World of Warcraft: Burning Skies

by Blackdrag-rose

Suramar: Change of Seasons

Cenarius' portal, as it turned out, was a direct link to the area of Val'sharah that they had used to enter the Nightmare, so it allowed the heroes to leave the Dream without having to backtrack through everything that they had passed through to get to Xavius' location, though once everyone was outside the Dream most of the heroes pulled out the hearthstones that had been given to them after the assault on the Broken Shore and returned to Dalaran, to inform everyone else about their success and the downfall of the Nightmare Lord, even though Spitfire and Rainbow were the only ones left, showing that all of their allies did want a short break before resuming their duties. For a moment they had been thinking that Lunara might follow after them and see what they were up to, as she seemed to like being around both of them, but it seemed she had chosen to stay with her father and make sure Cenarius was ready for what came next, as at some point the forces of nature were going to go to war with the Legion, they were just waiting for the order to do do to be given, once more something that Spitfire would have to give once she was sure everyone was ready. Once she and Rainbow were sure that they were alone, and that none of the heroes had stuck around to aid them, they spread their wings and took to the skies once more, this time heading for Suramar so they could deliver the Life Essence to the Arcan'dor and bring balance to the power that was coursing through it, where Spitfire made sure to keep their package safe and sound since damaging it would ruin all of their efforts to get it from the Dream, all while Rainbow remained in front of her as they headed for Tel'anor, since that was the area their Nightfallen allies had been moved to. Part of this was also due to the fact that they had no idea if the Legion might attack them while they were moving through the air, which would make sense if their enemies were paying attention to them at all, but as both of them flew towards their destination it became clear that no one seemed interested in them, as no enemies flew out of the clouds to attack them, even though it was night out and meant they had spent a good amount of time inside the Dream, before they focused on reaching the ruins their allies were currently resting in.

It didn't take them all that long to return to Suramar and reach the area that the ruins of Tel'anor rested in, given the fact that they were flying slightly faster than normal so they could deliver the Life Essence to Farodin and see if it was enough to save the Arcan'dor, where they found that Thalyssra was speaking to Tyrande, Lady Liadrin, Khadgar, and Jaina, whose forces were making sure the Nightfallen had everything they needed and were protected from any attackers, of which it looked like they had been left alone, though the conversation ended as the pair landed nearby.

"Spitfire, Rainbow, you have returned from the Dream," Thalyssra commented, though she was happy to see them again, as it meant that they must have been successful in their mission and they could tend to the Arcan'dor, while at the same time she seemed happy with the fact that so many of their allies had come to aid them, to make sure her people were safe until they dealt with the problem, hence why she wasn't ordering everyone to return to Shal'Aran yet, since there was no telling what might happen when they presented the other power to the magical tree, "I take it you have the Life Essence we need to balance the Arcan'dor?"

When Spitfire held up the Life Essence they drew the attention of Farodin for a moment, who she handed the essence to before they, and by that she meant herself, Rainbow, Farodin, Thalyssra, Oculeth, and Valtrois, departed from Tel'anor and headed for the portal that would return them to Shal'Aran, where Tyrande stopped Spitfire and asked how Malfurion was doing, where she told her that he was fine and he was just tending to Cenarius and the spirits who had been saved from Xavius' hold, which put a smile on her face as she let them leave, so she, Lady Liadrin, and their forces could ensure the Nightfallen remained safe... before the main force returned to Shal'Aran and approached the magical tree, where Farodin began to channel the essence into the tree as the others watched.

"Even in this state, the Arcan'dor continues to grow... I can only hope that a pure life essence is enough." Farodin said, as it was easy for everyone to see that the tree looked like it had grown to its full height, all in the time that it took the heroes to tackle the Nightmare, while his tone revealed that he was worried about the Arcan'dor, including the Nightfallen and the rest of Suramar once he felt the fierce gaze of Rainbow fall upon him, but before they could say anything the essence melded with the Arcan'dor and disappeared, causing the Arcane lightning to dissipate and was followed by him sighing for a moment as he backed away from the magical tree, "Balance has been restored... the Arcan'dor will not fail due to a lack of balance between the Arcane and Life energies."

"We will carry this burden, Valewalker. Have a little faith in us." Thalyssra commented, where she was pleased with the fact that they had been able to avoid the detonation of the Arcan'dor and prevented something that could have destroyed all of Suramar, due to the Leylines that were linked to this place, though before she could say anything else, and before the others could say something, the lights in Shal'Aran seemed to dim as the Arcane energies seemed to shift once more, as if their work wasn't done yet, and it seemed to be centered on the Arcan'dor, hence why she and the others turned to face Farodin once more, "What in the world is happening to the tree now?"

"The Arcan'dor has reached what I assume is the final stage of its growth." Farodin stated, to which he held his hands up for a moment, as if afraid that Spitfire or Rainbow might hit him again for holding out information on them, just like what had happened when the Arcan'dor became unbalanced, which was earlier, but for right now they looked like they didn't care enough to hit him, only gesturing for him to continue with his information, "I suspect that, without enough power to mature into its final form, it will die... though I have no idea if it would wither away or just detonate if we allowed such a thing to happen."

"Valtrois, can you figure out how to do such a thing?" Thalyssra asked, to which everyone quickly headed down the set of stairs that would allow them to see the map of Suramar and all of the nodes that were connected to Shal'Aran, even if all but one of them had been connected to this place, while the reason she was asking Valtrois about this was mostly due to the fact that her area of expertise, or one of them anyway, was on the Leylines and she might know a way to get around this problem, or she could just tell them to seal the Leylines to prevent Suramar's destruction.

"The Arcan'dor is drawing on incredible amounts of energy to sustain itself... even with the Leyline feed at full capacity, it looks like we may not have the necessary power to do feed this insufferable plant" Valtrois commented, as while she knew that Farodin cared for the Arcan'dor, and they had done pretty much everything in their power to save the tree and let it grow into what was above them, part of her was done tending to this cursed thing and she was only helping them since Thalyssra was convinced that the Valewalker had been telling the truth, that it could aid them in their rebellion, before she sighed and focused on what was in front of her, "but, based on what I can tell, we're giving it everything we've got and it's not enough to feed the tree."

"Come on, there has to be something... anything... that we can do or something we can steal to boost the Arcane power that is being channeled into the Arcan'dor!" Rainbow stated, as while she had no real knowledge of what the Nightfallen were talking about, and Spitfire had some understanding given the moments she spent with Valtrois, she knew that there had to be something they had overlooked, something that had to give them the push they needed to let the Arcan'dor finish its growth and become what Farodin had promised earlier, before she thought about something, "Should we head into the city and steal from the nobles that are on Elisande's side?"

"Wait... that's it! We can tap into the main conduit that rests beneath Suramar City," Valtrois stated, showing that she had been thinking about the situation and that Rainbow's words had, in some way, clicked in her head and revealed a useful piece of information for them to use for the Arcan'dor's sake, while at the same time the others focused on what she had to say and what sort of plan they might be talking about doing to make sure the Arcan'dor had all the power it needed to finish its growth, "it easily pulls ten times as much power as we can, so if we were able to make that Leyline flare up for a time, well, the surge should theoretically reach Shal'Aran, giving us the power needed... though causing such a flare is no easy feat and will take some time to fig..."

"No need, for I have an idea... we create a manastorm to get the job done!" Oculeth stated, though the look that appeared on Valtrois' face revealed that such an idea, while being able to do exactly what she had just proposed, was also highly dangerous and could spell doom for all of them, be it those inside the city and those outside the city, but at this point in time Spitfire knew that they didn't have much of a choice in the matter, not unless they wanted to see the Arcan'dor fail at the end of its growth and possibly destroy all of Suramar in a terrifying detonation of power.

"Valtrois, Oculeth, please spare us the details, and your upcoming argument, and just tell us what we need to do to make such a storm," Spitfire stated, because she could see that the pair were about to get into an argument about the idea, one that seemed to be the only one they had that might make sure they had all the power they needed to aid the Arcan'dor in its growth, though her words stopped the two and they glanced at each other for a few seconds before focusing on her not a moment later, showing that the argument would come later.

"The conduit we're talking about is located in the Arcway, one of the sections of Suramar City with the greatest amount of security, with the Nighthold having more than it," Oculeth replied, though at the same time he reached into the pack that he had taken to carrying since they retrieved him from his old workshop, which meant it carried all of his supplies and had been stuffed when they fled Shal'Aran earlier, and pulled out one of his Telemancy beacons, one that seemed to be more important than the others they had seen during their time in Suramar, "thus the only way to get to it, without fighting all of the guards and alerting them to your presence, is to teleport you and your strike team to the area the conduit is in, which will give you the chance to pull off what we're planning... however, teleporting into the Arcway is incredibly hard since it doesn't have a fixed location inside it, so we'll need to get some readings from the commons of Suramar City to locate the best area to send the team to."

"While you do that, you'll also need to recover a few things so we can create the warp-field that will aid us in making such a powerful manastorm," Valtrois added, though while it was clear that part of her still didn't agree with this plan, since it was the most reckless thing she had heard in her entire life, she did know what Spitfire and Rainbow were capable of and the lengths they would go through to ensure the downfall of their enemies, or the well-being of their allies for that matter, so she knew that putting her faith in the pair would result in good things for the Nightfallen, "I'm going to need several plates from the high end security constructs you've seen across the city, four of them by my estimates... though I'll take more if you happen to collect too much... but we also need to seal several of the vents that are located around the city, least we vaporize hundreds of Nightborne in the process, and I can provide you with the knowledge to seal them for a time, long enough for us to complete our new mission."

The first thing the pair did was figure out the locations that Oculeth wanted them to survey and the areas that the couple of vents were located in, to seal them before putting their plan into action, though once Spitfire had an idea of where she had to go, as she was planning on letting Rainbow take the fight to the Arcane constructs they had seen around parts of the city and claim the armor plating that Valtrois needed for her part of this plan, they headed over to the portal section of Shal'Aran without delay, leaving the others to tend to the Arcan'dor and make sure nothing else happened when they were in the city. Spitfire used the portal that would take her over to the Waning Crescent, as that was the closest area to one of the three locations Oculeth wanted her to check out, while she hunted down the couple of vents Valtrois needed someone to seal, while Rainbow headed to Ly'leth's estate and took to the air, as this time around she wasn't going to worry about her mask and just focus on taking the fight to the Arcane constructs that were guarding the barrier between the outside of the city and the inside of the city. A few moments later Spitfire appeared in her destination and spread her wings before taking off, leaving the area before the citizens noticed her, since she was sure that someone would notice her and call on the Duskwatch to defend them, or at least that would have been the case if those who resided in this part of the city were on Elisande's side of the war, and tracked down the locations that Oculeth had told her about, where she discovered that most of the Nightborne were alseep and the Duskwatch seemed to be rather spread out, as there weren't any in this part of the city and it allowed her to land without someone calling the guards on her. As such she pulled out Oculeth's beacon and let it scan the area she was in, doing whatever it was designed to do as she kept her eyes open for any guards or any random citizens who might step out and bother her, though for the most part it looked like she was able to stand still for a time and not actually attract any attention to what she was doing, meaning she was able to fully scan the Common area of the Waning Crescent and collect the beacon before moving over to the Bazaar, since it was the second target Oculeth had told her about, with Siren's Vigil being the last.

Once again she found that none of the Duskwatch were in the area she headed to, allowing her to stand in the Bazaar for a time, without a disguise to hide her true form, while the beacon went about scanning the area and collecting every bit of information that was available, before it completed its task and she collected it as she headed for Vanthir's shop, because the final location she had to scan was just down the road from where Vanthir's shop rested, allowing her to reach her new destination with ease before letting the device scan this section as well, and soon she had the information from Siren's Vigil as well, allowing her to stash it inside her pack before taking to the skies. The first vent she had to deal with happened to be located inside the section of the Waning Crescent that was known as the Artisans Gallery, an area Rainbow and Elylia had passed through when they freed those who had been wrongfully imprisoned by the Duskwatch, who had been getting ready to exile all those who were trapped in cages, though the vent in question was at a fork in the path and looked like it was designed to resemble an unmoveable sewer grate or something, where she knelt by it and placed a small metal item Valtrois had given her, three of since she needed to seal three vents before returning to Shal'Aran. When she placed it on the vent, and removed her hand, a small magical dome appeared over the vent, which seemed to be what she was waiting for and caused her to pull away once the deed was done, to which she headed for her next destination, even though she knew that the seals would for some time, at least until they caused the surge anyway, before discovering that the second vent was located in a canal that rested near the section of the city that had more demons wandering around, hence why she made sure to keep herself hidden before placing the seal and departing for her third destination. According to what Valtrois had said the third destination that needed to have one of the seals placed on it was located inside the Midnight Count, the area that Rainbow had been send to earlier to deal with some of Ly'leth's enemies and assist her allies so she could obtain the advisor position, and there were more demons wandering around it as well, causing Spitfire to keep her location a secret as she sought out the vent that needed to be sealed, before she discovered that her target was near one of the city's fountains, or the only one in the Midnight Court area, and quickly placed the seal on it before leaving as soon as it was in place.

With that done she smiled as she took to the skies and headed for Shal'Aran, as her tasks were complete and that left the collection of the armor plating from the Arcane constructs that patrolled part of the city, though the bolts of lightning she spotted a few seconds later suggested that Rainbow was tearing her way through her enemies and, sure enough, upon her arrival on the area that her friend was fighting in she found a number of constructs that had fallen in battle, either hacked to pieces or shattered by Rainbow's power, and once the tenth foe fell she watched as Rainbow focused on her fallen foes and tore the plates from them, choosing the ones that were more intact than the others, before putting everything away so they could return to the estate and pass through the portal that was there.

"Its good that we attacked at night, as it made things much easier for us," Spitfire remarked, where she pulled the beacon out of her pack the moment they returned to Shal'Aran and walked down to where the group was standing, where she passed the beacon over to Oculeth as Rainbow placed a small pile of armor plating near Valtrois, showing them that they had completed their tasks, though at this point Thalyssra chuckled as she witnessed them deliver the items to her allies, as she had grown used to hearing and seeing some of the impossible tasks that the pair had done, "the seals are in place, all three locations have been scanned and recorded, and Rainbow cut into the guardians of the city to claim the plating that Valtrois needed... is there anything else we need to do before we try to set off this manastorm?"

"I should have known something big was going on," a voice said, where they found that Arluin had either followed them to Shal'Aran, which wasn't hard since there were multiple portals that could bring someone to this place, or had decided to come after noticing that no one was causing a mess inside the city, namely the rebellion given what he knew, though that was when he glanced up at the Arcan'dor for a moment as Valtrois and Oculeth got to work making sure everything was ready for their operation, "you weren't thinking of leaving me out of this, were you?"

"I thought you were more interested in lining your pockets with mana and gold," Rainbow remarked, as whenever she had to interact with the Nightborne in question he usually asked for something big in return, usually in the form of crystals that contained good amounts of mana, something that she had to gather before paying him off so he could give her some aid on whatever was going on at that particular moment, and while she said that it was clear that Thalyssra understood what she was talking about and was interested in what their ally might have to say to them.

"Look, I may act like I don't care about your plight, but I'm not blind to what's going on inside the city, with all the demons and the terrible acts that have happened so far," Arluin stated, something that surprised Rainbow and Thalyssra, as they were used to someone who didn't care about the rebellion and right now it sure seemed like he had switched his opinion on the matter, where Spitfire could tell that someone important to him might have been exiled from the city or had been killed by the corrupt Duskwatch, meaning his intentions were to fight for that someone's survival or to avenge whoever his important someone had been before their demise, before he focused on the here and now, "so I'm not sitting this one out, as the stakes are too high for someone like me to just turn a blind eye to everything and just ignore the injustice that has been going on inside our city... look, I'll even wave my usual fee for this sort of thing and collect whatever payment I'll get once the job is done."

In the end Thalyssra accepted Arluin's aid, even though it really wasn't needed since Spitfire and Rainbow were going to be part of the assault team, to which the Nightborne in question walked over to one of the walls and leaned there, watching Oculeth and Valtrois work since that was their area of expertise and he had no knowledge on the subject, everyone else stood near the stairs and waited to see what happened next... though it took thirty minutes for Valtrois to create the item that would aid them in their mission, something she called an E.M.P. and revealed that it stood for Ephemeral Manastorm Projector, before Oculeth turned to face them as well, showing he must have been successful as well.

"I know exactly where to teleport you, so you can create the manastorm with Valtrois' device," Oculeth said, where he took a moment to pull out a brand new beacon, which he must have made dozens of thanks to their friends from inside the city providing them with all sorts of goods, everything they needed to maintain a daily life in Shal'Aran and make sure every soldier that joined them was outfitted for the battle that was coming, before he handed it over to Spitfire, who accepted it and stored it inside her pack for a time, just like she carried Valtrois' E.M.P. in her pack, since Thalyssra trusted her to make sure they were safe while trusting Rainbow to kill anything that stood in their way, "once you are ready to leave the Arcway behind, just activate that device and I'll pull you guys out... now this is important, you have to activate the beacon before the manastorm gets going, as once it reaches a certain point there will be too much interference for me to teleport you all to safety, which might be fatal to anyone caught in it."

Spitfire, Rainbow, Arluin, and Thalyssra readied themselves, even though they were joined by Elylia since she wanted to be part of the mission as well, as Oculeth had them gather near each other and weaved his magic around the area that they were standing in, something that caused everyone to vanish before they reappeared inside an area that looked a little like a library that was combined with an underground ruin, one that was much cleaner than what they had seen so far, but, of course, there were a few members of the Duskwatch standing guard, some with a Fel-taint to them while others appeared to be normal. Based on the robes they were wearing these had to be Archivists, those who took care of libraries and other areas that were similar to where books happened to be stored, though while some of them noticed the group materialize in what appeared to be the end of the chamber Oculeth had sent them to, which was the normal Archivists, the Fel ones were more focused on searching several of the tomes for information, but what Spitfire found to be interesting about this situation was that the normal ones actually turned on their allies and distracted them for a moment, allowing Rainbow to step forward and cut all of them down before they had a chance to escape. With the Fel Archivists dead Thalyssra found that she had far more allies in the Duskwatch than what she and the others previously knew, due to Gul'dan offering the power of the Legion to those who were willing to accept it, which resulted in Fel-tainted individuals like what they had seen so far, and each of them were tainted to the point where one could almost consider them to be demons, as they were very close to the transformation stage, hence why Rainbow was able to absorb their souls with her Warblades and add their Fel power to her own. As such the members of the Duskwatch that were loyal to the city, and refused to accept the Fel energy into their bodies, had taken to calling the other half of their organization, the ones who joined the Legion and would likely be turned into demons once they had taken a liking to the power that was being given to them, the Felwatch, but instead of fleeing and joining the rebellion once they knew what was going on, like most of their allies had done, their allies in the Duskwatch had remained to gather information and stay out of trouble whenever they were sent into the city, before they inquired as to why Thalyssra was here, with her allies no less.

Normally Spitfire would have suggested not telling anyone their plan, since they could be lying to get on their good side so they could backstab them later on, but Thalyssra seemed to trust them and she revealed the mission they were on, which surprised the trio that they were here to create a manastorm to grow a magical tree that would free the Nightfallen and all of the Nightborne from their addiction to the Nightwell, something that caused the trio to pause for a few seconds before falling in with the group, showing that they were going to help them and then teleport out of here before the storm hit, as it would be dangerous for anyone who remained in the Arcway. With that done the group headed over to a short walkway and approached a large locked wooden door that seemed to have magical locks and normal locks on it, one that opened as they walked up to it, which revealed a tunnel to them, one that had a path to their left and one to their right, something that caused the Archivists to turn to the right and pointed at the wider door that was blocking their way, where Arluin took a moment to study it before applying his skills to it, where the Archivists stood there in shock as he opened the way for all of them to move forward, all in a few seconds no less. As it turned out the door was supposed to have some defenders to prevent them from leaving this area, but, as it turned out, there were twenty more Duskwatch that weren't happy with the situation inside the city and vowed to join the rebellion in their efforts to save the rest of the Nightborne, and topple their demonic allies, before they advanced into a circular chamber that had one of the mana conduits resting inside it, close to the wall that was the opposite of their entrance, which appeared to be what Thalyssra was looking for and beckoned for Spitfire to place the E.M.P. near it, to which Spitfire pulled the device out and placed it near the conduit. Fortunately there was a pedestal near the large conduit, the perfect place for her to place the device, and once it was in place she found out something that immediately worried everyone that was gathered around this chamber, the fuse section of the device was broken and Thalyssra came to the difficult decision in regards to that information, some of them would have to wait here and manually activate the device so they could generate the manastorm, meaning Valtrois had made a mistake when she made it, but instead of leaving the area their new allies formed a circle around the center of the chamber and started to channel their Arcane energies into a barrier, one Thalyssra joined as they waited to see what happened next.

Once everyone was ready to go Thalyssra channeled part of her magic into the device and activated it, something that was followed by a storm, identical to what happened to the Arcan'dor earlier, started from Valtrois' device and Arcane lightning branched out as it striked the surrounding area, causing everyone to fall in under the barrier as they waited to see if there were any additional enemies for them to worry about, foes that might stop the manastorm from happening and ruining all of their hard work to reach this point. As Spitfire expected more of the Duskwatch came to investigate what was going on and were surprised by what they were seeing, especially since some of their own allies were standing with Thalyssra, but, as she predicted, those same Nightborne fell in and aided them in powering the barrier and lashing out at the members of the Felwatch, as it was only a matter of time until those who were tainted by Gul'dan's energies to come running to check out what in the world was going on in the Arcway. Rainbow lead the defense with Elylia, making sure to strike every single member of the Felwatch that came to this chamber and tried to bring them down, basically allowing her allies to cut down their foes as her weapons drew in the souls of their enemies, adding more Fel energy to her growing pool of energy while containing their souls inside her Warblades, though neither her or Spitfire were surprised by the fact that there were those who allied with the Legion and were starting to walk down the path of gaining more power, even if it corrupted them into monsters that sought the death of everything that existed throughout the universe. The only thing that worried anyone was when one of the Arcane constructs emerged from another hallway and marched over to where they were standing, as it seemed to be a guardian of the Arcway and didn't care much for the fact that they were invading this place, tampering with the conduit with a manastorm, hence why Rainbow and her group lashed out at the mechanical creation without any wasted time, hacking into its arms and legs while avoiding the attacks that were coming their way, once more impressing Thalyssra as she watched them do battle with the creature, while Spitfire grasped the small pouch that contained that odd purple stone that she had found previously, which might be useful in this place if something terrible happened.

When the Arcane construct fell the power of the manastorm picked up and caused the Duskwatch to join Thalyssra in her actions, empowering the barrier so they could protect everyone from what was going on, but as the seconds ticked by one thing became clear to everyone that was in this chamber, the sheer power of their manastorm was picking up and might be getting close to the point where the walls might start taking damage, especially since tornadoes of Arcane energy were starting to form and touch down all over the chamber, like they were actually in the eye of a storm, watching as it tore into the chamber and tried to smash through their barrier... Spitfire even pulled the stone out and tried to weaken the growing manastorm by drawing the power into the stone, though while it that it formed a faint path to the device, but it didn't do anything to weaken the storm at all.

"The manastorm is only getting stronger! We need to shut that thing down!" Arluin stated, because at this point, while he did agree that allowing the Arcan'dor to bloom so it could save the Nightborne from their addiction to the Nightwell, and would save everyone that was still inside the city, he knew that if things went on for much longer the power of this storm, if what he heard earlier was correct, would do some serious damage to the city, possibly even the Arcan'dor if they were really unlucky, and he hoped that his companions agreed with him.

"Are you mad? We can't do that, as the Arcane torrents would tear whoever tried such a thing apart!" Thalyssra replied, as while she understood Arluin's feelings on the matter, given the danger that they were placing the city and the rest of the Nightborne in by creating a manastorm so close to the main conduit in the Arcway, there was no way for anyone to get to the device in question without being killed in the process, not unless Spitfire forced that stone of hers to the maximum and drew in the rest of the storm that was around them.

"Damn it... you guys owe me..." Arluin said, though before someone could stop him, since everyone was busy trying their best to not be caught by the storm that was tearing into the chamber, he charged through the barrier and burst out into the area that the pedestal was resting in, where he immediately felt the Arcane torrents starting to tear into him, without even wasting a second, to which he forced himself to focus on the matter at hand and marched over to the device with all the speed he could muster, but he did notice Spitfire was trying to save him by forging a path with her stone, allowing it to absorb whatever power was in front of him, though there was too much for her to grab and he was grateful that she was even trying to help him out.

In the end Spitfire's aid was more than enough for him to reach the device and slash at it several times with the dagger he carried on him at all times, breaking it to the point where the power inside it seemed to break, as the tornadoes died down and the lightning vanished within a few seconds of it breaking, allowing Thalyssra and the others to take down their barrier before rushing over to where Arluin had collapsed, since the device had been in the middle of an Arcane tornado and that had done some damage to him, to which she called for Oculeth to evacuate them and, sure enough, their ally teleported all of them outside Shal'Aran, and that included their new Duskwatch allies.

"Arluin... why did you do that?" Thalyssra asked, as she had been sure that if the need had been so dire that Spitfire would have found a way to force the stone to absorb all of the excess power, to find an easier way to survive their mission, but as she said that she noticed that Spitfire was storing the newly empowered stone into her pack, which seemed to be far more powerful than what it had been before the mission started, before she focused on the dying figure that she was holding, as the Arcane torrents had done a great deal of damage to his body, something that not even the druids would be able to heal in time, especially since none of them were near Shal'Aran.

"We... pulled it off... didn't we?" Arluin replied, though as he said that he coughed and wheezed a little, where it was easy to see that his body had suffered thanks to his reckless action, even if it had saved them from something they might not have been able to escape on their own, despite the fact that Thalyssra was sure Spitfire might have found a way without this happening, given her ally's growing knowledge of things, but before anyone could say anything a wave of pain went through Arluin's body, cutting away what little time he had left, "Hey... tell Vanthir... thanks for..."

In that moment Spitfire, Rainbow, and the others watched as Arluin died before their very eyes, to which Thalyssra had a pair of their new allies pick him up so he could be carried inside Shal'Aran, so his body wasn't left for the wildlife to eat at some point, before they headed into the cave and came to a stop when they noticed that the Arcan'dor was fully grown at long last, with a silvery white coloration to its bark while also having what appeared to be indents that radiated Life energy for all to feel, and it had branches that went in all directions while vines hang from each branch, stopping just an inch or two above a Nightborne's head, though Spitfire smiled as she saw that, as it meant they had been successful and that Arluin hadn't given up his life for nothing, and now it was only a matter of time until the rebellion was ready to take the fight to Elisande and her foul demonic allies.

Comments

[zachary12]

nice work