//------------------------------//
// Ahn'Qiraj, Part 5: The Twin Emperors 
// Story: Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth 
// by Xarmar13 
//------------------------------//

C’thun began to grow annoyed with the intruders defeating its strongest Qiraji servants one by one. In one day it not only lost its general to command the armies, but it lost Rajaxx’s commanding officers, meaning the rank and file had no commander to lead them anymore. Sartura could have taken over for Rajaxx but she was dead too. Add to that the loss of its horusath champion, Ossirian, its greatest prophet Skeram as well as the majority of the Silithid rulers and the Old God knew that its plans had suffered a colossal setback. 

While it could conquer all of Kalimdor on its own, there was no telling when the others would awaken and rouse their armies. Yogg-Saron and its N’raqi minions were the bigger threat since N’Zoth was still the weakest of the four. But C’thun knew better than to underestimate the latter since they were known to be the most clever. 

Right now though, its plans were in jeopardy and the Huntress of the Void drew ever closer to it. Each tentacle and eye that it sent at them resulted in their destruction and a sliver of its essence lost. Even if someone were to slay it, it could always restore itself with time, as long as its essence remained. Even Y’shaarj would eventually restore itself despite being slain by the Titan Highfather. However, the Huntress of the Void had the power to consume the essence of itself and its kin and this would mean that all four of them would be in danger as long as she remained.

What’s worse was that her companions were slaughtering the Silithid and Qiraji leadership left and right. The only ones left who could keep this hive’s silithid in line was the wasp princess, Huhuran and the chamber that held the rulers of the Qiraji was not far from where Huhuran was. C’thun knew that if they fell, it would be the only one left who could keep the swarms from falling into disarray.

It still had one last minion it could throw at the invaders before they moved against Huhuran. This one would not be beaten so easily as the others.

In a chamber adjacent to Fankriss’ chamber, its minion dwelled. With a little influence, C’thun took control of the creature and set it to hunt down the intruders. The mindless creature obeyed and creeped toward the exit.







After taking down four dangerous foes so far, the party decided to take a break for a few minutes. While there was concern that C’thun might attack again while they were resting, Violetta assured them that the Old God won’t needlessly throw away its appendages with her around. Each mote of its essence taken from its pieces was progress toward her objective of devouring the whole parasite and it knew that fact.

One of Sophia’s ears perked as she picked up the faint sound of a thick liquid bubbling somewhere. She wasn’t certain if it was a threat or a pool of sludge somewhere so she stayed on alert.

She noticed that the sound was getting louder which made her concerned that something was coming. Her instincts were affirming her suspicions. “Hey Thana, are there any sludge monsters nearby?”

“Just one,” Thanatas responded. She pointed toward a hole that was small enough for people to enter. “A sludge beast named Viscidus makes its lair in a dead end chamber at the end of that passage. We shouldn’t need to face it since it’s not bothering anyone…”

That was when an ooze-covered skull emerged from the hole. Disgusting gurgling sounds could be heard from it as it slowly squeezed its body into the room.



“...unless C’thun decides to take control of it and sick it on us.” Once Viscidus was fully through the hole and inside the room, a large number of C’thun’s tentacles, eyestalks and phantasmal eyes manifested in the room. She shook her head in disappointment. “You’d think it would have learned by now.”

Violetta shrugged and turned the floor black once again, just like back in the chamber with the Qiraji royalty. While the tentacles struggled against Violetta’s black tentacles, the eye stalks and phantasmal eyes attacked them in turn.

While C’thun and Violetta were having another round of battle, the others focused on Viscidus. Lokosh was under pressure as the ooze monster attacked fast and hard. His counterattacks proved ineffective as his ax practically passed through liquid. Jaqueline’s slashes were met with the same result.

“What the Sam Hill is this?” Jaqueline asked. “It’s like we’re tryin’ to fight water!”

Fire spells from Talia and Farra’jin were met with similar results. It was apparent that the creature was completely fireproof.

“We need to try to freeze it!” Stella declared. “Our attacks might be more effective if we solidify its body.” On the inside, Thanatas was glad that the dracthyr figured out the necessary strategy to deal with this creature.

Farra’jin focused on blasting it with Frost Shock spells while Stella bombarded Viscidius with most of the frost spells that she knew. Thanatas began to unleash a harsh chill onto the battlefield. The frost runes on her sword unleashed their power to drop the temperature around the ooze monster.

Viscidus fought back by firing pieces of its poisonous body at everyone which prompted Farra’jin to set his water totem to wash away the toxins. The healers who couldn’t use frost magic focused on dealing with poisons. It also unleashed a cloud of poison around it which prompted Mena to pull Jaqueline and Lokosh away with her Leap of Faith spell before they breathed in too much venom.

The frost magic soon began to take effect as the ooze that composed its body began to grow thicker, the chill turning the green ooze blue. Continued exposure to the cold made movement difficult for Viscidus. It wasn’t long before its body began to solidify and its movements were completely stopped as the chilling magic froze it solid.

It didn’t take any orders from anyone to know that now was the time for smashing. Jaqueline unleashed a series of quick slashes that battered the solid body. Talia’s felguard used all of his strength to unleash a series of heavy blows with his battle ax. Surprise solidified a mass of shadow magic and crashed it against Viscidus’ body.

Their efforts were rewarded as a cracking sound was heard followed by another, and another. Spider web cracks began to appear all over the ooze monster’s body. One final leaping strike from Jaqueline was the final straw as Viscidus shattered. Its body flew all over to the edges of the chamber. Everyone had to hold their arms over their faces or shield themselves to protect themselves from flying chunks of frozen ooze.

As the chunks settled on the edges of the chamber, most of the party thought the fight was over, though they were baffled because C’thun continued sending more of itself at them. Thanatas knew the fight wasn’t over.

The frozen ooze chunks quickly thawed and took life of their own. They began creeping toward the center of the chamber. While the party attacked the miniature oozes, the globs ignored the party and continued their course. Stella quickly realized that they were trying to merge and reform but she wouldn’t allow that if she could help it.

Using her bronze essence, Stella released a temporal pulse that temporarily froze the oozes in time. She called out for the others to finish the oozes off quickly while her magic held. Talia rained fire on a large number of small oozes while Sophia dropped psionic lightning on many more. While the destruction that the group was unleashing appeared to be ineffective, Stella knew that everything they did would hit them all at once the moment time resumed.

Stella’s assessment was correct as once the spell wore off all of the oozes burst and stopped moving. The disappearance of C’thun’s appendages told them that the ooze monster was not getting back up again.

“Ah think we should keep movin’ in case that thing sends somethin’ else after us,” Jaqueline suggested.

“I doubt that C’thun has any more powerful minions to send at us in this area,” Thanatas said. “We’re nearing the leaders of this hive, best to be careful..”

Once they were ready, the party proceeded deeper into the hive. A short tunnel led to a smaller chamber that was occupied by a few giant scorpions who attacked with poisons meant to weaken their attacks. Beyond that was a chamber filled with many groups of silithid wasps accompanied by qiraji battleguards. A shallow pond took up the majority of the chamber.

As the swarm of insects bared down on the party, Sophia quickly grabbed one of the wasps and hurled it into the pond. She then ran after her prey before she quickly finished it by ripping its head off.

The other insects and qiraji noticed the isolated target and flew after what they believed to be easy prey. As the templar lured the insects in, she spun around and splashed water on all of them, making sure there was not a dry one left when she was finished. Once satisfied, she moved for dry land before she unleashed a psionic storm into the pond. The soaked silithid and qiraji ended up picking up the charge and were badly electrocuted. Stunned, the insects fell into the water where Sophia delivered another electrical wave to make sure her makeshift bug zapper left none of them alive.

At this point nobody was surprised that the bunny templar was able to pull off such a stunt, especially after what happened to Eranikus.

The party left the bug barbeque behind and proceeded into the next chamber. This chamber had numerous puddles that appeared in a slightly spiral pattern along with giant honeycombs the size of the giant wasps along the walls. Only one occupant buzzed around the back of the chamber. An alpha wasp that had similar appendages to Ayamiss awaited their arrival. Unlike Ayamiss who had red and yellow chitin, this one had a green and yellow color scheme as well as magenta spots on its wings.



Everyone turned their heads toward Thanatas as a sign that they were waiting for her explanation. “This is the leader of the Vekniss Hive that we have been exploring. C’thun controls the silithid in this hive through Princess Huhuran. Watch out for her poisons and her short temper.”

The fight against the silithid puppet ruler turned out to be easier than Viscidus, though she did still bring her own challenges. Farra’jin’s water totems had no effect on some of the poisons she spat at them which forced Groun to heal through it. Another poison made Mena and Bella fall asleep and received a painful awakening when the totem washed it away.

What made the fight easier though was the fact that C’thun didn’t make any attempts to defend the silithid princess. Violetta wondered about that and could only conclude that it was not willing to needlessly expend more of its essence over a replaceable insect. This conclusion came as a result of her devouring enough of the Old God’s essence to get a feel for how it thought.

During the fight, Groun maintained an herbal soothing cloud around Huhuran to keep her calm while the others attacked her. However, she noticed this and used every ounce of her will to break the hold the cloud had on her to attack ferociously. However, in her blind rage she failed to notice a certain druid in her anthro cat form ready to pounce on her from behind. Taken by surprise, Huhuran tried to shake the druid off but not soon enough to stop her from ripping her wings off to make her fall into a puddle. Farra’jin repeatedly zapped the now soaked princess with his Lightning Bolt spell until she caught fire. With the others’ relentless attacks, the princess soon fell still.

After a short break following their victory against Princess Huhuran, Thanatas warned that while the Silithid would not bother them from this point, C’thun still kept its most dangerous minions up ahead to guard its most valuable assets.

“The tunnel ahead is patrolled by anubisaths, beyond them is the chamber that acts as the seat of power for the Qiraji. The twin emperors, Vek’lor and Vek’nilash, lead the Qiraji in service to their dark master. Vek’lor is a mage and Vek’nilash is a warrior and they have an innate ability that prevents their abilities from harming each other.” Thanatas kept that last part cryptic so they would figure out what she meant.

“So do these two not get along with each other?” Jaqueline asked.

“They get along quite well, actually,” Thanatas replied.

The party figured that they weren’t getting any more answers from the death knight and proceeded into the next tunnel.

The patrolling anubisath constructs proved more formidable than the ones outside the temple. While each of them looked the same, they each had their own set of abilities that kept the party guessing. Some created powerful balls of energy that would have greatly injured them if Sophia hadn’t grabbed them and hurled them back at the constructs, some inflicted a disease on someone that would have led to some unpleasant experiences if Thanatas didn’t already have a cure for it as well as a vaccine to prevent future infections. All of them summoned qiraji gladiators and battleguards to assist them. One attempted to self-destruct to take his enemies with him but Sophia shoved him into another construct and made them destroy each other.

Once the tunnel was cleared, the party found a stone doorway that was too small for the anubisath. Looking inside, the chamber was made of wrought stone that had eroded over the millennia; no sign of hive infestation. The chamber was triangular in shape and was crawling with small beetles and scorpions.

More importantly were the two giant figures at the ends of the chamber kneeling before one of C’thun’s giant phantom eyeballs. The figures were about as tall as the anubisath constructs. Both were faceless with glowing orange eyes and curved horns growing from their backs. They also wore red hoods and red loincloths. Their midsections were unnaturally narrow and their hands featured segmented claws. The clothing featured pauldrons, gauntlets, pants and knee-high boots in purple and orange. Where one of them wore a piece of clothing that featured one of the two colors, the other wore it of the other color. The one on the left wielded a rod while the other wielded a massive sword with a red crystal blade.



Going along with Thanatas’ info, they guessed that the left figure was Emperor Vek’lor and the right figure was Emperor Vek’nilash.

The eyeball turned to stare at the people who had just entered the chamber. The eye turned red for a brief moment but reverted quickly. "̵͎̮̒̊͘D̵͚̯̼͈̓̿̕é̷̥̾̔̓â̷̛͙̤̎̊t̶̺̓͐͗̀h̵̡̞̠͙͗̄͌ ̷͍̔̾̾̚c̸̼͕͈̻͆̔o̵̮̮̭̱̾̌̊m̵͈̐̈͑̏e̸͙͖̐s̵̞̹̳̔̀ ̵̮͙̋̌͐f̶͔́̔̈̑ó̶̩̫̣̗ṛ̵͓̺͗̀ͅ ̷̠̘͊͊̾̇y̴̺͇͔̓̀̔̌o̴̜͚͈̍ų̷͇̫̟̔͐,̷̘͎̘̂͋ ̷̨̮̰̅i̴̡̩̔̌͝ņ̷̣̜͕̾t̴̢̩̝̰͐́͋͝r̸̨͚̲̀͑̃͆ͅǘ̵̱̦͐̄d̵̖̺̥̹̿ē̸̜̃̊r̷̩̱͆̉͂̈s̷̜͎̚!̶̡̛͉̪̭̍"̸̯̝̉͜ it said before it faded.

The twins rose from their kneeling position as they spotted the party. Both laughed condescendingly. “Mortals are mere sacks of meat and flesh, I find it hard to believe that the master fears them so.” Vek’lor said.

“Do not underestimate them, brother,” Vek’nilash warned. “For them to make it this far, the master’s concerns must be well founded.”

“No matter, their journey ends here.”

“Indeed, none can stand before our combined might.”

“They shall experience pain…”

“Oh, so much pain…”

“Come, little ones…”

“The feast of souls begins now…”

The battle began with the twins moving toward the party to get into attack range. Vek’lor moved close enough to begin casting Shadow Bolts at the group. Flutashe attacked Vek’lor while Lokosh attacked Vek’nilash. The others picked a target to fight.

The fight was off to a bad start for the party as Vek’lor’s chitin was so hard that Flutashe’s attacks were doing nothing. Jaqueline’s strikes were the same way. The mage brother didn’t consider them a threat and continued blasting random people with his spells. However, the druid noticed that the emperor staggered when Stella bombarded him with spells, which meant that her attacks were earning his attention. She then looked toward the other side of the room where the others were fighting Vek’nilash. She noticed that Farra’jin and Mena’s spells were bouncing off the warrior brother but Lokosh’s ax was leaving small cuts in the emperor’s body. 

The druid’s eyes widened in realization. “That’s why Thanatas said that their attacks couldn’t harm the other, Vek’lor can’t be harmed by physical attacks and Vek’nilash is immune to magic!” she thought. She then called for all spellcasters to attack Vek’lor while she and Jaqueline charged at Vek’nilash.

The fight became more complicated when C’thun conjured more phantasmal eyes that fired beams at the party. Groun was able to heal the ones hit long enough for Violetta to spring into action and blast the eyes. To her disappointment, there was less essence within them than usual which meant that the Old God was not putting in as much effort into creating the appendages than before. It was easy to conclude that C’thun had stopped trying to stop them in favor of conserving its strength for the final battle.

The twins began using new tactics such as swapping places before chasing after their original targets. At the same time the two began casting healing spells on each other. The party was completely taken by surprise by this tactic and it cost them some progress in their efforts to defeat them.

Once the situation was back under control, the twins performed another unexpected action, they began casting spells on the insects in the room which drove them into a frenzy and attacked the party. Flutashe found that she was unable to get the frenzied insects to calm down because of their magics so she had to bash them in her bear form until they fell unconscious. Vek’lor saw the minion’s failure and cast a spell on it to make it continuously bloat. Sophia knew what was coming and acted fast to grab the doomed bug and hurled it at Vek’lor. The emperor’s eyes widened as he took an exploding bug in the face.

The treatment of the insects by the brothers sent Flutashe into a rage. She shifted into her cat form and jumped on Vek’nilash’s right arm and delivered a series of ferocious slashes with her claws that tore into the warrior brother’s chitin. The emperor tried to shake her off but ended up distracted. Jaqueline took advantage of the opportunity to jump up and thrust one sword into his midsection.

Vek’nilash’s howl of pain caused his brother to look toward his brother in horror. “My Brother! No!” Vek’lor ignored his opponents to run over to his brother to heal him. Thanatas quickly put a stop to that idea when she planted a sword into the ground. A circle of blood red runes appeared in the area around them and enclosed herself, the spellcasters and Vek’lor inside.

“I wouldn’t leave the circle if I were you…” Thanatas warned. “This blood arena spell will claim your soul if you leave it before all conflict between the inhabitants is resolved. If you don’t have a soul then your essence will do.”

Vek’lor was halted in his tracks by the spell. He turned to glare at the death knight, a mix of shock and rage in his eyes. He never expected a mortal to know such a powerful spell, but he needed to eliminate her and help his brother quickly.

That never happened. His focus on Thanatas, who was putting on an innocent act, narrowed his perception and was taken by surprise when the other party members bombarded him with many spells and overwhelmed him quickly. A Disintegration Beam to the face from Stella finished him off.

Vek’nilash looked on in despair as he felt his brother’s life essence leave him. He had always shared a life bond with his brother and the death of his brother meant his own as well. He could feel the burning pain of the beam taken by his brother as if he had taken it himself. “Vek’lor, I feel your pain…” Those were his last words before he followed his brother in death.

The party breathed a sigh of relief once the chamber was clear and Violetta had disposed of any remnants of C’thun’s power in the chamber.

“So now that we’ve taken out the bugs and those two, does this mean that we have a clear path to that kuhtooloo or whatever?” Jaqueline asked.

Thanatas ignored the warrior’s butchering of its name and explained, “The Silithid are in disarray, but the Qiraji are not bound by a hive mind. They will continue to do C’thun’s bidding with or without their emperors. Even if they experience a drop in morale, the Old God’s influence would render that moot. We also have to deal with any anubisath and possibly obsidian destroyers on the way. The deadliest of its minions are just ahead.”

Jaqueline, feeling a little cocky, pounded her hand with her fist. “Bring ‘em on!”

Once the group left the chamber through an exit near the entrance, the stone structure gave way to sand and hive matter once more. Scarabs aimlessly crawled around the area which was being patrolled by large groups of gladiators, battleguards and prophets. Sophia’s mental protections would be tested here.

As usual, Lokosh took the lead. He quickly attacked the gladiator of the nearest group which distracted the battleguards long enough for Jaqueline to transfix one of them from behind.

It didn’t take long to finish off that group but they still had to go from one battle to the other dealing with the three qiraji types. Violetta destroyed the minds of many of the prophets along with Surprise. The others were dealt with through their usual tactics.

Beyond the tunnel they found themselves in a relatively small chamber that had a group of qiraji as well as two groups consisting of one anubisath and two obsidian destroyers each. 

The party had to act quickly to dispose of the qiraji group since the commotion drew the attention of the construct groups. Lokosh and Flutashe were able to keep the anubisaths busy while the others battled the mana eaters.

Bella, Jaqueline and Farra’jin’s earth elemental guardian fought three of the destroyers while Stella focused on the remaining one. With all four of them gathering mana from the party, Stella had to work fast to steal mana from the constructs to create her destroyer-blasting spell. With four of them draining magic, Stella had her spell ready within seconds. She quickly used it to annihilate her destroyer. She took longer with each destroyer that fell, but that was also one less problem to deal with until the last one was defeated.

By the time the obsidian destroyers were shattered, the spellcasters were running low on mana and would be less effective until they could regain it. Sophia and Thanatas noticed this and decided to quickly end the fight by shattering the two anubisath.

Once the battle was over, the spellcasters spent a few minutes regenerating their mana by drinking some of Stella’s conjured refreshments. Once they were ready to move forward, they moved into the next room which had a few more qiraji patrols and a group of constructs. With fewer obsidian destroyers, Stella had an easier time dealing with them while the others took down the qiraji and the anubisath.

It was in this room where they found that the path forked. To their left was a chamber about the same size as the one the twins occupied, though it appeared empty. To the right, Violetta could sense the void energies growing stronger. She was practically drooling a black substance as she could feel the energies being given off by C’thun’s main body. She started to move toward the source, but a hand on her shoulder from her mother stopped her. “I can sense it, mother. My prey is close.”

“I understand your eagerness to claim your long awaited prize sweetie, but there is still one last obstacle for us to deal with before the long awaited event,” Thanatas looked toward the large chamber to the left. “I’d rather not have a repeat with Viscidus and have that monster that lurks within the other chamber come after us with our backs turned. You have been patient for years, what’s a few more minutes to take care of a giant sandworm?”

Thanatas knew that Ouro the Sandworm wasn’t going to be too difficult to deal with. The creature was colossal, but that was all it really had going for him.

“Or, I personally deal with the sandworm and we get on with the real show,” Violetta countered. She then proceeded into the chamber.

Thanatas facepalmed. She really needed to teach her daughter patience, though she had to wonder if that was possible when her instincts were demanding that she hurry and feed.

“Shouldn’t we assist her with whatever is in that chamber?” Bella asked.

Thanatas snorted, “She can handle the lurking sandworm by herself, but if she wants haste then Sophia can give her that.” A nod to the templar had her going after her younger cousin. “Meanwhile, we deal with the constructs in the next chamber.”

What occurred next happened in the span of two minutes. Most of that was Stella blasting the two obsidian destroyers with the others annihilating the anubisath. 

Ouro emerged when it sensed prey nearing it. The worm was taller than anything else they encountered in the hive. Its bright red shell and numerous legs were made of the hardest chitin they had seen, except for the stuff that Sophia reinforced her minions with. 



However, despite all that the battle ended within thirty seconds once the worm noticed the horror who entered its mind and damaged it from within. The sandworm cried out in agony which prompted Sophia to begin her assault. Once she was sure the others couldn’t get a clear line of sight of the battle, she switched to her energy blades and severed the surface portion of the worm from the rest of its body in one swift strike. Ouro’s mind was destroyed the instant its head landed on the floor.

By the time the two returned to the group, they were still fighting one destroyer and the anubisath. Once they were defeated, the party took a moment to make sure that everyone was ready to move forward.

It was time. Violetta had waited years for this moment to come. She trembled in anticipation for the imminent battle and the first of four feasts that would allow her to reach her full potential.

Not far away, within a large stone chamber, a mass of flesh, tentacles and eyes gathered all of its power for its last stand. If its fate was to be devoured by the Huntress of the Void, it will make her taste the full brunt of its ancient fury before she does.