S
We counted our losses during the break. So far we had lost eight men in battle. Their bodies were covered and brought to the entrance of this plane. Additional Tauren and Orc warrior reinforcements arrived as well. We would certainly need their help as our next path was inaccessible for vehicles. It was a path to the left of the plateau that had high peaks and narrow paths and spiders, lots and lots of spiders. Menacing overgrown fiery spiders. By the Light, I hated spiders. Nevertheless we couldn't allow them to remain there or we risked getting ambushed later on. We had to clear the whole damn place of Ragnaros's allies.
"Ugh," I sighed.
"What's wrong?" Shaestra added.
"How funny of you to ask, you know exactly what's wrong".
"Yeah, I do, you also know you're not the only one with that problem".
""What problem?" Aelana asked from behind me.
"Spiders, I absolutely loathe them. Their many legs, too many eyes and their webs that get in your face when you walk through the woods. Ugh. When i was in the citadel Arthas just loved to keep Nerubians nearby knowing it made me scream internally".
"Yeah, he played some nasty games with all of us," Lana'thel added.
"It's a shame you look at them that way," Aelana started, "before I was moved to Icecrown I stayed in Dragonblight and helped a small band of uncorrupted nerubians retake Azjol-Nerub, they are a proud and friendly race. They were betrayed by their king as they told me".
"Anub'Arak," Lana'thel whispered.
"I still hate spiders, I can't wait to be rid of them".
"Slow down, love, how are your wings?" Aelana asked.
I tried moving them, they listened to me again but they still hurt.
"They are still sore, I will walk for now."
"Please don't exert yourself."
"I'll let Shaestra do most of the work here, she hates spiders as much as I do," I giggled.
Our forces got ready to move but we didn't have to engage in combat for a while as we just let our artillery shoot down whatever oversized spider was in sight. We had to go through a narrow path so we had better make sure it was clear of enemies. Once it was it took a while for our forces minus artillery to get through, a squad of warriors stayed behind to protect them. The goblin foreman said he would light a green flare should they need any assistance.
The way up was surprisingly easy. The scattered spiders were no match for a small well equipped and prepared army. Our formations and ranged support was superb and we managed to get to the top unscathed. Atop the hill we entered massive lair. A huge web hung above us with on top of it its creator. A spider that was at least the side of two siege engines on top of each other was waiting for us.
"This just keeps getting better," I shuddered.
As soon as we entered the area, small spiders started descending from the top of the web. They started chasing random soldiers but were quickly brought down by arrows and spells.
The big spider didn't seem to have any intention of coming down so I turned to Lana.
"Should we be two obnoxious flies?"
"Nice Irony, Angel".
We flew up through a hole in the middle of the web and engaged the monstrous spider. Lana'thel could stay at range, but I was a little more unlucky when it came to doing my maximum damage. I hated to admit it, but as much as I hated spiders, I had come to learn a few things about tgem in Icecrown. One such thing is that they cannot reach their backs with their legs. I hoped that theory would apply in this case as I landed on its abdomen. Lana'thel caused the perfect distraction as the monster seemed to follow her. I drew my sword and started hacking away at the chitin protecting the spider's vital parts. I heard it scream out in pain multiple times and when I was sure i had a large enough of an opening I empowered my blade. All the holy energy that I commanded was put in my sword. I then raised it and impaled the arachnid with it. It ran for the centre of the web. I dismounted quickly and yelled to move away from the middle of the room. The beast fell down with full force and whimpered a few times before dropping dead. I retrieved my sword from its corpse and thanked the Light this part was over.
I was happy to hear we suffered no losses during the fight, it seemed one night elf sentinel got badly poisoned, though. She was undergoing treatment on the field. I rushed over to her with Aelana after we heard what happened. Her stomach was severely infected and had large deep cuts across it. Her face was one of utter fear. It was obvious she was fighting for her life, and losing the battle. There was no way she was going to live long enough for the healing to take effect with the venom spreading through her rapidly.
"Aelana, by the light, please use everything you have."
From another point of view it would be better to let her pass away so I didn't have to exert myself this badly. From my own point of view, I couldn't do that. I can't allow a life be taken away if I can do something about it, which I absolutely could in this case.
I sat down and lifted her up, hugging her from behind. I put my hand above her wound and felt her body give up the fight. I channelled my magic through her and found her soul slipping out of her body. I caught it and kept it from escaping. It's probably one of the toughest fights I ever had. Keeping a soul from escaping a body. It used more and more strength to keep it chained to the Elf's body. If it escaped the only option to keep her here with us would be by using necromantic magic to pull it back into the body, thus resurrecting her as death knight. I never wanted to do such a thing again and was fixated on keeping her alive somehow.
Her soul stopped pulling at some point and went to rest. I felt Aelana's magic and knew she was finished. I opened my eyes again and laid the girl down. She was sound asleep.
I shook my head, "that was one hell of a fight".
Aelana smiled, "I know".
"We should move though".
"You should rest some, Angel".
"Yeah, Yeah, I know."
"Nice one!"
I turned around. Lana'thel looked at the elf, then back at me.
"You didn't just save her because she has a cute face did you? Aelana might get jealous."
"I think Aelana's is cuter," I chuckled.
Aelana blushed.
"Especially when she does that eh?" Lana mocked me.
"Yup, but let's get going".
Once we got back to our siege weapons I got the chance to rest. I did so sitting on top of the siege engine together with the foreman.
When we talked he didn't miss the opportunity to praise goblin handicraft. I got the perfect chance to het back at him as we got to the nest open area. A huge firebird sat in the middle and started mocking us.
"Ahh, you remember Alysra whom you helped in Hyjal? Well, I serve a new master now, mortals."
I saw a few of our people look at each other and talk quickly but we didn't have time for that. The bird flew up high in the sky and summoned two eggs. The night elves had already started firing at the bird but missed everything.
In my best Darnassian (Thalassian was very close to it) I shouted to them to attack whatever was on land.
"Well mister goblin engineer, show me what this beauty can do besides making a lot of noise."
"No problemo".
"Boys, the big baddie's our target, one. Two. RAPID FIRE!"
I saw Lana'thel had already made her way up, she was smart enough to get out of the way as soon as the rocket barrage began.
I have to admit, these goblins know what they are talking about when they say anti-air rockets. They were fairly reliable against ground target already but wreaked complete havoc when used for what they were meant. Not a single shot missed and it didn't take longer than twenty seconds before the reborn Alysra crashed into a spire and rolled down onto the plateau.
"That was surprisingly easy," Shaestra said.
She stood next to the siege engine with an arrow in her hand.
"I didn't even get to fire once".
"Since when is that a bad thing?"
"For you maybe not". She smiled.
Since we didn't get to do much we moved on quickly. A ramp lead to the volcano that we spotted earlier and it was heavily guarded by lesser fire elementals. As soon as we killed a few, more showed up and rushed down to meet us. I was still on the siege engine of which I got to see it's secondary weapon now. Its battering ram obliterated any elementals that came close. We used it as an effective plough going up the volcano. With the siege engine up front and the archers behind us we cleared a path with at the end a larger fire elemental waiting for us. The elemental itself was no problem but the monster behind it was.
An absolutely humongous rock elemental stood in the middle of the crater on a rock platform with a lava ring around it. We caught its attention as it came running for us. Well, running, it was as slow as it was big. It needed ten seconds to set one foot forward. Knowing what the best course of action was I flew up to him and made him turn around to face me.
"Nuisances, nuisances!" It yelled as I tried to pierce his armour.
Its armour was incredibly tough and I would only splinter a few rocks off of him every few hits. The glaive throwers behind him were doing more work though. His armour was splintering and falling off one rock at a time. And just when I thought this might be easy he crouched and started drinking lava from the circle around the platform. Not knowing what the hell was going on I panicked slightly, especially when his head came back up and started looking at me. He opened his mouth and I prayed to the light I would survive this.
"Icy winds of Northrend envelop me!"
I engulfed my body in the biting cold winds of Icecrown, so cold that even I could feel them. I hoped it would be enough. When he spewed the lava all over me I could feel it through the protective layers of ice on my body. It was so hot.
At that moment his armour cracked and everything fell off at once, revealing his true core, a molten mass of boiling lava.
The hunters and shamans fired their arrows and frost spells at him, Lana'thel joined them. After the burning sensation of his lava spew diminished I landed. I saw him die and collapse before I fell down on my hands and knees myself.
I heard Aelana rushing to me but I couldn't lift my head to look at her.
"Angel, are you alright?
With the little bit of energy I still had I shook my head. I honestly wasn't fine.
"I'm burning... from within..." I managed to sputter.
I had no idea I could experience extreme temperatures in this way. Nobody could ever survive such exposure to lava, yet here I was, still alive. I was alive, but the pain from the heat was intense. A normal person would never experience pain like this, they would either pass out or die.
Aelana tried to reach out for my face but retracted her hand in pain before she even touched me.
"Don't..."
The pain didn't subside one bit and I started to panic, was I dying? Like really dying? I couldn't. I wouldn't.
"So... hot..."
I heard Aelana scream my name as I passed out.
Even my dreams were filled with fire. My mind knew no rest from the heat. The flames grew brighter and brighter before they were suddenly extinguished and replaced by images of Northrend. Despite my memories there, it was a welcome sight. The pain alleviated with it and a person appeared next to me.
"Allow me to return the favour".
Lana'thel smiled at me.
I woke up to the sound of stones grinding. I sat up and saw a bridge form itself between two seperate plateaus.
"She is awake," I heard somebody say.
Aelana walked up to me.
"Thank the Light you're okay!"
She sat down and kissed me.
"Of course I'm okay, but I have the feeling I need to thank something else, or should I say someone?"
"It's the least I could have done," Lana'thel's voice came from behind.
"Thanks Lana," I looked around for a moment and saw a giant corpse not too far from us.
"How are things going here?"
Lana'thel looked at the corpse, then back at me.
"Not too bad I guess, we took this guy down but we lost five people."
It is to be expected to lose people in war, especially with enemies like these, but I still felt bad when I got the news.
"It seems Ragnaros himself is in the keep ahead".
She pointed to the keep at the end of a courtyard on the other plateau.
"We were making plans on how to get there when some mages found some strange orb. It seems it controls this bridge mechanism".
"I see, are you planning to move now?" I asked
"Not right now, they first want to take care of the wounded and make sure the bridge is stable and not some sort of trap."
"Smart," I nodded.
I saw one of the Orcs move to the bridge and inspecting it all alone.
I walked over to him as he stepped on it and looked to the ground closely.
"The commander sent you to inspect didn't he?"
He nodded, "yes, miss".
"What an idiot," I mumbled to myself".
"What was that, miss?"
"Nothing, just stay back and let me do this please".
"But the commander asked me t-" I didn't let him finish.
"So what if it is a trap and the bridge collapses or something, at least I can get out of there, that's why I tell you to let me do it."
It seems he saw the reason in that. As reckless as Orcs can be, they would still prefer to die a meaningful death in combat than to some kind of booby-trap.
After inspecting the bridge by myself I found no sign of magic tempering. I went back and took a night elf mage with me to confirm my findings. He came up with the same results so we informed the commanders that all was safe.
We crossed the bridge with our teams and as soon as we took position in the courtyard the gates of the keep opened and a male night elf came walking to us.
I heard the night elf commander curse loudly in Darnassian, curses I would rather not translate to Orcish. It was all too clear that this person was well known among the night elves as they were all dumbstruck upon seeing the guy.
Upon inquiring they explained that this person was none other than their former arch druid Fandral Staghelm. He was changed though. He no longer wore the colours of nature. Instead, he seemed to be infused by fire.
"Well, well, I admire your tenacity, mortals. Baleroc stood watch over this gate for more than a thousand mortal lifetimes. But the master's keep is forbidden".
He shapeshifted into a fire cat form and lunged at us. An orc intercepted his leap with a massive shield but was thrown backwards. Before he could pounce again I was right in front of him, blessed by Aelana's shields and power infusion. I was ready to strike him down from mid air when he suddenly jumped back and transformed into a massive scorpion. While he was away for now the commanders didn't waste a second and ordered an artillery strike. I shouted for everyone to stay back.
The strike found its mark, rockets and glaives torn of pieces of his armour. Our warriors rushed in right after but most of them were thrown aside by the scorpion's claws. He then transformed back into his cat form and leaped for the night elves operating the glaive throwers.
Knowing that this foe would possess some intelligence I saw this coming and flew to him as the night elves below jumped out of the way. I charged my sword with holy magic and plunged it into the beast. He was in pain when he landed and received a volley of arrows to boot. He then transformed into his scorpion form again to deflect most arrows as they didn't pierce his carapace.
He started tearing apart the now abandoned glaive throwers and laughed wickedly as he did so. When he got the siege engine He tore off the unmanned rocket launcher on top of it before receiving a massive hit from the battering ram.
In his temporary disorientation a brave orc warrior managed to get close to him and embedded a particularly sharp axe with overwhelming force between his armour segments. The scorpion let out a screech as its stinger found the would-be attacker. The orc fell to the ground as did the scorpion. When he did, he transformed back into His night elf form and fell to his knees.
"Impossible," he coughed up blood.
The night elf commander walked up to him and drew his sword.
"Fandral Staghelm, for high treason against the night elves in Darnassus and actions against the Alliance as a whole, you are hereby sentenced to death".
The commander raised his sword and in one clean strike, beheaded the traitor.
Silence fell over our band. Disbelief was the overwhelming emotion from the night elves among us.
Aelana and I were having a look at the Orc who struck Fandral. He was poisoned, but not as badly as the girl from before. He also had a much larger body so it wouldn't take effect as fast. We managed to detox him fairly quickly while the commanders were deciding the next steps. Not that there was much to plan, anyway. Get into the keep and defeat Ragnaros for good.
We lost all our ranged artillery after that battle. The goblins ensured us however ,that the gate keeping us from Ragnaros's lair would be obliterated by the siege engine's battering ram.
The siege engine did manage to ram a small hole onto the gate but then shut down. The goblin foreman told us it had suffered too much damage in the previous fights. After the siege engine was pulled away we used all the rockets and explosives we had left and filled up the hole in the gate before drawing back. We moved all the way to the other end of the courtyard where Shaestra would fire an arrow that would result in the gate blowing up.
Her marksman skills surely didn't waver today. The very first flaming arrow found its mark and a thundering explosion followed. A giant hole now replaced the previously shut gates. We made our way inside. Aa bridge spanning over rivers of molten lava led us down to a crescent platform where Ragnaros himself was waiting.
"This will get ugly," I warned our party, "Look at that hammer he is holding, get hit by that and you are done for. Promise me to stay far back Aelana".
"Promise me to not get yourself killed," she replied.
"I promise".
"MISERABLE CREATURES, YOU DARE CHALLENGE ME IN MY DOMAIN?"
I was the first one to strike as I sent a shadowfrost bolt his way, leaping to the air and drawing his attention. As long as his focus was on me in the air he couldn't hit my allies below.
"DIE, INSECT!" He shouted as he swung at me, followed by a blast of fire coming my way. Both were easily dodged.
The next swing was parried by my sword and sent me flying backwards. When I regained my stability I saw Ragnaros bring his hammer down on an unfortunate Night Elf. Not even all the shields from our healers were enough to save him as he dodged the blow but he fell off of the edge of the platform by doing so. I didn't dare to look as he fell down into the lava.
I raced my way back and struck one of his arms from above with my sword, regaining his attention. I continued dodging for a while when he brought his hammer down onto the middle of the platform with such force that the sparks that flew off of the impact formed into fire elementals. He then picked his hammer up and charged it with flames before swinging at me again. I watched the orc warriors and sentinels easily dispatch the elementals while the shamans and hunters continued firing away at the Firelord, all while dodging his empowered blows, he may miss me with his attacks, but the heat of his weapon was still very much noticeable, even for me.
I let frost and holy magic flow through my weapon at once when I decide to strike him after he missed. It seems those attacks had more effect than my previous ones. He screamed out after taking a barrage of frost spells from all of us and submerged himself.
"Too soon, you have come too soon!"
"No, Firelord, your time is now!" I heard somebody yell from behind me.
There, entering the scene were Malfurion Stormrage, the demi-god Cenarius, and a Tauren druid whose name was unknown to me. They cast a spell on the pool of lava in which the Firelord retreated. The lava around the pool hardened and took on a brown colour, chains of green roots pulled something from the pool and Ragnaros resurfaced, this time, his entire body was pulled upward as he stepped onto the platform.
He instantly focused on the trio that denied his retreat and swung at them. They blocked his attack with an air shield. This gave me the opportunity to fly behind him and embed my sword between his shoulders. I then dragged it all the way down, causing him to scream in pain. He turned around to swat me but took a wild array of spells to him from our small army and our three elite reinforcements.
He slowed down and started swinging wildly as his body weakened due to the frost spells that were cast upon him. My wings were getting numb as well from all acrobatic moves I had to make trying to dodge his furious blows. After Ragnaros slammed his hammer down on me but missed, one of the Orc shamans saw his chance. I saw him the wind spirits to elevate him slightly as he charged the lord of fire from behind.
"Here comes the pain, bitch!" he yelled as he shot frost from his hands, following by his hammer being thrown into the Firelord. I followed up by completely freezing my weapon and hurling it at him with all my might. It went straight through him and landed harmlessly on the floor behind him. Ragnaros lifted his hammer one more time to bring it down upon the Orc. I swooped in and took the Orc in my arms and dragged him out of harm's way. Ragnaros's hammer landed and a shockwave was sent throughout the crescent plateau, following by the Lord of Fire himself collapsing. All that remained of him were his shoulder guards and his hammer.
I put the Orc down and sat down myself, my legs too heavy to stand and my wings too numb to keep flying. I told the shaman he did a great job and asked for his name.
"Draggoo of the frostwolves. It was an honour to fight alongside you, Angel was it, right?"
I simply nodded.
"It was an honour to fight with everyone here".
I felt two gentle hands in my sides and smiled.
"You okay?"
"Why would you think otherwise?" I answered, "I am okay, just totally done today, I would love to get some sleep right now".
"You can do that tonight, I think it may be a while as I have a feeling there is going to be some festivities," Aelana said.
"You're right, we will rest later," Draggoo interjected, "now, we celebrate, LOK'TAR OGAR!" he yelled.
All the Orcs repeated after him, leaving the alliance members with awkward smiles.
The goblin crew joined us too. They weren't specialised in close quarter combat and stayed behind. I couldn't blame them.
"Nice job lady, I knew we could win this," the foreman said as he stood next to me. He stood at the same height as me while I was sitting down, allowing me to look directly into his eyes.
"Not without you, you and your men did an amazing job tonight," I grinned, "guess I will never underestimate that 'precision Goblin engineering' again, eh".
"You ever did?" he grinned back.
"Only when you mentioned it for the first time earlier today".
The Orc commander walked up to us.
"Amazing job today, but for now, we should head back to Nordrassil, could you talk to the Night Elf and invite him and his band for the celebration there, they fought with honour, and it would be disgraceful to leave them out."
Honour. Very often a misused word to justify one's means. So many talked about it, yet so few actually possessed it. This orc wasn't as big of a racist as I had imagined at first, which pleased me. Good to see the was the kind of person who would invite Alliance members over even after the joint mission was accomplished.
"Sure, no problem'.
I went to talk to him and he found it a great idea. A feast on neutral grounds may be good to start an alliance together against what was yet to come.
Once everyone rested bit the mages started setting up their portals to the world tree. Shaestra and Lana'thel joined Aelana and me as we stepped through.
