//------------------------------// // Serpentshrine Cavern, Part 1: The Reservoir // Story: Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth // by Xarmar13 //------------------------------// The party took a few moments to calm their nerves as they barely managed to return from the depths of Hellfire Citadel before the entire Blood Furnace and the prison collapsed. Defeating Magtheridon had proven as difficult as they feared but they managed to pull it off. They ended up in the central chamber of Shattrath where a number of Aldor priests and a few Scryers magisters stared at them. Khadgar stared at them silently while A’dal chimed a particularly cheerful tone. Once the party regained their wits they approached the radiant being. They didn’t need to say anything as he sensed their triumph. “You have proven yourselves as beings of great power. Magtheridon’s destruction will greatly weaken the Fel Horde. You have earned the right to enter the sacred keep of the naaru.” A bright pink crystal appeared before him. The crystal looked like several shards fused around the base of another crystal. The crystal floated into Bella’s hands. The paladin bowed to the radiant being. “We thank you for this opportunity, A’dal. We shall bring an end to the mad schemes of Kael’thas Sunstrider.” “The time has come for you to face two of Illidan’s most powerful lieutenants. Good luck and be careful,” Khadgar bid. After some rest and preparations, Stella opened a portal to Coilfang Reservoir. Once again they received the attention of the Cenarion druids in the chamber before going back to work. Stella approached the waterfall console and deactivated the waterfall before the party passed through. The druids were hopeful that the issue with the draining lakes would be resolved soon. The first thing they saw on the other side of the waterfall was an empty circular-shaped room that had a massive hole in the center. This was quickly rectified as a massive circular disc rose to the top. The elevator platform had the relief of what looked like a naga’s head. The party quickly boarded the elevator platform before it began its descent. Lady Vashj was observing the broken and naga workers continuing their maintenance of the water that they had collected from Zangarmarsh’s lakes through a few scrying spells. It was a shame that the waters were so impure and full of toxins, mostly of fel origin. She was glad to have that apparatus set up to have the water purified by a single water elemental. Another issue was that the pumps were continuously running and generating so much heat. If it wasn’t for the crews who were regulating the pumps, the fish in the water would have been boiled alive. The only creature in the reservoir who could handle such intense heat was that leviathan who swam around acting like he was the king of the reservoir. There were also the matters in the side caverns. Vashj had heard about Kael’thas sending five of his blood elves to be trained as demon hunters a while back. It was just her luck that she had to end up being the one to babysit the one who went insane from the training. Thankfully the broken seers were keeping him bound for the time being until she could think about what to do with the reject. Her fathom lord, Karathress, had recently captured one of Akama’s broken. He suspected that the broken had information about Akama’s duplicity and was currently interrogating him. Then there was the sea giant who followed her to Outland because he lost his home to Queen Azshara. She would have to find some use for the poor colossus. Suddenly she felt a familiar presence. She turned around and saw an image of Illidan standing before her. “Lord Illidan! To what do I owe the pleasure?” Vashj asked with a bow. “Intruders come to invade your sanctum, Vashj. Gruul and Magtheridon have fallen to them. You must defend the operations with your life.” “Of course, my lord.” “The contingency plan is in effect, Vashj. My apprentice is among the attackers and she has been ordered to not hold back against you.” Vashj’s hair snakes sunk low as she heard that. Illidan had entrusted the knowledge of the plan to only three others: Herself, Akama and Raida. She never trusted that treacherous blood elf. She knew that he would only implement this plan if the entire operation to invade Argus was in jeopardy and salvaging the original plan was not feasible. She blamed Kael’thas for this. This also meant that most of the leaders of the Illidari, which included herself, Kael’thas, Akama, Raida and Illidan, would be fought and killed during the plan if everything goes right. She didn’t like it, but at least the forces of Azeroth would be stronger for it. Illidan continued, “Should everything go as planned, I have a request to make of you. It is not an order since your service to me would end upon your death. Of the other leaders of the Illidari, you are one of the most loyal to the cause and would be the one best suited to this task.” “What would you ask of me?” Vashj asked. “I recently received a piece of information that the Lich King is, himself, a puppet to a far greater power. I have been told that this being who influences him dwells in the Shadowlands. I would like for you to investigate this rumor and see if there is any truth to it. If there is, use every skill at your disposal to make sure they never threaten Azeroth again. This will be my final request.” Vashj solemnly bowed her head to her master. “It will be done, my lord.” The elevator continued its descent into the deepest part of Outland. Partway through the descent, Feloma broke the silence, “So, anything not so obvious to expect from this place?” “Only a couple of things to look out for,” Thanatas replied. “For one, half of the enemy forces will be in the reservoir while the other half will be patrolling the side tunnels. The reservoir itself is teeming with carnivorous fish so you will get your flesh picked clean in seconds if you fall in. The water temperature is regulated by six cooling machines being operated by crews of naga and broken. If the crews are killed, the water boils and the fish get boiled alive, with the exception of a leviathan lurking in the water.” “Why would we need to kill the fish or the leviathan?” Flutashe asked. “I don’t think he will bother us if we ignore him.” “I’m afraid that’s not possible,” Thanatas shot down. “Vashj’s lair is isolated from the rest of the facility and the only way to reach her is to activate a bridge mechanism. Unfortunately, the bridge mechanism can only be unlocked when a series of five locking consoles are deactivated. Those consoles are scattered throughout the cavern and are each guarded by powerful enemies. The consoles are also enchanted to only be accessible whenever the life of the one the console is tied to is extinguished. The leviathan is one of them.” “So we’re going to have to run around the place defeating five targets before we can face Vashj,” Raida summarized. The elevator began to slow and soon reached the bottom of the shaft. Everyone quickly disembarked from the elevator and followed the demon hunter along a path that led to a ramp that led to another elevator that was smaller and shorter than the last one. Upon reaching the top they were staring into a flooded chamber that was large enough to hold several lakes worth of water. The only way of getting around was walking along a series of crudely constructed platforms and walkways that were guarded by squads of naga as well as a few fungal giants. “So this is where all the stolen water in Zangarmarsh ended up…” Flutashe muttered. She wasn’t sure what the Cenarion Expedition intended to do with the stolen water once the cavern was secured, but the druids would also have to find some way to preserve the water since much of it still spills off into the Twisting Nether. The party proceeded down a wooden walkway to the first platform which was guarded by a squad of three naga and two trained sporebats. Flutashe’s influence was still stronger than the handler’s so it was easy to urge them to attack their handler. While the handler was distracted, the party quickly rushed a pair of sirens who attacked the group with ear-piercing screams up until Feloma shot them in the throat with one arrow each. Once they were disabled the naga were easy to deal with. Their next opponent was a fungal giant who was patrolling the walkways. Bella had to wonder how such a crudely built path could support a gigantic monster. Regardless, the creature was in their way. As they fought, the giant glared at Talia and sprayed an acidic substance at her. Flutashe shifted into her snake form and did her best to protect the warlock with her body. The snake form was highly resistant to the acidic spray but she was still taking a little damage. Of course, it was nothing that Groun’s healing magic couldn’t work through. Speaking of the tauren, after he healed Flutashe of any acid burns, he turned to the fungal giant and glared at it. “That is enough out of you! Stop attacking this instant!” he commanded. To the surprise of half of them, the fungal giant complied while the Horde members of the party backed away. Sophia realized what was happening and had the rest of them back away too. “What is going on? Why did that beast obey him?” Bella asked. “We’ve seen this before,” Lokosh answered. “Back during our investigation of the Underbog, we found out that Groun had influence over plant creatures. The place was teeming with fungal giants and swamp beasts and Groun ended up commanding them to rampage throughout the cavern. We still had to deal with the majority of the place since the giants couldn’t fit in the entrance of the naga base.” “In that case, can you get the giant to clear the way for us?” Stella asked. “Of course,” Groun said before he had the giant run to the next platform. The naga group occupying that platform saw what happened and did their best to defend themselves. However, the sportbats rebelled against their handler thanks to Flutashe and the three naga found themselves at a major disadvantage against the three beasts. The giant threw a siren into a distant wall and another upward where she got impaled on a stalactite. The sporebats beat up the last naga until the giant grabbed him and crushed him in its grip. As the sporebats flew off, the giant continued along the path with the party following. The giant ended up in a fight against another giant but Groun got that giant to work with them instead where they worked together to clear another platform of naga. They soon came upon a large metallic platform that had an apparatus that looked like a pair of spires firing beams at a large water elemental. There were also smaller water elementals moving along in a line. Half of them were blue and clear while the others were green and murky. Whenever one murky elemental moved in front of the larger elemental, the larger one pulled the toxins into itself and purified the elemental. It reminded Sophia of an assembly line. Strangely, no matter how many toxic elements it pulled into itself, the elemental always remained clean. “Behold, a makeshift water filtration system!” Thanatas declared with more theatrics than necessary. “Those towers are burning away any impurities that enter the elemental’s body. This is also our first target: Hydross the Unstable. He guards one of the bridge lock consoles so if any of you have any reservations about disrupting this system, throw them away. We can’t access the console until we destroy him.” The two fungal giants moved to attack Hydross but the elemental proved more powerful than they expected. Hydross fired a pair of large bolts of frost magic at the two giants and froze them solid. A pair of sword-like icicles flew at them and shattered their bodies. “I cannot allow you to interfere!” Hydross warned with a gravelly, yet higher pitched voice. “Turn back, or else!” “Let’s go!” Raida declared. The ten of them moved in to attack the elemental as well as the line of smaller elementals. Surprise and Feloma quickly dispatched the lesser elementals with numerous Shadow Blades and arrows. Hydross created several more bolts of frost to freeze everyone with but Stella unleashed the flames of her red essence to greatly weaken the bolts and reduce them to simple Frostbolts which struck Lokosh and Flutashe. Slightly frustrated but not deterred, Hydross unleashed his aura. Immediately the party felt a chill in the air and it seemed to grow colder with each second. He then conjured a quartet of water elementals to attack them. When the lesser elementals began channeling Frostbolts, Stella created a frost barrier to protect herself but Feloma, Farra’jin and Raida took hits while another shattered her shield. Stella could tell that they were ordinary Frostbolts, but something seemed to be amplifying their power. Talia’s and Raida’s demons were able to eliminate the lesser elementals but the air grew colder still. Stella soon realized that Hydross was using an aura that increased the effects of frost magic. The scary part was that they were not damaging his bindings well enough for the fight to end soon enough. “Lure him away from the device!” Thanatas called out. “He won’t be able to call on his frost magic while away from the spires.” “Like I would fall for such a trick!” Hydross said as he began channeling Frostbolts to attack with. “Then I will have to get forceful.” Thanatas pointed her sword at Hydross which fired a line of necromantic magic at the elemental which pulled him away from the device and right next to her. Before Hydross could react, Thanatas formed her skeletal wings and took to the air. Hydross growled at the death knight but he had bigger concerns. Without the purifier, the toxins within his body spread until his entire liquid body was polluted with sludge. “Aaghh, the poison…” With his body defiled, the temperature returned to normal, only for the air to be filled with a rancid stench that began to grow stronger by the second. “Ugh, this reeks! How is this any better?” Feloma asked. “If the chill becomes too much, get him away from the purifier, if the stench becomes too much, lead him into the purifier,” Thanatas instructed. Hydross then summoned polluted water elementals who began to fling poison at the party. Stella conjured an equal number of fire elementals who used their bodies to set the sludge on fire. The blaze weakened and partially melted their bindings and the sludge elementals were quickly banished. Farra’jin quickly found out that the elemental shrugged off lightning as if he were made of dirt so he used his fire, and frost magic which seemed to work. The stench Hydross was giving off was growing stronger and this seemed to increase the potency of the toxins he was throwing around. To counter this, the party fled behind the pillars so the elemental wouldn’t be able to hit them with his poisons. With no other option, he moved in between the two spires which activated and began cleansing him of his pollution. Hydross sighed in relief as the pain from his own toxic body faded and he became pure once more. “Ahh, better. Much better.” Of course, while the stench faded away, the temperature began to drop again. The party soon realized that this was the extent of this battle. Having had enough of the fight, Stella began unleashing her magma breath on Hydross while Farra’jin assaulted him with fire and lightning which caused Hydross to heat up and begin to boil. The elemental tried to freeze the mage and shaman but his water was too hot and the two were using their best heat resistance spells and totem to protect themselves from the scalding water. Hydross soon boiled away to a point where his own bindings wouldn’t fit his shrinking size anymore and slipped off, destabilizing him and returning him to normal water. Upon the defeat of Hydross, Mena noticed that the console behind the elemental’s remains hummed with activity. She walked up to the terminal and pressed a few buttons which resulted in the console shutting down and, with hope, one of the locking mechanisms. “That’s one console…” Stella said. “Where to next?” Mena asked. “We’re coming up on the central area where the water temperature is being regulated,” Raida said. “Once we kill the crews we will have to traverse the boiling water to reach a floating platform where we will be able to fight the leviathan.” “Can the fish survive while one crew remains?” Flutashe asked. Raida winced. She knew where her sister was going with this. She wasn’t about to allow an entire lake of fish to be boiled alive just because they needed to kill the leviathan. “Err…they can, though the crew would be really overworked without the other crews helping. If they fall to exhaustion the lake will boil anyway and if we don’t kill the fish they will frenzy the moment we touch the water and eat our flesh.” “You leave that to me. How many crews do we absolutely need to kill?” “We should kill at least three before we reach the leviathan’s console. There are pipes we can walk on to reach the console but we would be surrounded by enemies if we didn’t clear one side at least. There’s an emergency function on that console that will shut down the pumps and prevent the water from boiling altogether. We will eventually need to kill the fourth and fifth crews to reach the bridge control mechanism.” Flutashe nodded, “I can accept that.” The party moved onward past a wooden walkway and toward the first of the cooling stations which was occupied by five naga and five broken engineers. While they found that the broken were hardly fighters, the party quickly found that the two sirens among them had to be dealt with first because they knew healing spells. Once they were defeated, the three male naga were easier to eliminate. Of course, one of the naga turned out to be one of Vashj’s honor guards and took longer to defeat than the others. Once the crew had been taken out, the party moved along the walkway toward the next platform where more of the same awaited them as well as the third platform. Once half of the platforms were cleared of their crews, the party found the next terminal. However, the console was in lockdown mode while the leviathan in the water remained alive. The nearby pipes were large enough that they could serve as walkways toward the water. They could see the large wooden ring a short swim from where they were that had three smaller platforms around it. They could also see schools of carnivorous fish just beneath the surface. “Well sis, time to do your thing,” Raida said. With a nod, Flutsahe dove into the water and shifted into her sea lion form. The fish sensed her presence and moved to swarm her. They were within inches of her before they all paused. However, it wasn’t Flutashe who gave them pause, it was Sophia entering the water with her in a fanged mermaid form. Sophia gave them a hungry look that informed them that she was the alpha predator in the lake and would have no qualms about devouring them all. The carnivorous fish were overcome with a primal fear that compelled them to swim for their lives. “Your power to exert dominance is impressive Flutashe, but fish play by different rules,” Sophia said. Flutashe turned around and her eyes widened when she saw the beastly form that Sophia had taken. Though she still recognized the blue hair. “Sophia? Is that you?” “Yep! You aren’t the only one who can shapeshift, though mine isn’t druidic. It’s actually based on choosing traits I want and rapidly evolving them. “Let’s keep this a secret between us and Thanatas for the time being, I’d prefer we not waste time discussing another of my powers.” Flutashe absently nodded before she and Sophia surfaced and informed them that the coast was clear and they could swim across. Of course, Farra’jin had another idea and called on water spirits to allow everyone to walk on water. From there the path to the wooden ring was uneventful. “I suppose now would be the time to address the ‘elekk’ in the room,” Talia said. “How are we going to lure the leviathan here? Fish him up with fishing poles we obviously don’t have?” Mena reached into her hair but Bella stopped her, shaking her head in rejection of what she was about to do. Before Mena could protest, Bella gave her reasoning, “Even if we had the means to fish up a leviathan, which are known to be as tall as a house, we cannot be certain that any bait we might have would attract the creature, let alone have the strength to pull him to the surface.” “I’ll lure him out,” Sophia declared. “By now, the leviathan may have noticed that his status as the big fish in the lake is at stake and will be looking for me.” With no other ideas, the party let her do what she wanted. Sophia dove into the water and secretly assumed her mermaid form before she began swimming around the lake for her prey. In response to the coming fight, Thanatas moved away from where the battle was to take place by using an aura that flash froze the water she stepped on to create small platforms of ice under her feet in order to observe the battle from a distance. After ten minutes of searching, Sophia discovered a massive blue aquatic creature with thick scales with a white underbelly. Thick jagged spikes grew from his back. Barnacles covered his body. Sophia quickly got the leviathan’s attention and swam toward the ring with the beast in hot pursuit. It wasn’t long before she shifted back into her normal form and breached the surface, landing on the ring. A few moments later, the leviathan jumped through the same hoop and landed outside the ring. He regained control over his momentum and surfaced from the center of the ring again. Realizing that it was just ambushed, the leviathan began to flail around which knocked everyone back with his flippers. Raida flapped her wings to stabilize and quickly return to the platform. The others swam back onto the ring. The leviathan soon found himself attacked by all sides. However, his thick scales mitigated most of the damage so he was able to endure while trying to eat his attackers. Raida managed to create some black crystals on the creature’s back spikes with a chaos bolt to shatter them. The leviathan roared in pain for a moment before he spat out a short jet of water at Surprise which sent her flying back a distance but she levitated her way back to the platform to continue. Angered by the party’s persistence, the leviathan dipped his head in the water and began sucking in a massive amount of water into his mouth which caused him to bloat a little. Once he was full, his head pointed at Flutashe and began to inhale. Anyone who saw the creature suck in tons of water would know what he intended to do with it. Acting quickly, Flutashe shifted into her bird form and lifted herself above the line of fire just in time for the creature to unleash a torrent of water that would have made a fire hose seem like a simple garden hose by comparison. Thousands of gallons of water sprayed from the leviathan’s maw each second in a highly pressurized blast. To make matters worse, the leviathan used his fins to rotate his body around the platform which forced the party to run around the ring to avoid being sprayed by deadly water pressure. The leviathan eventually ran out of water but sensed some of his naga allies coming to aid him. Knowing this, he submerged himself to rest and recover for the next round if the invaders defeated the reinforcements. The party was forced to contend with several naga who swam onto the ring with naga archers using the outlying platforms to shoot at them from range. Talia, Surprise, Stella, and Feloma focused on the archers while the others fought the rest. Thanatas frowned as she saw the battle unfold. While they were doing some harm to the leviathan, it was quite a tough creature and the party was not equipped to try anything non-conventional to it. Eventually they would wear him down but she had a feeling that he might try something that would prompt her or Sophia’s involvement. Sure enough, the leviathan did do something that would turn the tide of the battle in his favor. Once the last of the naga reinforcements were defeated, he headbutted part of the ring which flipped the wooden platform and sent the party into the water. He then bit into the platform and spun around to throw it away. To ensure that there was nothing left for the party to fight on, he then jumped out of the water to body slam the smaller platforms one by one until they were splinters. The party was now in quite a predicament. They were not equipped for aquatic combat. Farra’jin had his water spirits, but they weren’t going to do much against the creature. Raida had no agility in the water and her fel flames were much less effective in the water. Talia’s fire spells were weaker in the water so she was forced to use only her shadow spells and afflictions while her demons would be at a disadvantage against an aquatic opponent. Flutashe had her sea lion form, but it was no different from a regular druid’s aquatic form and wasn’t made for underwater combat. Overall, their combat capabilities were greatly reduced in the water which left them vulnerable to the leviathan. The leviathan began to circle around the group like a shark who had found his next meal. As the party prepared to struggle for their survival and the creature was ready to bite into his first meal, the leviathan suddenly found himself pulled deeper into the lake. The party had no idea what was going on but everything seemed calm for the next few minutes as they could only wait helplessly for something to happen. Thanatas couldn’t see anything either but she knew what was going on. If only she had a video camera to watch the impending display of nature’s brutality. What nobody could see was the leviathan being dragged to a distant side of the lake by a large chitinous tentacle. When he was released, he looked around for the culprit but saw nothing. He tried looking in all directions but it was nothing but dark water no matter where he looked. Suddenly, a sharp pain made itself known to the leviathan and looked to see that something had bitten into his underbelly but he couldn’t see what it was. Whatever it was, the bite wound began to bleed into the water which brought a look of horror in his eyes. His dread came to fruition as a fanged mermaid and every carnivorous fish in the lake looked at him with hunger in their eyes. With his blood seeping into the lake, every fish was being driven into a feeding frenzy. Sophia led the way as hundreds of small carnivorous fish rushed toward the leviathan to claim their meal. The leviathan tried eating some of the fish but this only allowed them to begin biting into his insides and eating him from the inside out. Sophia had some of the creature’s flesh for her meal but left the rest to the schools of ravenous fish who ripped off his protective scales to reach the soft flesh beneath. The leviathan struggled with all his might to fight off the frenzy but he was losing pounds of flesh per second until he no longer had the strength to fight anymore and succumbed to the release of death as the frenzy reduced him to nothing but bones. While the frenzy was going on, Sophia decided it was time to swim out of there and rejoin the others. She turned back to normal before the others saw her. “Let’s get out of the water, quickly.” “What happened down there?” Raida asked. “Let’s just say the leviathan is fish food and we will be too if we don’t get out of the water.” They said nothing else as Farra’jin reapplied the Water Walking spell on everyone to speed their departure from the lake’s surface. A minute later the party was back at the terminal that the leviathan was protecting, to which they found that the console was unlocked. Mena did the same thing that she did to Hydross’ console to deactivate it. This also caused the pumps in the chamber to shut down so they could no longer draw water from the lakes on the surface. Two consoles were deactivated and three more remained before they would come face to face with the Coilfang Matron.