Demons, Callista decided, after long contemplation on the matter, had no sense of décor.
They had been walking for hours, but this section of corridor looked identical to the one in which they'd found their new companions, which looked exactly the same as every other passage they'd tramped down since they'd first fled through that portal. Dusty red stone, black rune-marked steel, and all the hallmarks of abandonment and decay everywhere. Callista was no great lover of nature, but she was beginning to miss the sky.
"We have come far enough," Nerothos announced, halting abruptly. He turned to face the mortals trailing behind, reddish light gleaming off his broken horn and the tips of his claws.
Callista shrugged indifferently. She had no idea why Nerothos had picked this place to rest above any of a thousand other identical ones, but she was tired of walking and too hungry to argue.
"This be no place to defend," Na'rii muttered quietly, inspecting their surroundings with a practiced eye. It was true. There was little cover here beyond a few low piles of cracked stone, and they could be easily approached from either direction down the poorly-lit passageway. Normally she would've protested, but she was wary of the dreadlord, and unsure where the allegiances of the human and the gnome lay.
Kar'thol didn't seem to share her hesitance, plopping his massive weight down with a thud in the center of the corridor. The gnome eyed Kar'thol uneasily before settling down himself well out of the ogre's reach. Na'rii repressed a chuckle. She didn't think she blamed the gnome for his caution. Kar'thol was quite large, towering even over the dreadlord, and the gnome was very small and rather plump. If Kar'thol had belonged to a slightly more barbarous tribe he might've considered the gnome to be a tempting snack. For that matter, she might've as well, she thought with a wicked grin.
"Who wants first watch?" Callista asked practically, dropping to the floor beside Tun. He had already begun tracing complicated sigils in the air as he conjured food and water for the party.
"Me and the gnome first watch. You and Kar'thol second," Na'rii said, crouching warily at Kar'thol's side and watching Nerothos out of the corner of her eye. She trusted the strangers enough to see where they led, but not enough to let them guard her sleep.
"Fine with me," Tun said with a shrug, beginning to pass out loaves and flasks of water. He wouldn't have been terribly keen on the idea of leaving the troll and ogre alone on watch. He had never met a member of either race before, but some of the stories…
Callista yawned hugely. "Agreed then." Tun handed her a loaf of bread and she dug in with enthusiasm. Most mages' conjured food tasted like nothing more than anything, but Tun had a particular knack for it. His bread actually tasted like something baked.
Kar'thol downed his portion in two bites, but Na'rii sniffed cautiously at her loaf before nibbling off a corner.
Callista grinned at her reluctance. "Don't worry, it isn't poisoned. The Academy doesn't teach tricks that dirty. Far too stodgy."
Tun rolled his eyes at the warlock's comment. "Just because some institutions still have some integrity…"
Callista snorted derisively. "Oh, please."
"You're just still sore that they expelled you," Tun said, fastidiously brushing a stray crumb from the front of his robes. "You know, if you'd only tried a little harder…"
Callista laid back and threw an arm over her eyes. "Oh, don't start this again," she muttered.
Na'rii looked curiously between Callista and Tun, yellow eyes bright. She'd been wondering if the human and the gnome had met in this dungeon or known each other before, and that seemed to settle it. Apparently this was an old argument.
Kar'thol laughed crudely, shifting his huge bulk to a more comfortable position on the stone floor. "Warlock get kicked out? Haaahaha."
Callista moved her arm to peer at him through one eye. "It wasn't my fault," she said defensively. "The Archmagi have no sense of scientific inquiry."
Tun glared sternly at her. "There is nothing at all scientific about setting half the scullery on fire."
"Jarved and I were investigating the effects of fermented grain on the metabolic processes of non-Azerothian races. Perfectly legitimate."
Seeing Na'rii and Kar'thol's blank looks, Tun translated with a sigh. "The idiots wanted to see if demons could get drunk."
Na'rii snickered and cocked her head, causing the small bones braided into her purple hair to clack together softly. She was vaguely interested despite herself. "Well, mon? What did ya find?"
"Inconclusive," Callista said, lip quirking slightly. "At first we thought yes, but then we realized Tarnik might just be pretending so he could set the grounds on fire."
"Idiots," Tun muttered again, shaking his tousled head of green hair. Granted, Callista and her friend had been quite young at the time, especially by gnomish standards, but sometimes he wondered if the warlock's judgment had improved at all in the decade since.
Callista yawned and stretched, hooking her elbow once again over her eyes. She chuckled slightly at Tun's abuse. "If we're done dredging up my disgraceful past, I'm going to sleep."
"Ha. I suppose," Tun said, turning half around so he could see down the passage as well as keep an eye on their traveling companions. Nerothos was standing a few paces away with his back to the group. The spread of his leathery wings made him look larger than he really was, and Tun gave him a distrustful look.
Na'rii noticed his expression and was heartened by it. If he wasn't a friend of the dreadlord, then he might, conceivably, be a friend of hers.
At her side, Kar'thol's blocky head drooped slowly onto his chest, his eyes closing. The human woman appeared to be asleep already, chest rising and falling evenly. Na'rii watched her for a moment longer, pointed ears pricked for the sound of anything approaching down the corridor. She didn't like warlocks. The magic they wielded was unnatural and destructive, and many of them were no less cruel than the demons they enslaved. Trusting one, however slightly, was what had landed her in this mess. The human seemed pleasant enough at first impression, but that didn't necessarily make her reliable.
Na'rii leaned her lanky form casually against Kar'thol's bulk, in a way that gave her a clear view of both the gnome and the dreadlord. She would hear any enemies long before she saw them in the untrustworthy light of the passage. Better, for now, to keep an eye on her allies.
Callista woke to Tun's prodding, sitting up and rubbing crankily at a sore spot in her side. At some point in her sleep she had rolled over onto a piece of stone that seemed to have been shaped deliberately to gouge into her ribs.
Now she sat cross-legged on the hard floor of the corridor, flicking idly at small red pebbles. She knew for a fact that Nerothos was the only demon about, and she was bored. She craned her head over her shoulder to look at the ogre. Kar'thol was his name? He was nearly twice her height, whatever he was called, with a huge potbelly. Callista had never been so near to an ogre before. The ones on Azeroth were not very friendly, at least not to her people, and she had never encountered any of the more enlightened breed on Outland.
She regarded Kar'thol with interest. Brightly-patterned tribal tattoos adorned his face and arms, and his meaty hand rested warily on his runed chunk of metal. His beady eyes were focused on Nerothos, who was ignoring the ogre entirely. She wondered idly which would win in a fight, and decided it would probably be the dreadlord. Ogres were as vicious and strong as any demon, but they weren't exactly the sharpest swords in the armory.
Callista stretched and turned her attention back to the corridor. It was shaping up to be a boring watch, though she could hardly complain.
Her idle musings were interrupted by a sudden loud thud.
Callista leapt to her feet and whirled around in alarm. Kar'thol was lying supine in the middle of the passageway, eyes closed and a contented expression on his blunt features, very much asleep. Callista scowled, fighting a growing feeling of dread. When she looked more closely she could see a thin green mist curling about his face. There was no sign of Nerothos.
She slipped a hand into her robes and grabbed hold of a soul shard, muttering an incantation under her breath. A column of felfire blazed from the ground, and a snarling felhunter appeared amidst the flames.
"That won't be necessary." Nerothos had somehow gotten behind her, and she startled, spinning around to face him. He sounded cruelly amused.
"What are you doing, dreadlord?" she demanded coldly, trying not to appear unnerved. From the corner of her eye, she could see that Tun and Na'rii had also fallen victim to his cursed sleep. Oh, this did not bode well at all. The felhunter, Jhormug, padded over to her side, lowering his jaw to reveal several rows of serrated teeth.
Nerothos appeared not to notice the implicit threat. "I require your assistance," he said, eyes glowing with an eldritch light. His voice was smooth, but there was steel in it. It was a command, not a statement.
"And what if I don't care to assist?" Callista snapped, crossing her arms stubbornly. She had a rather clear idea where this was going, but that didn't mean she had to be pleasant about it.
Nerothos stepped close, ignoring Jhormug's warning snarl. Callista laid a hand on the felhunter's neck, more for her own reassurance than for his. Nerothos smiled maliciously. "I doubt that the gnome would be pleased to learn how his dwarven friend met his end. Nor, I think, would our new allies take kindly to such a traitorous creature in their midst."
The irony of his words was not lost on Callista.
"Blackmail?" she said, thoroughly unsurprised. "How artless."
"I find it has a certain raw charm," Nerothos said, smile growing ever more predatory. "A pity you aren't in a position to appreciate it."
Clearly. Callista sighed in resignation, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "What do you want?"
"I am looking for something. A demon. You will help me find it."
The angle of the light made the scars on his chest stand out in sharp relief, and Callista wondered again why the dreadlord had been imprisoned on this world. She looked up at him, raising a brow. "I thought you said these passages were abandoned."
"Did I?" Nerothos said, the barest hint of mockery in his tone. "How remiss."
Callista stifled the urge to roll her eyes. Lies. From a demon. Imagine that.
"Let's get this over with," she said wearily.
Nerothos laughed in his sinister fashion at her put-upon expression. "Come now, warlock, no need to look so tragically inconvenienced. Serve well, and you may even survive this venture."
"Really?" Callista said killingly, looking up at him wide-eyed. "How perfectly generous of you."
If her sarcasm had any effect on him, she was sure she didn't notice.
Two or three hours later, Callista could only conclude that Nerothos had not lied as egregiously as he'd thought he had.
They'd trekked through what felt like miles of stairwells and cross passages, but found nothing living besides themselves, and nothing dead that looked as though it had been so for less than a hundred years. Callista was beginning to wish she'd brought her felhunter. The creature's heightened senses might have been useful. But Jhormug had been left behind to guard her sleeping companions, with instructions to dispel Nerothos' enchantments if enemies neared. She fervently hoped that didn't become necessary. The explanations on her return would be horrendously awkward.
"Are you sure these walls aren't warded?" Callista asked with no real hope.
"Yes," Nerothos said shortly, flapping his wings once in irritation. Even the dreadlord's considerable patience was wearing thin. This was proving more difficult than he had anticipated.
Callista sighed and rubbed her temples with her fingertips. All this useless searching, both physical and through spell work, was giving her a headache. She thought her pupils might shine green permanently after this.
She leaned against the rough stone of the passage wall, reaching out with her magic to conduct a perfunctory search of the area. Just as she was about to give it up as another failure, she sensed something. She narrowed her eyes. Whatever it was wasn't strong, but, considering the intervals of her search, it was much, much closer than it should've been.
Nerothos noticed her expression immediately and snarled, digging his clawed fingertips into her arm and yanking her close to his face. "Where?" he demanded of a rather alarmed Callista.
"Right and down," she ground out, trying unsuccessfully to peel his fingers from her arm.
"I want it dead or alive, but not incinerated, warlock," he growled, half dragging her in the direction of the nearest stairwell.
Callista scowled and cursed fluently as he released her with a small shove. Oh, she was sick of this creature.
Nerothos fairly flew down the stone steps, Callista trailing at his heels. She followed not out of any compulsion to help, but because she had the natural directional sense of a drunk dwarf with a bag on his head. She hadn't the faintest clue how to find her way back to the others now.
Callista jumped the last three steps, skidding to a halt at the bottom of the stairs. Nerothos had already seized hold of something small and wriggling, and now he jabbed his claws through its neck with almost surgical precision, watching dispassionately as it gurgled out its last breaths trapped in his grip.
When he was sure it was dead, he began rifling through its pockets and bags. On closer observation, Callista noted the flat, almost featureless face and clawless fingers that marked the dead demon as one of the gan'arg.
Nerothos found what he'd been after, grasping what looked to Callista like a small glass bauble delicately in his claws and holding it up to his face for inspection. Apparently satisfied, he closed his fist tightly around it. When his hand opened again it was gone, though Callista couldn't tell if he'd caused it to vanish through magic or mere sleight of hand.
"Are we finished here?" she asked impatiently.
"Nearly," Nerothos said, tossing the gan'arg's body unceremoniously to the floor. He waved one clawed hand in an imperious gesture, and greenish-white demonfire blazed up around the corpse. When he commanded the fire to extinguish, there was nothing left but a grey pile of ash. He scattered it carelessly with an armored hoof.
"Now we are finished," he said with indescribable smugness. "Come, warlock."
Callista did roll her eyes at that. Being ordered about like one of her own demons was quickly becoming very tiresome. She jogged a little to catch up to the dreadlord, praying to the Light, the Shadow, and any other powers that may have been listening that whatever trinket he'd just stolen misfired and turned him into a slug.
Thanks for reading!:-)