Interpreting Tun's vaguely furrowed brow to mean that he was no longer paying attention to her, Callista lifted her head, cocking it in Nerothos' direction as she kept an ear on his conversation with the High Mekgineer.

" – shipment's not expected for another week or so," Charin was saying in his deep growl, pinning the dreadlord with his lopsided stare, "but the idiots at the Draenor-gate won't make a fuss. High Command lost contact with the last forge camp on the peninsula two days ago, lines of supply are – "

Callista's shameless eavesdropping was interrupted by Na'rii, whose lean, leather-armored form suddenly blocked her view of the two demons. She looked up at her in annoyance.

The troll stared back with an expression that was equal parts hesitant and defiant.

"What?" Callista asked impatiently, trying to lean around her to resume her spying. She didn't really expect Nerothos to go out of his way to harm them at this point, but she doubted that he'd balk at including a little mortal bait in his plans if he thought that that would improve his odds of a clean escape. She wasn't sure exactly what they could do in that event, but anything was better than being blindsided.

Na'rii shifted abruptly, staring at a spot in the vicinity of Callista's right ear. "I need ya help," she said after a pause, mouth contorting as though the words tasted foul on her tongue.

"What?" Callista asked again, this time in suspicious startlement. She liked Na'rii even less than she did Nerothos (the demon had, after all, saved her life, even if he'd done it for his own mercenary purposes), and she was certain that the troll was no fonder of her. What sort of favor could she possibly expect her to grant?

Na'rii fidgeted again, the challenge in her eyes at odds with her words. "I need ya to help me find Kar'thol."

Callista tilted her head, regarding the unhappy-looking troll with an annoyed frown. Truth be told, she'd forgotten about the ogre. Probably he was dead or in a cell somewhere by now, and even if he wasn't, Callista had no interest in gallivanting around Xoroth searching for him. They were closer to home now than they had ever been, and for the first time she had allowed herself a small, real hope. It was more important now than ever that someone keep tabs on whatever plan Nerothos and Charin were cooking up, and, since she was the only one who could understand their speech, that someone was going to be her.

"Ya speak demonic. I don't," Na'rii elaborated, sensing the other woman's lack of enthusiasm. Her words tumbled out in a sullen rush, the troll eager to be done with the unpleasant business of asking Callista for anything. "I dunno where they be keepin' him and I couldn' convince them to free him if I found him. Not without killin'."

Callista twitched one side of her mouth, unmoved. "Sorry," she said not-quite-convincingly, voice kept carefully low. "But if I go, who's going to keep an eye on them?" She tipped her head towards Nerothos and Charin, still deeply involved in their discussion.

Na'rii's bright yellow eyes narrowed. "Ya would leave a friend to die in this place?" Her mouth twisted contemptuously around her tusks as she glowered down at the warlock. "Then you got no more soul in ya than them demons ya so fond of."

Callista bristled, gaze hardening. She was well aware that she didn't have the most empathetic nature, but that didn't mean she had to take condescending lectures on compassion from some Horde savage. The troll didn't know the first thing about her anyway. "If that were true, then I would be home right now and you would be dead."

Na'rii scoffed, tossing her head so that her beaded braids clicked together scornfully. "Ya want me to think ya not so bad? Then prove it."

Tun, who had been watching this conversation with no great amount of optimism, winced. This was exactly the wrong thing to say to Callista. The warlock was usually quite reasonable, but could be cruelly obstinate when her hackles were raised. And if there were ever any two things she hated, they were being bossed about by someone she didn't respect and ham-fisted attempts at manipulation. Na'rii's last statement had gone two for two.

Callista cocked her head, brow creasing. "How odd," she said, face a mask of puzzlement just false enough to be infuriating. "It's almost as though you think your opinion matters."

Na'rii snarled, a spark of electricity crackling between her thumb and forefinger.

Tun stepped hastily between the two women, hands held up as though to physically keep them apart, though he didn't actually touch either. "Callista!" he snapped, seeing that her face had taken on the sardonic look that meant she'd invented something even more awful to say and was about to share it.

Callista glanced down at him, hesitated, opened her mouth as though to make a remark and then snapped it shut again. Her expression was largely annoyed, though there was also a hint of something that looked a little like betrayal.

"I'm not on anyone's side," Tun said in exasperation, correctly interpreting her look and deciding to preempt an accusation. He lowered his arms, glancing between the troll and the human with a scolding air. "Now can we please discuss this?"

Na'rii crossed her lean arms defiantly, lightning stilled for the moment, but offered no protest. Callista was similarly silent, though he wasn't sure whether to find that encouraging or not. The shadow of a sneer lingered on her face.

Tun paused, unsure what to do now that they were both listening to him. His heart told him that Callista really ought to help look for Kar'thol (there was no way he could justify leaving any decent creature on Xoroth, even if searching for him would prove inconvenient), but he wasn't sure how to phrase his opinion in a way that wouldn't make her dig her heels in even more stubbornly.

Luckily, help came from an unexpected direction.

"Warlock."

Callista turned her head at Nerothos' address, arching a brow suspiciously. Tun and Na'rii swiveled to look at him as well, despite the fact that he'd spoken in Eredun.

"There is disruption enough here without that creature's irksome theatrics," he said, a dangerous undercurrent in his voice. "Remedy the situation, or I will." He smiled coldly and lifted a hand to display a wicked set of black claws, leaving no doubt as to exactly what sort of "remedy" he had in mind.

Callista shot Na'rii a poisonous look and bit back an unholy impulse to ask Nerothos if he promised, mostly because she was sure that he actually would kill her, and Tun would be furious if he found out that she'd been encouraging the demon.

"You're lucky he likes you," she muttered, causing Na'rii, who thought she was referring to the dreadlord, to acquire a look of distrustful confusion.

"You're going then?" Tun asked, frowning ambivalently beneath his mop of green hair. He was glad that Callista was going to at least attempt to find their missing companion, but deeply wary of any outcome arranged by That Demon.

"So it seems," Callista said, not looking at all pleased. She muttered softly under her breath, gesturing purposefully as she worked the spell that would summon her felhunter.

Green flames burst from the roughly-hewn floor, Jhormug springing from the midst of them with a snarl.

"You'll look after things here?" she asked, tugging sharply on one of the beast's neck spines as he began nosing after a pile of fel crystals abandoned on a table.

"I'll do my best," Tun said, eyeing Nerothos and the High Mekgineer doubtfully.

"Be careful, mon," Na'rii said, clapping a hand on his shoulder companionably. "We'll be quick as we can."

Callista looked momentarily annoyed at the friendly gesture, but shot Tun a wan smile before turning towards the center of the cavern, Jhormug loping at her side with long feelers waving. Na'rii stalked along at her other side, watching the warlock with suspicion from the corner of her eye.

One hour, Callista thought, returning her wary stare. For Tun's sake, she would do her best for that long. If the ogre hadn't turned up by then, the troll could either accept her loss or take the matter up with Nerothos. Callista could think of far better uses for her time, ones much less likely to end in bitter frustration.

Tun watched his friends vanish into a crowd of squabbling mo'arg with no small amount of misgiving. Both women were willful, thought very highly of themselves, and had had little love for the other ever since Na'rii had first accused Callista of collaborating with the dreadlord. Though he didn't actually expect them to do each other harm, he did have his doubts about their effectiveness as a team. He hoped for Kar'thol's sake that they managed to keep their tempers (and, in Callista's case, her perverse tendency to escalate arguments for her own amusement) in check.

Sighing a little, he turned his attention to Nerothos and the heavily-prosthetic-ed mo'arg at his side, trying not to feel too small and out of place amidst the towering demons. Most other races loomed over him, even on Azeroth, but demons tended to be even taller than those. The malice most of them radiated only made them seem larger, and Tun, who had never been concerned about such a thing even among the hulking draenei that frequented Stormwind, was suddenly worried about being trampled underfoot.

He ducked under a sturdy metal table near Nerothos' right wing and felt a little safer. Leaning against one of its thick iron legs, he peered out and pricked his ears, trying to distinguish the dreadlord's smooth voice from the demonic chatter that had swelled as Charin's servants galvanized their brethren into action.

He was having, from Tun's perspective, a very boring conversation. Both demons' expressions were impossible to read (Charin's because of the metal plate that obscured half his face, and Nerothos' because he kept it that way deliberately), and he couldn't understand more than an isolated word or two of their Eredun. Even the tone of their voices was uninformative. Eredun was an unpleasant, guttural language, even when spoken by a creature like Nerothos (who, whatever his other faults, at least had excellent diction), and most everything said in it sounded vaguely sinister. Charin's speech, less refined than his companion's, was indistinguishable to Tun from an extended snarling growl.

A flash of motion at the corner of his eye startled him from his ineffectual spying. He whipped his head around to look, but relaxed when he saw that it was only a gan'arg, darting out of the way of the careless feet and hooves much as he had.

The demon watched him cautiously through wide, pale eyes, and it gave Tun an odd, almost guilty feeling to realize that it looked frightened of him.

He nodded at it in a way that he hoped was non-threatening.

The gan'arg simply blinked, then turned to peer up at Nerothos and Charin. As it turned, Tun noticed mottled patches on the skin of its clawless hands, and realized that it was "their" gan'arg, the one that Callista had drafted into their little group.

"I wish you spoke Common," he muttered, knowing that the gan'arg must have a much better idea of what was being said than he did.

Nerothos must have noticed the demon too, or heard Tun's quiet remark, because he turned his fel-lit gaze on the two beneath the table. "Erae'gred i, gan'arg," he commanded.

The little demon seemed unhappy to have been addressed, and shot Tun a resentful look before slinking out from the shelter of the table.

Tun watched it go, trying to figure out what the gan'arg had been summoned for, and suddenly found himself pierced by High Mekgineer Charin's cold red eye. He automatically froze, transfixed.

The High Mekgineer regarded him clinically, asking a question that Nerothos answered in an indifferent tone.

Charin nodded slightly, and Nerothos looked at Tun as though he were some tool that he was considering putting to use, addressing him in Common. "Come, gnome."

Tun hesitated. He didn't trust Nerothos, had no interest in blithely skipping off to do whatever foul thing he probably had in mind, but somehow he couldn't quite make his mouth form the words to a refusal. Not with both demons' eyes boring into him so unsettlingly.

Nerothos smiled, an even more disturbing expression than his calculating look, and turned to stalk towards the edge of the cavern. Tun followed, mentally berating himself even as he jogged after the dreadlord's leathery-winged back. Callista, he was sure, would've demanded an explanation. She might even have gotten one. Sometimes he envied the warlock her fearlessness, but he didn't think that he could ever learn to treat a creature like Nerothos with the sort of familiarity that she did.

Not that that was necessarily a flaw, he reminded himself, shuddering a little as they passed a cage containing a pitiful twisted creature that stared at him with dull eyes. Some things were simply too monstrous to be kept too close. Aversion to them was no weakness; it was the best way to avoid the terrible danger of becoming like them. Sometimes Tun thought that if warlocks and their ilk would remember this from time to time, the world might look on them with a little less abhorrence.

"What did that demon say to ya?"

"Hm?" Callista looked up in surprise, swiveling her head to look at Na'rii. The troll's eyes were narrowed in an expression that had, for once, more of thoughtfulness than aggression in it. They had been searching for Kar'thol for some time now, ducking back and forth across the column of military supplies that the demons had marshaled in the center of the cavern, but this was the first she had spoken.

"The dreadlord," Na'rii clarified, keeping a wary eye on the ironclad leg of a fel reaver that rumbled and steamed past them. "He said somethin' and ya changed ya mind. What was it?"

Callista twitched a lip in puzzlement, mentally tugging on the power that bound her to Jhormug to keep the felhunter from straying too far. This room contained many artifacts and tools of varying magical potency, and Jhormug was much less interested in finding Kar'thol than he was in sniffing out and devouring them. "I don't see why it matters." Or why it's any of your business. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"Not the point," Na'rii said, eyeballing her coldly and fingering the hilt of her sword.

Callista's lip curled just a little at the gesture, but otherwise she ignored her, craning her head to peer over a pallet of swords carried by a pair of knotty-muscled felguards. If the troll thought that she could intimidate her, she was very sadly mistaken.

"Listen, mon," Na'rii continued, when it become clear that Callista considered their discussion to be closed. "I know ya think that everyone who doesn' mess around with the arcane be some kind of fool, so let me set ya straight. I know as well as you where this whole thing be goin'."

Callista flicked a glance at her from the corner of her eye. The troll had moved closer, trying to capitalize on her height advantage over the human, and her lips were drawn back just the tiniest bit from her sharp white teeth. She was obviously working herself up to some kind of threat or ultimatum, but Callista saw little reason to be impressed with either. She'd already had to put up with both from Nerothos, and the dreadlord was much better at it. "Draenor, I've been led to assume," she said dryly.

Na'rii ignored the flippancy of the remark except for a slight narrowing of her eyes. "And then what? Once we be there, that dreadlord don' need us anymore. Maybe ya think he won' kill ya, and maybe you be right." She looked contemptuous at that, as though it were some personal failing of Callista's that Nerothos might keep her around. Maybe it was. "But I bet he won' be lettin' the rest of us just go."

Callista allowed a touch of felfire to rim her fingertips, staring aggressively at a mo'arg who had been sizing them up until the demon thought better of it and looked away. The troll's words echoed something that she had been mulling over for some time now. Poking around the cavern, she had noticed a great dearth of skilled warriors. Mo'arg and even gan'arg could be vicious enough when pressed, but they didn't make very effective soldiers. For that reason alone, Nerothos would allow their little group of mortals to tag along through the Draenor gate, but after that? After that, they would represent nothing but three (four, if they actually found the ogre), rather messy loose ends who had seen far too much of Burning Legion politics.

"Did you have some sort of plan?" Callista asked, reluctantly drawn into the conversation.

"Dunno, mon." Na'rii gave her a hard look. "But if it comes down to killin', just remember whose side ya on."

Callista wrinkled her nose scornfully, raising her voice to be heard over the rumbling wheels of a cart with a gleaming fel cannon perched on it. She was thoroughly sick of having her loyalties questioned, especially since, whatever pacts she had or hadn't made with Nerothos, no one had been truly hurt by them. No one the troll knew about, anyway. "I promise you," she said, smiling in a way meant to be unsettling, "if it comes to that, it won't matter much which side I take."

Not that she really had any intention of backing Nerothos – she would never do that to Tun – but honestly. If the troll was so obsessed with finding something to be suspicious of, let her stew over that comment for a while.

Na'rii scowled, tilting her head to examine Callista as though she were some new sort of slimy thing she'd found beneath a rock. "Ya know, carin' about one person doesn' make ya any less of a filthy snake."

Callista gave a derisive snort. "If I were you, I'd leave the preaching to someone who doesn't murder people for gold."

"Better than killin' them for demons," Na'rii shot back. A gan'arg gawked curiously at the squabbling mortals; she bared her teeth at it and it scurried away.

"Oh, don't be an idiot," Callista said scathingly. "Dead is dead. At least I don't suffer whatever sanctimonious delusion about it you seem to be under."

"Ya mean a conscience?"

Callista actually laughed. "Is this the part where you consign my soul to eternal hellfire in the Nether? I hope not; it's terribly unoriginal." She inspected the green flames that still flickered around her hand with mock thoughtfulness, grinning unpleasantly. "I've killed lots of things that way, you know, and there are much worse ways to die. It's like the Light has some commandment against imagination I wasn't aware of."

"The spirits be merciful if that's all ya get," Na'rii muttered, eyeing her as if disappointed that some higher power wasn't striking her dead on the spot.

An eerie howl floated above the background din of clattering metal and demonic voices, putting an end to the argument.

"Jhormug's found something," Callista said doubtfully, craning her neck to peer down the long line of war supplies in the direction of the sound.

She found herself talking to fel-tainted air; Na'rii had already taken off at a run, narrowly missing a messy end as she bolted between a fel reaver's legs.

Callista followed at a less breakneck pace, returning the curses of irritated mo'arg as she jostled their carts and generally got in the way of their slow exodus from the cavern. If this wasn't really Kar'thol, she quit.

On the other hand, if it actually was…

She swore as she accelerated to something nearer a sprint, dodging around a void terror's drooling jaws and scattering gan'arg like frightened hens. The last thing she needed was for the troll to cause some kind of ridiculous spectacle; she would gum up the movement of the line of supplies and probably get herself killed, causing both Tun and Nerothos to be angry with Callista at the same time. It was bad enough when they took turns.

She caught up to Na'rii several minutes later, panting heavily and squeezing at the stitch in her side as she slowed to a stop. "Plaguing hells, troll! You couldn't have waited?!" she snapped in between breaths.

Na'rii merely grunted defiantly, ducking a blow from a mo'arg who had a seized a sword from a passing cart in his unmodified hand and was advancing on her with a sneer. With his lips pulled back that way, Callista could see that his teeth had been replaced with jagged metal fangs.

A felguard lay crumpled on the ground behind him, sporting several gashes from Na'rii's sword and a nasty collection of burn marks.

Behind the body stood Kar'thol.

The ogre was harnessed to a heavy iron cart by thick chains that collared his neck and wrists, roaring furiously as he tried to turn the cart in an effort to reach his friend.

Sparks flew as Na'rii parried a vicious downward swipe from the mo'arg, the blades screeching past each other. The mo'arg was not a skilled swordsman, but he was very strong, and his superior height gave him leverage.

Lightning crackled in Na'rii's other hand, suddenly arcing to surge through the metal claw the mo'arg extended to grab her. Something inside the prosthetic popped, and blue smoke rose from the joint as the mo'arg howled in anger.

Kar'thol finally managed to drag his cart sideways against the flow of traffic, scoring great gouges in the stone as the metal wheels pivoted. The caravan of supplies began to bunch and slow as demons tried to circumvent the battle, and two more mo'arg and another felguard abandoned their carts to stalk towards the disturbance. Oh, this was going to get ugly.

"You! Stand down NOW!" Callista yelled at the mo'arg in her best talking-to-demons voice. She sounded enough like a furious superior that the mo'arg actually hesitated, until he turned his head to see that she was mortal.

By then it was too late.

Na'rii used the distraction to thrust her blade into the demon's chest, twisting it sharply as she channeled a stroke of lightning through the weapon. The mo'arg toppled to the ground, dead. She removed her sword, wiping it clean on the body before falling into a crouch as she watched the three approaching demons.

"Listen, troll," Callista said, eyeing the demons warily, "put the sword away, and keep your mouth shut."

Na'rii pulled her lips back from her tusks in something between a snarl and sneer, not inclined to listen to any order given by the warlock. She really hadn't intended to fly into battle like that, but once she'd caught sight of Kar'thol, leashed up like some kind of pack animal by a pair of filthy demons…her outrage had overcome her better judgment. But what was done was done, and if they had to fight their way out of this now, then so be it.

"Don't be an idiot," Callista hissed, laying her hand on her felhunters back as it padded over to growl softly at her side. "There are hundreds of demons in this cavern. If you kill those, there will just be more. I think I can convince them to leave us alone."

Na'rii gave a sharp, skeptical laugh. "Ya, right, mon." The demons had just seen her slaughter two of their fellows. How did the warlock expect to gloss over that?

Callista's eyes narrowed, and she bit off her words in a slow, measured fashion, as though talking to a child or a fool. "Look. The reason no one's stopped us already is they think we're servants of the dreadlord. All we have to do is not discourage that idea. Now, go move your friend out of the way and get him out of those chains. Please." She tacked on the last word as an afterthought when Na'rii failed to budge.

Na'rii gave her a cold, measuring look. Her tone alone was galling enough that Na'rii didn't want to listen to her, but it was true that they couldn't fight off an entire fortress full of demons. The warlock certainly talked enough like a spirits-cursed fiend sometimes. Maybe they would believe her. She stood suddenly, flicking her beaded hair disdainfully as she sauntered over to Kar'thol.

Callista breathed a small sigh of relief, eyeing the two mo'arg and the felguard warily. Especially the felguard. Its double-headed axe was held at ready and it looked delighted to be getting a chance to use it.

She mentally crossed her fingers, hoping that Nerothos' name had as much clout here as she thought it would, and waited for them to approach to several axe-lengths away before accosting them in demonic.

"What do you want?" she asked, putting on her best arrogant sneer and eyeballing them as if they'd been the ones causing the disruption. Catching her mood, the spiny hackles on Jhormug's shoulders rose in warning.

The two mo'arg exchanged an uncertain glance, put off by her demeanor (most mortals in their experience were tied screaming to tables, not looking down their noses at them and making demands) and the felhunter's snarl, but the felguard seemed unimpressed.

"Out of the way, mortal, if you want to keep all those limbs," it said with a growl, adjusting its grip on its axe.

"Watch your tone," Callista snapped, narrowing her eyes scornfully. She raised a hand, glancing pointedly at the iridescent shadow that flickered around it like dark fire, while surreptitiously watching the felguard's reaction to the threat. It still didn't look impressed, but the fact that it hadn't tried to lop her head off yet was promising.

"I'm under orders from the dreadlord Nerothos to fetch an ogre," she continued, staring at the demons as though daring them to object, "and I'm taking that one." She jabbed her shadow-free hand at Kar'thol, who Na'rii had managed to steer over to the side of the column and was now trying to free with a key she'd pilfered from the dead felguard.

The mo'arg muttered uncomfortably at that, while the felguard let out a loud bark of laughter and pounded the butt of its axe against the floor. "You're lying," it said with a vicious leer, advancing a step.

Jhormug tensed for a leap, toothy jaws falling open a little in anticipation, but Callista restrained him.

"Am I really?" she said, smiling unpleasantly and holding her ground. "Maybe we should ask." She looked around for a likely target. "Gan'arg!" she snapped, causing one of the demons to slow and look at her suspiciously. "Take a message to the dreadlord. Tell him – "

"Not necessary," one of the mo'arg interrupted quickly, knocking aside the felguard's axe with a metal-pincered hand. "He'll tear our guts to ribbons, you idiot!" he snarled at the felguard.

"You're holding up the line," Callista pointed out with sickeningly artificial sweetness, looking past their heads to the supplies that the three demons had abandoned.

The felguard bared its fangs in a hideous sneer, still unwilling to yield.

"Let's go," the mo'arg ordered, glaring foully at it.

The felguard glowered for a moment more, snarling something highly uncomplimentary before turning and stalking back towards its cart, the two mo'arg trailing.

"Are you blind, you meathead?" one of them growled at it once they'd gotten a fair distance away, cuffing it on the back of the helm with a hand like a collection of screwdriver bits. "That's the dreadlord's creature! Did you see what he had it do to that – "

The mo'arg snapped its mouth shut as the felguard whirled on it and gnashed its teeth threateningly.

Callista snorted. She didn't know whether to be amused that she was developing a reputation or offended that it was as Nerothos' mortal peon. Oh well. She supposed she'd take what she could get.

A wounded bellow cut into her musing.

She spun around in exasperation to see what new disaster the troll had created now, but relaxed when she didn't see any felguards sprinting towards the noise. All she saw was Na'rii, gesticulating pleadingly at Kar'thol's broad and stubbornly-turned back, and after a moment Callista realized that there were words in the bellowing.

"Na'rii leave Kar'thol to die with demons!" the ogre howled.

Na'rii tried to duck around to his front, a looked of pained guilt on her face as she spoke some apology that Callista couldn't make out, but Kar'thol merely turned his back sulkily on her again.

It was, to Callista, an uncomfortably familiar sort of scene. The yelling, the guilt, the recriminations, the look of betrayal. She almost might've felt sympathy for the troll, if she hadn't been so caught up in the vindictive pleasure of watching someone else be stuffed into the role of bad guy for once. It served Na'rii right, after all the ragging she'd done on her. After all, whatever Callista's offenses may have been (and there had been a few of them), at least she hadn't left her closest friend to fend for himself in a pit full of abyssals.

Though, she supposed, to be perfectly fair, it wasn't as though Na'rii had had much choice after Callista had shoved her into Tun that way. She'd been doing the troll a favor at the time!

"Leave Kar'thol alone!" the ogre wailed, stomping a large foot on the rusty stone.

"We need to go!" Callista shouted over him, swatting absently at one of Jhormug's feelers as it trailed over the hand she'd used for conjuring. She wasn't about to leave Tun alone with Nerothos and that creepy mo'arg for one second longer than necessary.

"Come on, Kar'thol," she heard Na'rii coax as she approached. The troll laid a hand on the ogre's tattooed wrist, tugging gently. "Please, mon, I know ya mad, but we be goin' home!"

Kar'thol snatched his wrist away and kicked violently at the cart he'd been harnessed to, causing it to sway and spill a handful of what appeared to be fel reaver parts. "Kar'thol don't know that! Na'rii say she stick with Kar'thol but then Na'rii leave! Na'rii lies like warlock!"

"Hey," Callista said, finding this to be unnecessary slander. A gang of gan'arg had paused to rubberneck at the feud (she guessed that loud emotional scenes were in short supply on Xoroth); Jhormug made a bounding charge at them and they scattered, shrieking.

"Na'rii worse than warlock!" Kar'thol railed, kicking at the cart again. This time it overturned with a clang, gears and metal plates skidding across the stone. "At least warlock not leave gnome!"

"I be really sorry, mon!" Na'rii pleaded, shoulders drooping with guilt. "I didn' wanna go, but they pushed me! I been tryin' to find ya this whole time, I swear on the spirits. Tell him it be true!" she said, desperate enough to turn to Callista for aid.

"It's true," Callista confirmed. She would've said anything just to get the two of them moving.

Kar'thol grunted scornfully and stomped his foot again, unconvinced.

"Look," Callista tried again, beginning to become frustrated. She wished that Tun were here; he was much better at diffusing this kind of situation. She only tended to make things worse. "I'm leaving. You can stay, but if you get lost these demons will not understand when you ask for directions."

Na'rii laid a hand on Kar'thol's wrist again, murmuring soothingly, but he yanked his arm away viciously. Neither so much as glanced at Callista.

Feet shuffled behind her and someone cleared their throat.

She looked back and then down to see Darmog eyeing Kar'thol as though he were some kind of crazed exotic beast. "Darmog?" she said, surprised (and then immediately suspicious) to see the gan'arg. "What's wrong?"

He hunched his small shoulders noncommittally. "The dreadlord wants you. Says if you haven't found anything yet to leave it."

"Oh, we found something alright," Callista said dryly, watching as Kar'thol howled something incomprehensible and crushed a steel cog beneath his foot. "What does he want?"

"Can you leave it anyway?" Darmog muttered, cringing as the ogre smashed another part. "Didn't say. Just said to find you."

"Of course he did," Callista grumbled. Well, it's not like she wasn't planning on going back anyway. "Goodbye!" she yelled loudly and pointedly, giving a sarcastic wave to the bickering pair.

Na'rii glanced at her, but quickly became distracted as Kar'thol flung a piece of fel steel that almost knocked her legs from under her.

Well, at least she'd tried.

She shrugged at Darmog. "Let's go, I guess."

She wasn't sure he'd even noticed the gesture; his round eyes were still glued to the rampaging ogre. "Good choice," he muttered.

A demonic engine roared to life, spewing black smoke as it cranked a thick steel rope through a pulley anchored high above the cavern floor. A pair of enormous hooks dangled from the rope's free end, and suspended from those was the menacing bulk of a fel cannon, swaying precariously as it rose.

Tun jumped at the sudden sound, jostling the gan'arg with his elbow and causing it to startle before shooting him a surly look.

"Sorry," Tun said, knowing it didn't speak Common but hoping it would understand his tone. He normally had no fondness for demons, but he felt an odd sort of solidarity with the gan'arg. They were the only other small creatures in this room full of clawed behemoths, and besides, the little demon seemed no more thrilled with Nerothos' orders than he was.

The gan'arg merely wrinkled its grey brow, staring at Tun as though he might quite possibly be mad. Then it growled softly in demonic before darting away and scrambling up the side of a box full of scrap metal left near the smoking engine.

Tun understood why when a dark shadow fell over him, dimming the reddish light of Xoroth. The tiny hairs on his neck rose with dread. So much for solidarity.

"I have a task for you, gnome," Nerothos said, as Tun turned reluctantly to face him.

He had to look very far up to meet his eyes, and then was sorry when he did. Nerothos' gaze had a way of making him feel as though the demon had dissected every thought in his head and found the results laughable. "What is it?" Tun asked, crossing his short arms and trying to inject some confidence into his voice.

Nerothos smiled, fanning his wings and causing Tun to stiffen a little at the sudden movement. "Assist the gan'arg. Mekgineer Grol'rej will instruct you."

That…didn't actually sound so terrible. Tun was tempted to agree just to make the dreadlord go away, but the very inoffensiveness of the order made him suspicious. "Assist them with what?" he asked with as much defiance as he could manage. He suddenly missed Callista. He'd managed to avoid any previous personal conversations with Nerothos, mostly because she had always been there to deal with him instead. Alone now, he appreciated that a lot more.

"You will aid in whatever you are told," Nerothos said, a hard note creeping into his tone.

Tun eyed him uncertainly. That did not answer the question.

He toyed with the idea of pointing that out but quickly discarded it, wary of the look on the demon's face. Then the one-eyed mo'arg ambled over, bladed drill spinning lazily as he sneered at Tun before turning to Nerothos, and that settled it. Nerothos on his own was bad enough; dealing with the two creatures at once was out of the question.

He muttered something that he hoped the dreadlord would take for assent and ducked away.

By this time, the fel cannon had been hoisted high onto a row of gear-and-piston-bedecked machinery, secured by a quartet of gan'arg already scurrying about the top. Several more stood at the bottom, close to the engine they'd used to lift the cannon.

Tun walked halfheartedly towards them, unsure which was Mekgineer Grol'rej and hoping the demons would simply ignore him until Callista and Na'rii turned up. He'd only taken a few steps, however, when a gan'arg with an ornate sigil embroidered on its robe addressed him in gutturally-accented Common.

" 'Ey, you, mortal! You a mage?"

Tun slowed to a suspicious halt. "Er, yes," he said.

"Good. Open a portal to the top," it said, jerking its chin up towards the fel cannon. "Near those boxes of scrap."

Tun frowned, uncomfortably aware of Nerothos' eyes on his back. "Alright," he said reluctantly, not seeing the harm in it and figuring he didn't have much of a choice anyway.

The mekgineer grunted in acknowledgement before turning to bark something to one of its fellows.

Tun closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as he drew on the arcane. The cool rush of power through his limbs was energizing, even reassuring as it drove away the demonic taint that seemed to foul every breath he took on this world. He hands moved automatically through the spell gestures, and when he opened his eyes again it was to the inky-black void of a portal.

He stepped away from it just in time to avoid being barreled over by a gan'arg pushing a metal cart full of discarded parts twice as tall as it was. Like most demons, the little creatures were a great deal stronger than they looked.

Tun moved to a position well away from the recklessly-propelled carts, settling down to maintain the portal and watch as the gan'arg at the top of the ledge unloaded the scraps of machinery. They appeared to be constructing some kind of screen or barricade around the cannon, stacking the junk into walls secured by a thick clear resin. Every now and then he glanced over his shoulder, hoping to see the familiar forms of Callista and Na'rii amongst the teeming crowd of demons.

It was some time, however, before his vigilance was rewarded.

Callista appeared first, dodging around a pair of ponderously rolling fel cannons. She was accompanied by her felhunter and a gan'arg and kept looking backwards with an impatient air. A few moments later Tun saw why; Na'rii and Kar'thol trailed her at a considerable distance, the troll's shoulders slumped unhappily while the ogre stomped along with a sullen expression.

The sight caused Tun a sharp pang of guilt. He could guess why they'd been fighting, and he had been the one who'd whisked everyone but Kar'thol away from danger. The fact that the only alternative at the time had been death or capture for all of them did little to dull his sense of responsibility.

Callista noticed him and waved, flashing a grin.

Tun waved back, but waited until she approached to speak. "Is everything alright?" he asked, eyes flicking meaningfully over her shoulder to where Na'rii and Kar'thol stood ignoring each other.

Callista glanced back and shrugged. "Oh, well, he isn't very happy with any of us since we left him like that, but he knows he has to cooperate or he's stuck here."

Tun nodded, feeling another twinge as he watched Na'rii, who looked even guiltier than he felt, try to make some overture to Kar'thol only to be rebuffed with a blunt scowl.

"What is that?" Callista asked skeptically, gaze travelling upwards to the fel cannon and the gan'arg bustling around it. She grabbed a handful of the felhunter's neck spines as its feelers began to seek restlessly. Sensing the portal he'd conjured, Tun didn't doubt. Nasty creature.

"An aide to negotiations," Nerothos said, startling Tun with his sudden entrance into the conversation.

Tun took a few discreet steps to the side to distance himself from the dreadlord, but Nerothos ignored him, watching with cold disdain as Kar'thol lashed out abruptly and scattered a pack of screeching gan'arg.

"I don't know where you found that creature, warlock, but I suspect it was far more useful where it was."

"I am not putting it back," Callista said quickly, crossing her arms and twisting to eye Kar'thol warily before pausing. "Negotiations with what?"

Nerothos smiled in cold amusement, glancing briefly down at Tun and switching to Eredun, answering her question with a question.

Tun's brow furrowed in suspicion as Callista responded, annoyance shading her expression. He couldn't understand what she'd said, but it sounded sardonic.

He assumed he'd interpreted that correctly when Nerothos smiled and replied in the same tone, dropping a hand onto her shoulder in a gesture that would've looked bizarrely friendly, if Callista's aggravated yelp of "Claws, demon!" hadn't revealed it as something else entirely.

Talons hooked into her collarbone, he herded her none-too-gently away from Tun and the bulk of the gan'arg, releasing her in a clear section of floor where they proceeded to have a quiet but heated discussion.

Tun's first instinct was to follow, convinced that the warlock had finally made one too many cheeky remarks to something nasty enough to actually do something about it, but he paused when it became clear that Callista, though far from pleased, wasn't terribly alarmed either. The felhunter looked complacent as well, or as complacent as it ever did, jaws lolling open hungrily as it turned its eyeless head to follow the progress of a wagon laden with enchanted weaponry.

Tun shook his head and then rubbed at his temples, mental fatigue starting to set in from holding the gan'arg's portal open for so long. He supposed he should be glad that Callista had enough idea what was going on here to argue about it, because he wasn't sure he had a clue anymore.

"And you expect us to just sit up there for…how long again?" Callista asked, cocking her head so a dirty strand of hair fell across her cheek. She brushed it out of the way with an annoyed motion.

Nerothos' wings spread a little in irritation as he responded, leaning close as much to intimidate as to avoid raising his voice over the din of the cavern. "As long as it takes, as you are very well aware."

Callista narrowed her eyes, not pacified by this answer. "Hours, then? Listen, demon, I don't know how much time you think we – "

"No, actually," Nerothos interrupted, voice a dangerous purr, "I think that you will listen to me. When Sarlah breaches those wards – as she inevitably will – I will not have a cowardly rabble of her former servants as our only guard."

No, instead he would have the cowardly rabble plus her and Tun, an arrangement that Callista did not approve of in the least. Sitting idle on that ledge with the fel cannon and its pack of gan'arg gunners while the rest of the demons passed to Xoroth's surface without her was not her idea of a plan. She crossed her arms aggressively, ignoring the odd prickle across her skin she always felt when the demon stood too close. "Oh no? Then tell me. What guarantee do we have that you won't just scurry off to Nether knows where and leave us for fodder?"

Nerothos laughed darkly, sweeping his wings forward and causing Callista's eyes to flick nervously to the side in spite of herself. "None," he said. His voice was heavy with irony as his mouth curved in a mocking smile. "I suppose you will simply have to trust me."

Callista scowled for a moment before putting a finger to her cheek in faux-thoughtfulness. "I wonder if the gan'arg have any thoughts on collateral damage."

Nerothos laughed again, unimpressed by a threat so transparently empty. "Treatises' worth," he said, wings settling smugly against his back. "But it is of little concern. My faith in your ruthless self-interest has proven excellently placed."

"Funny, I feel a fit of altruism coming on…" she said, eyeing him with disgust.

Nerothos smiled, showing a glimpse of hard white fangs. "No. You don't."