here; I take it that one of these is yours?" he asked while motioning toward several open-air wagons pulled by skeletal horses.
At that, the undead coachman chuckled awkwardly. "By the Shadow, no! Our company runs a proper transport service. We're over there." The man pointed toward a closed, proper carriage. The design was very much the Forsaken style, but the drapes covering the windows implied that the passenger would actually be able to relax on the trip.
"Well...this isn't as terrible as I'd expected," Zanien said, trying his best not to sound too positive in front of inferior life forms.
The coachman picked up the luggage without even being instructed to do so and led the way to the carriage, loading everything inside and even holding the door open like a proper peon. "Our estimated time of arrival from the zeppelin station to Dr. Bunsenburger's laboratory in the industrial district is forty five minutes," the undead man said before closing the carriage door after Zanien had entered.
"That was...shockingly easy," the warlock mused to himself once he was alone and able to kick his shoes off. He'd managed to go from the zeppelin to the skeletal horse drawn carriage without speaking to anyone other than the customs officer and the driver; there were no beggars or hucksters or general time wasters attempting to speak to him.
Once the carriage began to move, Zanien opened his briefcase, reviewing what little documentation he had in order to prepare himself for whatever nonsense he was about to witness. Had it not been for Bunsenburger's appropriate admission of fault, Zanien would never have come; even with all of his expenses paid, the trip was of little benefit for such a waste of resources. The admission, however, was what had sealed the deal; anticipation of hearing it in person was more of a motivating factor than was Bunsenburger's cry for help.
Flipping through the loose documents, Zanien pulled out the letter he'd received several weeks ago and gave it another good read.
My esteemed friend,
I hope that my letter finds you in good health. I'll get to the point: I was wrong, and now I need you help.
I realize now the folly of attempting to force something in violation of natural and magical laws. For too long I've wasted resources and time chasing this fantasy, and I might have continued doing so for longer had you not so forcefully intervened. I sit here, as I write, as a man with very little to show for my efforts.
Zanien, I proverbially throw myself at your feet. I will be asked to demonstrate what results my efforts have produced shortly; I've changed my focus entirely to a more realistic goal: to capture wild demons in Outland and more easily bind them to the will of mortal warlocks.
This is obviously not my field, but it is yours; a colleague was gracious enough to loan me a copy of your thesis on the subduing of wild felguards, Andy was thoroughly impressed. It's rare to find a mind capable of thinking so far outside of the box, and I now ask myself why I hadn't turned to your work as a source of inspiration previously.
Due to my own limited understanding, I will require assistance if I want to submit some sort of demonstrable result to our authorities here by the deadline. I don't expect that I'll a miracle or even a particularly notable result, but as long as I can show something to my superiors, I'll be in the clear. I won't mince words: I need your help, Zanien. There's nobody else possessing your expertise, and without your aid, I fear that my career may be finished.
What I'm requesting of you is your presence to review my method of keeping a captured felguard under stun lock. It's only a minor innovation to one of your standing, but it will be enough to satisfy my handlers. If you agree to come as a consultant on my methods for preventing escape back to the Nether, I'll both cover all of your travel expenses as well as credit to you the remainder of my grant as an honorarium - that's two thousand gold for what I wouldn't expect to be more than a few hours of advisory work on your part. Of course, I don't expect you to just turn around and fly all the way back on the same day either. There's a five star hotel here in town that caters to the living, and I'll gladly reserve two nights for you there.
Please consider my offer carefully. You did me a service by refusing to enable my frivolous usage of funds; if you can save my career with just two days of your time, I'll see to it that you're properly rewarded without any raised eyebrows from tax collectors.
Your desperate friend,
Freidrich Bunsenburger
"Oh you deluded fool," Zanien chuckled as he stuffed the letter back into his briefcase.
Of course such work was a minor innovation; were the undead so ignorant of the ways of truly mastering dark forces and bringing them to heel that they'd be impressed by stun locking a demonic foot soldier? Zanien could oversee such work in under half an hour. What was even better, he could use those funds that the ignorant undead doctor was offering him to support his own research into the exact method of commandeering the vision of wild imps. And the thought of a nice rest at a proper establishment, assuming that it truly did cater to the normal people of the world, was a nice addition as well.
Settling in to his seat, Zanien spent the rest of the ride reviewing his own notes, not concerning himself with whatever it was Bunsenburger wanted at all. This was a stepping stone in the warlock's own career path and nothing more; he truly didn't care about Bunsenburger's career in and of itself, though if the talking corpse proved to be a legal source of income in the future, then there was a tangible benefit in helping to keep his sham of an operation running.
Before he even knew it, the carriage came to a stop, and the familiar sound of hollow undead grunting signaled that they'd arrived. Quickly closing his briefcase of work documentation, Zanien was surprised to find the coachman already opening the door for him and left his luggage inside.
"Ensure that my luggage is delivered to this hotel which Bunsenburger told me about. I'll be staying for one night."
"Of course, sir," the coachman replied, promptly climbing back up into the driver's seat and hurrying along his way, providing Zanien a wider view of Brill's industrial area.
Forsaken territory was often a mess due to their obsession with recycling. Just like their decrepit bodies, the odd excuses for people insisted on salvaging and reusing everything they found instead of manufacturing materials from scratch. Factories for piecing together everything from wagons to cabinetry to tools abounded, producing their functional but plainly ugly wares for resale to the equally ugly citizens of this cursed nation.
Bunsenburger's compound was one of the few properties in the area to feature any grass. In between the buildings behind his walls, there was a shockingly fertile patch that almost resembled the less corrupt areas of the Ghostlands, though it was still sullied by the presence of undead soldiers and dogs practicing what appeared to be drills. Zanien only had to wait just inside the gate for another moment before Bunsenburger himself emerged from the main laboratory building to greet him.
"Zanien, you've arrived! Thank you so much," the undead quack said while offering his (thankfully gloved) hand. "Words cannot express the favor you're doing me!"
"I'll keep that in mind, then," Zanien replied, ensuring that he withheld outwardly positive comments for the sake of maintaining power in the relationship. When he didn't elaborate, Bunsenburger began rambling as he knew the doctor would.
"Yes, well, let's not lose any more time! The specimen is contained inside, if you'd be kind enough to follow me." The two of them began to walk inside the gargoyle-covered central building, passing a few putrid regiments of ghouls marching with, of all things, a Wretched in tattered clothing among them.
Immediately, Zanien bristled; he absolutely detested seeing those of his kind who'd allowed themselves to degenerate due to a lack of diligence, and as uncomfortable as he was, he felt that whoever it was probably more suited to living amongst the undead anyway. Perhaps he could suggest to his government, upon his return, that the Wretched be rounded up and send to the Forsaken...
"Hey...hey..." the former elf wheezed in what sounded more like wind passing through a tube than a proper voice. "Matero...I Matero...help brother-"
"Help yourself, 'brother,'" Zanien mumbled just before he high double doors of the laboratory shut behind them, thankfully saving him from having to think about a class of his society he liked to pretend didn't exist.
In this one case, Zanien was thankful that his foolish host was a motormouth. "We have the specimen contained just down the hall here," Bunsenburger said as they passed through a set of shorter double doors that read 'authorized personnel only.' "We haven't damaged it much, but it's no longer moving and I'm unfortunately not informed enough to know whether we should worry about the long term effects of keeping a demon stun locked."
"As even a first year apprentice could tell you, there will be permanent neurological effects if a demon is rendered unconscious enough times without being allowed to reform their bodies in the Nether," Zanien huffed, trying his best to remain cordial with such amateur questions. "But that same first year apprentice could also tell you that a demon isn't a pet; it's a minion. Their safety is not your concern; your safety is their concern. You should only worry about keeping it subdued, and about not damaging it quite enough for it to shift back into the Nether."
Like a true fraud, Bunsenburger pretended to understand. "Yes, it makes perfect sense...I'll make sure to keep that in mind." Tired of humoring the man after only a few moments of discussion, Zanien didn't bother answering and merely followed Bunsenburger through the maze-like restricted area of the lab. The halls were empty of minions and all of the doors to various miscellaneous rooms were shut. "I made sure to clear everyone else out, by the way," Bunsenburger said as they rounded a nondescript corner and entered the only open room in another long hallway. "I assumed you'd need to focus in order to provide a good assessment quickly."
"Your assumption proved correct this time, and...what?"
Zanien stopped himself once they entered the containment room. Devoid of any electrical equipment, the room's shelves were mostly empty aside from brand new enchanting and conjuration tools that warlocks were more used to using. One fel meter for measuring demonic corruption even still had a price tag on it, and Zanien was a bit flattered - for once - at the thought that Bunsenburger must have purchased brand new instruments in anticipation of his arrival.
Most striking, however, was the specimen on a mortician's table in the center of the room. Stripped of its helmet, gauntlet and boots, a real, actual felguard laid on the table. Due to the spikes that grew from its back, it had been laid on its stomach, but the demon was larger than the humans who the mortuary table had been designed for and its head dangled off just far enough to reveal the wrinkled, prune-like skin typical of its species as well as the total lack of a nose, which was new even for the warlock. Similarly, the felguard's bare feet were exposed as well. While the construction of their boots made it impossible for them to have hooves, it was still the first time that Zanien had seen one barefoot.
It also wasn't moving at all.
"It doesn't appear to be..." Zanien was about to say 'breathing,' but he stopped himself out of concern that he'd appear uninformed in front of a layman. "How long has it been unconscious for?"
Bunsenburger scratched his head like an imbecile. "Oh...maybe an hour...or two? Give or take." Even the tone of his voice was noncommittal.
"There's a bit of a difference between one hour and double that amount of time," Zanien replied while setting down his briefcase on a small desk opposite the tool-laden table. Once again, he had to stop himself before he continued; he was, after all, speaking to a layman who knew nothing about anything, and attempting to reason with him was a lost cause. "Let me take a look at what I have to work with."
Across the room, he began to inspect each of the fel measurement tools. Bunsenburger obviously had outside help to know what he needed; virtually every runed rod, arcane crystal and fel reader that a scholar of demonology would need for an advisory job was available, in addition to a set of grimoires that Zanien would have found patronizing had his host not been a hopelessly misguided idiot.
"That one is used to read the level of fel corruption," Bunsenburger said while pointing over Zanien's shoulder.
"I know what it's for," the blood elf replied tersely, just barely preventing himself from gritting his teeth as he spoke.
"Those arcane crystals were the best that the vendor could smuggle in from the Exodar."
"Arcane crystals either function or they don't; their point of origin is meaningless and having them smuggled in from Alliance territory is just a fancy way to trick rubes into paying inflated prices."
"These books here-"
"Bunsenburger!" Zanien said with a raised voice, giving the undead man pause. Counting to three inside of his mind, the blood elf had to remind himself that he was going to be compensated very well for putting up with an hour or so of annoyance, and tried to reassure his well-paying host. "Look...I need a moment to clear my thoughts and study these great instruments in order to provide you a more accurate assessment. The more detailed my assessment, the better your chances of your authorities here being impressed by your results. I'll use lots of big words, too."
For a few seconds, Zanien worried that he'd gone too far and offended the simpleton's sense of pride. After a few seconds, however, his fears were allayed.
"Do you need some coffee, them? Or a bite to eat while you work?"
"What?! You can't bring food near..." Zanien's eyes widened when he realized that he was staring at an opportunity to just get rid of the quack and provide a routine magic report in peace. "You know what? I could really use a nice coffee, as well as some roast beef. Do they have roast beef in Forsaken towns?"
"They do in Brill!" Bunsenburger replied like an excitable moron. "There's a butcher here from Orgrimmar, and a baker from Thunder Bluff on the other side of town."
"Good, that's good to know. Could you order fresh baked bread and freshly cut beef after getting some freshly ground coffee? I'm worried that the fast and easy, pre-made stuff would be of lower quality."
"Well, that might take a bit longer, but I'll see to it that we can bring you what we need." Bunsenburger tapped his foot in the floor loudly. "Hey Baba!"
The familiar footsteps of a leper gnome scampered out from the hallway and soon after the familiar sickly facial type poked into the room. Zanien was quite familiar with exploiting their labor, and was surprised to find one there in Tirisfal Glades.
"Please ensure that nobody disturbs our guest while he works. I want these halls empty! And please take Runa's cat with you!"
"Yes, master," the decrepit gnome sighed while disappearing into the hall for a second only to reappear with a horrendous undead house cat in her arms. The leper gnome promptly walked away, as she should, and disappeared totally.
Turning around one last time, Bunsenburger looked at Zanien with the sincere gratitude only capable of primitive minds. "Is there anything else you need to complete your work?" the undead quack asked one last time.
"No, thank you. Just those food items and the ability to work undisturbed."
"You've got it!" Bunsenburger said while leaving. Zanien waited until his host's footsteps drifted further and further away, only relaxing and shutting the door when he heard the main double doors of the restricted area shut far away.
"Now it's time to earn that honorarium," he chucked to himself, preparing the standard form for magical reports he tended to submit for routine jobs.
Much of the three page document would be the same in most cases, and he sat down at the desk and took his time filling it out. He had the solitude he'd asked for, and he needed to ensure that he could possibly be called in as a consultant again if Bunsenburger continued to get himself in trouble and require assistance; working as a subcontractor for a fraud could prove to be quite lucrative.
Once all the basic details were filled in, Zanien got to work studying the equipment he'd been left with. All of it was brand new and unused, which was entirely unnecessary and rather frivolous, but flattering in the sense of a higher life form being worshipped by the barely sentient. Everything had been laid out nicely for him, and he'd have an easy time simply taking some readings on a stun locked felguard and inventing some story for the report that would probably be above the heads of even many of his colleagues back at Silvermoon. As long as he could lead the Forsaken authorities to believe that an outside individual had confirmed Bunsenburger's results, then the quack would be free to doctor up some results that matched whatever Zanien wrote about rendering demons unconscious.
After unwrapping and testing out every piece of equipment, Zanien pulled a sheet of scratch paper out of his briefcase and prepared to jot down whatever pointless, irrelevant readings he could take for the sake of impressing others.
A noise caught his attention, and he turned around to scan the walls. There had been movement behind him - his long ears never failed him - and he felt uneasy remembering that he was in the land of the dead. There were probably all sorts of bugs and vermin crawling around, and he'd have to take care not to sully his new shoes. He noticed nothing, however, and went to work inspecting the felguard slumped on the table.
The specimen was certainly strange; the signs of outward injury were more severe than a simple sapping or stunning, and there were multiple scars that hadn't yet healed. Demonic regeneration was different from that of the mortal races, and typically sealed up any wounds that weren't inflicted magically. The scars on the felguard were clearly from an attack by multiple assailants wielding swords, however, and there was even dried demon blood around them. The felguard's body heat was far lower than the two hundred degrees typical for an injured or impaired demon; this one appeared to be almost...cold. Zanien was no physician, but he knew a cold body when he felt one.
Determined to figure out what sort of ice spell Bunsenburger had ordered his minions to cast, Zanien got to work taking measurements. The felguard's magic reading was far less chaotic than normal for a demon; its mana pool was enlarged beyond that of a militant class of demon, though still less than a caster's. There were no spikes in magical activity as there should be with the erratic nature of demons, but there was something...different...
Confused by the readings, Zanien turned back to the table and brought out the fel meter. The device was a combination of enchantment and a minute amount of goblin mechanics for the sake of the numerical reading. Two fel tainted prongs connected to wires formed the measuring portion, and Zanien took his time taking readings of the felled felguard. Immediately, he suspected that the device must be faulty; after taking seven separate readings, he quickly jotted down the numbers and turned back to the table, trying to make sense of it all.
The level of fel corruption in the felguard's essence was startlingly low, maybe not even that higher than Zanien's own personal reading as a blood elf warlock. The felguard was still recognizably a demon, but the reading indicated that its demon-hood - if such a term existed - had waned. Its resistance to fire magic had decreased, yet he detected a strong resistance to ice magic that was unheard of among the Burning Legion's ranks. The presence of shadow magic was curious: the felguard's resistance to shadow magic had increased only slightly, but the presence of shadow corruption was enormous, as well as the influence of another sort of corruption that Zanien didn't recognize.
"What did you cast on this thing, Bunsenburger?" Zanien wondered out loud.
One moment, he was relaxed as he asked himself the silent question. The next moment, his heart nearly jumped into his throat.
"Cast...on...cast..."
Freezing still at first, Zanien blinked his eyes hard and tried to convince himself that he was just hearing things. He guessed that he'd been at work taking readings and crunching numbers for nearly an hour, losing track of the time due to the solitude and the lack of clocks in the room. He wasn't drowsy, however, and his ears were quite perceptive.
"Cast...on...task...paltry...task...a paltry...task..."
The voice was deep like a felguard's, but almost weak, as if its throat was constricted. Sliding all the tools away from himself and turning around, Zanien noticed that the felguard had woken up.
Sitting up in the table with its back to him, the demon's shoulders sagged as it sat hunched over with poor posture. Its bare feet dangled off the table and laid limply on the floor, and the demon's head was so low that it almost wasn't visible.
"A paltry...task...dare summon...a task..."
"Bunsenburger, you incompetent twit," Zanien whispered to himself. Whatever sort of ice stun lock shadow spell they'd used to subdue the demon, it had woken up, and would probably even start healing its wounds in a moment. He couldn't have that.
Knowing that the experiment was a failure no matter what, Zanien bit down on his anger over the most likely lost honorarium and counted the seconds for casting his enslave demon spell. The felguard appeared groggy like a mortal after waking, likely a result of some sort of residual stun effects. Now was his time to strike.
"May you be enslaved," Zanien sighed resentfully, conjuring fel chains that began to orbit around the felguard and slowly close in on its motionless body.
And then the chain stopped spinning around, fell limp and dematerialized.
"What the...?" Zanien whispered to himself again, keeping quiet and absolutely confounded as to how it had resisted his spell. He'd ensaved dreadlords and terror fiends with his spell before; how was this foot soldier resisting?
"Want...slave...paltry slave...for a paltry task..."
The demon sounded even crazier than their kind usually did, mumbling slowly as if there was some sort of a coming storm on the horizon. Not wanting to see if its slurred speech and sluggish body would become more active, Zanien prepared himself to simply get rid of it.
"I banish you back to the Twisting Nether!" he said a little louder, firing a green beam out of his hand and toward the felguard. He then gasped in outrage as the banish beam fizzled out before it even reached its target.
At that point, the felguard took notice and stepped off the mortuary table. Its posture was slouched and completely lacking the usual taut, tense readiness of the Legion's front line. Swinging its head around in a jerky movement like the undead house cat earlier, the demon accidentally knocked the table aside as it appeared to scan the room visually. There was something wrong with it...it was as if the demon had been affected by drugs, yet their constitutions typically flushed such substances out rather quickly. None of what Zanien was witnessing made any sense.
He had no time to weigh his options for subduing the specimen, however; snapping its upper body almost backwards, the demon faced him with its noseless visage. The fel green glow similar to his own had disappeared from its eyes, leaving instead a strange, pale blue glow in its place. The demon's mouth hung open in a strange circle, like a hobgoblin breathing through its mouth, though Zanien heard no breathing.
"Alright, I've had quite enough of this!" he growled as he rubbed a trinket on his finger to immediately trigger the summoning of his own felguard. "Nurlash, correct Bunsenburger's incompetence!"
In an instant, a demonic cube of purple light opened on the ground and his felguard rose out of it. Almost an exact physical copy of the dazed specimen before him, his minion stood tall with proper poster and battle stance, expertly wielding its twisted blade as it stood at the ready...and then faltered.
"What is your bidding, mas...Nether, what the hell is that?" Nurlash asked, visibly startled at the sight of the other, less imposing felguard.
Zanien's anger was immediately directed toward the insolence of his own minion. "It doesn't matter, just kill it!" he shouted, confounded as to why a bound demon would hesitate.
As if his blood couldn't boil anymore, Zanien folded his arms over his chest and tapped his foot as Nurlash raised its blade only to lower in and frown in disgust and confusion. "A paltry task...ugh...Nether take you," Nurlash said after Zanien magically pressed onto its psyche, causing it a measure of neurological pain and bringing it to heel.
Pale blue eyes shot open wide, and the jerky movement of the dazed felguard startled Nurlash just before striking. "A paltry...task?" the deranged demon asked as it leaned forward in an odd, moronic manner at its racial compatriot.
Without tensing up its muscles at all or giving any visual indication of its intent, the deranged felguard lunged. Nurlash was caught off guard, but was still a demon; its reflexes were fast and its awareness beyond that of its race's mortal progenitors. Unfortunately, it was so trained in conventional martial warfare that it hadn't accounted at all for the possibility that its fellow felguard would huddle into its chest like a scared child before biting onto its jugular vein.
"Die!" Nurlash growled as it brought down its blade, finally unhinged enough to show his demonic fury, but only after what appeared to be half of its neck had been torn out and disgustingly chewed up. Nurlash stabbed the other felguard in the heart with its sword, cracking ribs both front and back as the tip of the blade impaled the other felguard's chest.
Tainted blood gushed from Nurlash's neck like a fountain as the deranged felguard stuck its fingers into the gaping wound. Unsure of how to fight an opponent clawing at it like a schoolgirl, Nurlash twisted the blade inside of the deranged demon's chest, slicing an even wider wound as the sword was pulled out with absolutely no blood at all.
"Hurk!" Nurlash gurgled as the other felguard finally stuck its hands deep enough into its throat to pull one of its vertebrae out, paralyzing it and sending it to the floor where it disintegrated back to the Nether immediately. Zanien was not impressed.
"So you're a wild one, are you? It seems I'll have to do this myself!" Rubbing his second trinket - a copy of the first - Zanien felt the drag on his mana pool as he brought his voidwalker into the world.
"Send me back!" the gaseous blue cloud demanded as it smoked into being.
"No, now distract this thing while I kill it!" Zanien ordered while he prepared a spell to toast the bizarrely less fire resistant demon.
The voidwalker looked at Zanien with more resentment than it did at the felguard. "Your will...be done," it said before turning to its opponent. "May your sould be nothing but torment!" it hissed as it shot vines of shadows out from its palm. The vines wrapped around the felguard, assaulting its psyche and very being with a mental pain that would cause mortal and demon alike to focus all their rage on the blue cloud of pure agony.
Except the felguard didn't seem to care. Ignoring the voidwalker entirely, it stared at Zanien with its hollow eyes, the gross wound in its chest hanging open with no signs of demonic healing. "Paltry...master...a paltry...master..." it droned at him while reaching forward with one of its bloody hands.
"This has gone on long enough!" the warlock yelled while sending a blast of hellfire straight at the outstretched hand. Sure enough, the acrid odor of burned flesh filled the air, along with a putrid stench of rot that was common for mortal corpses. The felguard didn't react at all, its silhouette remaining still through the flames and the dark vines of agony.
With its arm still on fire and atrocious flesh dripping onto the floor, the felguard lunged again. "A paltry task!" it growled in its warped, choked voice, grabbing ahold of Zanien's cloak with its flaming hand.
"Argh!" he grunted as he tore his own flaming cloak off, throwing it in the demon's face. Jumping and rolling across the floor, Zanien tried to catch his breath at the other side of the room, choking on smoke as he yelled at his voidwalker. "Attack you-"
"Waaaa..." the voidwalker hissed in a gradually disappearing voice. Zanien didn't see what had occurred; he only turned around to see his voidwalker fade away and the deranged felguard standing where it had been, the flesh of its right arm seared off to the point where the individual muscle groups were discernible.
The deranged felguard cocked its head sideways, held its skinless arm out and began lurching toward him in those unnerving, jerking movements again. Trying to use his trinkets again, Zanien found that they were unresponsive and his mana pool was drained after summoning two minions in rapid succession. Counting the seconds, he realized that he wouldn't have enough time to summon anything except for his imp before the demonic abomination reached him and sufficed for an escape plan.
The purple cube appeared on the floor in front of him, rotating more quickly than with the other demon's due to the lower rank of the minion involved. Sweat beat down his brow as the felguard lurched even closer to his corner of the room, its blank expression never changing even as it reached for him-
"Stop!" he yelled as the felguard grabbed him by the hand, just barely disrupting his cast at the very end but not quickly enough to prevent the imp from being summoned behind it. What the felguard did have time for, however, was to yank Zanien over toward it and bite a chunk of flesh out of his hand.
Zanien screamed, both in anger and agony as a surprisingly low amount of pain shot up to his wrist. The bite was clean and smooth, and there wasn't any phantom pain as he pulled away and fell into the desk behind him. The blood was frightening, however, and he started to drain the life of the felguard before even running away in an attempt to heal his hand. Rather than the cool soothing feeling that numbed his pain and regrew lost flesh per the usual, Zanien suddenly felt sick to his stomach, his scream stopped by gagging as nausea took over and his hand - instead of regenerating - simply scarred over sans the missing chunk of meat.
"Burn, zombie, burn!" the imp cackled as it blasted the felguard's back with flames. The enemy demon didn't even move or wince in pain, but quickly turned around and grabbed the imp before it had a chance to run. "It's eating my brains!" the imp squeaked before babbling, gagging and falling still, its death unviewable from Zanien's vantage point in a corner. The felguard groaned deep in its throat, like a dwarven miner receiving a draenei massage at the end of the day.
Anger boiled up into Zanien's throat like acid reflux, slowly being pushed out of his mouth in the form of dirty words. All of it was draining out of him faster than he could hold on to its power, scaring him as a realization slowly dawned: his hands were shaking. His heart was pounding. His bladder was pressing against his stomach. Feeling his teeth clatter, he fled the room as the felguard devoured his imp, running through the corridor and trying to open the first door he found.
"Demons are not zombies!" he shouted back down the hall at his own insolent minion, kicking the first door in anger when it wouldn't open. His hand still hurt with every rapid heartbeat, and he cussed up another storm when he felt the deformed indentation of the flesh that wouldn't regenerate from the wild felguard's life force.
The noises back down the hallway stopped, and Zanien continued running, trying to get a head start since the felguard didn't sound like it was following him. Turning a corner in the maze that was the restricted area, he passed multiple doors in both sides, every twist and turn looking exactly the same. Panic set in as he remembered that the lab and appeared to be mostly closed with any decorations or furniture moved out - whether for renovations or maintenance didn't matter when he was running for his life, but he realized that he was alone.
After the fifth locked door, Zanien tried to catch his breath. Not a sound could be heard, but he couldn't feel his mana pool refilling itself - he was still in combat. Pulling out a single flask of mana potion, he chugged it too quicky, feeling the noxious liquid mix with the nausea he'd already felt after draining the wild felguard's life. A second form of panic settled in when his stomach gurgled; if he vomited up the mana potion, he'd metaphysically lose his mana along with it. There was no time to think, only to act; finding that both of his trinkets hadn't reset yet, he began summoning his felguard for a second time, knowing that it would be healed after the last fight. The purple cube appeared on the floor beneath him, rotating slowly as the full casting time came into effect.
"A paltry task a paltry task a paltry task a paltry task a paltry task-"
"Yeaaargh!" Zanien yelled, interrupting his own cast as the jerky, uncoordinated lug of a demon snuck up on him so silently that it tore one of his cloth pauldrons off.
Running down the hallway without even thinking, he became confused when he didn't hear the demon chasing him. He rounded the first corner he found, screaming once again when his peripheral vision showed that it was right directly behind him but running without creating any sound at all.
"Noooo!" he yelled again, his voice echoing as the decrepit demon finally grabbed ahold of his robes, pulling him to the ground. Rather than violently beating him or slamming him against the wall like a normal felguard, it tried to pull at his hair and ears like a child in a playground tussle, dragging him back toward it. Looking up, Zanien realized that he had ended up right in front of the two double doors that led out to the unrestricted zone of the laboratory.
He bent his back upward so swiftly that he felt the muscles tear, but his fear had pushed him beyond thinking at that point. Reaching for the doorknob, he saw his salvation drift away as the deranged, bloodless felguard pulled him back by the ears. Pulled into a bear hug by the demon corrupted by something other than the fel, Zanien shouted for help for the last time as the two double doors were stained with blood.
