A week had passed since the leaders of the Alliance and Horde made their announcement on the preparations for the coming war in Silithus. The stockpiled resources stored in the cities had dwindled to nothing as they were shipped by various means to the Silithus Desert.
Heeding the warnings of Thanatas and Sophia, Thrall and Varian sent soldiers to the known hives located throughout central and southern Kalimdor. Adventurers and soldiers alike kept a vigilant watch over the hives in the regions of the Barrens, Feralas, Thousand Needles, Tanaris, Un’Goro Crater and the three largest ones in Silithus.
Preparations were complete. All that remained was the spark that would cast half the continent into chaos.
Around the time the announcement was made, Sophia and the reincarnated five made their final preparations for what was to come. They bought non-perishable food and water for their trip into the desert. They checked their armor and weapons to make sure they were in top shape. Bella said her prayers to the Light for the safety of her friends.
Inside the recesses of Mena’s mind, Violetta was brimming with anticipation as her prey would soon be within her reach.
Once they were ready, Stella opened a portal to Tanaris and the group proceeded to the Caverns of Time to meet with Anachronos one last time before the battle. The dragon wished them the best of luck against the innumerable swarm before he bestowed Flutashe with the completed Scepter of the Shifting Sands.
With the Scepter in their possession, the group traveled across the desert to the west. Since Stella had not been to Silithus before, they had no shorter means of reaching their destination and were forced to traverse the desert, fighting off more bandits and desert predators. They also had to crush a few silithid scouts.
The Silithid resembled enormous insects that were slightly larger than people and often appeared in the form of wasps and beetles.
Nearly a day had passed before they reached the western end of the desert. A pair of obelisks with a scarab image carved into them marked a ramp that would take them to the next region: Un’Goro Crater.
The region was a lush jungle that served as a home to various species of dinosaurs along with a few other species such as plant creatures, gorillas, tar monsters, and a number of Titan-made constructs. Mostly dinosaurs populated the region though. There was also a volcano in the center of the region and the local fire elementals roamed that area.
During their travel west, the group discovered a number of colored crystals that appeared to only grow in this region. After examining them, Bella learned that the gems may serve a purpose in the region, but there was no demand for them beyond the crater. They were mostly worthless crystals in the end.
Among the dinosaurs they encountered, there were raptors that were twice their size, dimetrodons, pterrordaxes, stegodons and the wandering colossal devilsaurs. The group took care to avoid as many of these creatures as they could as they needed their energy for the battles ahead.
Another pair of obelisks marked a ramp up and out of the crater and into the fated region of Silithus.
The region had a different feel from Tanaris. Deposits of dark crystal were everywhere and one could almost hear the buzzing of insects from the moment they stepped foot into the region. The common wildlife, aside from the Silithid, was composed of giant spiders, scorpions and sandworms with the occasional roaming earth or air elemental. There was also a Twilight’s Hammer cultist camp north of the road, which made sense since they wanted to be close to one of the Old Gods that they worship.
Ever since the War of the Shifting Sands one thousand years ago, the Cenarion Circle organization had established their headquarters in the center of Silithus. While the members believed that their leader, Fandral Staghelm, was doing what was best for their people, Flutashe could only feel sorry for them as they had no idea of the kind of man that the archdruid had become. Still, they had to report there and join the armies for the coming battle.
Once they reached Cenarion Hold, they beheld something that they never imagined seeing in their lifetimes. Entire platoons of soldiers composed of races of the Alliance and the Horde together. Orcs and humans were side by side practicing their techniques. It was rare to see such a thing since the last time the Alliance and Horde worked together was the Battle of Mount Hyjal.
Inside the hold’s command center, the planning table stood in the center of the room and was surrounded by several individuals. The commander who was put in charge of the united forces was a grizzled old veteran orc named Varok Saurfang. He was respected by both factions for his philosophy to place honor above all else. The others were commanders of the 7th Legion, Stormwind’s special operations regiment, along with a tauren who likely knew the lay of the land.
As Varok and the others discussed strategy, Sophia’s group entered the command center. The guards let them in since they were expected. Hearing the entry of the group, Varok turned his attention to the entrance and smiled slightly. “Ah, you have finally arrived. I have heard a lot about you and your friends from Thanatas.”
“Good things I hope,” Sophia said as she approached the commander. “I take it she is around somewhere?”
“She is, along with that group she had trained. They should be around somewhere.” Varok’s smile quickly dropped as he stared at the map. “Your group and Thanatas’ group will be the assault force on the enemy city once the gates open. If the enemy is as numerous as projected, we will need to wear down their numbers and force them to retreat into the city before a proper assault can be mounted. Thanatas warned us about an army of colossal obsidian constructs called the anubisath, we will need to attack them with caution.” He paused for a moment as he stared at the group. “She also informed me that you have the means of getting this battle started.”
Flutashe pulled out the Scepter of the Shifting Sands and showed it to Varok. “This was given to me by Anachonos. He said that once I strike the gong near the entrance that the gates will open.”
Varok stared at the Scepter for a moment before nodding. “Very well, our forces are as prepared as we can be. Meet up with Thanatas’ group and head to the Scarab Wall. I will rally the troops. When I give the signal, strike the gong.”
Varok sent a few scouts ahead to inform the troops to gather at the base of Cenarion Hold. After half an hour, the soldiers were gathered. Varok moved to a place where he would be seen and heard by the most troops. Everyone waited eagerly for the supreme commander’s long awaited speech.
Varok began, “I am Saurfang, brother of Broxigar. You know me to be the supreme commander of the Might of Kalimdor. An orc, a true orc warrior, wishes for one thing: To die in the glory of battle against a hated enemy. Some of you have fought in battles. Peace has been with us for many years. Many years we sat idle but many years we battled. In those years – where strife, the land, Legion and Scourge sacked our homes, killed our families – these insects dwelled beneath us. Beneath our homes – waiting. Waiting to crush the life from our little ones. To slay all in their path. This they do for their god. And for our gods? We defend, we stand, we show that as one, united, we destroy. Their god will fall. To die today, on this field of battle, is to die an orcish death. To die today is to die for our little ones, our old ones, our…loved ones. Would any of you deny yourselves such a death? Such an honor?”
The desert erupted with cheer as the soldiers raised their weapons, their morale high. Each race represented shouted the name of their leader in declaration of their service.
As the cheers began to die down, Varok Saurfang shouted his marching orders, “ONWARD! TO AHN’QIRAJ!”
The group located Thanatas’ group nearby and walked over to them. “So, are you all ready for your biggest battle yet?” Thanatas asked.
“Yes, this will not be easy,” Bella said. “This enemy has had nearly a thousand years to prepare.”
“They have their great weapons, we have ours,” Lokosh said.
“I wish we got here sooner so I could have had more time to prepare a bug-squishing party,” Mena bemoaned.
“I’m sure it would have been one for the history books,” Flutashe said.
“So, our job be killin’ de leadership and gettin’ de gnome to de ting controllin’ them all?” Farra’jin asked.
“I wish there was a better way to take out C’thun, but this way makes sure the Twilight’s Hammer don’t try to revive him in the event that they have the means to do so,” Stella said.
“Enough discussing strategy, let’s get this over with!” Talia snapped.
“She’s right, it’s time ta give these critters what fer,” Jaqueline declared.
“Let’s get going,” Groun finished.
To speed their travel through the desert, the party borrowed horses from the Cenarion Circle before traveling with the army down the road south to the Scarab wall.
After a half hour of travel, the group arrived near the stone gate of the infested city. The peculiarity of the wall’s design was that it was composed of stone blocks along with stone made into the shape of hexagons. The gate into the city was sealed by a hexagon block held in place by strong roots. Obelisks floated above the left and right sides of the gate.
Aside from the looming gate, the group spotted the infantry and artillery of the factions. The Horde had their catapults while the Alliance had their siege engines, which were gold-colored steam-powered tanks with a gryphon head at the front and large exhaust pipes in the back and a large cannon on top.
Off to the side of the gate was the object that was about to turn the desert into a battlefield. An altar with a set of stairs leading up to a stone structure that held a bronze-colored disc with the inscription of a scarab beetle on it.
The Scarab Gong.
The party moved into position next to the gong and awaited Varok to give the signal. Flutashe pulled out the Scepter of the Shifting Sands and held it in both hands, readying herself and quietly praying that this wasn’t a mistake.
A few minutes later, a flare was fired into the sky, the party figured that that was Saurfang’s signal.
It took every ounce of courage that Flutashe could muster for this. Her thoughts momentarily drifted to her sister, the confidence she radiated, her ability to lead soldiers into battle, her sometimes reckless nature. She knew that she could never fill the shoes that her sister left behind, but she was still inspired to be confident in herself and that confidence had brought her to this moment. She and her friends had faced many hard fights together and she had faith that they would pull through again.
Fully resolved, she lifted the Scepter, prepared herself, and swung at the gong with all her might.
The resulting ringing of the gong resonated throughout the area. The soldiers readied their weapons.
The vines around the sealed gate receded and the stone blocking the gate vanished. For a moment, it seemed like the world had stood still as they awaited the incoming enemy.
A few moments passed before their eagerly awaited enemy arrived. An army of colossal obsidian constructs emerged from the gate and began their attack. The constructs wore white robes and took the shape of anthropomorphic jackals.
Catapults launched waves of flaming rocks at the obsidian colossi while dwarven siege tanks bombarded them with their cannons. The infantry moved in and attempted to chip away at their ankles while dodging their punches and stomps. Dwarven riflemen switched to explosive rounds to blast away at the stone forms while night elven archers fired steel-tipped arrows.
With the battle joined, the ground rumbled. In the distance, a number of massive crystals emerged from the sands. The crystals began radiating a pulse that drove the hives of Silithus into a frenzy, unleashing their numbers upon the area around them. Sophia suspected that the other hives outside of Silithus were also triggered by the crystals.
In the distance, a massive silithid emerged from one of the hives and unleashed a powerful unearthly roar that could be heard for miles. Sophia was sure that she heard at least two more.
This type of silithid was composed of two segments and walked on four legs with two of them free that resemble scythes. They also had huge horns on their heads for gouging. Their heads appeared to make up over half of their overall mass.
Behind the anubisath emerged strange giant creatures that weren’t as tall as the constructs but they looked quite deadly. The creatures resembled humanoid beetles with giant pincers on their right arms with a smaller pair on their left arms. Strangely enough, their arms looked almost human-like. The rest of their bodies were covered in black chitinous armor. Their heads had three curved horns; two on the side pointing forward and one on their foreheads pointing upward.
As the army reassessed the threats, a larger version of the beetle qiraji climbed atop the scarab wall. “Soon you will learn the price of your meddling, mortals… The master is nearly whole, and when he rises, your world will cease!”
Thanatas recognized that qiraji right away. “See that bug on the wall acting like he’s a big shot?” she asked Sophia. “That’s General Rajaxx, we will be dealing with him in the near future. He’s the leader of the Qiraji armies.”
The armies and the party fought and killed anubisath and qiraji alike. Much of the army was crushed by the constucts or by the qiraji gladiators, which was what Thanatas called their type. In return, the armies managed to bring down many of the constructs and bug people. The battle was bloody and even after several hours there was still no clear sign of a victor.
By nine hours after the gates were opened, Sophia got bored. She and her cousin cut down slightly more enemies than the armies were able to accomplish altogether. She also noticed the dark aura around Mena and that her shadow began to boil. It was obvious that Violetta was getting impatient waiting for them to fight enemy after enemy without getting anywhere. It seemed that it was time to bring an end to this and move forward with the attack.
It was time for some shock and awe. Sophia’s eyes glowed blue for a brief moment which sent a signal to unleash her secret weapon against a seemingly endless army.
This was, of course, her own endless army.
All of a sudden, the sand was practically roiling before it almost literally exploded everywhere as countless ferocious-looking creatures emerged from the sands. Their shrill battle cries echoed through the desert. Most of the creatures were four-legged beasts with insect wings, tendrils with claws at the end, horns on the side and armored with thick chitinous armor. Others resembled naga with their lower serpentine body but their arms ended in scythes and their mouths had fanged double jaws and their heads were half the length of their bodies. The armies also spotted huge tick-like creatures that carried ominously glowing sacks that looked ready to rupture at any moment.
The armies of Kalimdor were in complete shock by this turn of events since they hadn’t seen the enemy unleash anything new in nine hours. The hive colossi were still giving the soldiers problems in other places and they had no idea on the status of the hives in the other regions.
As the soldiers felt their morale drop and their situation seemed hopeless, they noticed something very strange: the creatures were attacking the anubisath and qiraji while ignoring the soldiers completely. It was the weirdest thing they had ever seen.
The green-glowing creatures took the place of catapult ammo and made the orc engineers shrug before simply launching them into several constructs. This resulted in the creatures exploding all over the anubisath, releasing a highly caustic substance that ate through their obsidian skin. A couple of the creatures was all that was needed to bring down an anubisath.
The other creatures rushed the qiraji gladiators. The serpentine creatures fired poisonous spines that pierced their armor and infected the flesh beneath. Meanwhile, thousands of the common creatures tore away at their chitin and gouged the flesh. The gladiators fought hard and crushed a few of the creatures but for every few they crushed, double that rushed them.
Soon, the dominance of the hive colossi was challenged when massive, bulky, four-legged creatures with enormous heads and massive, razor-sharp sickle blades on the sides of their heads emerged from the sands. Immediately the colossi and the beasts fought and the bugs soon found themselves being overpowered and their shells cracking from the pressure by the beasts’ blades.
The creatures’ blades soon sliced off the arm appendages of one of the colossi which forced them to try to charge a beast in desperation. The beast decided to meet their charge head on. Unfortunately for the colossus, their build was meant for breaking wooden gates or stone fortifications, the beasts were built for besieging thick metal structures and tearing through them like butter. The colossus found its shell on its head shattering, revealing their massive brain within. The beast capitalized on this and sliced through the gray matter with their blades. A few slashes was all it took for the silithid colossus to collapse.
When the colossi fell, the beasts began attacking the crystals that triggered the hives and shattered them in a few hits. When the crystals fell, the silithid stopped attacking the armies and retreated into their hives.
In the span of an hour, the mysterious creatures had shattered Rajaxx’s armies. The general had also sensed the crystals in the other regions shattering, meaning the tide of battle had completely turned against them.
Knowing that the battle was practically decided, Rajaxx sounded the retreat and called for all of his forces to retreat back into the city. “Retreat! If these curs decide to pursue, they shall do so where our master protects us.”
The armies watched as the remaining anubisath and qiraji retreated behind the wall once again. The battle had been won.
Sophia had the creatures burrow beneath the land and retreat through preplaced dimensional rifts that they used to come to Azeroth. Once the creatures began their retreat, she turned her attention to the party.
“That certainly was exhausting, though those things came at a rather convenient time,” Bella said.
“What’s strange was that I tried to communicate with a few of them but I couldn’t understand them,” Flutashe said.
“Maybe they were from another world?” Mena offered. That thought was quickly rejected by her friends.
“Whatever they were, them critters sure saved our hides,” Jaqueline chuckled.
“They aren’t in Dalaran’s bestiary, that’s for certain,” Stella said.
Of the party, the only ones who knew about those creatures were Sophia, Thanatas and the Horde party. They kept their mouths shut.
“I see you have your own brood now, Sophia. Have you given any thought about custom strains yet?” Sweetie Drops asked through the link.
“Not yet, I’m still experimenting with the hive mind, I want to see how many I could control on my own.”
Sophia could feel Sweetie’s surprise through the link, “Wow, you managed to control all of them on your own and the ones in other regions without a broodmother or an overlord? I knew your power was off the scale, but not that much.”
“It makes me wonder if she could beat you in a fight,” Kerrigan smirked.
While many were curious as to where the creatures went, they had to focus on the matter at hand. They would try to figure out the mystery another time. With the Qiraji invasion brought to a halt, the task of sending in the strike force, being Sophia and Thanatas’ group, would begin tomorrow. Varok had some troops stationed near the gate to watch in case the Qiraji left their city again.
In the meantime, the weary troops returned to Cenarion Hold with the party being provided beds and food. They were provided comfort since they would be given the most difficult part of the operation. They were about to invade a hive of dangerous and powerful insect people who were being led by a terrifying monster that the armies of the Titans failed to vanquish.
Little did they know, as they slept, they were being watched. A great and ancient evil with an eye that saw all looked within one of them and beheld the one who threatened to consume it.
This Huntress of the Void, as it would deem her, would learn the fate of those who would dare to challenge them. They would all soon taste the unfathomable chaos that it would unleash upon the world.
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