Something nudged Tun hard in the side.

He half woke, flinching away as the sensation repeated itself. "Stop it, Callista, I'm awake," he mumbled, eyes still screwed shut.

Callista didn't respond. When he failed to sit up, the nudge came again. He swatted sleepily in the direction of the prodding, and felt a set of razor-sharp teeth close gently on his arm.

Teeth?! Tun's eyes flew open as fear flooded his sleep-addled mind, and he screamed as he found himself face-to-snout with the eyeless, hairy head of a felhound. The demon dropped his arm in consternation as he hit it in the face with a fistful of frost magic.

He didn't know whether to be relieved or furious when, instead of retaliating, the felhound merely backed off a few paces and snarled at him in displeasure.

"CALLISTA!" Tun roared, springing to his feet.

Someone behind him chuckled, and he whirled around to see Na'rii half leaning against Kar'thol, eyes alight with laughter at his rude awakening.

"It's not funny," he grumbled, glaring at her and rubbing his arm experimentally. It didn't actually hurt. Callista's felhunter had standing orders never to harm him, and it was bound by their blood pact to obey.

"Looks funny to me," Na'rii said, grinning.

"I have no doubt," he muttered. Tun was cranky in the mornings under normal circumstances, and being shaken awake by a mage-eating demon had not improved his usual foul mood. "Callista!" he called angrily, seeing the warlock emerge from one of the passage's many side doors. "Make that hideous beast behave itself! And what on Azeroth are you doing in there?" he demanded as an afterthought.

"Leave him alone, Jhormug," Callista said firmly, wiping her hands on her robes to rid them of a particularly thick layer of dust. "That room used to be an armory or vault of some kind, I think. It's full of chests and things. We should have a look, might find something useful."

"No thank you," Tun said under his breath, eyeing the heavy black door skeptically. Anything they found in this pit was bound to be trouble. Best to get out quickly and stick their noses in as few strange places as possible.

"Sounds good to me," Na'rii said, sauntering over with Kar'thol lumbering obediently behind her. "I be sick of goin' unarmed."

Tun looked around and scowled, suddenly noticing something missing. "Where's That Demon gone?" he asked suspiciously.

"He said he was going to scout ahead," Callista said, with an expression that implied she thought he'd done nothing of the sort.

"I'm sure," Tun said dryly, aiming a glare at the felhunter as it padded up to Callista's side. "You just let him go?"

"Since it was that or let him try to tear my head off…yes." Callista said. The felhunter butted its head into her palm, for all the world like a real dog, and she automatically scratched the coarse fur under its jaw.

Tun looked at the demon in disgust. He wasn't fooled by its apparent display of affection. Callista had explained to him once that the felhunter enjoyed the contact not out of any fondness, but because of the residual magic that lingered on her skin after spellcasting. A thoroughly repulsive creature if you asked him, but Callista didn't seem to mind.

"So ya say," Na'rii said, placing one slender blue hand on her hip and looking shrewdly at the warlock.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Callista asked sharply.

"Maybe nothin'. But Kar'thol be sleepin' at his post durin' this agreement, and he don't remember tryin' to nap. Weird, don't ya think?"

"No." Callista mirrored Na'rii's stance, leaning forward aggressively. "Hardly my fault the ogre's an unreliable watchman."

Kar'thol shifted his massive weight from one leg to another and scowled at Callista. "Kar'thol not remember being tired."

Callista sighed, turning her eyes up toward the shadow-cloaked ceiling. "If I were part of some ridiculous plot against you, why didn't I just kill you both in your sleep?"

"Dunno, warlock," Kar'thol said, hefting his runed chunk of metal threateningly. "You tell."

Tun watched his three companions bicker with growing frustration. Though he had never expected the troll and ogre to totally trust Callista or himself, this was verging on the ridiculous. Callista was certainly no paragon of good behavior, but she wouldn't align herself with a demon in the way Na'rii and Kar'thol were implying, either. Especially not one she so obviously loathed.

"Enough, all of you!" he finally snapped, moving to stand between Callista and Na'rii. He gazed sternly at the troll. "Unless you've got better evidence than your friend's weakness for naps, no more wild accusations. Stop acting like children, all of you, and let's search for weapons."

Na'rii narrowed her eyes and spat something in Zandali. Neither Tun nor Callista spoke the language, but they got the gist anyway.

"At least I don't eat people," Callista muttered in response.

Tun turned his exasperated stare on her. "Show us this armory."

Callista jammed a long rod of scavenged black steel into the gap beneath the lid of a dirt-streaked chest and levered it upwards, the hinges screeching in protest.

So far the results of their search had been underwhelming. The Legion had either been meticulously thorough in gathering its materiel when it deserted this place, or other scavengers had been here first.

Callista peered into the open chest and was disappointed to find nothing on the inside but dust. She prodded reproachfully at it with her steel rod, making a hollow clang. Jhormug sniffed curiously at it for a moment, feelers waving hopefully, but he quickly lost interest and loped away again. There was no magic to be had here.

"Nothing useful?" Tun asked, wandering over to look inside.

"Nothing at all," Callista replied. She looked around to gauge the progress of the others. Kar'thol was using his chunk of still-warded door to bash open various decrepit-looking containers, while Na'rii picked through the wreckage. They seemed to be having little more success than she and Tun.

Tun tugged on her sleeve, expression suddenly serious, and she bent down to his eye level.

"We need to talk," he said grimly.

Callista's stomach dropped, and she fought to keep a neutral expression on her face. "About what?"

"About That Demon, what else?" Tun said, gesturing impatiently. His eyes looked very blue amid the reddish dirt that dusted his face. "If he's really out scouting, then I'm a murloc. What are we going to do about it?"

Callista relaxed a little. So, he really wasn't suspicious of her, then. She sighed, kicking idly at a broken piece of stone. "I wish I knew. You're right, he's almost certainly up to something. " Oh, if you only knew. "But even if we knew what it was, what could we do? The four of us could kill him, maybe, but not without losses. And even if we succeeded, what then?"

Now it was Tun's turn to sigh, rubbing tiredly at the side of his face. "So we just walk cheerfully into whatever nastiness he has brewing?"

"I don't know." Callista shrugged helplessly. "He doesn't want to be on this world any more than we do, I don't think. He's got to find a dimensional gate eventually. We'll just have to watch ourselves until then."

Tun started to speak and then hesitated, looking rather uncomfortable. "You would tell us? If you knew anything else?"

"Of course," she said firmly, looking him straight in the eye. Tun had known her for a long time, but luckily he'd never developed the knack of knowing when she was lying through her teeth.

"Good," he said, expression relieved. "Come on, it looks like the others have found something."

Na'rii and Kar'thol were peering curiously into a clearing they had made amid a particularly thick layer of debris.

When Callista and Tun neared, they saw why. A dimly-glowing rune stared up at them from a slab of metal so black it reflected no light at all. Most of it was still obscured by crumbled stone and dust, but Callista guessed it to be the entrance to a vault of some kind.

Na'rii seemed to have come to much the same conclusion. "We think all the good stuff be in there," she said, pointing to the rune. "Can ya open it?"

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Tun asked, looking skeptically at the vault door.

Na'rii sniffed scornfully. "Don't be a coward."

"I'm not being a coward, merely properly cautious," Tun said, annoyed and a little offended.

Na'rii crossed her arms and looked down her nose at him, unconvinced.

"Look," he said finally, turning his palms upward in exasperation. "Clear off more of the dirt, and the wards might tell us what's inside."

"Kar'thol can do!" the ogre volunteered, swinging his club wildly into the pile of debris.

"Yaaah!" Callista leapt quickly aside to avoid having her head whacked off by his backswing, causing Na'rii to laugh.

Tun coughed as Kar'thol's assault raised a thick cloud of dust and powdered stone. "Perhaps…a little warning…next time," he choked, moving back to a more prudent distance.

Callista stepped farther away as well, wary of the flurry of stone slivers being hurled in all directions by the force of Kar'thol's blows. His technique was unorthodox, but it seemed to be working. He quickly cleared enough rubble for her to see that the door was quite large, and set with many runes arranged in an intricate circular pattern. Some of them seemed to be damaged, however, and the greenish light emanating from the design waxed and waned irregularly.

"What do they mean?" Na'rii asked impatiently.

"I don't deal in fel magic," Tun said, a little snippily, looking pointedly at Callista.

Callista shrugged. "Don't look at me. I never went in much for spellbreaking."

"It is warded against thieves."

Na'rii jumped and snarled as Nerothos materialized between her and Kar'thol.

Callista was mildly irritated to note he still hadn't lost the self-satisfied expression he'd worn ever since he'd killed that gan'arg. Whatever he was plotting must be going well. That boded ill for the rest of them, as far as she was concerned.

"Don't ya know it be bad manners to sneak?" Na'rii said, backing several steps away from Nerothos and staring at him with unconcealed loathing.

"I never waste manners on savages," Nerothos said, flicking his wings dismissively and ignoring her gaze. "If you intend to open that, do so quickly."

Callista found Na'rii's affronted look to be rather comical. Tusks, she thought, really didn't lend themselves to superior expressions.

"Is that wise?" Tun asked, peering closely at the wavering light of the sigils.

"Nothing within is likely to be dangerous…on its own," Nerothos replied, a hint of a vicious smile on his face.

Somehow, Tun found that less than reassuring.

"Just do it," Na'rii said, tapping one bare foot on the stone floor.

Tun sighed and stepped forward to the edge of the black metal. He closed his eyes, brow furrowing as he concentrated on seeking out weaknesses in the intertwined spells that composed the warding. Ward breaking was a well-documented field of study, of course, but he'd never had cause to try it practically before. Luckily, the door was quite damaged, the magics protecting it fluctuating and unstable.

He thought he had it.

He opened his eyes and carefully gathered a bright bolt of arcane energy between his hands, directing it into one of the darkened runes as he felt the power in the wards wane. The complicated arrangement of sigils flared defensively, causing him to squint. He thought the light would dim again, but instead it blazed even brighter, and then brighter again, until he was surprised he couldn't feel the heat of it like a flame. He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, only to find that the blinding glow had turned the blackness behind his eyelids to red.

"What did ya do?!" Na'rii demanded, arm thrown over her eyes in a futile attempt to block the glare.

Before Tun could gather the breath to say he told her so, there was a deafening crack, and the light shut off abruptly.

He opened his eyes, and when the spots stopped swimming before his vision he saw that the black metal door had split neatly down the middle, its runes extinguished.

"Nice work," Callista said with a grin.

"Thank you," Tun said, feeling rather pleased with himself. Sometimes these things weren't as easy as they seemed in the scrolls.

Kar'thol shuffled forward, preparing to lift the broken door from its frame, and suddenly froze, a panicked expression on his crude features.

Tun yelped in alarm as he felt the floor shift threateningly under his feet. "No one move!"

"How unfortunate," Nerothos said, lips quirked in the insufferably smug smile of a creature with wings when the floor's about to give out.

Callista shot him a poisonous look.

Kar'thol whipped his head around wildly, clearly on the verge of bolting.

"It be alright, Kar'thol," Na'rii said, holding her hands out soothingly. "Just…don't…move."

There was an ominous groaning from beneath their feet, and Kar'thol roared in terror, gathering himself for a leap.

"No!" Na'rii said desperately, grabbing futilely at one of the ogre's thick wrists.

She was too late.

Kar'thol sprung, and the floor collapsed with a shriek of twisting metal and a grinding rumble of stone against stone.

Callista braced herself for an impact as she plummeted through the darkness, the panicked cries of the others echoing around her. Mercifully, the fall was short. She landed awkwardly, knees and ankles jarred, and toppled over onto her side, skinning her hand on a jagged piece of stone. "Ow."

"Is everyone alright?" she heard Tun call.

"Yes, considering," she said, sticking the injured part of her hand in her mouth.

"Ya, mon."

"Kar'thol fine."

Callista stood, choosing her footholds carefully among the wreckage of the floor. Whatever place they had landed in was dark, illuminated only through the hole they'd smashed in the ceiling. She stared uncertainly into the blackness.

The blackness stared back, and she hissed in alarm, conjuring a handful of fire as a pair of fel-green eyes winked into existence amid the shadows.

The flickering light of her flame revealed the simian form of an imp perched on a messy pile of knives, daggers, and short swords. It cocked its head warily, chittering softly to itself. The blades beneath its feet glittered dangerously, and some of them possessed a faint greenish aura, obviously enchanted.

Callista immediately relaxed. Imps were crafty, and endless sources of mischief, but they were also terrible cowards and relatively weak combatants. One such creature warranted little concern.

Tun picked his way over to her side, wrinkling his nose at the imp. "Shoo, you filthy little beast!"

The imp jabbered something unintelligible, hopping about spastically on top of its pile.

"It probably doesn't speak Common," Callista pointed out reasonably. A Xorothian demon would have no reason to learn it.

Bits of stone crunched beneath Kar'thol's huge flat feet as he stomped over to investigate, Na'rii at his side.

"Told ya the good stuff was in here," Na'rii said, eyeing the weapons with satisfaction.

Kar'thol's blunt features contorted in distaste as he spied the strange imp. "Kar'thol hate demons!" Moving quite fluidly for a creature of his girth, he bent and seized a fist-sized piece of rock from the ground, hurling it with impressive accuracy to conk the imp square on the head. The imp shrieked skull-splittingly, flying backwards off the pile and into the darkness behind.

"Well, that's that, I suppose," Tun said, staring after it into the shadows. If it hadn't been a demon, he probably would've felt sorry for the creature. It hadn't actually done anything to them, after all.

Na'rii had already begun digging through the pile of weapons, testing for balance the ones that felt least fel-tainted. She finally settled on a curved blade the length of her arm, pommel studded with blue gems.

"Uh…Na'rii?"

She looked up at the sound of Tun's voice. His gaze was riveted to the darkness at her back. She turned slowly, fighting a terrible feeling of foreboding.

The eyes were back.

With friends.

Twin dots of fel light were blinking into existence all throughout the vault. Two…four…ten…twenty…forty…more demons than she had ever seen in one place or ever hoped to. She muttered a curse in Zandali.

The dark of the vault suddenly exploded with harsh green light, and the four companions threw themselves to the floor. The air was alive with crisscrossing bolts of sickly-colored fire, like a Goblin fireworks display gone deadly and deranged.

Callista half crawled, half stumbled behind a gleaming pile of shields, banishing every demon she spotted. She could hear Kar'thol's howls of pain and fury from somewhere to her right. An imp's accuracy with its fireballs was erratic at best, but, unfortunately for Kar'thol, he presented a rather large target.

An imp leapt cackling onto her makeshift barricade, only to flee shrieking after a shadowbolt to the face. This would all be over quickly, if only she knew where her felhunter had gone.

"JHORMUG!" she called sharply.

A few yards away, Na'rii was alternately hacking at any demon that came near with her newly acquired sword and roasting them with jagged prongs of lightning. She was trying valiantly to keep the little monsters from broiling alive her and Kar'thol both.

Kar'thol was flailing around wildly and mostly unsuccessfully with his chunk of door. The imps were simply too nimble to be crushed. The only advantage he had was the magic-repressing sigils on his club, which, Na'rii was pleased to note, were still functional enough to ruin the spellwork of any imp that skipped aside too slowly.

A sudden gust of freezing air raced past her face, and Na'rii whirled around to see an imp frozen solid in the act of setting fire to her unguarded back. Tun grinned rakishly at her, and she hesitated a moment before grinning ferally back, slicing the demon's head off for good measure.

An unearthly howl sounded from somewhere above her head.

Na'rii looked up in alarm to see Callista's felhunter leap into the vault, landing with preternatural grace and practically quivering with excitement.

An ear-splitting shriek rose from the mob of imps as Jhormug bounded into their ranks. A coordinated effort might've allowed them to kill the felhunter, but instead they scrambled and clawed at each other in an attempt to flee, soft and easy prey for the ravenous demon.

Callista emerged from behind her mound of shields, filling her pockets with soul shards as her minion slaughtered imps in droves. She couldn't repress a rather violent grin. At the edge of her consciousness she could feel Jhormug's ecstatic frenzy as he drained each imp of magic before snapping it up in his great jaws to swallow whole. Being encouraged to wreak havoc on an entire room full of helpless magic-filled meat snacks was as close to perfect happiness as a felhunter was ever likely to experience.

Tun wandered over and gave Callista a disapproving look. "You know you look precisely like one of your own demons when you smile that way."

Callista pulled a face. "Do I really? I hope it's Azlia and not Jhormug." Azlia was, of course, the succubus.

"Actually, I was picturing the imp."

Callista just chuckled.

Jhormug finished his massacre and trotted over, still radiating contentment, the fur on his lower jaw matted with black demon blood and bits of flesh.

Tun averted his gaze in disgust as Callista held out her hand to the demon, allowing him to siphon a little of her magic as a reward. This was a mistake, as the next sight his eyes landed on was Kar'thol, vindictively stomping on the heads of the imp corpses the felhunter had neglected to devour.

Na'rii noticed Tun's queasy expression and grinned hugely, waggling her blood-soaked hands in his face.

"You are all disgusting," Tun pronounced, making a revolted face.

Na'rii threw her head back and laughed uproariously.

Callista looked up just in time to see Nerothos land neatly amid the blood-spattered debris. She scowled at him. "Where have you been?" she asked, knowing the answer full well.

"Avoiding this tedium," Nerothos said, looking disdainfully at the scattered corpses.

"Demons find wanton slaughter tedious now? Whatever is the Legion coming to?" she asked, throwing her hands up in mock despair.

Nerothos smiled maliciously and took a sudden step towards her, flaring his wings threateningly. Callista backed out of arm's reach and narrowed her eyes. He'd already caught her about the neck once on this little adventure. That was more than enough.

"Over the millennia, my people have developed a more...refined taste for destruction." His smile grew a little toothier at her wary expression, and he leaned closer. "Mindless slaughter is best left to the Annihilan. And, of course, our mortal thralls."

Callista had no ready retort for his implication, which, unfortunately, had more of truth in it than she would've liked. She simply crossed her arms, scowl deepening.

Na'rii watched this discussion with an odd sort of hopefulness as she healed the burns the imps' demonfire had left on Kar'thol's thick hide.

Perhaps, if she were very lucky, they would kill each other.

Thanks for reading! Come back next time to see major plot points revealed! And other things. Yay for summer!