Several hours had passed since the party of eleven had returned to the heart of Blackrock Mountain from the Molten Core. They decided to rest in the suspended rock over the magma for a few hours after their exhausting efforts in the Firelord’s lair. They had no idea how much time had passed since their adventures in the mountain had begun but they were almost certain that at least a day had passed.
Perhaps it was because they had grown used to it but the mountain’s heat didn’t feel as oppressive as it did before.
The party ate and drank more of Stella’s conjured food and drink. Though the items were no substitute for the real thing, it was still enough for them to keep their strength going until they were able to taste real food again.
Time had passed and the party was finally rested and ready to tackle the upper levels of Blackrock Spire where the leaders of the Dark Horde resided. It would not be long before they encountered Rend Blackhand and Nefarian.
They proceeded out of the suspended rock and up the chain. Thanatas showed them a shortcut that would bypass the entrance from the ring and allow them to reach the balcony. Once they reached the end, they jumped off the chain and onto a rock platform that was within jumping distance of the balcony. Each made the jump successfully and were now at the main entrance of the fortress.
As they entered, they noticed that the entryway was still empty of orc forces, meaning that they were unable to reinforce the area with what was left of the Dark Horde.
The party quickly proceeded to the locked door which had the indent for the Seal of Ascension on Talia’s right ring finger. They looked at the undead warlock as a signal for her to use the ring. She moved toward the door and as she did so, the braziers to her left and right began to light up. She inserted the ring into the slot which caused the ring to glow for a moment. In the next moment, the door opened with a loud creak.
That creak drew a lot of attention from the enemies in the next room. Several dragonspawn along with a large number blackrock warriors and spellcasters moved in to attack. Lokosh pushed the dragonspawns back with his shield to allow the others to enter the room. Their experience in the Molten Core allowed the party members to be able to face at least one or two orcs individually.
Groun’s roots crushed the wrists of a couple of warriors and forced them to drop their weapons before the roots crushed their throats. Talia’s felguard cleaved through the armor of three warriors before the warlock set them on fire. Farra’jin caused his lightning bolts to jump to three spellcasters and two dragonspawn that Lokosh was fighting. His fire elemental made sure no enemies got too close. Flutashe was leaping around the battlefield in her cat form, shredding the armor of her adversaries with her razor-sharp claws and sharp fangs. She moved with the grace that the species was known for and showed many bleeding orcs why she was an alpha predator.
As more orcs came from around the corner, Surprise drove them back with a psychic compulsion to run away. While they were fleeing, she tapped into some of the power Violetta lent her to attack their minds. The warriors quickly fell as their mouths began to foam and their eyes rolled in the back of their heads. The spellcasters took longer because of their stronger mental fortitude, but they still fell eventually.
The strikes from Bella’s hammer, blessed with the Light, crushed the wicked orcs. Each strike hit them at the weakest point in their defenses and shattered their ribs. While she hated to see them suffer for long, the orcs would not let their fight end so quickly. She then consecrated the ground and burned them with the Light’s power until they were put out of their misery.
Stella tore through the room with her breath, using her black dragon power, to tear into the orcs’ flesh. This infuriated the black dragonspawn who were fighting Lokosh and left the warrior to attack the dracthyr. This turned into a trap when she used a spell to trap them in ice before Lokosh shattered their prisons, damaging their scales. Jaqueline quickly finished the orcs she was fighting to attack the exposed parts of the dragonspawn.
Once the room was clear, the party took a moment to inspect the room. It was a wrought stone hallway that had seven small rooms at the sides that had a few braziers burning a violet flame. On the floor of each room were a series of plates that resembled a familiar set of runes. From memory, they realized that the runes looked just like the ones in Molten Core and Shadowforge City.
“That’s strange, what are the Blackrocks and Black Dragonflight doing with elemental runes?” Stella wondered out loud.
“Ah don’t think it matters any since they all seem put out now,” Jaqueline said.
Indeed, after inspecting all seven rooms, the party quickly found that the runes were all extinguished.
“The runes were lit not long ago, but it seems that the Blackrock Orcs don’t have the extensive knowledge needed to keep the runes lit without a spellcaster constantly maintaining the rune’s magic,” Thanatas explained. “When the spellcaster died the rune was extinguished.”
“Let’s keep going, there doesn’t seem to be anything else here for us,” Lokosh said.
The party proceeded to the end of the hallway and through an open door into a smaller, narrow hallway that turned a couple of times. More orcs were in the passage but the narrow passage was perfect for Talia to use her Rain of Fire to incinerate the orcs without them being able to escape.
The passage led into what appeared to be some sort of room for rituals. In the center of the room was an elevated platform with one set of stairs leading up to it. Surrounding the platform were seven orc spellcasters standing on extinguished runes while channeling a binding spell on a fire elemental atop the platform. At the bottom of the stairs was a small altar with three stone faces on the side of the altar.
As they entered the room, they found that the orcs were too busy maintaining the binding spell to pay attention to the party. They were also protected by powerful barriers that prevented any harm from coming to them. They also found that the door to the next room was sealed.
The party also noticed a human with gray hair with a mustache and beard. He was wearing a mismatched set of armor that was composed of gunmetal shoulderplates, red gauntlets reinforced with gold, dark gray legplates and boots, a gold belt and a red and white tabard with a white heart on it.
Thanatas knew who that man was and knew that a disaster was coming. At least it would be amusing though.
Stella placed a hand on the altar. She then noticed her hand darkening. When she removed her hand it turned back to normal. “What is this altar,” she wondered.
“Maybe it has to do with opening that door?” Groun offered. He placed his hand on the altar and his hand darkened.
“Maybe more than one of us need to be touching this to get something to happen,” Talia guessed. She placed her hand on the altar and her hand darkened.
Stella placed her hand back on the altar to receive the same effect. However, something else happened when the faces on the side of the altar opened their mouths. The party waited a few moments for something to happen.
The shields protecting the orcs in the room shattered which caused the orcs to panic and attack the intruders.
Jaqueline quickly cut down two spellcasters while Bella’s blades of Light burst from the ground and cut down two more. Stella froze the last three before she shattered them with lances of ice.
The party didn’t celebrate their victory for long as the fire elemental came free from his bindings and cackled maniacally. “Free at last! Now I will char your flesh from your bones!”
The reaction the fire elemental got was not what he was expecting as everyone gave him a deadpan look. “Uhh…should you not fear me?”
“We just tore through the lair of Ragnaros and sent the Firelord himself back to the Firelands, do you honestly think we would be afraid of a little flame like you who doesn’t compare to the elementals there?” Talia asked.
The elemental tried to sense his master, only to find that the mortals were speaking the truth. He could no longer sense his master in the mortal plane. If their claim that they defeated him was also true, he soon realized that he was screwed.
To save him the humiliation of getting crushed, Sophia slashed the elemental’s bracers and sent him back to the Firelands.
Thanatas stared at the sleeping human in the corner of the room. The nagging feeling didn’t leave her. She could tell that he would cause a big hassle once he woke up. She would need to explain the next room right away.
Once the room was clear of enemies, the party noticed that the doors to the next room were open. The room beyond was another shattered room with piles of rubble creating a walkway to the second level of the room. Most concerning though were the vast number of dragon eggs within, each looked like they were ready to hatch at any moment. There were also a few dragonspawn wandering around guarding or tending the eggs.
With the human in the room, there was only one way this was going to go. Thanatas sighed. “Calling it now, things are going to turn chaotic in the next few moments.”
“Since when are you such a pessimist, Thanatas?” Sophia asked.
“It’s not pessimism because the moment I try to tell the plan, it’s going out the window because of that human over there.” She pointed at the sleeping human.
“What does that guy have to do with anything?”
“Three…two…one…”
The sleeping human suddenly woke up and jumped to his feet. “Alright chums, let’s do this…LEEROOOOOOOOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEEEENKIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIINS!” He then ran recklessly into the next room.
Thanatas’ palm covered her face while everyone else stared in shock at what the human just did. “Did he seriously just run in?” Sophia asked. Nobody could answer that.
As they stared, they heard the sound of many eggs hatching as the human ran around fighting the dragonspawn and many angry hatchlings by himself.
“We need to save him!” Bella exclaimed.
The party ran in and began fighting the dragonkin within. Stella took a deep breath and left a trail of destruction that crushed numerous eggs. Lokosh and Flutashe took the attention of the dragonspawn away from Leeroy while Jaqueline and Talia started cutting down or blasting the hatchlings. Farra’jin summoned his earth elemental to start smashing the eggs in the room. Bella supported the others with her healing spells while Groun called roots to crush more eggs. Surprise used her shadow magic to make the hatchlings scatter so they didn’t overwhelm Lokosh or Flutashe.
The commotion drew the ire of an armored dragonspawn who didn’t last long because some idiot put Thanatas in a foul mood and he ended up a pin cushion for many swords.
A few moments later, Leeroy inspected the pin cushion’s corpse but was met with disappointment when he failed to find something. “Damn, no cloth shoulderpads. Maybe if I look further…”
Thanatas was not having that. She grabbed Leeroy by the tabard and dragged him out of the room. She dragged the struggling man through the rooms they went through and left the Spire before she was on the balcony overlooking the central area.
Without caring where he ended up, Thanatas tossed the idiot off the balcony, hoping that he fell in the magma.
“At least I have chickeeeeeeeeeeeeen!” he yelled as he fell.
Thanatas snorted, releasing a small blast of icy vapors. She was glad to be rid of that moron.
It took a few minutes to return to the party. By then they had climbed the rubble to the second floor and noted the two doorways which led to the next room which was guarded by a lot of elite orcs. Lokosh could tell because their equipment was in much better condition than what those in the lower spire were wearing.
The party wasn’t sure how well these orcs were going to fight but they didn’t have much choice but to stir the hornets’ nest since any attention drawn to them from any group had a good chance of drawing the attention of the whole room.
In preparation, Thanatas froze the doorway on the right to keep them from using it.
Once prepared, Lokosh banged his shield with his ax. As they expected, the entire room moved to investigate. The soldiers quickly discovered the intruders and moved to engage.
The orcs quickly found out that one doorway was frozen, likely an enemy tactic to bottleneck their forces. The more experienced warriors began smashing the ice and trying to open another venue to their enemies. Seeing this, Thanatas cast a spell through the ice where she laid a zone on the floor of dark magic. The orcs who were attacking the ice were forced to back away as they felt their flesh rotting. Two ended up being the unfortunate ones who collapsed and expired from the dark magic.
This strategy worked for a time with the orcs being forced to use one doorway only to be cut down by Jaqueline, Lokosh and Talia’s felguard. That was until some patrolling dragonspawn noticed the commotion and engaged in battle. They quickly noticed the ice wall and breathed fire on it to melt it. The rest of the orcs noticed the now open door and moved through it.
Thanatas moved away once the ice melted while Stella was prepared for what may come. A number of orcs exited first only for their path to be shattered when the mage used her black dragonflight power to breathe on it. Five orcs fell through the floor and were finished off when Stella showered them with ice shards.
The black dragonspawn stared at the scene for a moment before a pair of blades pierced their chests right where their hearts were. The two had no idea what killed them while a certain blue rabbit templar psychically scrubbed her blades of their blood.
The action soon came to an end once the last of the orcs in the room fell and the party was able to advance again.
The party proceeded up several ramps while fighting more dragonspawns and ignored a doorway to the side as they came across an overlook above what appeared to be a square-shaped arena. At the left end of where they were looking was a large portcullis and they spotted numerous eggs on the other side. The smaller opening to their right was also sealed by a portcullis.
In an effort to avoid what was obviously a trap, the party retreated to the door they ignored and explored that passage. They quickly discovered that the passage led to the smaller entrance to the arena but it also went beyond. However, that passage was also sealed.
“Looks like we have no other choice but to spring the enemy’s trap,” Stella said.
“I noticed a pair of spectators overlooking the arena from the other side of where we were, they seemed important,” Bella noted.
“Those two are your primary targets,” Thanatas pointed out.
“You mean Dal’rend and Nefarian?” Talia inquired.
“We defeated Ragnaros, we can survive this,” Mena encouraged.
“Right, let’s cut down everything they have to throw at us!” Sophia said.
The portcullis into the arena suddenly opened, inviting them inside. Once the way was opened, a deep voice spoke, “Are you all through psyching yourselves up for this? Hurry inside so that the festivities can begin.”
The party proceeded inside the arena at the command of the voice which they suspected was Nefarian’s voice since orcs’ voices were normally gravelly. Once everyone was inside, the doorway was sealed again. “Good, you are all here now, we can begin feeding my legion at last,” Nefarian said.
The party looked up at the observers to get a look at them. Rend was a grizzled old orc who sported many battle scars and an eyepatch. He wore large, red, spiked shoulder armor along with leather gauntlets and steel-toed boots. He also wore a red harness and loincloth. In his hand was a large polearm with runes on it.
Standing next to Rend was what appeared to be a human male with black hair and glowing fiery eyes. He wore a suit of black plate mail armor over a layer of scale mail. He carried a dark red, flaming scepter and a jewel floated over his head that generated flames in the shape of a crown. It was easy to tell that the “human” was Lord Victor Nefarius, also known as Nefarian.
As the large portcullis at the far end of the arena opened, Nefarian ordered the minions on the other side to leave no trace of their existence on the arena floor, not even their souls.
Entering the arena were dragonkin of unusual coloring. A dragonspawn and several whelplings who had magenta scale colors. Bella noticed that some of their scales were shifting rapidly between red, green, blue, bronze and black, but to the untrained eye they simply appeared magenta.
“Behold by creation, the Chromatic Dragonflight!” Nefarian declared. “Years of research culminated into dragons capable of using the magics of the five flights. Though in my obsession, I neglected to feed them for days. Thank you for volunteering to do so.”
The party engaged the chromatic dragonkin. The dragonspawn tried breathing fire while two whelps breathed frost and two more breathed acid at them. Lokosh blocked the fire with his shield before bashing him with it. Talia, Farra’jin and Mena shot down the whelps with bolts of shadow, lightning and light.
Despite their scales and powers of the five flights, the chromatic dragonkin were no more durable than the dragonspawn they had faced so far.
Nefarian observed the fight alongside Rend while releasing more of his creations into the arena and noted a few things. The tauren only shapeshifted into a treant form and none of the various animals like what the night elf transformed into. The human warrior fought with a style similar to what he had seen of the dark iron dwarves. The paladin was quick to adjust her strategies on the fly as the situation called for it. The forsaken warlock seemed able to use multiple demons instead of one as most warlocks were known for. The priest shifted demeanor when she switched between using light and shadow magic. Oddly enough, when she used shadow magic, he could sense a corruption similar to what afflicted his father. The shaman and orc warrior seemed typical of what he had seen of their kind.
He also noticed that the pale human and the strange rabbit-like creature stood off to the side of the fighting, content on letting the others do all the fighting. They were either deceptively non-combative, which he doubted, or they were so strong that they didn’t need to do any of the fighting and were saving their strength for later.
That was when he noticed the mage in the group. He quickly noticed the draconic horns on her head which seemed familiar and that familiarity was slowly causing his anger to rise. Her spells had an effect comparable to dragon magic which raised his anger even more. When she unleashed a pillar of flames, he sensed magic similar to that of the red dragonflight. She also used a green mist which knocked the whelps out until they were killed in their sleep.
His curiosity and ire burned, so he decided to send a large number of dragonspawn, whelps and some blackrock dragon handlers to overwhelm them.
That was when she transformed. That was when his blood began to boil.
Stella switched into her dracthyr form and unleashed a ground-shattering breath attack that sent the orcs and dragonspawn flying. A beam of azure light disintegrated one of the orcs.
“Stellaglim!” Nefarian snarled. “You dare show your face before me once more!?”
As much as he wanted to get personally involved with the group’s destruction, the arena was much too small for him to fight effectively in his dragon form.
Sophia found amusement in this turn of events. She had a feeling that Stella and Nefarian had some forgotten history, but to see his reaction was priceless. She decided to see how far she could push the ancient dragon and cause him to make a mistake.
The templar psychically transmitted to Nefarian the memory of their fight in Stormwind Keep and the resulting death of Onyxia. The male dragon’s reaction to the memory was what she expected as he struggled to maintain his visage form as his rage threatened to consume him.
“YOU DARE MURDER MY SISTER!?” he roared. He conjured a large sphere of fire and shadow and hurled it at Sophia.
While the templar could have easily destroyed the attack, that proved unnecessary as a large red wing blocked the attack. An image of Vaelan in his dragon form, Vaelastrasz, appeared in the arena and unleashed a torrent of flame at Nefarian. Rend dove to the side while Nefarian conjured a shadow barrier to block the red dragon’s attack. Some of the flames managed to reach the black dragon and leave a few burns.
“Enough of this!” Nefarian shouted. He unleashed a torrent of shadow magic at Vaelastrasz which caused the image to vanish.
“Fool, I shall hunt you to the end of days,” Vaelastrasz declared from somewhere unknown.
“Bah! My mood has soured! Rend, deal with these meddlesome insects!”
“With pleasure!” Rend gleefully acknowledged before leaving the overlook.
“If you pests survive this, you shall find me in my lair! Stellaglim, the wolves of Silverpine may have failed to finish you, but I won’t fail! You shall suffer dearly for your betrayal! You will all suffer for murdering my sister!” With that, Nefarian left the arena in a fiery flash of teleportation.
“Stella, what was he talkin’ about?” Jaqueline asked.
“I really don’t know. He seems to know me, but I don’t remember meeting him until now,” Stella answered, a hint of sadness in her voice.
“We’ll get our answers as we get closer to the summit of this fortress. For now, focus on the enemy before you,” Thanatas said.
Once the last of the dragonkin and handlers were slain by the party, they waited a few more minutes before the large portcullis opened again. This time a chromatic drake with magenta and teal scales emerged with Rend riding it.
“Let’s rip them apart together, Gyth!” Rend called out. Gyth unleashed a torrent of acid from his mouth, the splashes eating away at the stone. The party dodged the breath and ran in to counterattack.
Bella struck the drake’s head with a hammer of Light which stunned it and forced it to land while the spellcasters bombarded the drake. Jaqueline took that time to jump on the drake’s neck and spun around to deliver a kick to Rend who blocked it with his sword. The force of the kick still knocked the warchief off Gyth.
The drake was momentarily confused by what happened and why his master was no longer on his back. That moment was when Flutashe clawed one of his eyes out while a precision blow from Lokosh’s ax took out the drake’s other eye.
Lokosh used this chance to trick the blind drake into action as he positioned himself between Rend and Gyth before hitting his shield with his ax. Gyth locked on to the sound and prepared a fire breath. “No you stupid drake! Don’t!” However, Lokosh dove out of the way as Gyth unleashed his fire. Rend had no shield to block the attack and his sword was broad, but not broad enough.
Rend ended up taking the full brunt of Gyth’s breath which charred his flesh. Badly burnt, Rend survived the attack. However, Groun called on many roots to wrap around the weakened warchief before Talia rained fire and set him ablaze. With the roots Groun called being dry, it made for good kindling and aided in burning the warchief alive.
Rend screamed as his flesh blackened. The agony continued until his body couldn’t continue to function.
Once Rend’s body fell, Talia’s felguard moved to decapitate the warchief. While the warlock was moving to collect the head of their objective for Warchief Thrall, Sophia put the drake out of his misery by slicing his head off.
“That’s one part of our mission accomplished,” Lokosh noted. “If we intend on invading Blackwing, we need to establish our escape route to speed our leave of this mountain once we defeat Nefarian.”
“I could just create portals to Orgrimmar and Stormwind,” Stella pointed out.
Lokosh blinked, “Yeah, that too. Regardless, taking out Drakkisath would still be depriving Nefarian of one of his commanders in case he tried recalling his forces to Blackwing.”
Everyone nodded in agreement and proceeded back through the opened doorway they entered the arena from. In the hallway, they noticed that the portcullis that was blocking their way earlier was also opened.
At the top of the flight of stairs that made up the passage, they encountered dragonspawn in full body armor along with orc soldiers in armor that seemed better than anything produced by Horde blacksmiths. It was likely that the most elite members of the Dark Horde were just ahead.
After clearing the passage, the party noticed the passage forked. To their left was a tunnel that Flutashe was barely able to discern would lead to a room with many eggs in it. To their right was a room full of more elite orcs and dragonspawn.
“The left passage is the entrance to Blackwing Lair,” Thanatas warned. “We will go there once we finish our business with Drakkisath.”
Taking note of the entrance for later, the party proceeded down the steps toward the other room.
While they were prepared to fight more elite orcs and dragonspawn, they weren’t prepared for a sudden rumbling and a crashing sound, followed by a familiar-sounding howl.
“You have to be joking, what is a core hound doing this far up the mountain?” Talia asked rhetorically.
As they pondered that, the soldiers in the next room investigated the noise. A few moments passed before shouting was heard. “The Beast has broken free! Restrain him, the master will punish him later!” one dragonspawn yelled.
While everyone else decided that this would be a good distraction to sneak into the next room, Flutashe dismissed that idea as she ran toward where the fighting was taking place. “We must help him! I can sense his suffering, help me deal with these captors!” She then shifted into her bear form and ran in.
Talia, Lokosh, Farra’jin and Groun groaned as they knew they would be dragged into this by Thanatas who seemed intent on keeping the druid alive. As they lamented, the others had already followed the night elf into the room. With a few growls of frustration, the Horde group followed the others into battle.
With the orcs and dragonspawn distracted by the core hound, they were caught unaware of the small army marching up behind them until several of their number had fallen. Some had turned to face the intruders but this gave the large core hound the opportunity to bite and claw at the distracted jailors.
Between the beast and the intruders, the few remaining elite of the Dark Horde were caught in a pincer attack and lacked any commanding officer to guide their attacks. The last of the group fell within minutes.
Once the Blackrock soldiers had fallen, the core hound turned its baleful gaze at the party, only for his eyes to focus on the night elf who calmly walked toward him. He was confused by this as he sensed no aggression from her.
When Flutashe was inches from the core hound, she raised her hands and gently scratched under the chins of his two heads. She gently spoke to the core hound, “There is no need to worry, those bad people won’t hurt you anymore.” She spent a few moments stroking the beast before she asked, “Can you tell me, what were you doing here? You are pretty far from the magma caverns.”
A few grunts and growls were heard before Flutashe jumped in surprise, “I see, so you were looking for food for your mate who is expecting. You ended up captured by the bad people and they were trying to force you to obey them.” The Beast nodded in affirmation.
Flutashe thought for a moment. She figured that it would be bad for him to go back to his mate without at least getting food. She took note of the orcs and dragonspawn corpses on the floor. While this seemed like a terrible thing to do, the core hound needed meat for his mate. “You should take some of the bodies here and present them to her. Not only would you feed her, you can show her that you are a capable protector of your pups.”
The core hound nodded eagerly and moved to collect a pair of bodies off the floor. He stopped partway and suddenly began to heave. Flutashe worried about the core hound but after a few more attempts, The Beast coughed up a small figure about Mena’s size. He then pretended like nothing happened and proceeded to collect the corpses before tunneling through a hole in the wall. Before he was out of sight, he gave one last grunt to Flutashe before leaving.
“So what was that last part?” Mena asked.
“He said that if we ever decided to explore the mountain’s side chambers, that we are free to visit.”
With that out of the way, they took a look at what appeared to be a gnome in a diving suit, or a goblin since both races were of similar size. The suit had to be fireproof for it to survive the inside of a core hound.
The explorer came to and shook his head. “Finally, I thought I was going to be stuck in that beast forever!” His voice was high-pitched but masculine, giving away that he was a male gnome. “Now if you will excuse me, I need to find the nearest town with a bathtub and a therapist.” He left the way the party came from without another word.
Not wanting to know the gnome’s story, they proceeded back to the previous room and toward the next area which was on the other side of a bridge. More elite orcs and dragonspawn guarded the area but soon noticed the intruders.
One of the dragonspawn guards alerted the others to the intruders before a large number of elite troops began to cross the bridge.
As they did, Farra’jin moved to the middle of the bridge alone. The bloodthirsty orcs and dragons drew near, but a confident smirk graced the troll’s face.
When the enemies were near, Farra’jin called upon air spirits to strike his position with lightning. The spirits avoided hurting the troll, but the resulting thunderclap created a shockwave that sent several orcs and dragonkin flying over the edge of the bridge.
Mena pulled the troll back to them with her Leap of Faith spell before Lokosh moved in and bashed another orc off the bridge with his shield. He then lured the now reduced number of enemies back to their side where everyone was waiting to bombard the remaining enemies with many spells and wide-sweeping attacks.
Their armor proved strong, but against such an onslaught, they were unable to endure it for long before the orcs were incinerated and the dragonspawn had their armor shattered and their scales scattered on the floor.
Once they were ready to move forward, the party crossed the bridge into the next room which turned out to be their destination.
Standing guard in an alcove in the center of the room were two armored chromatic dragonspawn and a larger black dragonspawn who bore a banner of the Blackrock Clan and wielded a strange runed sword. Another notable feature was the pair of wings on his back.
“If I recall, wings on a dragonspawn meant that they were particularly strong, correct?” Bella asked.
“That would be correct, mortal insect,” Drakkisath answered. “I will make you pay for destroying the armies of Blackrock!”
Drakkisath didn’t give his enemies a chance to prepare as he and his guards moved in to attack. Flutashe quickly shifted into bear form and headbutted one of the guards. Bella threw a hammer of light at the other guard.
Drakkisath tried to capitalize on the initiative by breathing a torrent of flame at the others but a wall of ice from Thanatas blocked the attack while he was forced back by the force of Stella’s earth-shattering breath attack. He then tried to cast a spell but Stella was ready for that too when she countered his cast with an arcane feedback.
Stella pelted Drakkisath with a shower of ice shards and blasted him with a pillar of scarlet flames. She was determined not to allow him a chance to counterattack.
However, Drakkisath endured the attacks and unleashed a blast wave of fire around him, knocking back his attackers. He tried to unleash another breath of flame which was countered by Stella’s beam of disintegration. The two were locked in a stalemate for the moment which gave Mena, Talia and Jaqueline enough time to finish off the guards and focus on Drakkisath.
While the struggle continued, Jaqueline managed to get behind the draconic general and grab one of his wings. He pointed an arm at the warrior and prepared to unleash a blast of fire at her before she thrust her sword into his hand. Drakkisath did his best not to lose focus as he was still trying to blast the dracthyr. However, he was greatly outnumbered and he was facing a group that defeated Ragnaros. He had considered retreat but that would only ensure that the mortals got the brand while he would be slain by his master anyway for his failure. He realized that he was doomed regardless of what happened.
He cursed himself as he allowed his will to falter, He did his best to push Stella’s beam back at her but he soon found his mind assaulted by the gnome with a crazed look in her eye. Jaqueline and Lokosh each grabbed a wing and used a blade of a sword and ax respectively to slice off his wings.
The pain became too much to bear and the beam was pushed back to his face. He felt his scales burn off and his snout sear away. He was unable to cry out in agony as the beam proceeded to utterly destroy his head.
In moments, the beam struggle ended and Drakkisath collapsed as a headless and wingless corpse.
Once the battle was finished, the party put their weapons away and stared at a strange glowing pedestal in the center of the room that the general was once guarding. The pedestal held what appeared to be an orb of blue light. Moving near it gave the party a sense of warmth.
If the note from earlier meant anything, then this might be the brand that would allow them to use the orb of translocation that would take them directly to Blackwing.
Lokosh went first. He placed a hand on the blue orb which was warm to the touch. A moment later, a mark appeared on his hand before it vanished. He inspected his hand to see if there was anything different. Finding nothing, he nodded to the others who placed their hands on the orb for the same effect.
“So, I guess this means that it’s time for us to invade Nefarian’s lair?” Stella asked.
Thanatas nodded, “All of you had best be ready for what we find inside. He is a mad scientist type like myself, which means that you will find signs of depravity there. Nefarian holds no sense of ethics and his cruelty is legendary. I hope you all have strong stomachs.”
The party gulped while Sophia raised an eyebrow at her cousin. “Is he really as bad as you described?” She asked through the link.
“What they will find there is almost as bad as some of the other things that they will discover in a few years. Nefarian twists flesh as a hobby. It’s a shame that I can’t recruit him for my science team.”
With that warning, the party retraced their steps and prepared themselves for the horrors to come.