Westfall, a region on the west coast of the lands controlled by the Kingdom of Stormwind that harbors misfortune to all who live in that land. Unlike the green woodlands of Elwynn Forest, Westfall is a land that seemed to be caught in an eternal autumn which was due to drought and maltreatment of the land by the Defias Brotherhood. Year round, the trees barely produce leaves and the grass was always an unhealthy golden color. Hay bales lie abandoned next to fallow fields which the farmers barely tend to if only to feed themselves. Carrion birds and coyotes roam the fields unchecked looking for their next meal.
Roaming the lands were shoddy mechanical constructs called harvest golems wearing patched sacks of cloth that were built by who rumors suggest to be goblin engineers for the purpose of driving away the farmers. Goblin mercenaries were rumored to be working with the Defias.
Gnolls roamed the lands freely while rumors suggest that the hyena people had somehow formed an alliance with the Defias. Murlocs, a race of amphibious fish people who were pretty much tailless fish with arms and legs, had a presence along nearly the entire coastline while Kobolds held a mine somewhere in the northern parts of the region and were also rumored to have allied with the Defias.
Westfall was a mostly lawless land where the Defias could move about as they pleased. This was because Stormwind’s army was too thinly spread to provide any order to the land. Because of this, the beleaguered people of Westfall who have not joined the Defias have banded together to create their own militia to protect themselves from the bandit army that greatly outnumbered them.
Bella, Stella and Jaqueline entered the dying region from a bridge in the northeast part of the region and traveled west for a couple hundred meters, passing an abandoned farm that had bandits with their signature red bandanas over their faces along with a few harvest golems roaming the area. Neither took notice of the trio.
As they traveled the poorly maintained roads, the trio saw a couple who appeared to be farmers. One was a long red-haired man with his hair done in braids. He wore a white shirt and blue overalls and carried a pitchfork. Next to the man was who could be assumed to be his wife. Her hair was short strawberry blonde and wore a green dress.
The man addressed the trio, “Howdy, you three here to help with the Brotherhood as well?”
“Yes we are, sir,” Bella answered. “Who might you be?”
“I’m Theodore Furlbrow, used to be a farmer till them Defias drove us out. This is my wife, Verna.”
“Excuse me sir,” Stella spoke. “But what did you mean by ‘as well’?”
“Well ya see, you three ain’t the only adventurers here fightin’ the Brotherhood. Lots’a youngins wantin’ to make a name for themselves are attackin’ places where the bandits are hangin’ out. If ya wanna help out, head south to Sentinel Hill and look for Gryan Stoutmantle. He leads The People’s Militia against the Brotherhood. Good thing them adventurers are helpin’ out or the Brotherhood would have led a coordinated attack on Sentinel Hill a long time ago.”
Somehow, Stella doubted that the efforts of a handful of novice adventurers were enough to keep the Defias away from Sentinel Hill. There must have been a different reason for their inaction.
“Hey!” shouted a distant male voice that was growing closer. “Where do you two think you’re going? The toll for getting out of Westfall is all of your valuables.”
A trio of Defias bandits ran toward the Furlbrows. One had a pair of daggers in their hands while another had a crude warhammer in his hands that looked like a large oval stone tied to a stick. The third was a female who wore robes and had a large stick on her back, leading the group to believe she was a mage.
Jaqueline unsheathed her swords while Bella pulled her ornate warhammer from her back. Stella prepared a few spells for once the bandits got into range.
They never did.
Just before they got in range, all three of them were stabbed in the back simultaneously by short blades that exited from the bandits’ chests.
The trio collapsed at once to reveal someone behind them. This one wore blue leather armor that covered all of her body and a blue hooded mask that showed only her eyes. The physical shape of the person clearly showed that she was clearly female.
“Hey there, you three here to get in on the fun too?” The masked figure asked.
The trio put away their weapons while Bella sighed in disappointment. “While I wouldn’t call slaughtering my fellow man ‘fun’, we do need to end this conflict before these brigands cause untold damage to the Kingdom of Stormwind.”
The figure nodded, “Glad to see someone around here puts virtue before pleasure, most of the adventurers around here seem to be going around relentlessly butchering bandits and animals alike, looting the bandits for their coin and valuables and harvesting animal parts for meat like a bunch of savages.”
“Didn’t ya just call such acts ‘fun’ earlier?” Jaqueline asked.
“Wasn’t sure what to think of you three at first. For one, you, miss novice armor, look like you would fit in with the adventurers around here. I’m Sophia by the way.”
Sophia didn’t tell them that she used her high speed to observe the adventurers in the region and saw their deplorable behavior of killing, looting and leaving corpses to rot in the sun. It was more appropriate behavior for soldiers fighting a war with the added behavior of looting like a bunch of scavengers.
Jaqueline frowned deeply at having her appearance compared to such people. “Ah’ll have you know that this armor is the last thing ah have to remember mah family by. My ma used this armor when she fought in the Second War against them no good orcs and their ogre and troll allies.”
“That’s why you still wear that!?” Bella gasped in surprise. “Darling, why didn’t you say so?”
“Ah ain’t replacin’ it,” Jaqueline growled.
“Perish the thought dear, but you must let me at least reforge it. I know that I am not your mother, but I doubt that she would be happy watching her daughter run around in armor that looks to be on the verge of breaking. Listen, I have a large stock of metal bars smelted from ore deposits that I have extracted during my travels in the Stormwind bank. When we are finished here, please allow me to remake it into something that will give your parents peace of mind as they watch over you.”
Jaqueline was taken aback by Bella’s pleading. She never thought about how her actions would be seen by her parents as they watched her from heaven, at least she hoped they were given how the Scourge liked to reanimate people’s bodies and anchor their souls to their own corpses to force them to watch in horror as they personally murder their loved ones.
Begrudgingly, Jaqueline had to admit that her paladin companion had a point. As much as she missed her ma, she would tan her hide if she ended up joining her too soon. She then sighed in defeat, “Fine, just don’t make it all fancy like yours. Ah ain’t doin’ this fer looks.”
Sophia smirked in amusement as everyone around her blushed when they heard Bella squeal in delight. “You shall not be disappointed, darling,” Bella stated enthusiastically.
With that done, the Furlbrows headed across the bridge out of Westfall with as much haste as they could muster to avoid another Defias ambush.
The quartet, with Sophia having forcibly barged her way into the group, proceeded south along the eroded roads until they came across a village with a lone stone tower overlooking it from a tall hill. The hill with the tower was the reason the village was called Sentinel Hill.
Bella knew that if Gryan Stoutmantle were anywhere in town, it would be around Sentinel Tower. The quartet proceeded up the hill and around to the entrance of the tower where they saw a man in white armor carrying a white stone mace. Bella could tell right away that the man was a paladin and was most likely Stoutmantle so the group approached him.
“Pardon me sir, you are Gryan Stoutmantle, correct?” Bella asked.
“Aye, you must be Bella Cartier. I’ve heard a lot about you and it fills me with confidence that we will be able to bring an end to this Defias menace.”
“Do we know where the hideout is?” Stella asked.
Gryan looked at Stella in surprise. “A Kirin Tor agent!? I figured that the organization was still around but I thought cases like this were not part of their jurisdiction?”
“Let’s just say there have been…circumstances. Suffice it to say, I am here to help bring an end to this threat.”
“Glad to hear it, here’s what I’ve recently found out. Apparently, this Brotherhood used to be the Stonemasons who rebuilt the city of Stormwind after it was razed in the First War against the Orcish Horde. Apparently they became enraged when the nobles refused to pay them. Since then they’ve hired goblins to construct those horrid machines roaming the farms, kobolds to strip the mines of Westfall and Elwynn, gnolls to harass and ambush travelers and murlocs to plunder every ship that gets close to these lands. The materials the kobolds have been stealing have been secretly transported to their hideout.
“Mathias Shaw, head of the Stormwind Intelligence Agency, SI:7, pointed out that the leader of Defias Brotherhood is none other than the Stonemasons guild master, Edwin Vancleef. I just sent a few of our adventurers out with a turncoat from the Defias to point out the location of the hideout. They should be back soon.”
“Strange, Lady Katrana Prestor already informed me that the leader of the Brotherhood was Vancleef,” Stella pondered aloud. “I would have thought that to be common knowledge if she knew.”
“If it is then I’m probably the last to know about it,” Stoutmantle sighed. “Given how this region is disconnected from Stormwind in all but name it wouldn’t surprise me. The People’s Militia is all that stands as a source of order in Westfall.”
Just then a young human male adventurer approached Stoutmantle and took a moment to catch his breath before speaking. “Stoutmantle, the informant led us into the Defias-infested town of Moonbrook and pointed us to a large barn near the town square. He said that’s where Vancleef is hiding.”
Stoutmantle gave a small smile and a nod to the adventurer. “Good, Vancleef is as good as ours now. I just need some brave souls to go in there and eliminate him.” He then looked at the quartet, sizing them up. “You four look pretty tough, think you’re up for the task? As much as I am against assassinations, Vancleef represents a very real threat to the kingdom and must be eliminated.”
Bella nodded grimly, “You can count on us, I dearly wish that we could have handled this another way, but it seems the time for diplomacy has passed.”
With that, the group proceeded back to the road and headed south, taking note to turn right at the fork that would lead them to Moonbrook.
As they walked, Sophia felt a ping in her mind, informing her that someone, whom she quickly identified as Thanatas, wanted to speak with her through her network. “What is it?”
“I see you’re about to have your first dungeon experience on Azeroth,” Thanatas said. “I know you have had some experiences like that back on Elicoor a few years back so I will let you in on a few key differences. The enemies are a little tougher than the riff raff your new friends are used to fighting but as long as they work together they should manage. Dungeon bosses like Vancleef will be quite the handful.
“Also, adventurers exploring a dungeon typically take a one, one, three composition format. One who is willing to take the brunt of enemy aggression, one who keeps the appointed meat shield from succumbing to their wounds along with keeping the other careless idiots alive and three careless idiots whose job is to help bring down the tough enemies.
“Unfortunately, since the paladin is forced onto healing duty, the warrior lacks a shield to block attacks and you have opted to play pseudo rogue, you four will be forced to tackle the Deadmines without a tanking class.”
“I see, thanks for the rundown,” Sophia said. “I’m pretty sure I could handle anything in there but I’ll make sure not to show off too much since it’s far from time to lay those cards on the table yet.”
By the time the psychic transmission ended, the four were already on the outskirts of Moonbrook. As they entered the limits, they were quickly accosted by a number of Defias bandits. As they charged toward them, Stella cast a spell on all of them to make them randomly teleport around the area. Some ended up crashing hard into walls, some ended up stuck in walls, some ended up inside buildings and failed to stop their sprint in time to avoid tripping over clutter and crashing face first into walls. One of the most unfortunate bandits ended up getting teleported with his head up the plot of a stabled horse which spooked the animal into galloping all over the town slamming the body of the bandit into every wall the horse approached.
The rest of Stella’s companions turned their incredulous gazes to her. “Did ya have ta do that to that poor horse?”
“I had no idea what was going to happen,” Stella defended. “That spell was a random group teleportation spell with the safeties removed. I expected them to crash into walls and a few to get stuck in the walls. The incident with the horse was a complete accident.”
Back at Sphere, two alicorn mares stared at the main screen in their observation room wide-eyed and slack-jawed before they simultaneously facepalmed. “Leave it to Starlight to do something like that with her magic…” Twilight groaned.
The group put what happened out of their minds and proceeded to Moonbrook’s town center. The rest of the bandits in the town stayed hidden since they were afraid of ending up like the guy who got his head stuck up the horse.
Looking around, the town was in shambles. All of the buildings were in a state of disrepair. The local blacksmithing shop, a building that was designed throughout the Eastern Kingdoms to have giant bellows outside the building and machines to keep them pumping air into the forge, ran cold for years. The houses of stone and straw roofs were run down like the two story wooden inn. The town hall on the north end of the town was in no better shape either and the stables were barely standing. The fountain at the center of the town ran dry long enough for cobwebs to cover it.
In the town center stood a wooden barn that was locked but the group found a side entrance on the right side of the structure and no door to seal it.
Once they entered the barn, the thugs cried out in alarm while one of them ran off deeper into the barn. The rest tried attacking them with their daggers and swords but were cut down when Jaqueline rushed them with her twin shortswords.
With the barn defenders out of the way, the group chased after the runner. They walked up some stairs up to the second floor of the barn before heading through an entrance and over a bridge of two planks. They then entered a cavern where they had to descend several meters down a spiraling ramp. That was when they realized what they had walked into.
Before them was a complex series of mining tunnels that was being actively mined by the Defias with some of their fighters acting as taskmasters. Bella slammed her hammer into the chest of one of the Defias taskmasters and sent him flying into a wall. Jaqueline charged between several mages in the area and slammed the hilts of their swords into their throats to interrupt their spellcasting before she cut them down with a series of heavy slashes.
One mage managed to block Jaqueline’s attack with her staff and managed to cast a quick fireball that slammed the warrior in the chest. Jaqueline fought through the pain and slashed at the mage who was still blocking with her staff until her staff broke and was left open to a grievous diagonal slash. Bella quickly healed Jaqueline’s injury with the power of the Holy Light.
Sophia’s speed proved too much for the taskmasters as she rushed behind them before they could react and stabbed them in the back with her wrist blades.
Stella dealt with the miners who stopped working to attack the group. She lured them into a narrow tunnel and unleashed a pillar of flames with her Flamestrike spell which incinerated the miners.
Once the immediate area was cleared, the group took a moment to relax and discuss their next move.
“As much as ah would like to scour these tunnels of bandits we can’t keep doin’ this forever,” Jaqueline said. “We need to know which tunnel will take us to Vancleef.”
“I can try and send some miniature arcane servants to scout the tunnels but the Defias might catch on and destroy them before I can get a proper picture of the tunnel network,” Stella offered.
“This is going to be a tiring endeavor if we get lost in these tunnels and it’s likely that the Defias know how to navigate the tunnel network,” Bella said.
Not wanting to waste time, Sophia scouted the tunnels at near instantaneous speed. Most of the tunnels were dead ends and one led to what seemed to be a cursed cavern full of undead miners. One tunnel heading west proved to be the most promising as it led much deeper into the mines than the other tunnels The mining machinery in this passage still felt warm from use. The passage seemed to be their best option so she returned to the group.
“I scouted the mining tunnels before I met you guys and found a passage to the right that might lead deeper into the mines,” Sophia half lied. She wasn’t about to give away information about her abilities.
Stella raised an eyebrow at the “rogue”, “You scouted these tunnels and didn’t tell Stoutmantle about them?”
“I was on my way to tell him when I found you guys,”
Stella deadpanned at Sophia for a moment longer but sighed and decided to drop it. She considered using a spell that showed her position in the last few minutes to call her out on any potential lies but she didn’t need to be wasting magic on this matter.
The group proceeded down the tunnel Sophia found, cutting down any Defias along the way. They saw an opening in a small chasm beneath the bridge and proceeded to jump down to the bottom which was only a few feet drop. They then proceeded through a metallic threshold lit by an overhead lanturn and had some broken minecart rails going into it.
The next room had more miners and a few Defias mages. As the group charged in, the mages in the room took notice and started channeling Flamestrike spells. Stella knew that so many Flamestrikes going off at once was going to be very bad for them so she struck all of them at once with a Counterspell to interrupt their casts.
Jaqueline ran in and cut down the mages while they were still caught off guard by Stella’s spell while Bella and Sophia dealt with the miners. Bella’s holy magic smote the miners one at a time while Sophia leapt from miner to miner and stabbing them in the throat, chest or gut while stabbing them in the wrist whenever they tried to strike her with their mining picks.
The group crossed another threshold into another room filled with miners and a few mages and an overseer carrying a sword and shield. Bella personally kept the overseer busy while Jaqueline and Stella dealt with the miners and Sophia quickly ended the mages.
They soon came to a large room with a large door in the back guarded by a large being that was clearly not human. He was large, muscular, fat, had crude drawings on his arms and was wearing nothing but a pair of bracers and a loincloth. He had two large teeth at the ends of his mouth sticking upward, giving him an underbite and he had a small horn on his head. His weapon of choice was a crude stone hammer.
“His name is Rhahk’Zor,” Thanatas said through the link. “This ogre acts as Vancleef’s mining foreman, but he’s as simple as his attacks. He’s still a brute though.
“So our first real obstacle in this place is this ogre?” Bella asked rhetorically. “It’s a shame we don’t have anyone to take his attacks. We will need to be careful of his hammer.”
The ogre heard Bella talk and turned his head to the group before rushing toward them with his hammer above his head. “Vancleef pay big for you heads!” As he shouted that two more Defias in the room moved in to help their foreman.
Sophia quickly dispatched the assistants while Jaqueline blocked a swing from Rhahk’Zor’s hammer with both of her swords. The ogre broke the warrior’s guard by slamming her with his large body and sent her flying back a few feet. Stella launched bolts of fire, frost and arcane at the ogre but he tanked the blasts and charged for her. Stella used her Blink, a short range teleport spell, to get out of the way of the ogre’s charge. He couldn’t stop his momentum and slammed into a wall, causing minor tremors throughout the area.
Bella caused a giant radiant sword to emerge from the ground and slashed the ogre’s back which caused him to turn around and glare at the paladin. “Me mad now!”
As the ogre charged at Bella, Jaqueline jumped onto his back and ran her swords into his shoulders, causing him to howl in pain. Stella generated icicles by freezing the air around her and hurling them at the ogre, piercing his thick flesh. Rhahk’Zor roared in fury, which was the last thing he did before a blade from Sophia pierced his throat and ran out the back of his neck.
The ogre coughed up blood a few times before he collapsed. The lights in his eyes soon faded.
With the ogre dead, the group looked around the room until Bella found a lever next to the door that led further into the mines.
The next section involved more miners, overseers and mages who were quickly dealt with. A passage on the left from the door turned out to be a flooded dead end while the right path led to a large door that the group worked together to open.
Inside was a lumberyard. Large logs lay all over the room being worked on by goblins. The goblins noticed the door open and charged at them all at once with their axes raised.
Not wanting to take them all on at once, Stella had the group back away from the door before she cast a spell on the doorway. A sparkling green mist manifested in the doorway and spread inside the lumberyard. The goblins had no idea what the mist was and assumed it was a smokescreen. They were wrong. The moment the goblins started breathing in the mist, they were suddenly assaulted by overwhelming urges to sleep. The goblins fought the feeling for a few seconds but quickly gave in to the call of dreamland and fell asleep.
A few seconds later, the goblins got a very rude wake up call when they ended up catching fire from Stella’s magic. The fires never touched the wood in the room before they were blackened. With the workers taken out, all that was left was one goblin operating a large mechanical construct.
The steel machine was shaped like a humanoid but displayed the crude design expected of goblins. The cockpit on top was atop a furnace that was shaped like a terrifying face with spikes made to look like troll tusks. The left arm ended in three razor sharp claws designed to carry logs or tear into flesh in a combat situation. The right arm ended in a saw blade made to efficiently cut down trees and people alike. The engine on its back chugged and emitted black smoke.
“That is Sneed, Vancleef’s lumbermaster,” Thanatas announced to Sophia through the link. “Goblin shredders like that thing he’s piloting are efficient killing machines. The thing about goblin technology though is that they are built without proper protections in mind so damaging the engine will cause it to explode. Make sure the pilot is dead before moving on.”
Sneed drove his shredder into the open area of the room and noticed that his workers were missing. Looking around he noticed the intruders and the blackened corpses of his workers. In a fit of rage he drove his shredder toward the group and had his saw blade spinning at full speed.
Knowing that their armor wouldn’t protect them from the machine’s blades, the group took to dodging the construct’s swings.
Jaqueline got around the shredder and began taunting the pilot. “Hey goblin, what’re ya doin’ driving that gnomish piece of junk?”
That got Sneed’s attention which made him turn the upper torso of the shredder toward the warrior. “Are you blind!? This is clearly the pinnacle of goblin technology here!”
Jaqueline smirked. “Doubt it, goblins couldn’t build anythin’ like that so it has ta be gnomish.”
Now Sneed was seeing red. Anyone who knew about the ongoing rivalry between gnomes and goblins would know how much pride both races had in their technology. To mix either tech would be seen as an attack on their pride. Because of this, the warrior had the pilot’s full attention and he ignored the others.
While Jaqueline was avoiding Sneed’s attacks, Stella bombarded the engine on the shredder’s back with fire spells and overwhelmed the cooling systems. Sneed was too blinded by tunnel vision to notice the attacks and failed to notice the shredder was overheating until the alarms went off. Before he could react the shredder activated the pilot ejector seat, catapulting Sneed out of his shredder. Sophia saw this and jumped on the shredder, jumped to Sneed in midair and hurled him into the spinning sawblades of his own shredder before she raced back to Stella and Bella. Jaqueline had a bad feeling that the shredder was about to explode but Stella teleported her back to them while Bella raised a barrier of light that protected them from the violent blast barely a second later. Thankfully the blast incinerated Sneed’s remains so they didn’t have to watch the room get showered in too much gore.
The group proceeded deeper into the mine. After opening the door into the next passage they found more goblin workers and more Defias mages, taskmasters and miners. As they moved deeper into the mine, the enemies became easier to deal with given how much experience they were gaining in dealing with them. They turned around a bend and found the door to the next major part of their operations.
Opening that door ended up with their faces getting buffeted by an intense wave of heat. Beyond the door they saw what appeared to be vessels containing molten metal being held up by chains and pouring into a larger vessel suspended beneath them.
“The Defias were able to construct their own foundry within these mines?!” Bella asked in surprise.
“No doubt this is the work of their goblin allies,” Stella mused. “But what would the Defias want with so much metal?”
Entering the sweltering room the group soon encountered more goblins except these were carrying sticks with flaming molten metal and were all staring at the group as if they were expecting them. There were other goblins in the room who were carrying blunderbusses and had remote controls strapped to their waists.
Stella disarmed the goblins with the molten sticks by hitting the sticks with bolts of frost magic that caused the molten metal to harden into a brittle form. The goblins tried to retreat to get more sticks with molten metal but Sophia caught up with some of them and tossed them into the molten vat. Bella cringed as she saw that. “I really wish that I didn’t have to see that,” she said.
From the entrance the group stood on a catwalk that ramped downwards to the foundry floor. The group dealt with every goblin that got in their way, including a particularly large goblin that was slightly larger than a dwarf. Thanatas briefly told Sophia through the link that the goblin was the head smelter, Gilnid. However, there was nothing special that separated him from the other goblins in the foundry and was dealt with swiftly.
The group opened the door at the end of the foundry and entered another short tunnel filled with more miners and overseers.
The end of the passage was locked by a heavy door with a cannon aimed at it. Sophia considered slashing it open but that would end up with her receiving a lot of questions that she wasn’t ready to answer yet. Thankfully Jaqueline found a barrel of gunpowder in a small alcove and carried it to the door. She then loaded the gunpowder into the cannon along with a nearby cannonball and moved to a safe distance before Stella hit the fuse of the cannon with a small fire spell, causing the fuse to light and the cannon to fire a second later, shattering the heavy door to pieces.
The roaring sound of the cannon and the explosive impact was heard by everyone in the mines. A moment later they heard a deep voice yell out, “You there, check out that noise.” The group was soon beset upon by Defias who were dressed differently from the taskmasters and mages from before. Unlike the black and yellow leather armor of the overseers, the men wore white shirts and red pants with black boots while unlike the mages from before, who wore robes of brown, yellow and red, the new mages wore purple shirts and blue pants. The mages began casting frost spells, as Stella sensed from the nature of the magic channeled.
The white-shirted Defias drew cutlasses and began slashing at Jaqueline who was blocking their attacks with her swords. Stella counterspelled the mages and forced them to charge in with their staves raised. Bella met the mages from their side of the door and swung her hammer in a wide arc that sent the female Defias flying off what appeared to be a pier and into the water. Bella had a feeling that she might have shattered a rib or two of theirs but couldn’t afford to worry about them right now. Sophia took one of the males who was attacking Jaqueline and blocked his attack with one of her swords before stabbing him in the gut with the other. Jaqueline finished off the remaining enemy.
“We’re under attack! Avast ye swabs, repel the invaders!” bellowed the deep voice.
Jaqueline noticed that her swords were looking worn at this point. She had a feeling that they were getting close to breaking as well. Then she noticed the cutlasses on the floor dropped by the two Defias swordsmen and picked them up. They appeared sharper than her own swords which she didn’t have as much personal attachment to as her armor. She left her old swords on the bodies of the fallen and took a few practice swings to get a feel for the new weapons. When she felt like she had a good understanding of their weight she sheathed the blades in some straps on her belt.
With that out of the way the group took a look at what the next room was. It was larger than any room seen in the mine by far. The path was nothing but a pier over a body of water which gave everyone the feeling that they just entered a cove. A massive gate stood at the far end of the cove and some shipbuilding equipment was seen around the area. But all of this paled in comparison to the sight of the massive battleship before them.
The change in clothes of the Defias made sense now, they were dressed as pirates. The ship before them was a pirate battleship armed with many massive cannons, likely built by goblins. If they had the ammunition to match, the battleship would have enough firepower to level Stormwind.
Bella gasped, “I remember that ship design, it’s the same as the orcish juggernauts that were used during the Second War. They were terrifying weapons on the seas and the coastal towns had to be especially alert for any sign of these ships. Just one alone could have leveled cities.”
“Yer jokin’! They built one’a these things here in secret!?” Jaqueline half shouted. “Well, didn’t the Alliance have somethin’ to sink these things back then?”
“Used to, I’m afraid. The heavy battleships deployed during the Second War to counter the orc juggernauts were owned by the nation of Kul Tiras. After the death of Lord Admiral Daelin Proudmoore at the hands of his own daughter, Kul Tiras fully withdrew from the Alliance and took their fleets with them.”
“Well, surely we still have somethin’,” Jaqueline hoped. That hope was dashed with a shake of Bella’s head.
“Stormwind’s armies are spread thin along with the navy. There are barely enough ships in the harbor to hold off a naval attack but it won’t be enough to stop a juggernaut.”
“Which means that we need to wipe out the crew before the ship sails,” Stella declared. The others nodded in determination.
The group raced along the pier taking down pirates and mages alike along with parrots. They crossed the pier and soon found the gangplank to the ship. Sophia sensed the minds of two Defias hiding in the shadows at the base of the gangplank guarding a chest while everyone else noted the black-furred tauren standing atop the gangplank who was the one barking orders earlier.
“That’s Mr. Smite, he’s the ship’s first mate and he’s a master of three different weapon styles,” Thanatas explained.
“I’ll take out the two at the bottom of the plank, the rest of you can handle the tauren,” Sophia whispered. Everyone nodded in agreement before they executed the plan. Sophia ambushed one of the hidden Defias rogues and stabbed him in the back, which got the attention of the other rogue and the tauren. Sophia attacked the other rogue while the tauren ran down the gangplank. Before he reached the bottom, his face took the impact of a hammer made of light. He quickly turned his attention to Bella and the others.
Mr. Smite carried a cutlass in his right hand and blocked attacks from Jaqueline’s swords with ease. He was able to deflect Stella’s bolt spells and sent them at Bella who was forced to deflect them away. Stella teleported behind Smite and fired more bolts from an angle he couldn’t defend from. Instead he sidestepped the spells and let them fly toward Jaqueline who timed her sword swings to deflect the spells to Smite’s new position, striking his body repeatedly with fire and frost.
The tauren didn’t like that so he unleashed a powerful shockwave by stomping his hoof which knocked the trio back. Sophia toyed around with the living rogue so she didn’t have to get involved with the main fight. Mr. Smite ran to the chest near the gangplank and used the key he carried on him to open the chest. “You landlubbers are tougher than I thought. I’ll have to improvise!” He placed his sword inside and pulled out two axes before relocking his chest.
Smite ran to Jaqueline and swung his axes rapidly, keeping the warrior focused on defense. He noticed Stella casting another spell and kicked Jaqueline into the mage. The warrior’s armor suffered a huge dent from the attack. Smite deflected a Light hammer from Bella but was hit in the face by a Fireball from Stella when his attention was taken away from the mage. By the time he turned to face her, he felt a sharp pain on his right side. He looked down to find a fresh wound there, courtesy of the warrior.
Smite had enough and stomped again, knocking the three to the ground again before retreating to his chest. “D’ah! Now you’re making me angry!” He opened the chest again, placing his axes back in favor of his large hammer.
This time Smite targeted Bella and the two clashed hammers. The paladin disrupted the tauren’s momentum by raising a sword of light from the floor, forcing the tauren back. With Smite staggered, Stella froze his hooves in place with some frost magic before bombarding him from the back with a series of icicles.
In his frustration, Smite finally decided that working with Vancleef wasn’t worth the abuse he was getting. He didn’t get paid enough for this. He used his hammer to smash the ice under his hooves before knocking everyone down with one last stomp before diving into the water. The group waited in anticipation for another attack but none came. Several minutes passed and there was no sign of the tauren surfacing. Sensing the mind of the tauren leaving the area, Sophia finished off her enemy.
Cautiously, the group decided to move on. They boarded the juggernaut and started killing more pirates and pirate mages as well as more goblins as they sought a way to the top of the ship. They found the path by climbing up the scaffolding. Atop the ship stood a slightly large goblin about the size of Gilnid. He wore a pirate’s tricorne hat and a red shirt and carried a harpoon. He was accompanied by a pirate, a mage and a parrot. Sophia dispatched the entourage while Bella, Stella and Jaqueline triple teamed who seemed to be the captain of the vessel.
With the goblin dead, the only place left to check was the cabin near the stern. Sophia melded with the shadows and moved to see if the cabin was occupied. Sure enough, their target was inside along with a few of his elite. She also sensed another mind but the reading gave her the impression that it was a child. A hostage?
“You’re probably sensing Vancleef’s daughter,” Thanatas said. “This is really going to ruin her happy little world when you guys kill her daddy.”
“Is this meant to guilt trip me?” Sophia deadpanned.
“A little. While you could just spare him and scrap the boat, he will just rebuild it or find some other way to be a problem for Stormwind. To be frank, he’s basically a whiny little bitch who never learned the magic of legally binding contracts that would have given him the legal right to sue the nobles when they weaseled out of the deal. On the other hand, the king or regent would be the arbiter in the matter and since one is missing and the other is a puppet to an evil witch, Vancleef and his whole guild are pretty much royally screwed.
“Also, seeing little miss imminent childhood trauma eventually go vigilante and succeed her daddy a few years later sounds a lot cooler than whatever her future could have been and she will be a much smarter fighter than her father ever was.”
Sophia mentally sighed, “And all for the price of one little girl’s happiness. Sometimes you really take the fun out of these assignments.”
Sophia resolved to do what needed to be done and returned to her allies to tell them that Vancleef was inside the cabin. They nodded and moved in front of the cabin. They took out their weapons and took up fighting stances. “Vancleef, we are here to bring an end to your vile schemes of destroying the kingdom and threatening innocents. Come out and face justice!” Bella cried out.
Edwin Vancleef exited the cabin with two of his elite guards. The man had long black hair and wore thick black leather armor with yellow filigree along with the trademark red bandana over his face. He unsheathed a pair of swords strapped to his waist and took up a combat stance. His guards did the same. “None may challenge the Brotherhood!” Vancleef said.
The battle began and Sophia pulled one guard away while Bella held the other. Jaqueline was left to handle Vancleef while Stella supported whoever needed the most help.
Vancleef was relentless with his strikes but Jaqueline’s training allowed her to anticipate each of the kingpin’s attacks and react accordingly. The two guards fought their opponents with a dagger in their right hands, making sure their attacks were swift. However, Sophia was faster and her strikes with her blades quickly overpowered the guard before both of the templar’s wrist blades impaled the guard through the chest. Bella was able to keep up with the strikes of her foe with her hammer by blocking them with the shaft. Eventually the guard overextended himself and gave Bella an opening where she slammed a small hammer of Light into his face before slamming her real hammer into his left arm, fracturing it and sending him flying off the boat.
Vancleef growled as he saw his comrades fall. “Lapdogs, all of you!” he complained.
“It don’t matter who we’re doin’ this for,” Jaqueline countered. “Yer a threat to the innocent people of Stormwind, not just the nobles.”
“Fools! Our cause is righteous!”
“There is nothing righteous about taking innocent lives,” Bella countered. “You and your guild lost any right to such claims when they rioted the streets, murdered Queen Tiffin and brought this land to ruin all for the sake of petty revenge. Yes, it was unfair that the nobles had you and your guild do all that work only to deny you rightful compensation in the end, but this isn’t justice, it’s nothing more than revenge. You have allowed your passions to turn to bloodlust and become no better than the orcs who razed this kingdom in the first place.”
Seeing their leader in danger, two more guards jumped out of the shadows only to be quickly cut down by Sophia. Jaqueline soon got the hang of Vancleef’s movement patterns and began to counter his attacks. Slashed from the warrior’s counterattacks cut into the kingpin’s armor and leaving cuts on his body.
“The Brotherhood shall prevail!” In a desperate move, Vancleef used a rogue technique designed to bypass armor and gave Jaqueline a pair of deep cuts on her chest while her armor shattered, leaving her in only her shirt and shorts. Bella saw this and quickly used her light magic to heal the warrior’s injuries.
Jaqueline became enraged by what Vancleef did to her mother’s armor and began slashing at the kingpin with all her might. He tried to block one strike with one of his swords but the warrior’s furious attack shattered the blade and she did the same to Vancleef’s other blade. With the kingpin disarmed, Jaqueline proceeded to decapitate the kingpin with both blades, ending the fight and their adventures in the mines.
The warrior began panting heavily as her energy was now spent. The others waited a minute while Jaqueline regained her wits. Bella was the first to speak. “Will you be alright, darling? I know that armor was very precious to you.”
Jaqueline had a wry look on her face as she looked at her armor. “Ah will be eventually, but ah need time ta cool mah head.”
“I can store the fragments in a pocket dimension for safekeeping if you want,” Stella offered.
Jaqueline gave a slight nod. “Thanks, even if it’s of no use anymore, ah’d still like the pieces as somethin’ to remember mah ma.” Everyone worked to gather the fragments of the warrior’s armor from the deck before Stella opened a magical wormhole, compressed the fragments into a single bubble and stored it inside.
With that done, Bella took the signet ring of the Stonemasons guild master off Vancleef’s finger as proof of their victory and what appeared to be a letter before leaving the ship in search for an exit. With news of Vancleef’s demise spreading, none of the remaining Defias in the mine dared fight the group and gave them a wide berth.
As they left the cove, Sophia’s ears picked up on someone crying and wailing “Daddy!” While the others would see this as a cause for celebration, Sophia would remember the bitterness that came with this victory and know of the vengeance to come one day.