//------------------------------// // The Vrykul // Story: Seekers of the Epitaph: Frozen Wastes // by Xarmar13 //------------------------------// Once they had been briefed of the situation in the Howling Fjord, the party of six made their preparations to assault the massive tower to the north. Flutashe, Bella, Mena, Raida, Stella and Jaqueline gathered what resources the settlement could provide. Sophia decided to stay behind in the settlement and gather intelligence. She was confident that the group could take on anything that was inside the keep at this point. Of course, Twilight would get upset if she didn’t get her observational data so she made sure to have a Protoss Observer follow them. Getting to the keep required going through a village of the half-giants who were still numerous despite the previous adventurers tearing through the place. The males of the half-giants known as vrykul resembled a burly version of humans who carried large weapons to match their stature and some wore their hair long and braided while the females were more inclined toward casting magic. Their buildings were crude while their decorations bore an equally crude resemblance to dragons. Stella looked up and spotted a few vrykul riding what she knew were dragons in their original state, proto dragons. The beasts had thick, red and black, armored scales and smaller bodies than the Titan-blessed dragons. Their wings were huge but their forearms were tiny and seemingly in the process of atrophy. Seeing the dragon riders in the air told the dracthyr that this particular tribe of vrykul had used the proto dragons as part of their culture. “What are those beasts?” Bella asked. “Those are what dragon-kind evolved from, proto dragons,” Stella answered. Stella stayed wary of such beasts since she wasn’t certain whether or not they secretly served the Incarnates. She was glad those three were still locked away. The group soon reached the stairs leading up to the keep and took down two vrykul guarding them. They entered a hall that appeared well designed compared to the crude buildings from before. The stone walls were roughly cut and numerous large wooden support beams went into its construction. The group moved deeper into the halls without resistance but knew that there would be at some point. After turning a corner, the group found a set of stairs leading up to where they spotted the first guards. Two vrykul wearing iron armor and carrying longswords were their first opponents. Bella and Raida each took one where the demon hunter blocked her foe’s sword with one warglaive and slashed with another and the paladin hurled her shield at hers which struck him in the chest and made him stagger. The shield returned to Bella’s outstretched hand. Raida’s opponent jumped back to avoid another slash but she replied by empowering one warglaive with fel energy and throwing it at him. The warrior wasn’t expecting that and received a deep cut for his troubles which turned into burning agony as the fel flames burned him from the inside out. Bella dealt a heavy blow to her opponent with her hammer which sent him flying back and falling on his back where a hammer of light fell on his head and crushed it. The area behind the two warriors was a workstation where numerous vrykul blacksmiths were at work forging weapons for their brothers. There were quite a few of them ahead so most of them figured that they would each have to take on one or two. “Mind if ah handle this one?” Jaqueline asked. “Ah’d like to get a handle on these new powers.” “Are you sure you can handle them all?” Flutashe asked. “‘Bout to find out.” Moving forward, Jaqueline shouted to the blacksmiths in the area, “Hey meatheads, y’all ready to face your deaths?” That got the vrykuls’ attention. Each one picked up their smithing hammers for a fight against a challenger. “A puny thing like you wishes to challenge us? You had best be prepared to back up your words!” one of the smiths shouted back. As the blacksmiths rushed in to attack, Jaqueline called on the powers of her runeblade where numerous snaking trails of a sickly green pestilence jumped from the weapon and struck all of the vrykul. The half giants halted their attack for a moment and coughed as their skin began turning a pale shade of green. Two more runes activated which struck one vrykul with a chilling ailment that spread from him like a contagion. The diseases they had been afflicted with had greatly weakened their strength. Another rune activated which caused all of them to howl in agony as they felt their insides boil. Blood began to flow from every orifice on their faces; it was a horrific sight. The final blow came when Jaqueline used all of the runic magic she stored from using her runes to deal a powerful slash that cut down all of the vrykul at once. Sighing, Jaqueline put away her blade for the time being. “Ah don’t like these powers, would be better if ah didn’t have to use ‘em.” Jaqueline wasn’t expecting a hug from behind, least of all from Flutashe. “It’s okay, you don’t need to hold back on our account. Just don’t use those powers on innocent people.” “I gotta admit, that was pretty awesome,” Raida said. “You made all of them keel over from sickness without any of them touching you. That’s pretty badass.” Jaqueline chuckled weakly as she embraced her friends’ support. “If’n y’all say so.” The group proceeded into what appeared to be a forge area with a giant contraption in the center of the room that looked like several skulls breathing fire continuously with what appeared to be giant bellows in between each face. One nearby vrykul appeared to be operating part of the forge with two more working on weapons. Flutashe shifted into her cat form, which made her about as tall as the vrykul, and grabbed the two weaponsmiths by the arms before she hurled them into the furnace. The bellows operator stopped what he was doing and grabbed his own weapon but was turned into a sheep and set on fire. This strategy was repeated two more times until the forge was shut down and they were allowed to move forward without risk of being incinerated. The next area was a giant stable of sorts with several piles of hay in sections of the room. A number of vrykul were taking care of several red proto drakes. Unfortunately, Flutashe was unable to use her powers to tame the drakes which informed her of another limitation of her ability. She didn’t like that they now had to kill the proto drakes but understood that they didn’t have a choice since she couldn’t get them to listen to her. Because of this, the group had to get through the area the old fashioned way. Everyone else took down the vrykul tamers while Jaqueline got the attention of the proto drakes before she afflicted them with a severe case of hypothermia and cut them down. Beyond the stable they fought a trio of vrykul where one was wearing robes but fought with his staff while inscribing quick runes on his allies. Another used bombs and rogue-like tricks to defeat the party but Jaqueline shoved a bomb into the runecaster’s mouth where it blew his head apart while Raida ran a warglaive through the chest of the rogue-like vrykul. Stella froze the remaining fighter and shattered him with an icicle. They entered a large room that looked like a conference room with a huge round table in the center. Four vrykul stood around it along with a figure whom Jaqueline was very familiar with. “Keleseth…” Jaqueline growled. “You know him?” Stella asked. “He tried to get me to torture some poor Scarlet soldier for information usin’ searin’ hot pokers. If Thanatas hadn’t gotten the info for me ah woulda.” “So what do you wanna do?” Raida asked. “You girls take out the vrykul, Keleseth is mine.” Before the others could object, they took one look at her blue glowing eyes and they could tell that their death knight friend was determined to crush the elf before her. “Kill ‘em quickly,” Jaqueline added. “They’re more useful to me dead than alive.” With their plan made, the group ran into the hall where Keleseth and the vrykul noticed their entry. The elf chuckled, “What an unexpected surprise, the woman who slighted my master with that audacious attack and now she rushes headlong to her true death.” “Ya might wanna win this fight first before ya say that,” Jaqueline countered. Keleseth was a skilled mage and a decent necromancer so his protective spells did offer some protection from Jaqueline’s attacks but his shadow bolts were also deflected by her sword. He also teleported around the hall to attack her from different angles but was caught by surprise when he was yanked toward her by necromantic energy. He managed to teleport behind Jaqueline before she could follow up. “So, it seems that you picked up on how to use runic magic pretty quickly after our abrupt departure,” Keleseth noted. The elf also noticed that the other vrykul were being quickly dispatched by those who accompanied her and he didn’t like the odds of facing all of them by himself. To keep things fair, he summoned several vrykul skeletons from the next room to aid him and keep the others off of him. Once the vrykul were defeated, Jaqueline put her plan into action. Using a spell that Thanatas taught her, she raised her sword in the air and directed black bolts of necromantic magic into the vrykul corpses, stripping them of their flesh and organs which disintegrated and turned into a dark green and black energy which wrapped around her as a protective barrier. She then pointed her sword at the now unmoving vrykul bones and channeled necromantic magic into them, reanimating them and ordering them to attack Keleseth’s skeletons. Seeing an opportunity, Keleseth encased Jaqueline into a block of ice. Confident that she was now out of the way, he then turned his attention to the others. However, they had their attention on the ice. Keleseth assumed that they were looking at their friend and figured that they would suffer the same fate. The sound of ice shattering took him completely by surprise. He turned around just in time for a number of ice shards to impale his shoulders, legs and stomach and nail him to the wall. The san’layn struggled for a few seconds before he ceased and his head slumped. “That takes care of one’a those elves ah got a bone to pick with,” Jaqueline said with a smirk. The group proceeded out of the hall and into what appeared to be a cavern that was currently being excavated by a number of ghouls and small hideous gangrel creatures that moved around by leaping and jumping. Their faces were indistinguishable because each of them wore a hood that had an opening that was only large enough for one eye to look through. They also had a noose around their necks. Jaqueline’s knowledge of undead that she gained from Thanatas allowed her to inform the others that the creatures were known as geists. Aside from the ghouls and geists, there were also a few vrykul overseeing their digging. Bella and Mena’s holy spells decimated the undead in the cavern while the others tore into the vrykul. Their foray continued as they faced more vrykul warriors, though as strong as they had become, they began taking turns defeating groups with the exception of the wolves they soon came across since Flutashe could tame them. They climbed a flight of stairs to an upper level where they faced more vrykul along with more undead digging into the rock walls. At the foot of the steps ahead stood a pair of enemies. One was a shirtless vrykul with a long brown beard and his hair done in a ponytail and carrying fist blades. The other was an elder necromancer in yellow robes and a skull cap on his head. Investigating the commotion, the two quickly discovered the intruders. “Dalronn, see if you can muster the nerve to join my attack,” the vrykul mocked. “By all means, don’t assess the situation, you halfwit,” Dalronn replied. “Just jump into the fray.” Bella and Stella faced these two with the paladin facing the vrykul and the mage facing the necromancer. Bella’s shield blocked the vrykul’s strikes while he found himself struck repeatedly by Bella’s light-based arsenal. Dalronn summoned skeletons to attack Stella while he fired Shadow Bolts from a distance but a blast of arcane magic scattered the bones and bolts of fire, frost and arcane bombarded the necromancer who pulled the bones to himself to form a barrier. Feeling confident, Dalronn decided to taunt the vrykul to motivate him, “Having trouble with that one, Skarvald? I knew you were weak!” The taunt had the desired effect as the vrykul was now fighting with more fervor. In response, Bella wrapped herself in a powerful shield of light that repelled all of Skarvald’s attacks. Bella knew the shield wouldn’t last long so she quickly channeled a powerful surge of light before unleashing it into his chest which seared his body in burning light, causing him to stagger. She then infused light into her hammer and dropped the shield while he was recovering to deliver a powerful blow that shattered his jaw and jumped up to deliver another to the side of his head which twisted his neck and snapped it. Dalronn rolled his eyes as he saw his partner fall to the ground. However, he had no intention of fighting this battle alone so he raised several more skeletons to distract Stella while he raised Skarvald’s spirit. “Skarvald, you incompetent slug! Return and make yourself useful!” The fight between Bella and Skarvald resumed except Bella found that she was no longer able to cause harm to the spirit. Even when she blasted the spirit with her light spells, the ghostly vrykul persisted. Stella decided to end her fight with Dalronn by overpowering him with a Disintegration Beam that obliterated his bone shield and created a gaping hole in his chest. Skarvald scoffed as he watched the necromancer fall, “What sort of necromancer lets death stop him? I knew you were worthless.” In response to that, Dalronn tore his own spirit from his body and resumed his battle against Stella. The dracthyr realized that her attacks were having no effect on the spirit. “What is going on?! Why are our attacks not working?” Bella asked. “Dang necromancer put an anchorin’ spell on their bodies to allow their souls to fight. They can’t move far from their corpses but they ain’t comin’ back to life neither.” Jaqueline realized that a lot of what Thanatas taught her was coming in handy. Focusing her vision on the corpses, she spotted a pair of spiritual tethers linked to the spirits. Acting quickly, she rushed in and cut the line from Skarvold’s corpse. The vrykul’s soul faded away. Dalronn looked at the death knight in horror as he realized that she could see the tether. He fired several bolts of shadow magic in a desperate attempt to keep her away from his tether but she placed an Anti-Magic Shield on herself to block his spells which made it easy for her to reach Dalronn’s tether and sever it to bring an end to the necromancer. After Bella and Stella thanked Jaqueline for her assistance, the party moved forward, killing more vrykul and having Flutashe turn the wolves on their handlers. They went up another flight of stairs and out into the open air where they moved along a terrace dealing with more vrykul and a proto drake rider. Their journey through the keep soon came to an end when they reached an overlook with four stone arches that didn’t appear to hold any significance. A lone vrykul stood at the end of it barking orders to the proto drake riders who flew up to him. Bella could tell that the axe on his back was looking dull. They could see his dark brown and black armor past his bright red cape. His gray hair made him look like an elderly vrykul. “By the way he’s barking orders, he has to be the leader,” Raida guessed. “Keller did mention someone named Ingvar leading the assaults on Valgarde, perhaps that is him?” Bella hoped. “Either way, he’s gonna be a dead vrykul shortly,” Jaqueline declared. “Mind if I take this one?” Raida asked. “I may have control over my demonic magic but I still get restless if I don’t have a good fight every now and then.” Flutashe giggled, “Go ahead.” “Aww, yeah!” The demon hunter ran to the center of the overlook and called out to Ingvar, “Hey, Ingvar! You and me, one on one!” Ingvar turned around while several proto drake riders flew closer to see the fight take place. “You wish to challenge me? You are unworthy! You shall fall before the Death God’s chosen!” As they fought, Raida realized that this vrykul was particularly strong and though his axe was a little dulled, the force behind his attacks made up for that. Thankfully, she was a very nimble fighter and was able to avoid his swings while occasionally making him strike the arch pillars which gave her an opening to deliver a deep wound on him. However, it also turned out that Ingvar was a berserker where his attacks grew in speed and intensity the longer the battle dragged on though she wasn’t going to risk getting too close and getting smashed on the pillars. One wide swing from Ingvar would be his downfall as Raida took this chance to get behind him and run a warglaive through his back, using fel flames to make sure she pierced his armor. “Argh! My life for the…Death…God…” he called out before he collapsed as a pool of blood formed under him. Raida started to walk away casually with her hands behind her head when she noticed her friends looking up. She turned around and looked as well where she saw a figure flying down. The being looked like a female vrykul with large white feathered wings and sky blue skin. Her winged helm covered her eyes. “Looks like one of Arthas’ val’kyr is payin’ us a visit,” Jaqueline noted. “What’s that?” Mena asked. “They’re his winged harbingers,” Jaqueline explained. “They go around judgin’ vrykul and reanimate ‘em as undead whenever they get themselves killed. From what Thanatas told me, the worthy ones become a blue-skinned variant while the unworthy ones turn into a zombie vrykul called a vargul. Fewer still and only the females end up becomin’ val’kyr.” The val’kyr flew down over Ingvar’s corpse and frowned as she pointed her hand toward him. “Ingvar, your pathetic failure will serve as a warning to all. You are–” As she was reanimating Ingvar, she was forced to fly backward to avoid a flying warglaive before the demon hunter who threw it shot upward to retrieve it. The val’kyr summoned her spear just in time to block a downward double slash. Once Raida flew back a short distance, the val’kyr summoned her shield as well. Annhylde, as she was named, was renowned for her defensive tactics when she was alive. Her shield had saved her life many times in the past when rivaling vrykul clans tried to take her village. When the Scourge invaded her village, she was the last survivor and defeated a thousand undead before she finally fell. The Lich King saw fit to reward her for her bravery by raising her as a val’kyr. Raida shifted to the side when Annhylde charged forward with a spear thrust. The demon hunter’s counter attack was blocked by her shield. The val’kyr also blocked a Black Eye Beam with her shield but had to spare a moment to notice the extra weight on her protection to find black crystals on it. Raida didn’t dare use dark magic to cause fear in her opponent. From what she heard of the undead, they were incapable of fear unless it was induced upon them by light magic. Instead, she fired a mixed volley of shadow and fel magic. Annhylde blocked any shadow bolts with her shield which made the crystal grow but was taken by surprise when a fel bolt struck the crystal and caused the crystal to explode and sent her flying through one of the overlook’s archway pillars. Raida smirked in delight when she saw how quickly Annhylde recovered after that. Annhylde put out all the stops when she pushed the limits of her power to try to outmaneuver Raida in the sky. Not able to dodge a spear charge in time, Raida used her Fel Shield to block it but the spear managed to pierce and shatter the barrier. However, it did slow the val’kyr enough to allow Raida to dodge the thrust by spinning around and delivering a double slash to her back while her blades burned in fel flame. Annhylde grit her teeth as she endured the pain and spun around to slash at her opponent with her spear. Raida managed to block it with her blades but was thrown back into another pillar on the overlook. Raida quickly recovered and returned to the sky where the two continued to exchange blows while the other party members and the observing vrykul proto drake riders watched, the latter knowing better than to interrupt the battle of one of the venerated val’kyr. However, one of Annhylde’s spear strikes missed their target and struck one of the unsuspecting proto drakes in the head and sent them and their rider plummeting into the lake below. The moment Annhylde overextended one of her spear strikes was the moment she made her final mistake as Raida avoided the strike and struck her in the back with a Black Eye Beam along with a torrent of fel breath that struck the resulting crystal. Annhylde’s world faded away as she succumbed to the resulting wounds from the explosion which destroyed her wings. Her body landed hard on one of the lower walls of the keep. With the val’kyr dead, Raida quickly returned to her friends. None of them needed to be told that the proto drake riders were going to be extra furious once they got over the shock of their val’kyr dying so Stella quickly created a portal back to Valgarde where everyone rushed through just as a distant vrykul began roaring in fury. Talia and the others arrived at Taunka’le village. During their time assisting the bison variant of tauren, the group had to assist them in their preparations to escape east toward the Dragonblight region where their capital lay. Mainly, their job was to clear out enough of the enemy forces harassing them which included Scourge nerubians and a radical mechanical gnome who wished to “return them to their original state” which he believed involved removing the flesh they were cursed with and returning it to a stone or metal state. The biggest threat came from the nearby Scourge stronghold of En’kilah. The undead there would quickly overtake their evacuation efforts. The taunka wanted the party to clear out enough of the stronghold that the Scourge would be trying to reorganize instead of attacking their evacuees. They hoped that taking out the leadership who were overseeing everything from the necropolis hovering over the city would throw the enemy into disarray long enough for the evacuation. Groun missed some of the plan because he could swear that he could hear a faint voice calling out to him through his real name. The voice was distant so he wasn’t sure if it warranted telling the others yet, though that would change if he decided that it was worth his attention.