Mena and Bella borrowed a couple of gryphons to take them west to the outpost of Stars’ Rest. While they could have made it there on their own power, they needed to conserve their strength for the battles ahead. Since it was just the two of them now, things were not going to be easy. This was fine with them since they needed the challenge to improve themselves.
Between Flutashe and her incredibly versatile skill set, Raida and her speed and destructive abilities, Stella and her magical versatility and Jaqueline suddenly becoming a powerful force of death since they last saw her, the two were in need of finding ways to improve themselves as well.
Of course, Bella and Mena were still strong in their own right. In this land of death, their light magic would prove a powerful weapon against the unholy. Surprise’s void magic was quite destructive as well, both physically and psychologically. Bella had no doubt that the gnome’s void magic would skyrocket after her “roommate” devoured the Old God in Northrend.
On their way to the west, they crossed a frozen wasteland with numerous dragon bones scattered about. They weren’t enough to complete a skeleton so Bella doubted that Arthas could properly raise them. There was also the tall tower in the center of the region that appeared to be under attack by blue dragons. Though the Red Dragonflight was doing well in holding them off.
Flying around the aerial battle around the tower, the pair continued west. They spotted three valleys during their flight. Two of them were lush where one of them had a giant tree with red leaves. The third valley was barren of vegetation and instead radiated the telltale pink energy of raw arcane magic.
The two soon flew past a Horde settlement that reports referred to as Agmar’s Hammer. While they could be a potential threat to Alliance supply caravans, they had more important matters to focus on, such as maintaining their position at Angrathar.
It wasn’t long after that when their gryphons descended for a landing at the small Alliance post in some ruins surrounded by trees locked in eternal winter. All that was there were a few tents, a few night elven glaive throwers and a moonwell. The mystical nature of the water ensured that it would never freeze in the frigid temperatures.
The two dismounted from their gryphons and met with the leader of the post, Commander Saia Azuresteel, a night elf. The commander addressed the two with a brief Darnassian greeting before asking why they were here. Bella informed her that they were here to deal with some logistics issues between Valiance Keep and Wintergarde Keep and that the main issue was around this location.
“About time Halford sent someone to help, and I am glad that he sent a pair of veterans like you two,” Saia said. “Where are the others?”
“Stella and Jaqueline went to Dalaran to protect the city from the Blue Dragonflight and Flutashe and Raida wanted to investigate the Wild Gods in the east,” Mena replied.
“So you are spread too? It makes sense with all of the threats that we have to deal with in this blasted land.” Despite her attempts to hide it, a small amount of Saia’s irritation revealed itself. “You will have to do. The supply lines are in danger in this area because of the undead nerubians skittering out of the large hole nearby. Any scouts we send in there never return so we have no intel on what’s down there.”
“Ooh! We get to go down into the icky, creepy spider lair?” Mena asked with a little too much enthusiasm to Bella’s liking.
Bella had her positive and negative opinions on spiders. While they were grotesque to look at and their habits were disgusting, she couldn’t argue the quality of silk that they could produce.
Saia couldn’t tell what the gnome was thinking from the question she asked but decided to not say anything since they had more important issues to deal with. Instead, she pointed them in the direction of a large sinkhole on the other side of the road.
The two thanked the commander and headed for the hole. Once there, the two began fighting through nerubian spiders. Unlike typical nerubians like the crypt fiends, spiders lacked the upper torso of their kin. However, they were still far more numerous than their centaur-like cousins.
The pair’s holy magic easily burned through the undead spiders as they entered the underground beneath the sinkhole. There they encountered a new variant of nerubian. This one appeared less like a spider and more like a giant beetle with a thick, smooth carapace on its back and their legs wrapped in armor. Their arms resembled jagged scythes.
Fortunately, these creatures weren’t as ferocious as they looked, though Bella did have to apply some significant force to shatter their shells. “I have a feeling that these guys are younglings and that the mature versions are going to be very tough to face,” Mena said.
“Then let’s hope we don’t run into one of those too soon,” Bella responded.
The two turned a corner in the tunnel where they spotted a group of nerubians fighting a trio of the beetle-like nerubians which the pair decided to call crypt lords since they appeared more formidable than regular nerubians. As they jumped into the fight between the warring ground, the paladin and priest found that holy magic burned the beetle nerubians from within their shells but didn’t hurt the others as much.
“Peace! Peace! We are not your enemy!” one of the regular nerubians cried in an effort to get the duo to stop attacking them.
Bella drew back on her holy-consecrated ground as the spider people slowly skittered toward the two. “What do you mean? Aren’t you with them?” Bella asked.
“We are enemies of the Scourge like you are. I am Kilix the Unraveler of the Azjol-anak, the remnants of the kingdom of Azjol'Nerub.”
“Remnants? I thought your kind was allied with the Scourge. We certainly have never seen nerubians fighting against them.”
Kilix made a series of hissing and clicking noises before he replied. “It seems you are uninformed of our kind. Perhaps a history lesson will enlighten you.
“Our kind once evolved from an insectoid species known as the Aqir. When the Usurpers came and remade our world, our former masters, the Old Gods, were locked away. The Aqir spread throughout the land while fighting their war with the troll empires. Some of us fled north and gradually evolved into what you see before you. We became known as the Kingdom of Azjol'Nerub.”
“‘Some of you fled north’? What about the rest? Did they move south? Perhaps you might know of the Qiraji?” Bella inquired.
“We know of them, we share a common ancestry. Though some moved even further south. I do not know what became of them. Regardless, unlike those in the south, we cut ties to the Ancient Ones and became an independent society that has lived underground for millennia…until a few decades ago.”
“The Scourge?” Bella ventured.
Kilix nodded, “At first we held them off with our vast numbers, but they raised the ones they killed into undeath and turned them against us. Even our former ruler, Anub’arak, fell before the Lich King and turned into our greatest enemy.
“In a desperate effort to regain the realm we lost to the Scourge, we dug deeper to expand our kingdom, not knowing that this would ensure our downfall. We dug too deep and unleashed the Faceless Ones upon us all.”
“You dug too deep? Did you dig into Yogg-Saron’s prison?” Mena asked.
“His minions were unleashed upon us all, forcing us to face a war on two fronts, something that we could not afford. It cost us the war and our kingdom and forced those of us who remain to go into hiding.”
“So why tell us all of this? Do you seek our assistance?” Bella asked.
“We would not approach you mortals so easily. However, one of you is the vessel of the Huntress of the Void. We may be distant from our wayward cousins, but we still have ways of knowing. The Huntress is the harbinger of the fall of the Forgotten Ones. With the help of the Huntress, we can reclaim our home from our enemies.”
Mena, who was hearing Violetta’s voice in her head, ended up speaking for her, “Umm…the Huntress says that she will help on the condition that you give her a better idea of where the prison is. She has been able to trace the flow of saronite north but hasn’t gotten a good fix on the prison’s location.”
“The Titan Keepers built a complex around his prison called Ulduar. This place lies at the northernmost point of the Storm Peaks. To get there, you will have to brave the frigid winds of the mountains. The complex itself is guarded by four of the five of the Titan Keepers in this land.”
“Four of the Keepers? If Yogg-Saron is as powerful as I believe him to be, he may have all four of them under his sway while waiting for a chance to capture the fifth,” Violetta voiced to Mena. “His prison will probably be in the deepest part of the complex. Alright, let’s help the spiders.” Mena voiced Violetta’s satisfaction with the information and agreed to help them.
Kilix’s bodyguards screeched in excitement while the leader gestured to one passage. “That way leads to the Upper Kingdom where the Traitor King leads our turned brethren. I ask that you exterminate him like the traitor he is.” He then gestured toward a passage leading downward. “This way leads to the Old Kingdom held by more minions of the Scourge who are being led by a strange creature with long ears. There also appear to be a number of other mortals like yourselves down there for some reason. They appear to be worshiping the Faceless Ones.”
“Sounds like the Twilight’s Hammer cult,” Mena figured. “They are devout worshipers of the Old Gods like Yogg-Saron.”
“We shall deal with them after we deal with the Upper Kingdom, Mena,” Bella decided. “By the sound of it, the Old Kingdom has a lot more going on and will take some time to clear out.”
Mena didn’t care one way or the other so she followed Bella down the right passage and into a tunnel sparsely decorated with mushrooms, shrubbery and bones. A few nerubians ahead were facing further in the tunnel. Being honorable, Bella decided to see if the nerubians were friends or foes, “Pardon me, are you with Kilix?”
One of the nerubians turned around and addressed her, “Indeed, so he sent you to aid us in reclaiming this area? Know that the entrance to the Upper Kingdom is guarded by a vizier who guarded this place in life, doing so in death as well. Krik’thir and his watchers will not let you pass him so easily.”
“Thank you for the warning, we shall do our best to dispose of him.”
As the duo moved further into the tunnel, the passage began to narrow but not so much that they couldn’t move side by side.
They suddenly heard a voice coming from just up ahead, “I sense the living. Be ready.”
“Doesn’t look like the subtle approach is happening,” Mena quipped with a giggle.
“I doubt that was an option for us in the first place, darling.”
A pair of nerubians skittered up to them weaving webs and flinging balls of the sticky strings at them. The two dodged before Bella blasted one with holy light which caused them to scream in agony. Mena bombarded the other with bolts of light to the same result. After one last attempt to trap the two in webbing, the two nerubians caught fire from holy magic.
The tunnel soon widened where the duo was greeted by three more nerubians who shared the same fate as the first two. Further behind them was a structure made of gold and obsidian with spider themed styling. Guarding the structure were nine nerubians with a tenth behind them. That one towered over the others by about three times their size. He stood on four long legs and had four smaller arms. His form was clothed in black and gray robes with a cape draped over his arachnid abdomen. A gray headdress with gold filigree sat atop his head.
Spotting Bella and Mena, Krik’thir called out to his minions, “We are besieged! Strike out and bring back their corpses!”
Three nerubians on the left skittered toward them to attack. One tried to weave more webbing to attack with but Surprise had enough and switched out with Mena to burn the web in shadow, also engulfing the nerubian in black flame. The larger of the three used his dexterous hands to shape a glob of poison before sending a wave of it at them. Bella stood in front of Mena and blocked the attack with her shield and holy magic before throwing a hammer of light at him which incapacitated him for the moment. Mena and Bella quickly incinerated the third in holy fire before they focused on the larger nerubian.
Wanting to even the odds against him, the nerubian launched his threads at Bella to imprison her. However, Surprise sent a blade of shadow that severed his hands before sending shadows to attack his eyes. The nerubian screeched in pain while Bella burned the threads to free herself. A powerful strike from her hammer ended the spider.
They didn’t get much time to rest as the vizier called for three more to attack, “The gate must be protected at all costs. Rip them to shreds!” The middle group moved in to attack. While this group suffered the same fate as the last group, they had to be careful of the larger one as he attacked by flailing his limbs, focusing on faster attacks at the cost of putting much power behind them.
Krik’thir quickly called for the last group to attack, “We must hold the gate. Attack! Tear them limb from limb!” The last group was just like the first two except the larger one in this group tried to be clever by flinging webs into their eyes to distract them. However, this only led to Surprise sensing their minds and aiming a phantom eye laser which obliterated the larger one. The two quickly recovered and put an end to Krik’thir’s watchers.
“This kingdom belongs to the Scourge! Only the dead may enter!” Krik’thir began his attack by trying to flay Bella’s mind but the paladin fought through the dark magic while Surprise attacked the vizier’s mind. He called upon a swarm of tiny insects to attack them but Mena unleashed an explosive wave of holy magic which burned the insects while Bella drew upon her holy power and delivered heavy strikes that caused one of Krik’thir’s legs to dislocate and the leg’s chitin to crack and splinter.
Off balance, Krik’thir tried to place his curses on the two but the two endured while Bella jumped up to smash her hammer on the vizier’s head. Adding in her holy magic, Bella shattered the nerubian’s head. The rest of him collapsed in a heap.
The two kept their weapons in hand as they moved past Krik’thir’s corpse and through the gate he was guarding. Bella giggled as the two entered the passage. “You know, despite these things being undead, their silk was still soft and luxurious. It was a shame that I had to burn that wonderful silk.”
Mena didn’t share the same opinion, “Uhh, I’ll take your word for it.”
The two exited the passage and stepped onto a narrow walkway leading to a lower level. Looking beneath them, the two noticed a crypt lord barking orders to more undead nerubians and sending them down a nearby tunnel.
Looking at the chamber they were in, they noticed that there was no stone floor for them to walk on, meaning that they were in for a long drop into the bottomless chasm below if the silk threads the nerubians were walking on were not sturdy.
They would soon test the durability of the threads as they found the stone walkway broken just before a platform on the other side. Bella cautiously stepped on the threads and was surprised that the silk not only held her weight but they hardly budged, as if the silk were made of iron.
Once they crossed the bridge of thread, the two stood on the platform and looked below to find a large group of nerubians battling a giant spider four times their size. Bella had a sinking feeling that they were about to get caught up in this. Unfortunately, since Flutashe wasn’t with them, they would have to fight the giant spider as well.
Jumping down onto the silk floor, the crypt lord noticed them and called out for some of his troops to attack the intruders. While this nerubian was a little tougher than the ones they fought before, it wasn’t by much. Bella still smashed his chitinous shell while Mena burned the nerubian reinforcements in holy fire. It still amazed them that the floor of thread withstood their onslaught.
Two more crypt lords came down the stairs from the upper passageways to fight the two. Though with the Scourge forces distracted between Bella and Mena and the giant spider below, they were quickly fighting a losing battle. Bella smashed one of the beetle nerubians while the other tried to use his claws to slam the paladin through the floor. Surprise put a stop to that by severing his claws before unleashing shadows upon his mind. However, this wasn’t enough to defeat the nerubian since he was still a controlled minion of the Lich King. All that did was make the nerubian a mindless minion. Bella finished him off by smashing his head.
The battle ended just in time as the giant spider made it into the chamber and fired two blasts of web at the doorways at the top of the stairs to seal off Scourge reinforcements. With the endless tide cut off, the spider proceeded to finish off everything else in the chamber that was moving, including Bella and Mena.
Bella made sure to protect the two of them from the spider’s poisonous attacks since they appeared to be releasing green clouds of toxic gas.
Unfortunately for the spider, they were exhausted from fighting the countless nerubians attacking them so they didn’t have much stamina left to give the paladin and priest a proper battle. Surprise used her shadow blades to cut off the spider’s legs while Bella impaled them with a blade of light.
“I don’t think we should tell Flutashe about this one,” Mena said.
“Agreed.”
The two decided not to think any further on the matter and proceeded through the tunnel the spider came from, after finishing off the remaining nerubians.
They soon entered another chamber that didn’t appear to have anything else except a stone floor below the web layer they were walking on. They spotted a hole in the web as well as a bottomless pit in the center of the floor surrounded by many tiny nerubian young. Though the young did not look friendly.
“Could this be the end of this area?” Bella pondered.
Mena shook her head, “Nope. I have a feeling that we need to go farther.”
“Mena, dear, look around. Where could we go from here?”
“Down.” Mena then jumped through the hole in the webbing and into the pit full of ravenous young. The priest then unleashed explosive waves of holy magic around her.
Worrying for her friend, Bella jumped into the pit and consecrated the ground around them. The young were incinerated in holy fire. “Now where?”
Mena giggled, “Where else, silly?”
Bella’s eyes widened in horror at what the priest was suggesting. “Mena have you gone insane?! Has Violetta finally decided to drive you to madness?!”
“Nope. I just have a good feeling about this. Come on!” Mena then jumped into the seemingly bottomless hole, much to the paladin’s horror. “Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
If there was a time when Bella needed to rely on her faith in the Light, it was now. What she was about to do was definitely a leap of faith. Closing her eyes, Bella jumped into the hole.
As her body plummeted down a very long distance, enough for her body to reach terminal velocity, Bella had to wonder if this was where her life was going to end, following her mad friend to certain death. She could think of worse ways to go out but this was definitely in her top five.
Thankfully, there was a pool of water at the bottom of this pit that she had landed in. Of course, the impact had also smashed a number of nerubian eggs at the bottom of the pool, but Bella was still glad to be alive.
Swimming out of the pool where her cheerful friend was waiting, Bella gave her the most vicious death glare she could make. “If you ever pull a stunt like that again, I will kill you, resurrect you, then crucify you atop the Cathedral of Light in Stormwind as a symbol of what happens to mad fools!” She then spent the next few minutes panting with her hand held to her chest. “Sorry, darling, I needed to vent after what happened.”
“No worries, I know it was a scary experience.” Mena then handed her a towel to dry herself off. “I figured you might need this.”
Bella took a few more calming breaths before she accepted the towel and dried herself, thanking the gnome in the process. Once she handed back the towel, the two proceeded through another passage, ignoring what appeared to be cocoons filled with victims or a lot of spiders, they didn’t want to know which.
They entered another chamber with a set of stairs leading downward where they dealt with a pair of nerubians who tried to use dark magic to drain their strength.
They crossed a web bridge onto a platform occupied by the largest crypt lord they had seen yet. He took up a quarter of the platform by himself.
Once they stepped onto the platform, a group of nerubian flyers spun silk around the edges of the platform using the hooks to hold the threads in place. Bella and Mena suspected a trap, what they got was a monologue from the nerubian. “I was king of this empire once, long ago. In life, I stood as a champion. In death, I returned as conqueror. Now I protect the kingdom once more. Ironic, yes?”
“Who are you?” Bella asked.
“I am Anub’arak, last king of Azjol'Nerub. The living ones call me the Traitor King. Now, you shall face eternal agony!”
For being the largest nerubian they had encountered so far, Anub’arak was fast. Bella raised her shield in time to block one of his claws and batted away the other before she backed away from him. Mena stood back and fired bolts of holy magic which bounced off his shell.
Anub’arak rushed past Bella and stood imposingly over Mena before he reared up with his claws raised. Mena knew what was coming and used a reverse form of her Leap of Faith spell to use Bella like a grapple point to pull herself away in time to avoid a crushing blow that rocked the platform.
While Anub’arak was recovering, Bella raised a sword of light from the floor which would have impaled the fallen king had he not moved out of the way enough that the blade only cut off a small piece of his shell.
The spider king targeted Bella next, intent on smashing her into the floor but he had to move away again as Surprise sent a shadow blade at him which cut into his leg armor.
Needing to reevaluate his prey, Anub’arak dug into the ground while calling for his minions to assist him. A few nerubian spiders jumped into the arena followed by a regular nerubian climbing through the threads blocking their escape. Neither of these enemies were any trouble for the pair and were quickly disposed of.
Meanwhile, the two were feeling tremors from beneath them which told them that Anub’arak intended on striking from underground. They moved out of the way in time to avoid spikes bursting from where they were standing. They could feel the vibrations of the fallen king tunneling beneath them and moved accordingly.
While this continued, more nerubians came in the form of more of the same in addition to one other nerubian who was intent on flinging poison at them. Again, the nerubians were quickly crushed and incinerated, all the while avoiding getting impaled by the spider king.
Soon, yet another wave came with more of what came before, except nerubian flyers were added in who tried to charge at them with stingers. Bella managed to block the sting attacks with her shield while Mena put a shield around herself to block any headed for her.
Eventually, Anub’arak’s tunneling got on Bella’s nerves so she channeled a significant amount of light into her hammer before bringing it down onto the platform, consecrating the rock and soil. With the holy magic burning him, Anub’arak was forced to emerge and resume attacking.
As a last resort, Anub’arak opened his shell and buzzed his wings as a swarm of locusts emerged from his body that attacked the two while trying to peel off their skin. The two raised their holy shields to prevent the locusts from biting at them while they focused on delivering blows to the king’s carapace.
Eventually, Mena managed to get behind him to send holy fire into the exposed parts of his shell where his flesh was vulnerable. The holy flames soon engulfed him and he roared in pain. The locusts were buzzing around confused since their master was too busy trying to put out the fires.
Anub’arak soon collapsed as the flames were too much for his body to handle. “Arrrgh…” However, as his body was shutting down, his mind found clarity after so many years. “Hehe…finally, my mind is my own once more. It’s too bad that I had to die for this moment of freedom…” The two watched the spider king let out one last breath before he stopped moving.
The two felt bad for Anub’arak, he was another victim of the Scourge and their vile tendencies to turn one’s loved ones against them, sort of like what happened to Jaqueline. Bella and Mena muttered a prayer for the fallen king, hoping that he would find peace in the afterlife.
After their moment, the two moved forward, moving down another web bridge and into another tunnel.