"Molten Core Lava Cakes"
The search for booze was easy. Especially when you live on the fringe and keep company with scoundrels and Blood Elves. And it was easier for Rumer to pretend her purpose was to get drunk rather than face the possibility her sister really had abandoned her.
If she weren't in such dire, sweaty straits, her body temperature rising and her brain swooning from withdrawals, she would have given her last breath just inside the entrance and given up on reaching Stormwind. But knowing a tavern was somewhere within the mountain depths was enough to push her through the last bit of tunnel and into the center of the Molten Core.
This vast pool of bubbling fire and liquid earth gurgled from deep within and scorched everything including the air. Rumer stared across the orange pool to the entrance of the quarry and Black Rock Depths. The only thing between her and the Grim Guzzler was a giant, steel linked chain. It must have supported a bridge at one time but, from the looks of it, the stone walkway had either been purposefully destroyed to keep faction raids from finding out what Ragnaros was up to or to keep the Dark Iron Dwarves trapped in servitude.
Either way, the only way she was getting to that tavern and essentially out the other side of Black Rock Mountain was across that chain.
Many a foolish treasure-seeker had tried to traverse the steel support links. If their leather boots hadn't melt on contact, they would have eventually lost their balance and plummeted to their deaths in molten lava. Rumer looked down and imagined the pool, instead of fire and brimstone, a decadent fountain of hot fudge. One of her favorite desserts was most certainly a molten lava cake. She'd only had it once before; a specialty of Stormwind's renowned baker, Thomas Miller, the delicious chocolate cake had been part of the celebration dinner for SI:7 graduates the year before her father had been executed. Ebon had attended the ceremony with Master Shaw and even made a speech. For the life of her, Rumer couldn't remember what he he'd talked about, but she remembered the thick, warm fudge oozing like lava from inside a chocolate cake shell.
Now as she looked over the expanse of the Molten Span, her foot teetering on the remaining stone ledge, she envisioned herself diving into the pool of chocolate lava and indulging to her heart's content. It would have been sweeter than any alcohol she could hope to find on Azeroth in so many ways. For once, her senses wouldn't be numbed and instead fully alive and in bliss.
This wasn't chocolate though, she had to remind herself and, if she wasn't focused, one wrong step and she'd be boiled alive.
Luckily, her balance had always been good, and despite her long, muscular limbs, she was agile, quicker than a mistsaber and just as sure on her feet. A lifetime of scampering through tree limbs, scaling walls, and traversing narrow ledges had given her an advantage over most of the other races on Azeroth—stocky Dwarves, clunky-hooved Draenei, even the more proportionately-built Humans—though that small consolation seemed to disappear as she took her first steps across the chain.
Rumer kept her gaze about ten feet in front of her and made it halfway across the chain when a drop of sweat rolled into her eye. Blinded and eyeball stinging, she lost her center and wobbled precariously over the edge of the steel links, one foot slipping, the other, toes gripping, for control. For once, glad the soles of her boots were so threadbare, she righted herself, and jetéd across the remaining length of the makeshift bridge.
Tumbling off the end of the chain, she paid a silent prayer to the solid ground beneath her feet and descended further into the depths of Black Rock Mountain.
It was easy enough to circumvent the Dark Iron Dwarves working in the quarry. Their bloody red eyes seemed glazed and focused on the task at hand, and their bodies moved as if driven by a motor they didn't control. She didn't even need to slip into stealth mode. Not that she felt up to it anyway. It took too much concentration, something of which she didn't have at the moment.
Around the bend, she spied the entrance to the protected stronghold and found herself in a giant cavernous room. There was no place to hide, no shadows to meld into. Just a reddish glow, a few piles of rocks, and a darkened corridor on the far side leading deeper into evil Dwarf territory. A few steps into the room and, as if on cue, a group of devilish, fire-glowing hounds led by a surly hound master entered from the corridor and made their way around the outskirts.
Patrol, Rumer thought. A timed circuit to keep strangers, raiders, and alcoholic rogues from infiltrating the underground city. A few crème-filled dogs and one pre-programmed Dwarf was no match for her poisoned blades. If she'd been at her full wits, she would have just melded into the walls and skirted around them out the other side, but killing them before they could strike seemed more logical. At least that way, they wouldn't be able to sneak up on her later.
Yes, a barrage of poison-tipped stars and a dagger's blade to the beard-hidden throat was all that was needed. In a matter of seconds, their bodies stained the floor, and Rumer hurried for the corridor before the next patrol was released.
It was much darker here, the tunnel lit with only a few flaming sconces drilled into the stone, and damper as the floor sloped down into the mountain. The air chilled her skin as her sweat evaporated.
On either side, carved into the walls at regular intervals were prison cells with iron gates. Any number of wretched creatures, dead or alive, could be holed up in them. It was best to just keep moving, not attract attention, and be on the lookout for any more deranged patrol units.
"Psst," a dry, cracked hiss escaped.
Rumer spun around to face the voice and saw only an empty expanse of black behind a prison cell. She bared a dagger nonetheless.
"I'm the one trapped, and you need a weapon for protection?" the voice asked.
It belonged to a female, as near as she could tell, though she didn't rule out an effeminate Blood Elf either.
"Are you going to get me out of here, or what?" the hidden voice continued.
Rumer stepped closer to the cell door, and a face appeared.
"Night Elf," Rumer stated, surprised.
"I'd ask if you've never seen one before, but that would be stupid." In the ancient Darnassian language, the prisoner added, "Elune-Adore."
Rumer scoffed. "I don't pray to Elune. And I don't stick my neck out for Night Elves either."
"We're not the most forgiving lot, I'll give you that," the female prisoner said. "But it's kind of hard to forget where you come from."
"No, it's not. I haven't stepped foot in Darnassus in over ten years. And if I did, I'd be dead before I reached Warrior Terrace."
The Night Elf made a noise as if she understood, then added, "My name's Kthae, but you can call me K. So are you going to get me out of here, or what?"
"Why should I? You're probably in there for a good reason."
K sighed. "Well, technically I did let my whole raid team die."
"Yeah. Like I'm really going to trust you not to kill me the moment I open this door."
"You're an assassin, am I right, I'm just a healer. A weakened one at that. I've only stayed alive this long because I've been able to kill rats with a Moonfire spell and eat them."
Rumer gagged. "Yuck."
"Exactly," she said. "Besides you're sick. And I can heal you."
"I'm not sick."
"I can smell it from here. You have a fever. You're weak. You can't stealth, you can't shadow meld, and you certainly can't reach the Grim Guzzler by yourself."
"How do you know that's where I'm going?"
"You're an alcoholic, aren't you? You reek of it. If you don't get a drink soon, you'll probably die. Do you even know how to get there?"
Ignoring her last question, Rumer said, "Why would I trust you? You let your team die."
"They deserved it. But you…you have an agenda. There's something you need to accomplish and it's not in Black Rock Depths."
"And if you think saving your ass is it, you're wrong."
"You'll never make it to the Grim Guzzler. I give you another ten minutes, less if you have to fight, before you pass out and wind up in one of these cells. At which time you will be of no use to me."
"I'm fine."
"You're ready to keel over. Now get me out of here, and I'll fix you."
"With what? You're weakened Moonfire? No thanks. I'd rather live."
As Rumer began to walk away, K said, "You've got nine minutes now. Good luck."
There was a shuffling sound and the imprisoned healer sank back into the shadows of her cell.
The last thing Rumer needed was another Night Elf tagging along, one who could really be a bounty hunter posing as a prisoner just waiting to be freed then take the rogue back to Darnassus and collect her reward. Though if she wasn't mistaken, K's facial tattoos were that of a nature-loving tree-hugger and her eyes amber, the color of a practicing druid. She herself had never been initiated and as such didn't have tattooed eyes, making her all the more recognizable. Still, it was disconcerting that K could smell the fever and the alcohol, or lack thereof, on her.
Besides, it was over a decade ago that Ebon had been executed and a warrant was put out for Rumer and Whisperra's capture. Surely, it wasn't still active, and surely no one still alive even cared. All the same, it was best not to make herself known to anyone.
As her conscience contemplated whether to free K from prison, a fireball crackled through the air and narrowly missed singeing Rumer's hair. Backing against the stone corridor, she spied a group of Dark Iron Dwarves accompanied by a gaggle of living flame creatures and a few devil dogs standing guard several yards away. She flattened herself as much as possible and tried to vanish, but the effort left her dizzy and nauseated.
The hounds must have picked up her scent the same way K did because the next thing she knew, they were snarling and barking and racing toward her. Straightening, Rumer bared her daggers and braced for the onslaught. As each dog pounced, she thrust her blades into necks, bellies, and jaws until she was covered in blood and fur, scratches and bite marks. Fireballs, still being hurtled toward her, burned her nose with the stench of charred hound meat.
A few acrobatic ducks, tucks, and rolls, and she managed to narrowly escape the never-ending barrage of flameballs, but it was the stocky-legged sword-wielding Dwarf she hadn't seen coming. A less-than-sharpened sword edge gouged along her torso, tearing her only shirt.
Rumer gritted her teeth and groaned as scary as any warrior's battle cry.
The leather jerkin, epaulets, and superhero cape had all been systematically disrobed as her fever had climbed higher since stepping foot in Searing Gorge.
"You're wounded!" Grasping her hands around the prison cell bars, Kthae called to Rumer. "Stand still. I'll throw you some heals!"
"Kind of hard when I've got Grumpy Dwarf trying to hack me to pieces, but I'll try."
Rumer positioned herself to receive the Dwarven beast's attack right in front of K's prison cell. Her right side was gaping in jagged cuts, fresh blood oozed down her torso and stained around the rips in her tunic. K threw down a magical seed out of which grew a giant mushroom, swirling with green fungi fumes.
"Stand in the green swirls. It will staunch the bleeding."
But it was too late. She'd already lost a lot of blood and the gash was probably already infected between the dirty, rusty blade of the sword and the filthy, sweaty flesh of the Night Elf assassin. She felt a swoon coming on but not one that would end with a handsome stranger catching her and falling hopelessly in love with her. No, with her track record, she'd end up being run over by a traveling merchant's cart before anyone thought to roll her out of the way.
The Dark Iron Dwarf came again, along with some more pesky fireballs from his flaming minions several yards back. The guard was a good couple of feet shorter than her, the highest his swing could reach would be just under her breasts. Refusing to lose her best assets, she coated a stack of throwing stars with Instant poison and flung them out in a fanlike fashion. The Dwarf's obviously over-compensating sword deflected one of the sharpened stars, lodging it right back into Rumor's upper arm.
Killed by her own Instant Poison. There should be a warning on the label—don't get yourself infected. She could feel it thickening her blood as it trailed through her veins. Her limbs became heavier, her breath labored, even her brain was being enshrouded in black smog.
Next time a Night Elf druid offers to heal you before you get killed with your own weapon, she thought, take her up on it.
"K," she called out feebly, still managing to maneuver out of the Dwarf's reach.
"Hang on. I got this."
But her vision blurred and everything turned a sickly color before her eyes. She swung at the Dwarf but he'd already slipped around her by the time her dagger had thrust the air. "Everything's green. I can't see."
"Shut up and breathe."
Rumer didn't know which was more painful, being told to shut up or breathing into a wound that was congealing with poisoned blood, but she did as she was told because it might just be her last breath and it actually smelled like her forest home after a fresh spring rain. This wasn't exactly how she'd planned on dying—she thought it'd be more at the hands of someone else's stupidity rather than her own—and the thought of never seeing Pasha again started her eyes swelling. And then she thought about all the things that would never happen: she'd never find out if her sister was dead or alive, she'd never get to confront Mathias Shaw about his role in her father's execution, never see him gasp his last breath as she slit his throat for signing the orders. Never see Captain Brightsun's handsome face again.
"What are you waiting for?" K hissed from inside her cell. "You're healed. Fight!"
Rumer looked down at her arm to see the Instamatic poison wound was nothing more than a pale pink scar, and the jagged tear of flesh on her torso was already closed and healing. Before she could even acknowledge that her vision had returned and her breathing had steadied, she saw the Dark Iron Dwarf catapulting toward her like a kamikaze warrior.
Instinctively, Rumer rolled back with the Dwarf until she was fixed on top of him then plunged her dagger into his gut and twisted. The flaming minions, somehow magically tethered to the Dwarf, disappeared in a puff of smoke as their master expired on the ground.
"What took you so long? I thought I was going to have to drink a potion."
Oh, right. The druid had saved her life. Now she was going to keep her end of the bargain.
A few twists at the tumblers and the lock was picked. Rumer swung open the cell door. "You saved my life. Now I'm saving yours." She stepped aside and let the druid out, who looked cautiously down one end of the corridor then the other.
With a heave, K said, "That was tough. I'm exhausted. Time for a drink."
"Are you kidding me? I'm the one who did all the work. I almost died."
"Do you know how hard it was to keep you alive? I'm surprised you've lived this long all alone."
Rumer pouted. "I'm sick."
"Nothing a little drink won't fix." K winked then asked, "You coming?"
No harm in having a companion who didn't actually try to get her to stop drinking the way Pasha did, so she accepted this new quest.
"Only if you admit that sick or not, I kicked that Dwarf's ass."
Grinning, K led the way toward the Grim Guzzler.