Seekers of the Epitaph: World of Azeroth

by Xarmar13

Serpentshrine Cavern, Part 3: The Coilfang Matron

Vashj observed the lights on a secret panel in her chamber. Originally, there were five red lights to show that the terminals being guarded by her strongest minions were still active. One by one the lights turned green to show that the terminal was deactivated. Raida and her allies were taking down each minion in turn.

The naga witch could only think about how things had come to this. She conjured Hydross to purify the fel-tainted water through lesser water elementals drawing the toxins in. In a way, she was doing the work of those Cenarion druids. The leviathan who protected the waters along with the countless groupers ensured that intruders could not sneak past her defenses by swimming in the water. Admittedly, Leotheras was intentionally shackled where he was so Raida would end him as was demon hunter tradition. That happened as she hoped it would. Vashj didn’t have the heart to tell Karathress that any information that the broken prisoner had would be pointless now that the contingency plan was in effect. He was another tragic sacrifice to the plan. The same was said for Morogrim who followed her here with his murlocs. He had nowhere else to go after Queen Azshara had forced him from his home.

Vashj remembered her former loyalty to the Old God N’Zoth, the fiend who turned an entire civilization of Highborne elves into the serpentine creatures of today. Azshara struck that dark bargain that cost Vashj the beautiful form she once had but in exchange she discovered her talent in cunning. Through following Illidan to Outland, she escaped the influence of the Deep One. She felt more free than she had in ten thousand years, perhaps even all of her life if her earlier life as Azshara’s handmaiden meant anything.

Vashj knew that within the next hour, either she would be dead or Raida would be dead. She was not going to go down so easily though; the young demon hunter would face challenges far more difficult than herself and she needed to be ready to face them.

Once the final light turned green, Vashj pulled out her bow. The mystical arrows that she conjured through her magic ensured that she would never run out and also give her adversaries a painful electric shock with each arrow that hit.

Now, she waited.

---

The party returned to the ring of naga work stations in the center of the reservoir and made their way around until they reached the fifth platform where the bridge control device was located. They rested for a few minutes to gather their strength before the final battle in this place. Once they were ready, they turned their attention to the bridge controls.

“Get ready everyone, Vashj is a skilled marksman and a user of lightning magic,” Raida warned. “There’s no telling what else she has to use against us.”

Mena and Raida walked up to the two consoles that operated the bridge mechanism and began pressing buttons until the gate opened and three bridge platforms rose from the depths and locked themselves into place. The excess water ran off the bridge surface for a few seconds. The archways that rose with the platforms had seaweed dangling from them which showed how long the bridge had been underwater.

The party was silent as they crossed the bridge toward the chamber where the Coilfang Matron ruled the naga from. Raida had known Vashj to be one of Illidan’s most loyal lieutenants though she did learn a little history about her and found out that she was one of Azshara’s handmaidens which made the demon hunter wonder many times where the naga witch’s loyalty lied.

However, this was irrelevant now. With the plan in motion, she had her orders to kill Vashj regardless. A large part of her felt bad about what she was about to do though.

They reached the other side of the bridge where they stood on a rocky rim that surrounded a small moat around a tall, circular stone platform with stairs all around it leading to the top. A pillar had fallen on one side.

The party crossed the moat and climbed up the stairs to the top where they spotted their foe, surrounded by four strange devices. Vashj had silver scales along with four clawed hands. Her armor was brass-colored and composed of a small breastplate, numerous armbands, spiked shoulderguards with scarlet spheres embedded in them, a waistband, a tailband, a necklace, headgear and some rings to decorate the black snakes and moray eel that composed her hair. She carried a bow in one hand and a dagger in another. A third hand had metallic claws.

“I greet you, Lady Raida,” Vashj said.

“Vashj,” Raida responded.

“You know what must be done, I hope you are ready to follow through.”

“Can you answer me one thing; why were you and your naga hoarding water?” Raida asked. “I can understand that you naga need the water for your survival, but why damage the ecosystem?”

“Originally, we were stealing water from the lakes in order to bring the Sha’tari forces to heel. Monopolizing an important resource gives you control over others, after all,” Vashj answered.

“But that became difficult after the Dark Portal opened and the Alliance and Horde would be able to supply their own water for the war effort. Have you not received any further orders from Lord Illidan since then?” Raida asked.

“I believe you have expended your ‘one thing’ for this conversation, Lady Raida. Remember that this operation was carried out under Lord Illidan’s authority. You have your orders and I have mine.” Vashj readied her bow and pointed it at Raida. “You will not find me easy prey!”

Raida dodged out of the way of the first shot which emitted electric sparks where it landed where the demon hunter was a moment ago.

Vashj then hit Flutashe with a spell that caused her to discharge electricity which zapped Talia, Mena and Bella as well. This caused the party to scatter to avoid having multiple people being hit by that.

Lokosh, Flutashe, Bella and Raida charged forward while Stella, Surprise, Feloma, Farra’jin, Talia opened fire. Groun tried wrapping Vashj in roots but the naga reacted quickly and stabbed the roots with an arrow dipped in a potent poison which caused the roots to wither.

The naga witch called her own roots to restrain the four next to her before she slithered back a short distance and electrocuted them with a Forked Lightning spell. The four were quickly healed which prompted Vashj to shoot at Bella, Groun, Stella and Farra’jin.

Flutashe shifted into her snake form which allowed her to escape the roots before she shifted into her bear form and pounced on her. The naga punched Flutashe in the face who backed away before Vashj could do more.

Vashj quickly got back up and blasted Lokosh, Raida and Bella with balls of electricity. Raida broke the attack meant for her with a black eye beam. Vashj managed to dodge the counterattack and fired several arrows at the demon hunter who dove to the side to avoid getting hit by them. Raida couldn’t deflect them because she risked getting electrocuted by the arrows.

Before Vashj could fire another arrow, Lokosh charged in and tackled her with his shield. Vashj counterattacked by grabbing the warrior by the ankle and throwing him at Stella who placed a slow fall spell on him to soften his fall and nullify the impact.

Stella launched several bolts of fire, frost and arcane at Vashj who raised a barrier to protect herself. The barrier drained her mana per impact so she was quick to dismiss it. The witch conjured a tornado that sent Bella, Mena and Talia flying through the air before she aimed arrows at them. The shots were blocked by Farra’jin’s earth elemental.

Vashj had to dodge several of the elemental’s attacks until she gathered enough magic to hit it with a powerful blast of electricity that shattered it. However, the amount of magic she used to destroy the elemental was not insignificant and she was beginning to feel drained. She was beginning to feel her mana reserves running low and she would be at a major disadvantage if she ran out.

She needed to use that. Conjuring another tornado, Vashj managed to force everyone away from the center of the platform where she took her place. She then pressed a hidden button on the floor which activated the four devices around her, which began hitting her with continuous beams of energy. She then raised her mana shield to ensure that she couldn’t be harmed.

“The time is now! Leave none standing!” Vashj called out.

The next few moments were spent with the party hitting her with everything they had but the shield stood without a scratch. Meanwhile, the party was getting electrocuted by Vashj’s lightning.

“How can that shield take such punishment?” Bella asked. “How is she able to maintain such a powerful shield?”

“I bet those devices around her are mana generators. They’re providing her with an endless supply of mana so we can’t break through her shield,” Raida said.

“Mana generators?!” Stella exclaimed. “Those things are considered forbidden because they drain the leylines of the world. Malygos would throw a fit if he discovered one of these things, let alone four.”

“With the world dying as it is, the naga probably thought that tapping the leylines here wouldn’t make things any worse than it already was,” Raida figured.

“So how do we deal with the generators?” Flutashe asked.

“Attacking the generators directly would cause an overload and contaminate the area in wild mana, the wildlife would end up mutated as a result,” Stella said.

“Then we need to find something to gunk up the works in each generator to stop it from working,” Raida offered.

As they were trying to think of a way to disable the generators, water elementals began to form from the moat around them and began to climb the steps as they slowly made their way toward the center where Vashj was. The party prepared for a fight but the elementals seemed to ignore them and robotically continue their advance toward the naga witch.

“I have a bad feeling about those elementals,” Raida said.

“I’m sensing enhancement magic in those elementals,” Stella said. “I think they might be moving towards Vashj to enhance her power.”

“We can’t let that happen or she might become too strong for us to handle.” Raida rushed toward one of the elementals that was the closest to reaching Vashj and easily destroyed its bindings. The others joined in and worked to keep the elementals away from Vashj until they could find something to disable the generators with.

Things became more complicated when naga warriors emerged from the water and slithered onto the platform. These naga wore red armor and carried scythes. “While you rack your minds on how to solve this problem, my elite forces shall entertain you,” Vashj said. Raida, Lokosh, Flutashe and Bella fought the elite warriors with the others throwing their spells at them.

By the time they took down two elites, the battlefield became more hectic as two giant strider creatures emerged from the water and slowly walked up to the platform. Their legs were at least three times the length of their bodies and their arm tentacles were just as long. Their bodies were light blue and green with appendages on their bodies giving off a purple light. “These creatures are under my control, you will not dominate their wills so easily, Flutashe,” Vashj said.

Feloma and the spellcasters focused their attacks on the striders while the others kept the naga warriors busy. This became more difficult when they found that the striders emitted a psychic pulse that compelled the spellcasters, except Mena, to flee in terror. Surprise quickly took over for Mena and invaded one beast’s mind before she assaulted it with her shadow magic. The strider soon toppled over and landed on a naga, crushing him under its weight.

Stella blasted the legs of the other strider and caused it to fall down the stairs while Raida finished off the remaining naga.

Their victory was short lived, however, as more naga elite and more striders emerged from the water. This wasn’t including the fact that the water elementals were still coming out of the water and creeping toward Vashj to empower her.

“Just how many of these things are there!?” Talia shouted in frustration.

“I have more than enough forces in this chamber to overwhelm you all,” Vashj replied. “It is only a matter of time before your defeat.”

Vashj was not bluffing. With each wave of enemies defeated, more emerged to take their place. They were exhausting themselves against the minions and Vashj was invulnerable thanks to those mana generators powering her shield. Unless something happened soon, the fight would be a battle of futility.

Sophia and Thanatas lent their assistance in keeping the elementals at bay. Thanatas couldn’t help but wonder why one of those hadn't shown up yet. The key to breaking this cycle was in those things showing up. So why haven’t they?

“Twilight, run a scan and see if you can locate any toxic elementals. They should have shown up by now,” Thanatas said.

“I’m not picking up any traces of toxins in the water, the moat is too clean for anything of the sort to form,” Twilight responded.

Thanatas had a feeling that this was the problem. It could be that in the original timeline, there were enough impurities in the water to allow for the creation of toxic water elementals whose cores could be used to shut down the generators but if the water was too clean to do that, this fight would only end one way.

This gave her the leeway she needed to take action.

“Looks like you did too good of a job cleaning the water, Vashj,” Thanatas said. “Now I get to have a little fun.”

Thanatas pulled out a flask filled with a green substance and tossed it onto the floor to shatter it. The fluid took on the shape of a living glob of ooze. The ooze was drawn to the endless mana being produced by the generator and creeped toward one of them. Vashj wasn’t sure what the death knight was planning until the ooze creature reached its destination and exploded. The substance seeped into the generator and caused the inner workings to become stuck. The generator shut down, cutting off a source of magic for the naga witch.

“No!” Vashj glared balefully at Thanatas before she prepared a lightning spell to send at her only for the death knight to plunge her sword into the floor as the attack was fired. Thanatas was hit but most of the spell ended up grounded.

Thanatas laughed wickedly as she pulled her sword out and jumped back before shattering another flask in her hand before throwing multiple ooze creatures that bounced toward the other generators while spraying ooze along their paths.

Vashj would not see the other generators fall so easily. She fired three arrows that struck the slimes and sent them flying into the moat.

Thanatas giggled at this action, a wicked smile on her face. “Bad move. That was a concentrated form of a strain of the Plague of Undeath; my own version of course. You just contaminated the water supply!”

Vashj’s eyes widened in horror as the death knight said that. From her perch she could still see the moat but her jaw slowly dropped as she saw the ecological disaster that she just caused. The moat was gradually turning green.

Even worse was that the reinforcements that emerged from the diseased water showed signs of succumbing to it. The striders looked withered and were attacking their living kin with reckless abandon as well as blasting them with a powerful laser from their proboscis. The naga elite emerged from the waters moaning with their scales in a horrid state. The zombie naga attacked their living counterparts while the party watched this horrifying display.

Vashj soon realized how bad her situation was when the creeping water elementals were gone, replaced by elementals contaminated with the plague creeping toward her like a deadly fungus. She held no fantasies that the elementals were beneficial anymore.

The plague elementals splashed themselves against her shield which sprayed plague past her. Some of the remains got into the shield generators and slowly began to interfere with their functions. Vashj blasted the elementals with her Forked Lightning but more kept coming. It was like fighting the Scourge again, except this time she was alone.

Her final lifelines soon failed her as the last three generators deactivated and left her with limited mana again.

With the living reinforcements defeated and the generators down, Thanatas ordered the elementals to return to the moat and the undead to return to their brethren. She would bring a few transport crews to collect them later.

Sophia and Thanatas backed away from the fight as the situation was manageable by the party once more.

Vashj looked at Raida, “How can you have someone like that among you?” she demanded. “She wields power not unlike The Betrayer of Lordaeron, how can you trust her?”

“It’s not that they trust me, it’s that they would rather not have me as an enemy!” Thanatas called out.

Vashj looked at Thanatas for a moment, then back at Raida who shrugged. “What she said,” the demon hunter responded. She then readied herself to continue the fight. “Let’s finish this!”

While the party resumed their assault on Vashj, Thanatas tossed a series of opened vials into the diseased water which mixed together and began a chain reaction which caused the toxic water to gradually turn blue again. The death knight made sure to calculate how much antidote she needed to revert the water back to its pristine state again. As much as she preferred the water to be contaminated, she would rather not take on any unnecessary ire from the Cenarion Expedition. There was no reversing the zombification of the naga or spore walkers and that meant that she would still profit from this in the end.

Once the fight resumed, Vashj dropped her barrier to conserve mana for her final stand. She cast her Forked Lightning spell more often which put more pressure on the ones who could cast healing spells. She also fired more arrows in quick succession to add to the pressure.

The party was no longer able to stay in one place for too long because Vashj had called in her final weapon. A swarm of mind-controlled sporebats flew into the chamber and began spitting toxic spores on the platform.

Raida began using her agility to leave deep cuts into Vashj’s flesh while the naga tried to halt her movements with her weapons. A cloud of spores near Vashj forced Raida to break off her attack momentarily which gave the naga space to throw Raida into the air with a tornado. However, Raida’s mastery of her wings allowed her to escape the cyclone and dive down on Vashj with both warglaives raised. Vashj attempted to block the attack with her bow and succeeded at the cost of cracking her bow.

This defense left her open to the spellcasters and hunter unleashing a barrage of spells and arrows which forced Vashj to raise her mana shield momentarily to absorb the attacks. This came at a great cost to her remaining mana. Vashj tried to retaliate with a Static Charge spell to make one of them discharge electricity to attack the others but they were too spread out for the spell to be effective and the toxic spore clouds were not helping her in that area.

Bella, Lokosh and Flutashe moved in to assist Raida but Vashj called on roots to hold the four in place while a sporebat sprayed them with spores. Groun took control of the roots and made them release their victims while Farra’jin placed his water totem and set it to cleanse poisons to get the spores off their bodies.

As Vashj slithered away to find a better position, Raida used her eye beam to trap her in a ring of black crystals. Vashj tried shooting at the demon hunter but she disappeared from her view. She tried desperately to find her opponent but she was too late as Raida appeared behind her just as she unleashed a torrent of felfire from her mouth which triggered the crystals to explode around the naga witch. The blast caused her scales to fly all over the chamber and shattered her bow. Vashj screamed in pain and surprise as she collapsed on the floor.

Vashj struggled to rise but she was too slow to stop Raida from decapitating the snakes in her hair, causing them to fall to the floor. She then felt the demon hunter grab her head from behind and felt a point at her back. This was it for her. Weakly, she groaned, “I have my mission and you have yours.”

Raida raised an eyebrow in confusion. “What do you mean? What mission can you accomplish when you’re dead?”

“If you ever cross the veil, I will tell you. Now, finish this!”

With a nod, Raida plunged her warglaive through Vashj’s chest and her heart. The naga witch gasped and choked as her lungs filled with blood. Raida removed her blade and backed away as blood sprayed from the witch’s wounds. She gently fell to the floor and let out her last breath, allowing the gentle caress of death to take her.

Raida had a bad taste in her mouth from all of this. In the end, Vashj had never once uttered a disloyal word about Illidan. It seemed her suspicions of Vashj’s loyalty were groundless. It still begged the question of why she would turn her back on Azshara when most naga were fanatically loyal to her. Sadly, this would be a question that she may never find an answer to.

The others approached Raida and gave her a gentle, yet sad congratulations for defeating her. They knew that the demon hunter had mixed feelings about this so they kept it tame which she appreciated.

“We need to tell the Cenarion Expedition that the naga threat has been removed,” Flutashe said. “They will want to begin operations to return the water to the lakes.”

Mena gasped as she remembered something. She walked over to Vashj’s corpse and began rifling through her armor for any bags or compartments that might hide something. It took a couple of minutes before she found what she was looking for. It was a small bag that held a vial that contained a few drops of water. She handed it to Stella.

Stella could tell that there was a lot of magic within those few drops. It made sense that the water came from the Well of Eternity, one of the most powerful sources of magic on Azeroth. She stowed the vial in a pocket dimension until she was ready to give it to the Bronze Dragonflight.

Though this adventure had a bittersweet ending, they took heart knowing that the next place they had to travel to was filled with those who deserved what was coming to them, especially that traitor.

Author's Note:

I hope that I made the Vashj fight entertaining. I included some of her abilities from the WC3TFT version of her for this fight. Vashj will return...in the 9th season/arc.

Up next: more destruction of naaru property.