World of Warcraft: The Ties that Bind

by Blackdrag-rose

Suramar: The Tormented Guardians

Lyra, Trixie, and the rest of their band of heroes sat around Malfurion, resting from their fight with Elerethe and the other guardians they had taken out so far, because they knew that the remaining guardians were waiting for them and that they would need their full power to deal with them. As they rested their ally told them the names of the remaining guardians, as they were Ursoc, the Bear God, the four Dragons of Nightmare, so named Ysondre, Emeriss, Lethon, and Taerer, and finally Cenarius, who had been taken by Xavius while Lyra and Trixie were trying to recover the Tears of Elune. Lyra knew that they might be in trouble, since they would be fighting a demigod, four of the strongest dragons to ever guard the Emerald Dream, and the father of all druids... and that was what was standing between them and the Nightmare Lord himself.

It was in that moment that Lyra truly understood what Trixie had been going through since she had arrived on Azeroth, because she had gone through her fair share of dungeon and raid areas and had taken out a good majority of the enemies that could have brought ruin to this world.

"So, who do we take out first?" Lyra asked, because she knew that Trixie and the others were more experienced at this sort of thing than she was, which meant that she needed their guidance to be sure that they were on the right track.

"Well, since I'm sure that the portal to Cenarius is what Malfurion is trying to unlock, we only have two options left to choose from," Trixie replied, to which she waved a hand towards the two remaining portals that they hadn't gone through yet, knowing that they were tired to important places for the druids, "Personally I would pick Ursoc, to get the most challenging of the two out of the way, while others would suggest taking the Dragons of Nightmare out, as it should be somewhat easy to separate into four evenly numbered groups to take the four corrupted dragons out. You'll just have to wait and see what the commanders of this group decide on... once they have recovered their energy anyway."

Lyra nodded her head and noticed that the leaders of the group had finished deciding which of the two remaining portals they should enter first, to which they called for everyone to get up and started towards the portal that brought them to a place called Grizzly Hills. From what Lyra knew this place was located in Northrend, the northern continent of the world, but at the same time the Emerald Nightmare version was apparently different from the real world version, at least according to Trixie it was. It appeared that their opponents this time around, the lesser ones that needed to be removed before they reached their target, were bear like creatures that could stand on two legs, corrupted totems, Nightmare tentacles, and angry eagles that had to be under Xavius' control. Instead of going overboard and pulling two groups at the same time, which might kill some of them, the tanks targeted one group of enemies and focused on them until they were wiped out, before they moved onto the next batch of foes.

The tanks took their time in making sure that they took out all of the corrupted enemies that were in front of them, because they could easily pull a group that they left behind if they weren't careful, to which Lyra and Trixie helped them fight their way up the hill in front of them and then back down it... where they entered an opening on their left and came to a large nest for a large Nightmare corrupted bear, who had to be Ursoc if the looks on the druids' faces was anything to go by.

"You should have fled," Ursoc growled, surprising Lyra by the fact that he was actually talking while under the effects of the Nightmare, but that meant that they were in for one heck of a fight, "Now I'll feed your bones to the storm crows!"

When the battle started the tanks stood the closest to Ursoc, so they could take the majority of his attacks, while the melee damage dealers stood near him and made sure to do everything in their power to hurt the massive bear before he could really hurt someone. Trixie and the other ranged damage dealers, as well as the healers, stood further away and spread out, because in the off chance that Ursoc charged at them he would only hurt one or two of them and not severely hurt some of them. Not a few seconds later the bear seemed to target someone, one of the hunters that were standing away from everyone else and was firing bullets from his gun, as Ursoc charged forward and slammed into the hunter, knocking him to the ground, before returning to where he had been standing earlier. Once that was done Ursoc went back to clawing at the targets that were around him, though one thing Lyra noticed was that one of the tanks purposely allowed Ursoc to shatter their defenses while another took the damage from Ursoc's claws.

As they fought Lyra noticed that Ursoc had the exact same attack patterns, as he would target someone and barrel into them, where if more people actually stood in front of the attack they all sustained less damage than if someone took the full attack, and he constantly switched between tanks with his damaging attacks. It was, in her mind, deceptively easy and that made her wonder if she and the others were overlooking something important, as it shouldn't be this easy to battle and take down a powerful demigod, especially when he was empowered by the Nightmare. Her thoughts were proven right when Ursoc charged forward and an unsuspecting rogue and flattered the female blood elf against the ground, where she stopped moving and expired... causing Lyra to understand that they were still fighting for their lives, because one wrong move meant that they were dead, which only aided the Legion.

It took them a few minutes to get the rotation of Ursoc's attacks down, where he severely hurt several of their group members, but in the end the raid group toppled the Bear God and caused him to fall to the floor... where he eventually stopped moving. Lyra, according to what she knew from the druids, knew that it was really hard to kill a demigod, as killing their body made their spirit reform somewhere, which meant that Ursoc would reform somewhere, meaning that they needed to kill Xavius before that happened. At the same time, however, she saw a few of the healers gathering around the wounded and mending their wounds, while Maraa, on the other hand, walked over to where the dead rogue was and surrounded her body with her healing light. Lyra wanted to take a step forward and tell the draenei that it was hopeless, as dead was dead, but Trixie rested a hand on her shoulder and shook her head, indicating that this was something that she needed to see with her own eyes... where she watched as Maraa waved her staff, cast the spell she was forming, and let the light gather around the corpse.

A few seconds later, however, Lyra watched as the rogue carefully got up and thanked Maraa as she stretched her arms, as being dead made her joints lock up for a few seconds... though before Lyra would ask what was going on Lyra told her that it was possible for healers to resurrect someone in such a manner and then told her that she didn't need to worry about it.

Once everyone was rested, and Lyra had gotten over the fact that there were people with the power to bring back the dead until they were truly supposed to die, the raid group retraced their steps towards the portal and returned to Malfurion, where they headed through the final portal that they needed to access. Lyra had to wonder what the Dragons of Nightmare would do, since they were the powerful guardians of the Emerald Dream, but at the same time she was pleased to find that their hard work was paying off, as the shield that Malfurion was fighting against was nearly broken. When they stepped through the portal, however, she found that the creatures standing in front of where the dragons were waiting was a large group of corrupted dryads, which would be easy to deal with considering that they had fought some on their way to this point... though when their enemies were taken care of they entered a large area and engaged a small corrupted dragon for a few seconds, but it fell under the intensity of their power.

As the lot of them spread out, so they could survey their opponents Azuregos noticed which of the two dragons were on the ground, as the main fights, and which two were in the air, as support for the first pair, though at the same time he smiled as Trixie nodded her understanding.

"It appears that Ysondre and Taerer intend to stay on the ground and fight us here," Trixie said, to which she started to undo the bindings on her true form, though as her right arm shifted into a dragon's arm everyone backed away and gave her, and Azuregos, some space, "Azuregos and I will make sure that Emeriss and Lethon are preoccupied, so that don't interfere with your fight... though something tells me that they won't be expecting this."

Before Lyra could say anything the two transformed into their blue dragon forms and took to the sky, where they separated from each other and barreled into their chosen targets, creating an aerial dragon battle in the air above where the remaining two Dragons of Nightmare were standing. Once the sky battle started half of the tanks rushed over to where Ysondre was standing and claimed her attention while the remaining half forced Taerer to target them, effectively forcing the two dragons apart from each other while the damage dealers and healers did the same thing. Lyra, on the other hand, decided to help take out Ysondre, as in her eyes that dragon was more deadly than the other one, while at the same time she hoped that these dragons put up more of a fight than Nythandra did.

One thing that Lyra noticed right off the back was that Ysondre, as well as Taerer, had an ability that made Lyra and the others manifest markings of some kind on the backs of their gloves, though something told her that allowing them to accumulate was a bad idea. The tanks seemed aware of this and focused on the dragons in front of them, leaving her to wonder if the sky dragons had the same ability as well, before she turned back to Ysondre and continued slashing into the dragon's side. As the battle progressed both Ysondre and Taerer called forth corrupted treants to battle their enemies while at the same time breathing their corrupted breath on their targets, forcing some of the damage dealers to change who their target was and deal with the treants before turning back towards their dragon. When the number of markings on her glove reached six, which she assumed everyone else had, the tanks called for a switch, to which the entire group that was fighting Ysondre charged at Taerer and the group that was fighting Taerer charged at Ysondre... even Trixie and Azuregos exchanged opponents as well.

Lyra noticed that the mark that Ysondre had given her group had been exchanged with Taerer's mark, though it started at one and didn't build on the six that she originally had, which had disappeared the moment her group changed which dragon they were fighting.

The rest of the battle proceeded in a similar fashion, where the tanks carefully counted the number of marks they had on their gloves as the battles progressed, as the number was the same between the two groups, while at the same time dodging attacks and dealing damage in kind. When they reached the same number of markings, sometimes even allowing the number to reach eight at times, the two groups would switch dragons and continue the battle, while at the same time Trixie and Azuregos would do the same in the air. While she fought whatever dragon she was supposed to be fighting Lyra couldn't help but notice that Trixie was doing a good job of avoiding attacks, raking her claws into her opponent's back or chest, and loosing blasts that damaged whoever she was fighting... almost as if she had been put in the wrong body when she had been born back on Equus, or, as she thought about it, maybe the dragon essence that had changed her was aiding her in ways they didn't even know about.

Eventually the ground battle came to an end as both groups toppled Ysondre and Taerer, though that was followed by Trixie crushing one of the air dragons, Emeriss if Lyra was right, into the ground before blasting the dragon with an intense blast of energy while Azuregos did the same to Lethon... before the two of them landed, reverted back to their normal forms, and rejoined the group.

"Remind me never to piss you off," Lyra commented, because while she was the more terrifying one, being able to transform into a demon and empower herself with Dark Magic, Trixie's sheer magical power was on the same level as her best abilities, maybe even a tiny bit greater.

Trixie, on the other hand, simply smiled as she and Azuregos followed the group back to the summit of the World Tree, where they found that Malfurion had finally broken through the barrier and opened the portal to the Emerald Dream's version of Moonglade... where Cenarius, and something called the Rift of Aln, waited for them.

The Moonglade they came to seemed to be the least corrupted out of all the regions they had encountered so far, or at least it appeared to be that way to the druids, but at the same time Lyra spotted a mass of corrupted vines gathering around a lake, where she felt something that made her heart beat a tad bit faster. Even from where they were standing she could see Cenarius, corrupted by the Nightmare, either empowering the Rift of Aln or trying to open it in some manner that would make Xavius even more powerful than he already was. The enemies guardian Cenarius were all corrupted druids, which the tanks gathered together and started smashing the moment they realized what was going on, while at the same time Lyra's attention remained on Cenarius. For a moment Lyra wondered if the sinister feeling that was coming from the Rift of Aln was actually Xavius or his even fouler master, the Old God known as N'Zoth... though she had no idea if they could defeat such a creature, since it appeared to be the last of the terrifying Old Gods that had been locked away by the now dead Titans.

It didn't take them long to reach the corrupted land that Cenarius was standing on, though when he realized that he had guests he stopped what he was doing and turned to face them all... to which the raid group, backed by Malfurion, charged into battle as Cenarius did the same.

The instant the battle started Cenarius weaved his energy into the surrounding area and started calling forth creatures that were corrupted by the Nightmare, which included the soul like wisps of the night elves, more treants, and a few small drakes. While this happened Malfurion used his own power to summon a zone of energy that would protect the raid group from the corruption, though they had to enter the area to receive this blessing, though some of the group immediately broke away to deal with the creatures that were entering the area. Cenarius also eventually threw some sort of curse upon a select number of heroes, who had to retreat to the safe area that Malfurion created to heal themselves, while at the same time decreasing the size of the healing zone until it was completely used up... forcing Malfurion to create another one while the heroes fought Cenarius.

As the battle repeated in a familiar cycle, something that Lyra was beginning to notice that each raid level boss went through, Cenarius continued to expand energy calling in more reinforcement, forcing some of the heroes to kill the corrupted enemies before they fully joined the fight and caused havoc on their forces. Malfurion constantly summoned near areas for them to purge themselves of whatever curse was thrown at them while at the same time calling forth his own treants to battle some of the creatures that his mentor summoned. Cenarius also called forth moving shrubs of thorns that trapped people and hurt them at the same time, causing the healers to make sure that their friends were healed back to health as the battle wore on. To Lyra it was like two primal forces, that of Cenarius and Malfurion, were the real opponents of this match, pitting the purity of Nature against the corrupted Nightmare... while she and her friends did damage in whatever way they could, and she even busted out her demonic form, empowered by the Fel energies inside her, to help Malfurion win this fight.

Sure, she didn't much like Tyrande for treating her like Trixie's pet demon, but so far her only problem was Malfurion was that he blinded himself with rage and got himself captured... but at least the druids and their allies were able to save him before he became corrupted as well.

When at last they finally toppled the great Cenarius he fell to the floor and seemed to stop moving, but unlike the other enemies they had encountered he was still breathing, at least according to Malfurion anyway, who seemed pleased that they had stopped his mentor from doing anything reckless in his corrupted state. As the healers revived those that were killed during the fight, and healed the wounds of everyone else, Malfurion told the group that he would begin work on cleansing Cenarius' body of the corruption, how he did not specify. To Lyra, however, that meant that she and her companions would be fighting the Nightmare Lord without someone like Malfurion or Cenarius to back them... though as she thought about it she realized that they had to be playing into Xavius' hand again. Xavius had orchestrated the entirety of the events that plagued Val'sharah, corrupted enough people to make the army she and her companions had toppled, and had taken over some of the strongest protectors of the Dream to ever exist... which meant that he was still looking for something specific at this point in time.

Lyra really hoped that they weren't about to accidentally unleash the fourth Old God into the world, especially since the Legion was still a problem, but all they could do was hope that she was wrong... otherwise things were going to go from bad to worse in a matter of seconds.