Callista barreled through the wall before Darmog could dodge out of the way, knocking him to the floor in a startled heap of brown robes. Nerothos entered somewhat more decorously at her heels, fixing the gan'arg with a piercing stare that caused him to scuttle backwards on his elbows a few paces.

"Sorry," Callista said automatically, extending a hand to the bewildered-looking demon.

Darmog stared at her hand with incredulous suspicion before scrambling to his feet unassisted. "You're alive," he said gruffly.

Callista snorted slightly at the demon's reaction to simple courtesy. "You're still here," she pointed out in return. "Ready to leave?"

"Yeah," Darmog said, keeping a wary eye on Nerothos. The dreadlord's expression had become positively hostile. "Come on." He scooped up a drab-colored bag lying on the corridor floor and scurried purposefully past her. He didn't, however, get very far.

"Hold," Nerothos commanded, a menacing glow in his fel-lit eyes.

Darmog froze on the spot, already preparing to cringe, but relaxed a little when he saw that the dreadlord's attention was focused on Callista. Nerothos flared his wings, cutting off Darmog's view of the warlock's questioning expression, and addressed her in Common.

"Before we proceed," Nerothos said, a silky undercurrent of danger in his voice, "I believe some explanation is due."

He moved closer, and Callista resisted the familiar impulse to back up a step. She could feel the prickle of demonic magic against her skin, and tendrils of shadow curled at the edges of her vision. Whatever explanation Nerothos was after, it seemed he didn't expect to like it much. "What did you want to know?" she asked, holding her ground warily.

He stopped so close she had to tilt her head back to meet his eyes. "I would be most interested," he purred, cold gaze lancing through her, "to learn what deal you have brokered with Sarlah." The last word was a snarl.

Callista flinched, and then was annoyed at herself for doing it. She was, she realized, frightened of Nerothos, far more so than she'd been minutes earlier with his claws at her neck. He had been playing with her then, and she'd known it – now he was no longer amused. "She had nothing to do with your capture," she said, guessing at the source of his suspicion. It was difficult to keep her voice steady with the air so thick with fel magic her fingertips tingled. "She offered us safe passage in exchange for Vathregyr's death."

Nerothos regarded her silently with a hard-edged, penetrating stare. It made Callista want to squirm and look anywhere else, but she forced herself to raise a brow archly at him instead. He must've sensed the truth in her statement, because after a long moment the shadows at the corners of her vision receded. "Elaborate," he instructed.

She swiftly outlined what he'd missed, from Lady Sarlah's proposition to when she'd parted ways with Tun and Na'rii a few hours ago.

The intensity of his gaze didn't diminish, but Nerothos' wings relaxed against his back now that he no longer doubted Callista's allegiance. "You will all be killed, as she most certainly intended."

"Not necessarily," Callista said. "It's dangerous, but not impossible. And also the best of limited options," she tacked on dryly. The uncanny shadows had melted away, but she could still feel the prickle of Nerothos' demonic aura on the exposed skin of her face and hands. That was familiar, but there was something else there that wasn't and it puzzled her.

"Is it?" Nerothos asked, favoring her with one of his sardonic smiles. "Your contingency plan is disappointingly inadequate, warlock."

"You've managed better?" Callista asked, crossing her arms skeptically. She'd narrowed down the source of the unfamiliar emanations to the sequence of runes carved into Nerothos' pale chest. They were dark and inert now, and she wondered what they had been for.

Nerothos laughed, eyes alight with arrogant amusement. "The great waygates remain the only way to leave Xoroth in force…but travelers may find lesser, more secret ways, if they possess the cunning."

Callista cocked her head, drawn in despite herself. She should have known a dreadlord would have arranged more than one passage off a sinking ship. "Are you making me an offer?"

"Are you accepting?" Nerothos asked. The light glinting off his fangs and the slight forward sweep of his wings lent him a predatory air.

Callista hesitated before answering, something she would remember later with a twinge of shame. An easy way home, one not dependent on the honor of a scheming demoness – it was a tempting proposition. "No," she said finally and firmly. "I won't leave the others."

She thought she might have seen a flicker of surprise on the dreadlord's face, just a twitch of his brow, but it was quickly gone. "Sarlah will never cleave to her word – with Vathregyr removed she stands to acquire his holdings, including the participants in this little rebellion. The others are already as good as dead," Nerothos said. His voice was low and sincere, but his expression held the ghost of a mocking smile. "But you needn't be."

Callista just shook her head, unconvinced. "You can't know that." There was an excellent chance he was right, of course, but that was beside the point. Callista had done a large number of unsavory things in her life, but she still knew a good thing when she had one, and she wasn't so skilled at making friends she could afford to let the ones she had get shredded up by demons. She smiled crookedly. "Loyalty still has some hold on me, believe it or not."

"I fail to see why," Nerothos said, narrowing his eyes and flicking his wings irately. "Your companions dislike and distrust you. In fact, one of the last things I recall is the troll threatening you at swordpoint."

Callista assumed that reminding him that he'd been threatening her not five minutes ago would be unproductive. "I wonder why that could've been," she said, raising a brow satirically. "And yet they stick around anyway. That's worth something."

"To sentimental fools," Nerothos sneered. "You would die for them?"

"I should hope not," Callista said dryly. "But I won't betray them either."

Nerothos smiled maliciously. "You did so before. Persuading you was an effort hardly worthy of the term."

Callista's gaze hardened. Folgrim's death was still a sore subject with her. "Yes, well, I stuck my hand in hellfire once too, that doesn't mean I'd do it again!" she snapped.

"Your obtusity is astounding," Nerothos snarled. His wings flared suddenly, almost filling the narrow passage. "Your failure is assured if you choose this path, yet you cling to it anyway!" His smile was cruel and dagger-sharp. "If death is what you desire, warlock, I'd be happy to oblige."

His sudden movement coupled with this dire turn of conversation startled her; her eyes narrowed, and iridescent lines of shadow snaked about her hand before she was even conscious of summoning the magic.

Nerothos laughed unpleasantly and seized her wrist in a motion almost too quick to follow. His fingers lay millimeters from the corruptive magic wreathing her hand, daring her to try it.

Last nerve whittled almost to nothing, she nearly did, but was restrained by the knowledge that this was a fight she couldn't finish.

"That would be most unwise," Nerothos purred, eyes gleaming dangerously.

Callista scowled at his hand, thoroughly at a loss. She didn't know what to do next, didn't understand why Nerothos was wasting his time on this conversation to begin with. If he knew a better way out, nothing was stopping him from taking it. She, however, had no interest in his plot and never would. Tun was her oldest friend, and she wasn't about to leave him stranded in a Legion stronghold just because Nerothos dangled some kind of double-edged offer at her. Of course, making up her mind was one thing, and ramming the idea through Nerothos' horned skull was quite another thing entirely. She could explain her reasons 'til her tongue wore out, but Nerothos was a demon, and words like loyalty, affection, and friendship would never be more than so much meaningless noise to him. Callista knew better than to waste her breath.

"You are being unreasonable," Nerothos said, voice smooth. His clawed hand tightened on her wrist, not quite enough to be painful, but enough to make her aware he could easily snap her bones if he chose. "The others are beyond your aid. Come now, and you'll be safe in Azeroth before another night falls."

She looked at him sidelong, wondering despite herself if that was really in his power, then gave herself a hard mental shake. She sighed and snuffed out the shadows curling about her fingers. "Look," she said, spreading the fingers of her trapped hand in frustration, "I gave my word, and I'm going to keep it. You, obviously, are under no such compulsion. Come or don't, but I'm leaving before it's too late."

This was the point where her sense of the dramatic indicated she should walk away, but, unfortunately, Nerothos' grip on her wrist had only tightened since her magic had dissipated. She stared evenly at him, trying to look resolute.

Nerothos stared contemptuously back, growling low in his throat. His closeness, his thinly-veiled ultimatum, all of it combined to give Callista an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu. Last time she'd yielded to him, but the stakes were different now. She wondered if he'd kill her.

Anger flashed suddenly over his face and her free hand twitched in a spell gesture, but it was gone so quickly Callista wondered if she hadn't imagined it, replaced by withering scorn. Coming to some decision, he released her disdainfully and stepped aside with a mocking gesture, allowing her to pass.

Callista stood rooted in surprise for a moment, then sprang away to join Darmog further down the passage. She half expected to feel claws in her back as she passed, but no attack came.

Darmog peeled himself away from the wall at her approach and grinned nastily. "Who won?" he asked in a gravelly murmur. He couldn't understand Common, but clearly there had been an argument.

"I'll let you know when I figure it out," Callista muttered, glancing suspiciously at Nerothos and rubbing at her wrist.

"I suggest you limit your curiosity to things that concern you, gan'arg," Nerothos sneered, eyes shining hatefully.

Darmog startled and seemed to shrink. The dreadlord's hearing really was uncanny.

Callista just sighed. It was shaping up to be a hell of a day.

Much to her surprise, Nerothos did not immediately vanish. Instead he stalked along half a pace behind Darmog, who periodically stumbled over himself in terror of him. Callista could hardly blame the gan'arg; Nerothos' mood was hideously foul. She might've said he was sulking, but he was going about it in such an intimidating fashion she wasn't sure that was exactly the right word for it.

They traveled along in the most alarming silence Callista had ever experienced, moving generally downwards. Unfortunately, the wall spaces contained no stairwells, so they were forced to descend by clambering down a series of ladders set in circular holes in the floor. Callista and Darmog navigated these easily, but the holes were rather small, and Nerothos only barely managed to squeeze himself through with his wings folded tight against his back. The discomfort only compounded his ill-temperedness.

Callista inadvertently met his gaze, and the malice in his glower nearly caused her to lose her grip on the ladder she was clinging to. Thousands of years of practice at being terrifying paid off, it seemed. She jumped the last three rungs to the ground, cursing under her breath. Her wounded shoulder had stiffened into a painful scab, and climbing was unpleasant enough even without Nerothos' complications.

The dreadlord's continued presence was as mystifying to Callista as it was unnerving. If he was so displeased with this plan, she didn't understand why he didn't just implement his own. She supposed it was possible he required her cooperation, but even so his behavior was odd. Callista was by no means helpless, but she'd seen enough to know that in a fair fight with Nerothos she'd be hopelessly outmatched. If he'd pursued the argument to the point of blows, he almost certainly could've dragged her along by force. He must have had some other agenda, though she couldn't fathom what it might be. Oh well. She was sure he had his reasons, and she was equally sure she'd only find out what they were at the most inconvenient moment imaginable. Until then she might as well ignore him.

They made very good time, mostly because Darmog kept accelerating in a futile attempt to distance himself from Nerothos. The scenery remained constant as they descended, roughly-hewn red stone lit by enchanted fire in wall niches, but the air grew steadily hotter. Callista mopped her face from time to time with the sleeve of her robes, but the two demons seemed unaffected.

The passage they were following ended in a blank wall.

"This is it," Darmog said, taking the opportunity to shuffle around so Callista stood between him and Nerothos. He thrust the dun-colored bag at her; it was heavier than it looked. "Here. If they fall in, they'll detonate. Don't screw it up."

Callista slung the bag over her uninjured shoulder and fished the runed piece of crystal out of her pocket. "Uh-huh," she said, stepping up to the wall. She glanced back for a moment – Darmog had already lost interest in her, trying to slink away from Nerothos as unobtrusively as possible. As the dreadlord filled most of the narrow corridor, this was no mean feat.

Nerothos noticed her gaze and sneered balefully. She raised a brow, and darted quickly through the rippling stone in case he was contemplating another fight.

It was like stepping into a blast furnace.

The heat seared her lungs and made the air shimmer. She found herself standing on a narrow spit of black stone surrounded by a viscous sea of molten rock, messy spouts of liquid fire erupting from it without warning. A massive, squat construction of soot-blacked metal straddled a glowing channel of magma between the peninsula's end and a small island in the inferno. A jagged chunk of fel crystal on its roof pulsed sluggishly.

Callista winced at the sting as sweat dripped into her wound and began picking her way tentatively across the broken ground. From the demons' talk of the danger of this place she had assumed it would be heavily guarded, but she had been wrong. The peril came not from the Legion but from Xoroth itself. The magma forges had been leeching energy from the core of the world for millennia, and as a result the earth was more unstable here than anywhere else on Xoroth, even the ground near the great portals on the surface. Even most demons refused to come here, so the forges had been automated and surrounded by protective wards to discourage meddlers.

Callista took a hesitant step forward, but stumbled back again as melted rock oozed up between cracks in the surface underfoot. Half of what looked like solid land here wasn't really solid at all, no more than a thin crust of cooled rock over a molten river. She looked up, squinting against the hot glare of the magma. She was working her way not towards the forges themselves (if she got too close, the wards would vaporize her), but around a thin ledge of black volcanic rock that rimmed the cavern.

It took nearly half an hour for her to reach her first landmark, the burnt-out shell of a fel reaver slumped against the cavern wall. The thick metal of one of the construct's legs glowed incandescent red where it dangled too near the molten rock.

Callista shrugged the bag off her shoulder and carefully removed one of the explosives nestled within. It looked like a variant on a fel iron bomb, a spiked sphere of poisonous green metal, but part of the casing had been removed, and a short tangle of protruding wires led to a simple control panel. Callista wedged the device between two of the fel reaver's enormous fingers and hesitated a moment with her hand hovering over the panel. Darmog had engineered the explosives to be synchronized; the detonations would create a standing magical shockwave powerful enough to destroy the wards on the forges and bring down this cavern on top of them. Once she armed this device the others in the pack would be armed as well, and would explode whether they were placed in their proper locations or still dangling from her back.

Swallowing her doubts, she keyed in the sequence that would start the countdown. The bomb glowed brightly in acknowledgement and the control panel flashed a sequence of numbers in Eredun.

One down, four to go. Three hours until detonation.

She hurried away towards the next site with as much haste as was prudent, but froze, startled, as a crack like a gunshot pierced the air above her head. There was the gravelly scrape of stone on stone, and a slab of rock broke free from the overhang she'd been slinking under and plunged into the molten pool. The magma was too thick to make much of a splash, but sizzling liquid rock sloshed over the side of the bank and caused Callista to leap backwards.

Nether, she really should've had Azlia do this. She'd told Tun she would, but the succubus never did have much of a knack for precision, and that was what this task required. If the detonations occurred in the wrong place they might not be powerful enough to break the wards, or, worse yet, the shockwave might travel up a fault line and they'd all be caught in the blast, crushed to death beneath thousands of tons of rock. Callista had strategically chosen to omit this possibility when she'd explained their plan to Nerothos, not that it seemed to have helped. She wouldn't be surprised on her return to find he'd sliced poor Darmog to ribbons in a fit of pique. Ugh, demons. Nerothos was just barely tolerable in his best moments, but when he was displeased he was insufferable.

Pushing these thoughts from her mind, Callista paused a moment longer to wipe the sweat and grit out of her eyes and then continued on.

Two and a half hours later she was scorched in a dozen places, drenched with sweat, and exhausted enough to drop where she stood, if she hadn't been so sharply aware that where she stood would be a searing fireball in less than half an hour.

Pulling the runed crystal from her robes, she half fell back through the wall into the passageway. Something streaked toward her and she stiffened in alarm, but it was only Darmog, desperate to interpose anything at all between himself and Nerothos. She relaxed, shaking her head wearily.

Nerothos' gaze raked over her, taking in her singed robes, the burns on her hands, and her fatigued posture. "Care to reconsider?" he asked, lips curved in a malicious smile.

"No," she snapped defiantly, trying to decide if she dared squeeze past him. They needed to get out of here before that cavern imploded.

"You'll regret this foolishness when you're writhing in Sarlah's clutches, pleading for the mercy of oblivion," Nerothos said, eyes shining balefully.

Speaking with the dreadlord was always so delightful. She could hear Darmog shift nervously behind her, and decided to risk it. The impending explosion (which would definitely kill them) was slightly more frightening than an irritated Nerothos (who could've already killed her but hadn't).

"Maybe," she said mulishly, turning sideways to edge past him. Not the most brilliant retort, but she was far too tired to have it out with the demon now.

Nerothos pivoted to face her and curled one of his wings around, trapping her in front of him. "It is a certainty," he snarled.

Alright. Now she was annoyed. "The only 'certainty,'" Callista said, scowling, "is that we'll all be dead in half an hour if we don't move!"

Darmog made a startled sound, and when she turned to look at him his pale eyes were wide with terror.

"Half an hour? No time!" he said. "Quit jawing and go!" He shoved impatiently at her arm with his mottled hands, and then looked appalled at his own audacity.

"Oh, honestly," Callista said, looking down at him with more pity than irritation. She grabbed the collar of his robes and yanked him after her as she ducked under Nerothos' wing. The top of her head brushed against its leathery underside, but he made no move to stop them.

"And while we're all yelling," she continued, propelling an alarmed and squirming Darmog in front of her before releasing him, "what haven't you told me?" She twisted over her shoulder to deliver this last to Nerothos with narrowed eyes.

Nerothos folded his wings and stalked after them, catching up easily. "A broad question," he said, lip curled mockingly. "After all, my memory spans millennia, and your ignorance appears limitless."

Unwilling to be baited, Callista swallowed an acidic remark and faced forward again to roll her eyes where he couldn't see. Ugh, what had she expected? At least they were moving now. She accelerated a little to match Darmog's pace (the gan'arg had bolted as soon as he'd realized he was no longer penned in by Nerothos), and tried not to hunch her shoulders at the prickly sensation of the dreadlord's gaze boring into her unprotected back.

Their role in this scheme was finished now. She only hoped the others made out as well.

Drumming his fingers restlessly against the black steel floor of his cage, Tun was beginning to worry. He gazed out through the bars at the crowd of demons bustling about their grotesque business, but didn't really see any of it, thoughts wandering elsewhere.

It had been hours now since they'd parted from Callista. Hours since Tazlik had cajoled them into this cage, and still no diversion had come. Neither, however, had that little gan'arg turned up bearing ill news, so perhaps he was simply being too impatient.

Or perhaps they were all dead.

He shivered.

"Somethin' on ya mind, mon?" Na'rii asked. She had folded herself gracefully against the bars at his side, and there was curiosity and maybe a little concern in her expression.

"How much longer could this possibly take?" he wondered, averting his eyes in disgust as a felguard dragged the mangled form of some unlucky captive past their prison.

Na'rii shrugged. Very few of these demons seemed to speak Common, but she leaned close and kept her voice low just in case. "Three hours on the timer and a couple more to get the dreadlord - ," a spasm of disgust passed over her face at the thought of the demon, " – It should be soon. Assumin' they be stickin' to the plan."

Tun just sighed. "Callista wouldn't – "

"The demon would," Na'rii preempted him, yellow eyes glittering suspiciously. "And if he gets his own ideas, could she stop him? I don' think so." Na'rii wasn't even sure she would try, but refrained from saying so.

Tun shifted uncomfortably. Na'rii had, intentionally or not, hit on the part of this plan that concerned him the most. Callista was a good warlock, but not nearly good enough to command a creature like Nerothos, not against his will. "She seemed to think she could handle it," he said, trying to inject some confidence into his voice.

Na'rii scoffed. "So far he's been handlin' her."

Friendship prompted Tun to argue that, but there was so much truth in it he didn't know what to say. He was saved by a deep growling rumble that rattled their cage and banged his head painfully against the bars.

"Ouch!"

Na'rii laughed humorlessly, every line in her body suddenly tense. "They did it," she said, expression growing savage. "By the spirits."

The vibrations died quickly, leaving an eerie silence in their wake. The great demonic machines that lined the workshop, pounding out sinister-looking felsteel components, clattered suddenly to a halt. Used to the insistent tremors of their world tearing itself apart, it was the stillness, not the quake, that alerted Vathregyr's demons to something gone badly awry.

The silence gave way to a cresting roar of noise as every creature in the vast stone-hewn room began shouting at once. Gan'arg and mo'arg dashed every which way, prodding at the lifeless machines with ratchets, wrenches and screwdrivers, or simply banging on them with spanners in frustration, but it was no use. The sources of their power were destroyed, crushed under several tons of rock or shattered in the explosion. The machines remained inert.

An enraged doomguard stalked out of an archway to Tun's left and began bellowing orders, gesturing wildly with an enormous broadsword. Felguards rallied to him from all directions, forming quickly into ranks, and the whole detachment sprinted off towards a huge set of double gates on the far side of the room.

That was what they'd been waiting for. Tun and Na'rii scrambled to their feet, scanning the pandemonium for Tazlik.

The one-armed demon emerged from the same archway as the doomguard, kicking aside a chattering gaggle of gan'arg to stand by the door of their cage. "They have succeeded," he said, blinking slowly in surprise.

"Ya, mon, now hand those over and open the door!" Na'rii said impatiently, jerking her head towards the two blades he held in his claw. They were their own weapons, turned over before they entered this room to further the illusion of helplessness.

Tazlik glanced around furtively to ensure none of his fellows were watching before passing the sword and dagger through the bars and unlocking the cage. He needn't have bothered; every demon in the room was deeply engrossed in either fixing the failed machinery or slinking away to shirk what work he could in the uproar.

"Do not deviate from the plan, mortals!" he hissed as Tun and Na'rii sheathed their weapons and hopped to the stone floor.

"We be playin' fair if you be," Na'rii said, baring her tusks at him in a feral smile.

Tazlik harrumphed scornfully before melting back into the crowd, eager to distance himself from the two would-be assassins.

Tun kept close to Na'rii's side as she jogged towards the archway, expecting at any moment to be seized by a mob of suspicious demons. No one, however, was paying them any mind. Callista's distraction had done its job admirably. He supposed he shouldn't really have been surprised: if there was one thing the warlock could be counted on to do, it was make a mess.

They darted through the arch into the room beyond, which was, mercifully, empty. Ornate columns lined it on either side, and the black marble floor was inlaid with precious stones. A double gate stood in the far wall, wedged open by a large wrench jammed lengthwise between its two doors. Tazlik's work.

Tun swallowed dryly as they approached and wiped sweat from his hands onto his robe. This was really it.

He looked up as Na'rii clapped him companionably on the shoulder. Her grin was meant to be reassuring, but there was a reckless gleam in her eye. The troll was, he realized, in her element. She had told him she was a mercenary, and he wondered how many assassinations she'd carried out before this one. He hoped fervently it had been a lot.

"For what it's worth - ," he began.

"Save it, mon," Na'rii cut him off, grin becoming feral. "This is a killin', not a funeral." She winked, and slipped through the propped-open door.

Tun snorted, took a deep breath, and followed.