Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth

by Xarmar13

Engineering Satellite

It took them until nightfall to return to Thunderlord Stronghold. Lokosh and the others were exhausted from their trek through the wasteland. A few ogres and ethereals tried getting in their way but otherwise, the trip was uneventful.

Rexxar offered the group a place to rest for the night and told them that they would be visiting his associate who would help them with the remaining Sons of Gruul.

This gave some relief to the party that Rexxar and his mysterious associate would help ease the burden of their mission. Of course, they needn’t forget their main mission. It had been over a year and still they had not seen any sign of the Epitaph Fragments and it wasn’t helping that they were risking their lives getting sidetracked by these side missions. They could already hear Gemini’s mocking laughter in their minds. At least Windwhisper didn’t judge them since she likely already knew when they would find the first fragment.

Somehow, they were able to put their frustrations out of their minds and fell into slumber on their bed mats.

The next morning, Rexxar was the one to fetch them and told them to get ready. The group quickly prepared and met the mok’nathal at the ramp leading out of the stronghold. Silently, he urged them to follow him down the ramp and into the canyon where they proceeded around the left side of the arena this time.

It wasn’t much farther before they saw two individuals, one they met before. Mog’dorg awaited their arrival beside a dark skinned human who wore a set of robes in the colors of bright orange, dark red and a little bright red with a mantle that resembled a trio of snake heads on each side.

The human’s presence gave the group an odd impression, as if there was something imposing about him. He certainly didn’t look like a shaman but the attire did make them think of molten lava for some reason. Another oddity was that he gave a scroll to a black dragon whelpling as they approached. The black hair and the way it was styled seemed familiar too.

“I believe that you are familiar with Mog’dorg, the other is my associate, Baron Sablemane,” Rexxar introduced.

Sablemane put on the air of a noble which made Talia narrow her eyes at him. “Charmed,” he said.

Talia could see through the facade, there was too much coincidence that the human before them resembled that black dragon they killed last year. The robes, the hair and even his attitude, the signs were all there. Thanatas once told them that the Black Dragonflight liked to behave like nobility, this was evident in Onyxia, from what they were told, and from Nefarian’s behavior. Even Deathwing played such a part, once upon a time.

“Excuse me, Your Lordship, would you mind if we spoke in private?” Talia requested.

Sablemane raised an eyebrow at the undead’s request. He had heard about them from Rexxar, though he cared little for lesser beings like mortals. This one appeared to be well mannered enough to respect his title at least. “Very well,” he accepted.

The two moved away from the others while Mog’dorg wasted no time in going over the plan to deal with one of the gronn. Once they were out of earshot, the two stopped and faced one another. “What is it, girl?”

“Please mind your manners, Baron. I will get to the point in due time. I wish to ask if you have a brother.”

Sabellian frowned at being chided by such an abomination, but he kept his feelings to himself. “I cannot say that I do. Is that all?”

“Oh come now, you resemble someone we met last year. He put up a good fight, before myself and my associates killed him. Surely you can say that you are related to someone who went by the name Lord Victor Nefarius.”

Sabellian lost his composure for a moment and flinched, though he kept that reactions as subtle as he could. Once being a Canterlot noble, Talia was skilled in the art of scanning for tells in one’s reactions and and picked up on that reaction.

“So I was correct, your reaction gave it away,” Talia pressed. “You do share similarities to Victor’s appearance, after all. If you are indeed related to him, then that would make you a black dragon.”

The baron growled, angry that he allowed her to outplay him. He growled, “What do you want?”

Talia’s shitty grin was plainly visible, “Only for you and your flight to understand that you may try to muscle your way into human politics, but you will never truly be nobility.” She then turned away to return to the others. “We are finished here.”

Sabellian made a mental note to incinerate that impudent woman at some point. He set that thought aside for now and followed her back to the others.

---

As it turned out, there was an exit in the back of the garden of the Botanica and the ancient and his expedition came into the ship through there. Yet, when they took the exit passage, they ended up going through a hallway that led them back to the main entrance somehow, telling them that the expedition did come in through the main entrance but found the side passage somehow.

This was one mystery that they were not going to solve anytime soon, if ever.

For now, they exited the Botanica and were greeted by the dismal landscape of the magic-scarred land. They still had two more ships to explore but only one they had access to at the moment. With half of the Arcatraz key secured, they set their sights on the other ship, the Mechanar and the key fragment that was in the hands of a mad elf who needed to be stopped as soon as possible.

According to Raida, Pathaleon the Calculator was not only responsible for the large crystal in Hellfire Peninsula which spawned a number of angry rock giants, but he was also the designer of the mana bomb that obliterated Cenarion Thicket and Kirin’Var Village and would have done the same to either Allerian Stronghold, Stonebreaker Hold or Shattrath had some adventurer not come by and detonated the bomb prematurely, obliterating the elves of Firewing Point instead.

While the others were flying toward the Mechanar, Stella made a detour by teleporting back to Kirin’Var Village where she handed the Keystone to Vargoth who was elated to be free from the tower. He wasn’t sure he wanted to go outside, given the horrific conditions, but it beat being trapped in a tower for the rest of his life. Once the two were outside the tower, Stella opened a portal to Shattrath so the archmage could find a place to relax and catch up with his colleague Khadgar.

Stella then flew back to Tempest Keep and the engineering satellite where the others awaited her. Once the five were together again, they made sure they were fully prepared before they entered the ship.

After passing through the entry corridor, they entered a room that appeared to have a few stairs leading up to a stage with a large crystal in the back with a pair of energy pipes. The room was occupied by six blood elves and three arcane golems, two of whom were patrolling the two side passages beyond.

Stella drained one golem and overloaded another with that energy, sending one group of elves flying forward. Bella slammed her mace into the chest of one of those elves while they were in motion and shattered his ribcage. Surprise took control of an elf wearing blue robes and had them stab an elf in red robes with their dagger. The attack didn’t kill them but the dagger was laced with an anesthetic which caused the red-robed elf to quickly pass out. The other three elves attacked the controlled elf until the priest stopped controlling him. Instead, she assaulted the mind of the sleeping one with void magic.

Flutashe used her cat form and hurled a guardsman into the remaining golem and dodged several thrusts by another blue-robed elf who was decapitated by Raida along with the other elf who was injured before.

The remaining red-robed elf summoned a pair of arcane elementals to attack the intruders but were absorbed by Stella’s ability before she used it to overload the remaining golem. The ensuing explosion sent the red-robed elf flying into a powerful punch from Flutashe, breaking their bones.

With the entry guards taken out, they were left with two options on where to go. Mena, Flutashe, Bella and Stella looked to the one who might have an idea on where to go next.

Luckily, Raida had received a tour of the satellite ships back when Kael’thas was ordered by Lord Illidan to teach her warlock spells. “Either way leads to the same room. The Mechanar is actually much smaller than the Botanica and the Arcatraz. The next room is the production floor where they manufacture mana storage cells. Pathaleon’s office is on the second floor and the left path is the closest to the elevator.”

Going with Raida’s suggestion, the group proceeded down the left corridor and faced a few more elves and a golem. They moved up a ramp to face more defenders and emerged onto a platform that was occupied by a blood elf engineer and several mo’arg engineers and gan’arg engineers. There were also more defenders guarding a flight of stairs leading downward. It came as no surprise that the blood elves and the demons were working together carrying around cubes of mana and stacking them into a pile. A larger mo’arg appeared to be overseeing their activities.

Not wanting the overseer to get in the way, Raida used her stasis spell on him while they faced the engineers and guards.

The elf pulled out a strange gun that struck Bella and shrank her down to Mena’s size. This made defending against the demons’ attacks more difficult. The elf then pointed the weapon at a mo’arg and made him grow, forcing Bella to dodge his attacks.

Surprise took over for Mena and took over the elf’s mind. Thankfully the ray’s effects were temporary so Bella returned to her normal size quickly. Surprise then turned the tables even further by making her grow large enough to allow her to kick her adversary into a wall, crushing him. The guards were shrunk and stepped on by the paladin.

The elf then made Raida grow to where she decided to go after the overseer. She struck his body with a warglaive which broke the stasis spell. The demon claimed to predict that she would die painfully before he activated the buzzsaw on his left arm.

As he charged forward he swiped his buzzsaw arm at Raida who vaulted over him before she planted both warglaives into his back, causing him to howl in pain. She knew the effects of the growth ray would wear off in a few seconds so she took this chance to throw the mo’arg over her shoulders and sent him landing hard on his face. She only had time to cut off the buzzsaw arm before she shrank back to normal.

The mo’arg managed to get up slowly, his face in incredible pain and green fluid flowing freely from his left arm. “An unforeseen contingency…” he muttered as he used a laser on his right arm to cauterize the wound. This left him distracted long enough for Flutashe to rush over and snap the demon’s neck.

In that moment a golem spotted the intruders at the top of the stairs and tried to attack only for Stella to drain its power core.

As the demon fell, a blue crystal fell out of his pocket. Bella checked the crystal against the one they received from the ancient but there was no match. Still, it didn’t hurt to check if it could be useful elsewhere.

Their way forward was down the flight of stairs. More guards and mages protected the bottom but were blasted by the excess arcane energy Stella claimed from the golems.

More gan’arg engineers moved to attack. These demons were equipped with mana grenades which they tossed at the party. After dodging a few blasts, Bella became irritated at their antics so she used her hammer to bat one back at them, burning them with arcane energy. This angered the demons to the point that they activated all of their grenades at once and recklessly charged at them like a suicide bomber. Raida imprisoned one, Bella knocked one out with her hammer and Surprise controlled one into holding the last of them in a grip. The party backed away as the grenades went off all at once.

A golem patrolled near the elevator flanked by two mages. Stella overloaded the golem’s core and obliterated the mages with the energy.

With the path to the elevator free of guards, the party prepared to move to the top floor.

…Or so they thought.

Blocking the way to the elevator was a crossing grid of mana lasers that ensured that nobody was getting on the elevator so easily.

“Looks like we need to find out how to get this thing unlocked,” Raida figured.

Examining the elevator further, Mena discovered two holes on either side of the elevator with the insides of those holes colored red and blue. Bella pulled out the blue crystal and thought for a moment before she inserted the crystal into the blue slot. The crystal glowed but nothing happened, likely because they needed the red crystal which had to be somewhere in the vicinity.

“Let’s keep looking around,” Stella said.

The party had to go around a wall of mana cubes to explore the rest of the floor which was teeming with demon and elf engineers. It took them some time to clear out a fair number of enemies until they found their first sign of real trouble in the central part of the floor.

A giant mechanical construct was walking around the central floor. Its chassis was of a bipedal design with silver-colored armor plating and an arcane core. Its left arm had a grasping hand and its right arm had a large piston. Oddly enough, it looked like something a gnome would build.

“It calls itself Mechano-Lord Capacitus,” Raida warned. “It uses the arcane energy in its core to cast magic so be careful.”

Unfortunately for Stella, this one had its core protected within that armor so she couldn’t drain its energies. They would have to fight it the old-fashioned way.

Flutashe charged forward in bear form to gain the construct’s attention. Bella used her light hammers and swords in an attempt to damage its armor from range. Stella blasted it in the center with fire and frost spells to weaken the armor at a single point while Mena focused on healing.

The commotion got the engineers’ attention but decided to watch the fight since they really didn’t want to get in Capacitus’ way.

Raida’s burning fel magic did cause the construct’s armor to heat up and Stella took advantage of that by breathing spellfrost on the spots glowing green.

Capacitus began counterattacking by releasing a series of clear remote controlled bombs around him. The bombs moved about randomly until they picked a spot and exploded after a few seconds.

Mena’s eyes widened as she felt her hair stand on end. She then began barking out orders, “Stella, stay next to Flutashe. Raida, stay away from them. Bella, stay next to me.”

The others had no idea why the gnome was suddenly calling out for positioning but decided to trust her and hope that she wasn’t leading them into a bad position.

A moment later, Capacitus released a strange wave of electromagnetic energy that washed over everyone nearby. Stella and Flutashe’s bodies had a faint blue glow while Raida, Mena and Bella had a faint red glow.

The demon and elven spectators nearby were huddled next to each other as the wave passed over them. Some turned blue while the rest turned red. The party saw that the spectators were suddenly electrocuted to death.

It took Bella a few moments to think about what happened. When they stood next to each other they were fine and felt much stronger but when the spectators had the same thing, they died of electrocution. She saw that the difference was that she and Mena were glowing the same color and Flutashe and Stella were the opposite color to them and were fine.

It was Stella who voiced the conclusion, “It’s a polarity spell! Being near someone of the same charge powers you up but standing next to an opposite charge electrocutes us.”

This must have been the reason for Mena’s warning. She must have foreseen the attack coming somehow. Mena continued calling out for position changes as the fight progressed.

Suddenly, a large mo’arg came down the stairs to investigate the commotion. This one had a large hammer for his left arm. He foolishly decided to charge into the battle and barreled through the bombs that Capacitus scattered around the floor. Each blast packed a painful kick and his recklessness resulted in his body getting torn apart by arcane explosions. A small red crystal bounced off the floor a few times and landed near Mena.

It wasn’t long afterward that Stella and Raida’s efforts were rewarded with a large hole in the construct’s armor. Arcane energies began to leak from it and Stella forcefully pulled the energy free from the core. In desperation, Capacitus tried protecting itself with a physical and magical barrier but though this did prevent Stella from draining its core, it only made things worse as the energies leaked faster with each spell it cast. Within seconds, Capacitus ran out of power and deactivated.

After Mena grabbed the red crystal, the group returned to the elevator where Bella inserted her crystal again while Mena used her Levitate spell on herself to gain the height necessary to reach the red slot and place her crystal inside. The crystals glowed as the mechanism activated. The mana beams protecting the elevator soon deactivated and the elevator was functional again.

“Be prepared for a lot of fighting when we get up there,” Raida warned. “Pathaleon and his apprentice, Sepethria, will have a lot of protectors guarding them.”

“Who is Sepethria?” Bella asked.

“A mage with a specialization for pyromancy. I’ve heard mages can conjure water elementals, she can conjure fire elementals.”

“There aren’t many mages willing to conjure servants of fire or arcane,” Stella said. “Mages tend to prefer to conjure water elementals because the potential for accidents is much higher for the other two types. Conjured fire elementals leave trails of fire in their wake and arcane elementals are harder to control and often unstable. I could conjure those types of elementals myself but I haven’t had the need to do so.”

The five of them stepped onto the elevator and ascended to the upper floor of the facility. A few mana cubes were stacked in a corner of the room they entered. Two arcane golems patrolled the room and four elves, two guards and two mages, guarded an alcove that they couldn’t look into from their angle. Another group guarded the exit.

Once again, Stella drained the exposed core of one of the golems and used the energy to overload the other golem. The guards and mages were knocked away in the ensuing explosion.

“Who dares interfere with our work?” demanded a female voice that sounded like it came from the alcove. Entering the main part of the room was a female blood elf wearing decorative robes in colors of black, white, red and gold with glowing, spiked shoulderpads. “I will incinerate all of you!”

Sepethrea summoned a trio of fire elementals that began chasing Bella, Flutashe and Mena. When Raida got close to her, a sudden blast of flame and a teleport escape from the mage left the demon hunter disoriented. A fourth fire elemental was summoned and pursued Raida.

“This is the best you have to offer against me?” Sepethrea laughed. “My minions are more than enough to finish all of you.”

Raida was becoming annoyed with the mage’s arrogant behavior. She could have easily overpowered her if this were a battle of power. However, Sepethrea was not about to fall into that type of battle and was more than content to keep control of the battle.

Flutashe, Bella and Mena were struggling to reach Sepethrea as the fire elementals were slowly setting the room on fire and leaving them with little room to move.

Having had enough of this spectacle, Stella summoned four elementals made of ice and sent them to attack the fire elementals. Each ice elemental that came into contact with a fire elemental ended up with the ice elemental exploding and freezing part of the room, putting out the flames and destroying the fire elemental.

“Is that all you have, Sepethrea?” Stella spat back. The nethermancer grit her teeth in anger before she began channeling an arcane spell only to have it countered and several bolts of ice striking her feet and freezing her in place. Sepethrea escaped the ice with a Blink spell.

“You guys go ahead, I’ve got this.” Stella declared. “I’ll catch up before you reach Pathaleon.”

The party could see that Stella was confident that she could win this so they decided to proceed toward the exit. Sepethrea teleported in front of them to block their way. “Did you think that I would let y-” She then vanished and appeared next to Stella who knocked her into a wall with a forceful blast of arcane energy. Not questioning what just happened, Flutashe, Mena, Bella and Raida proceeded through the doorway.

“How…did you…?” Sepethrea asked.

“A snap summon spell,” Stella retorted. “Good for bringing a nearby object to you and can have combat capabilities if you know how to follow up.”

Growling in frustration, Sepethrea summoned five fire elementals to attack Stella who countered with five ice elementals. Both mages blinked away before the icy explosion occurred.

The two exchanged attacks and teleported all over the room. A few teleports in, Stella got a read on Sepethrea’s magical signature and became able to predict her teleports. Using this knowledge, she planted arcane traps in places where she was likely to teleport next while under the cover of launching bolts of frost at her.

A moment later, Sepethrea stepped on one of the traps and the explosion sent her flying into the air. Sensing that she was vulnerable to attacks in the air, she conjured a molten barrier to protect herself.

Stella conjured a sphere of wild arcane magic that was outside of her control but at the location of Sepethrea’s estimated landing point. As predicted, the mage landed into the field and the magic quickly destroyed her barrier and began to tear away at her body. The wild magic also interfered with her own magic and made casting difficult.

Stella prepared her finishing blow by summoning an ice, fire and arcane elemental and had them surround the sphere. Soon the sphere faded and Sepethrea fell to the floor. Before she could react, the three elementals grabbed her by the legs’ waist and arms. Sepethrea’s eyes widened in horror as the elementals made contact with each other. With the arcane elemental added to the imminent explosion, the blast would be amplified. Stella teleported into the corridor beyond the room moments before she heard one last scream and a loud blast that rocked the Mechanar slightly.

Stella chuckled to herself as her experiment with unstable elementals proved a rousing success.

During the fight, the others had their own share of battles as well as they fought waves of mages, guards, engineers and an arcane construct along a crystal walkway. Without Stella, the construct proved more challenging but still couldn’t keep up with Raida’s speed as she infused felfire into her warglaives and slashed away at its armor plating. Surprise used the engineer to give Bella and Flutashe a size advantage, Bella blocked any fire spells sent at them by the mages while Flutashe mangled them. Surprise made her puppet shrink himself before Bella stepped on him.

As they were going around the bend, another few waves appeared and attacked them. Their battle was put on hold temporarily as an explosion rocked the ship. Stella rejoined the group not long after that. None of them were going to question the explosion they heard earlier because by now, they realized that things like that happen when Stella handled a situation.

Once Stella drained another golem and used that energy to obliterate another group of elves, a figure appeared in the room beyond. This one wore dark crimson and black robes with a curved sword and a golden shield like the ones the guards carried around. It wasn’t hard to figure who the guy was.

“You’re the one who designed those mana bombs and killed those innocent people with them?” Stella asked.

“It would have included even more of my prince’s enemies if that meddlesome adventurer hadn’t gotten involved,” Pathaleon replied. It was clear that he showed no remorse for his actions.

“How can you justify mass murder?”

“Everything I do is in the name of Prince Kael’thas. Now, since we are on a strict timetable, I will allow you one more question before we come to blows. Choose carefully, or don’t.”

The party could sense that the engineering mastermind was mocking them, but Stella kept a straight face as she asked him her last question. “Indulge me, they call you Pathaleon the Calculator, can you tell me the estimated time that the last bomb went off at Firewing Point?”

Pathaleon gave her a confused look. He had no idea why she would want that info but didn’t think it was anything she could use against him so he humored her. “The bomb went off three days ago. The bomb detonated shortly after I conversed with that failure of an overseer so I would estimate at about three nineteen PM. Now that you have asked your last question, let us begin.”

Of course, while he was thinking about the incident, it distracted him long enough to not notice that Flutashe had snuck up behind him and grabbed him by the arms. Raida punched him in the gut to keep him from uttering any magical words.

“Get the key fragment from him.” Stella ordered.

Mena quickly moved in and searched the engineer’s pockets and found the crystal shard they were looking for.

Stella then conjured a portal which appeared unusual to everyone as the rim of the portal had an oddly sand-colored rim. The portal led to Firewing Point. The central plaza of the outpost featured a metal orb that had electricity dancing around it with increasing frequency. “Throw him in!” Stella ordered darkly. Flutashe wasn’t sure why the mage had that kind of expression, but went with it as she tossed Pathaleon into the portal before she closed it.

“What was that about?” Raida asked. “You just let him get away!”

“No I didn’t,” Stella retorted. “There was a reason I asked that last question. I just needed that information to know when to send him.”

Bella’s eyes widened in realization, “You don’t mean…” Stella silently nodded in reply.

“Wow, pretty ironic that the guy built several mana bombs only for one to be his downfall,” Raida commented.

Bella let the others discuss what happened while she turned her attention to the crystal shards. Mena gave her the one she found in Pathaleon’s pockets while she pulled out the one they got from the ancient.

In addition to the wings that she obtained from A’dal’s blessing, she also received the knowledge necessary to unite the two key fragments into one crystal. Using the light of the naaru, Bella was able to combine the two successfully.

She then loudly gave a polite clearing of her throat to get everyone’s attention. The others looked at her and saw the crystal key. “I believe that we have overstayed our welcome in this place. We have one last satellite to explore and several tasks to complete aboard that vessel.”

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to take a break and rest before we explore the Arcatraz,” Flutashe offered.

Now that they thought about it, they had been feeling some fatigue since they had just explored two of the ships back to back and the experiences were trying them physically and mentally.

Stella opened a portal to Shattrath so they could get their rest in a safe haven.

Raida had a feeling that they were going to need that rest.

Author's Note:

If there's one thing I enjoy while writing this story, it is finding interesting and fun ways to kill boss mobs. Back in retail BC, Sepethrea was a pain to deal with, especially on Heroic difficulty. It felt satisfying to nuke her. I also got a sense of satisfaction when I had Pathaleon die to his own mana bomb.

Next time: The Prison Satellite (though the title won't be called that).