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If Only

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Chapter 21

“This is probably the dumbest idea you have ever had,” Superkind said. He and Gimmlette were standing outside Warsong Hold, looking up at the dark and brooding fortress. Gimmlette was carefully unwrapping a couple of packages she had received in the mail. She looked up at him.

“Fine,” she said saucily. “I’ll go by myself. I know for a fact these are going to work as long as we keep them in our pockets.”

Superkind sighed. “No, no. I’ve come with you this far. We need to stick together. What are those?”

“These,” Gimmlette said, holding up a dark blue stone, “are the disguises Thrall promised us, the ones to get into that mine in Durotar, only we’re going to use them here.”

She handed Superkind one of the stones. It was warm to the touch. “How does it work?”

Gimmlette pulled a piece of paper out of the wrappings around a stone and read it through. “Thrall sent the activation words nicely spelled out phonetically. There should be one in each box.” She rooted through the wrappings in the other box and found another piece of paper. She handed this to Superkind.

“We hold the stone and recite these words,” she explained. “The stones are enchanted with 5 charges. Once the words have been said, we will be turned into drudge-looking trolls. That would allow us to get past any guards and down into that mine to see what’s going on there.”

“Okay, drudge-looking, I can buy that. But won’t we be out of place here?” Superkind asked. “Drudges from Durotar don’t come over here.”

Gimmlette paused and shoved the packing material back in her backpack. “It’s a chance I’m willing to take,” she said quietly. “Really Super, it’s all we’ve got. I need to know, NEED to know. I simply cannot send anyone else in here to get this information.” She paused. “And I mean it when I say, ‘you don’t have to come with me.’”

“Don’t be silly. You’re not taking Ursa along so I have to go regardless of whether I think this is a brilliant or a dumb idea. Couldn’t you just write Thrall a letter?”

Gimmlette had closed her eyes and was reciting the words. There was a small puff of smoke and a Durotar troll peon appeared before Superkind. “Right. And Thrall is going to answer me truthfully. He’s already lied once. How do I look?”

Superkind nodded, read over the paper in his hand and spoke the words. There was a small puff of smoke and Superkind took on the appearance of a Durotar troll peon. “You look like a troll, Gimm, which is, I guess, what we’re going for here.”

“Now, stick the stone in a pocket and keep it there. If it leaves contact with your body, you’ll change back. Changing back would be bad.”

Superkind stuck the stone inside his armor. His hand brushed across the vial he kept there. He pulled it out. The blood from Hogger was a deep, almost violent red. It pulsed and bubbled inside the vial. He looked at the stopper. Parts of it were eaten away. If they survived this latest bit of madness, he needed to have a new stopper made.

Gimmlette looked at the vial. “It looks angry,” she said.

“Yeah, it’s definitely more active than it was a day or two ago. “That probably means something.”

“Well, as with everything else we’ve encountered, it probably does. What that something is, we have no clue. Let’s head inside.”

Their pole arms had the appearance of walking sticks so they pretended to be pilgrims on a long journey. The guards at the front door looked them over but it was the same look they had given to a couple of vendors passing into the fortress ahead of them.

Warsong Hold was big. The zeppelin from Durotar docked at the top of the main keep, which was a good 5 stories tall. It was black with a big horde flag draped inside the front entry. Vendors, merchants, guards and workers all scurried about on their business.

“This way,” Gimmlette hissed and the two of them headed to the right toward the main building.

“Do you know where you’re going?” Superkind asked, almost afraid of the answer.

“I have an idea,” Gimmlette replied. “We know they have a mining operation inside the walls of the hold. I figure it has to be close to the zeppelin to get supplies out. There!” She stopped and pointed to her left.

Several Alliance captives were coming up a ramp pushing wheel barrows. “Slaves,” she hissed.

“I did not want to see this,” Superkind whispered. “I would have thought Thrall had done away with that kind of thing.”

“Ugh. I didn’t want to see this either, but we have to ignore it and head down into the mine.”

They moved to the left, avoiding guards as much as they could. They slinked down the main road into the mine. At the bottom of the road was a small camp where exhausted workers had collapsed and were tended to, such as that tending was. There was mining equipment here and stacks of black stone. Superkind slipped over to one stack and looked at it.

“Saronite,” he whispered. “Pure saronite. I’ll bet this used to be a mine for the Lich King. The horde drove out his minions and just took it over.”

Gimmlette nodded and motioned for Superkind to follow her. They sneaked around the back of several piles of saronite and over a small rise. There was a drop here.

“We’re going to have to slide down,” she whispered.

“Um…how do we get out?” Superkind asked, grabbing Gimmlette’s arm before she went over the side.

She looked at him. “Hearth, silly.”

“Oh yeah,” he said and watched as Gimmlette put her right hand in her pocket to hang tightly onto her stone and slid 15 feet down the side of this hill. Superkind followed.

The mouth of the mine loomed ahead of them. It was an inky black with faint orange-red circles of light coming from torches. Superkind heard Gimmlette sigh.

“Scared?” he asked and put a hand on her shoulder.

“No, just kind of tired,” she replied. “Here we go again, off to look at something that could kill us. It just gets kind of old, you know?”

Superkind nodded. “Well, let’s go,” he said.

The two of them headed down into the mouth of the mine. They stayed as close as possible to the left side of the mine wall and watched the slaves push their carts of ore up the ramp. The walking here was easy as this part of the mine had been open the longest. There were small alcoves off to the left where excess equipment was stored. The two of them made for the first torch they could see. Guards patrolled the main road into the mine. Occasionally, they would take the butt of their weapon and beat a slave, screaming something in orc at them. One slave, a frail-looking human male, fell to his knees after a beating. Superkind whipped out his crossbow. Gimmlette grabbed Superkind and pulled him to the wall.

“No, no, we can’t,” she whisper anxiously. “It will blow our cover, completely. I know it’s hard, but we can’t help them. The best we can do is stand up to Thrall and say, ‘Why do you allow this?’”

She could hear Superkind growling. She felt helpless, powerless, but unless they wanted the full force of the horde down on them, they had to suffer silently. He lowered his weapon. “This is going to be very, very hard, Gimm,” he whispered.

“I know. I know,” she replied.

They moved farther down into the mine towards a torch. So far, all the torches had been on the right side of the road. Now they faced crossing in front of a torch on the left side of the road. In addition, a tauren guard stood next to the torch.

“And how do you propose to get past this obstacle,” Superkind asked.

Gimmlette looked at him. “The same way I got past troggs growing up in Dun Morogh. Didn’t they teach you this in night elf school?” She looked at the floor. Finding a palm-size rock, she lobbed it over the head of the tauren and onto the road. It bounced down farther into the mine, rolling out of sight. She flattened herself against the wall.

The tauren looked back at them once and then took off running down the road. The two of them ran forward, past the light and discovered a small alcove to the left with more derelict mining equipment. They squeezed into the alcove as the tauren ran past them heading right. Gimmlette peered out of the alcove. The tauren was back at his post. He kept looking up the ramp from which they had come. She motioned for Superkind to follow her.

After a few minutes, the ramp began to flatten out. Miners were working the sides of the mine here. There were more torches stuck in the wall to provide better lighting. Guards had increased but many seemed to be unconcerned with watching the workers. Quite a few were asleep. They picked their way through the mine, avoiding the miners and the guards and came to a fork in the road.

“Which way?” Superkind asked.

There was a rumble coming toward them. “Cart!” Superkind hissed. They parted and each hugged the wall as a cart of ore came from the left branch, passed by them and continued on. The person pushing the cart was a blue-haired gnome. Gimmlette stepped into the road, turned and watched the gnome disappear out of sight. Superkind put his hand on her shoulder and motioned to the left. She turned around and followed him down the left road.

About 15 feet from the branch, the air changed. Prior to this, there had been the feeling of fresh air circulating through the mine. The air here was warm and heavy. It did not feel or smell fresh. There were fewer workers and guards. They entered a large room that was very well lighted. Miners were by the entrance to the room slaving away at chipping saronite off the wall and tossing it into the carts near them. At the other end of the room, a line of torches was stuck in the ground at the entry to another tunnel.

“We probably have to go that way,” Gimmlette said. “The old stone trick isn’t going to work there. Ho, what’s this?”

Superkind turned to look in the direction Gimmlette was facing. The tunnel behind them was dark. His night vision didn’t see anything.

“What’s what?” he asked.

Gimmlette was rooting around in her pack. She pulled out a small bottle in which swirled a pink liquid. She moved the vial from her right hand to her left hand and back again before suddenly lobbing the vial at the wall. Instead of hitting the wall, it hit a person, covering them in pink dye. The rogue came out of stealth. Superkind recognized the woman as Movement, the rogue who had been with Gauss and Whirlwinder in the battle over Garadar.

Gimmlette put her hands on her hips and glared at the rogue. She walked over to her. In her transformed shape, she was the same height as Movement. Standing 3 feet from the rogue, she again put her hands on her hips and glared.

“What’s she doing here?” Superkind whispered. “Did she follow us from The Barrens?”

Movement was obviously uncomfortable at being found out. She backed up and drew her daggers. Gimmlette pointed into the room ahead of them and picked up a stone. She pantomimed tossing the stone at one of the guards and then pointed at Movement. The rogue’s eyes grew wide. She understood. Covered with pink dye as she was, Gimmlette could easily frame her for the stone. She shook her head quickly, “No” back and forth.

Gimmlette contemplated the next move. If Thrall knew the horde had released something in the bottom of this mine, why send Movement to verify this? Did Thrall suspect she and Superkind were going to come here to check it out? Possibly, but he wouldn’t have needed Movement to spy on them. He would have had his best trained combat rogues to watch them. Plus, they wouldn’t have made it down this far. They would have been arrested up top because, as Superkind had pointed out, drudge Durotar trolls don’t belong in Northrend.

Movement’s reaction to the possibility of being found out made Gimmlette feel Movement was doing this because Gauss was curious. Possibly this was a mere coincidence that they would all be here at the same time, although Gimmlette doubted this. It wouldn’t take much thinking on Gauss’ part to realize if she knew something about the mine, she’d be here as soon as she could to check it out. Movement wouldn’t have had that long to wait for them.

Gimmlette reached inside her backpack and pulled out another box. She unwrapped another stone and a piece of paper and offered it to Movement. The rogue looked at her suspiciously. Gimmlette reached into her pocket, pulled out her stone and set it on the ground at her feet. There was a puff of smoke and she reverted to her original form. She picked up the stone, recited the words and polymorphed into the troll. Movement nodded, “Yes” and took the stone. She said the words and turned into a troll peon. There was no sign of the pink dye.

Gimmlette turned towards the large room in front of them. She motioned that the three of them had to cross the room toward the area where the torches were. Movement nodded and pointed at herself. Her daggers had been polymorphed into sticks. She reached into her bag and pulled out a vial. She opened the vial and dripped a sickly green-colored liquid onto the sticks. Then she put a finger to her mouth, went into stealth and began creeping forward.

Gimmlette came back to stand next to Superkind. “What’s she doing here?” he whispered.

“I believe the same thing we are, wanting to see what Garrosh discovered in the bottom of the mine. I don’t think she’s doing this on Thrall’s behalf. He must have made some reference to this after we left them and Gauss is curious.”

“Were we followed? How could she stealth all the way from the Barrens to Stormwind and onto the boat?” Superkind asked. “Certainly we would have seen her.”

“We weren’t looking for her to begin with. We spent boat time looking at our scrolls and discussing the next steps. She could have been on the boat with us and we never would have seen her. I suspect she’s been here waiting for us. Gauss isn’t stupid. He would know I’d come here because I want to know. She waited what, 2 hours for us to go from The Barrens to Stormwind to Valiance Keep to here?”

“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” Superkind agreed. “Next question. Why do you carry pink dye in your backpack?”

Gimmlette watched as what she thought was the form of the rogue approached a guard. He flinched and then stood stone still.
“Sapped,” Gimmlette said. “And you know me, I carry around all sorts of stuff. I think I had that for Epi and forgot to mail it to her.”

As the misty form of Movement approached another guard closer to the torches, there came a screech from down the darkened tunnel beyond the torch row. The miners looked up, dropped their picks and started running out of the room. Movement froze for a few seconds to let people get by her and then stealthed back to where Gimmlette and Superkind had pressed themselves against the wall to avoid hitting the miners. She stood opposite them, came out of stealth and shrugged.
The guards turned toward the dark tunnel. They, except for the sapped one, had drawn their swords. Two guards had started to roll into the room a small machine to which were affixed a number of swords on a rotating wheel. They positioned it to face the tunnel. A guard came up to the sapped guard and slapped him across the face. The guard looked stunned for a moment and then drew his sword.

There was another screech and a series of rapid clicks. From up the tunnel came a spider that looked to be a cross between a Nerubian elder and a scourge spider. The orc guards started yelling and the spear throwing machine was set into action. The beast seemed to balk at getting past the torch row. The machine tossed its load of 5 spears at the spider. Three of them stuck in the flanks of the thing while the other two missed. Several of the orc guards turned and ran past the hiding party.

The spider decided the torches could be surmounted and knocked over the two on the end. It squeeze past the rest of the line and scurried into the main room. Two guards charged it. The first guard to arrive was picked up in the beast’s pincher and chopped in two. The second guard who charged managed to slice off the spider’s left front leg. There was a deafening screech and the spider turned on the orc. It reared up and impaled the orc on its right front leg. It waved the body around in the air before hurling it against a far wall. The remaining orc guards dropped their weapons and fled the room.

Left alone with the corpses, the spider spit a green juice onto the bodies that caused them to bloat. Then it began wrapping the corpses in web, carefully, almost tenderly.

“Good god,” Superkind said. “Is that what’s down there?”

“Probably,” Gimmlette said. “And probably other stuff. If we’re in the right branch of the mine, this is where Garrosh opened the wall that kept whatever we’re fighting imprisoned. Who knows what actually down there.”

“How do we get past this?” Superkind asked.

Movement was waving her arms. She pantomimed sneaking up on the spider. Gimmlette thought about this for a minute but then shook her head. She pulled out her bow, which looked like a pea shooter, aimed, and shot a ball of ice at the spider. The trap opened right under the spider and it was suddenly encased in a block of ice. She pointed at the spider and nodded at Movement.

“As soon as she attacks, we have to be ready to shoot it. I don’t want her to die on a stupid spider thing,” Gimmlette said.
They moved into the room. Gimmlette counted the seconds until the trap would end. Movement went behind the spider. There was a click of weapons and the sound of slashing steel. The ice trap broke and the spider let out a screech. Gimmlette and Superkind fired their bows. Arrows zinged through the heavy air. The front of the spider was hit was a barrage of arrows. The beast turned its attention from Movement to Superkind and Gimmlette. They started moving backwards up the tunnel, while stopping to fire their arrows. The beast was having trouble walking due to the missing leg so they could stay at range on it. Gimmlette grabbed a nearby torch and lighted a couple of arrows. She launched these into the side of the spider. Again it screeched and swung around at Movement. The rogue deftly avoided the legs swinging at her while continuing to stab and slice at it. There was another screech and the spider dropped. Then came the smell.

The stench from the spider’s body was overpowering. Gimmlette fell to her knees coughing, her eyes watering with tears. She could hear Movement coughing, a raspy hoarse cough. Superkind leaned against the wall, his eyes watering. On a whim, he seized the torch near him and tossed it onto the spider’s body. There was a flash and the whole body went up in flames, but the stench stopped.

Gimmlette looked up at him. “Wow,” she said.

“I know,” Superkind agreed. “Let’s hope we don’t have to kill very many more of these.

Movement came over to Gimmlette and held out her hand. In it was a curiously shaped stone, not quite oval and not quite circular. It was colored a deep blood red. She pointed at the body and urged Gimmlette to take the stone.

“What is it, Gimm?” Superkind asked.

“I don’t know,” Gimmlette replied. “I think Move got it off the body. I guess I can take this back with us. Maybe Tyrande will know what it is.” She took the stone and put it into one of the empty polymorph stone boxes. Then she pointed at the tunnel from which the spider had come. Movement nodded.

The three of them crossed around the makeshift torch barrier. The air here was definitely of a hot and stale variety. It was quite dark with no little pinpoints of torch light ahead of them. They found the right side of the wall and, with their right hands touching the wall for reference, moved slowly down the tunnel. Superkind went first, his night elf dark vision coming in handy here for picking out the wall and floor. This area had been mined recently as fresh equipment was positioned along the wall. But it was not a finished mining. Gimmlette tripped over a rock and nearly fell but Movement caught her.

What they noticed first was the clicking sound; thousands and thousands of clicks, seeming to come at random intervals. It was coming from in front of them. As they moved closer to the sound, a pale lavender glow became visible. Another 10 feet and they could see the spiders moving across the ground. There were dozens of them, small and dark, scurrying this way and that.
The wall began to move to their right and the blackness began to give way to this pale lavender light. It seemed like the room was opening up. Movement grabbed Gimmlette’s arm and pointed up. The light was just enough to see the ceiling here was festooned with spider bats or bat spiders or something alive. They jostled for a spot on the ceiling, their red eyes staring down. Gimmlette grabbed Superkind’s arm and pointed up. Occasionally, a real bat would fly over these eyes and spray a mist over them.

They skirted around the right wall, staying as close to it as possible. The spider bats were more in the center than at the edge and there was a good 10 feet of ceiling not occupied by bats between the wall and the leading edge of the creatures. There was a small screech and the group came to a dead stop. Superkind lifted up his boot. A small spider scurried away. They could be easily missed as they were nearly the color of the saronite floor. Gimmlette took to scuffling along so her feet would slide under a spider and not step on it.

The heat in this portion of the mine was great. Superkind could feel sweat dripping down his scalp and the back of his neck. The smell here could be characterized as ‘ripe’, which added to the dread and uncomfortable feeling.

Gradually, they worked their way toward the lavender light. It came from a room off the bat room. The air here was fresh and pure and cool. Opposite the entry to the room was a large crack running floor to ceiling. The light was coming from this crack. It was in the form of a thick lavender-colored liquid. Twilight cultists scooped up the liquid and put it in jars which were set on the ground and on tables around the room, bathing the room in a surreal lavender glow. It reminded Gimmlette of the spirit world where you had to fight The Prophet Tharon’ja in Drak’Tharon Keep.

There were three machines the group instantly recognized as transporters placed about this area. Cultists at some tables mixed some sort of crystallized powder into the ooze which changed it from pale opaque lavender to a transparent lavender. A lid was placed on the jar and a cultist would enter a transporter and disappear. Cultists returned with empty jars.

“I wonder where they are going,” Gimmlette said. “and what they are doing with the ooze once they get there.”

“This is what Garrosh found?” Superkind asked. “He found a purple ooze.”

Movement motioned them to the left and pointed to an unused table under which they could hide, watch and not be seen. Once under the table, she looked at Superkind and Gimmlette and shrugged her shoulders.

The trio sat for awhile and watched. Cultists talked one to the other in very quiet tones so it was impossible to understand what was being said. They had the packing of the ooze down and every 4-5 minutes, another cultist would take a jar and leave. Returning cultists would bring back an empty jar.

As they watched, there came a low moan. Cultists gathering ooze backed away from the crack. A tall cultist, previously hidden down near the crack, came to the center of the room.

“Wait for it,” he called out.

The ooze in the crack started to change color. Lavender, purple, red, dark red. Superkind rubbed his chest. It was the same color as the liquid in the vial he carried. The ground began to shake and tendrils of red snaked out of the blood red ooze. Cultists backed away from the tendrils. From the bottom of the crack, there appeared a foot and then a leg. Slowly, a body squeezed itself out of the crack. It was a cross between a wight and a human, more upright than a wight but certainly similar to it and made of ooze. It had piercing black eyes and a gaping mouth out of which dripped a dark red foam. It’s “hair” was the tendrils that flailed about.

Once it completely cleared the crack, the tall cultist yelled, “Now!” and the air was filled with spells aimed at the creature. It screamed and flailed about, trying to strike anything within reach. Superkind pulled the vial out of his chest pouch and looked at it. Inside the vial was a tendril trying to get out. It was poking at the cap of the vial, breaking off small chunks on the inside. Yes, his stopper had to be replaced as soon as possible.

A cultist screamed, “I’ve been hit!” Tendrils wrapped themselves around the arms of the person. Everyone backed away from them, continuing with the spells on the main creature. Writhing in agony, the person was enveloped in dark red and dissolved into the beast.

“Step it up people,” bellowed the tall cultist. “Or we’ll feed you to it next.”

The air glowed with spells. The creature screamed but slowly sank to the floor. When the mass stopped writhing, a cultist grabbed a nearby unlighted torch and lighted it.

“No yet!” the tall cultist called out. “The master has need of this essence. Scoop it up.” Several cultists grabbed shovels and began shoveling the reddish black ooze into jars. They quickly put lids on them and bound the lids with string.

“That’s not going to hold,” Superkind said.

Once as much of the ooze as could be rescued was put into jars, the tall cultist said, “Burn the rest.”

The torch was lighted and the rest of the ooze burned. The tall cultist held up one of the jars of reddish ooze. He looked at the ooze from all angles.

“Have we fulfilled our quota for today?” he asked, to no one in particular.

“Yes sir,” said someone in reply. “We thought we had not and we made another but that one was unstable so we turned it on the orcs.”

“Excellent,” the tall cultist said. “I will take a batch to the master. He has nearly completed the transformation of that brute they call ‘Hogger’. We have another week in this miserable place and then we can leave this to the horde to clean up. Rotation will be in three hours. You know your duties. See to them.”

He held his jar closely as he stepped into a transporter and was gone.

“One week,” Gimmlette said. “We have one week to be ready.”

“Actually, Gimm,” Superkind whispered. “It’s less than that. We have to kill Hogger before they finish whatever they are doing to him.”

“Shit,” Gimmlette responded. “You’re right.”

Movement tapped Gimmlette on the leg. She pointed toward one of the transporters. Then she went stealth and dropped out of stealth and pointed again at the transporter.

“Oh good lord,” Gimmlette said. “Movement wants to go into the transporter to see where it leads.”

Gimmlette shook her head, “No.”

Movement looked at her curiously and shrugged.

“No?” Superkind asked. “Gimm, she could find out who the boss is.”

“And she would be going alone,” Gimmlette said. “We can’t go with her. We can’t stealth. No wait, I can’t stealth. You can, but I can’t. So I let the two of you go and that leaves me alone here. Or Movement goes alone and walks into something totally horrible. I can’t let her do that.”

Gimmlette pulled a piece of chalk from her backpack. On the ground, she drew crude drawings of the options. Movement looked at the drawings and sighed. She shook her head in understanding. She sat for a moment and then poked Gimmlette again. She motioned for the chalk. She drew a transporter and then herself going into the transporter. She drew a symbol on the ground next to it followed by the image of a hearthstone and pointed at Superkind and Gimmlette.

“I don’t get the symbol, Gimm,” Superkind said.

“Neither do I, Super,” Gimmlette replied. Gimmlette pointed at the symbol and shrugged. Movement scrunched up her face thinking. Suddenly, she knew what to do and drew 10 lines on the ground.

“Ah!” Gimmlette said. “Wait 10 minutes and, if she’s not back, get the hell outta here.”

Gimmlette thought about this. They needed to know who was on the other side. They needed to know who was calling the shots, who was feeding Hogger the liquid that was turning him into who knew what. But Movement could be walking into something terribly, horribly awful. As much as they were the opposite faction, they were now, kind of, in this together. Gimmlette motioned for the chalk back.

On the ground she drew an image of Thrall and a mailbox. Then she pointed to herself and circled the mailbox. Movement looked lost in thought. Then she smiled or what seemed to them to be a smile, if an undead can smile, and nodded. Gimmlette smiled and nodded at Movement and pointed toward the transporter.

Movement handed Gimmlette the polymorph stone and became her undead self again. She applied another coating to her weapons, stealthed and started to move toward the transporter. She stopped, turned back to look at Superkind and Gimmlette and came back to them. She hugged each of them and waved, “Goodbye”.

She stealthed over to the transporter and waited. In a few minutes, a cultist with a jar of lavender ooze stepped into the transporter. The bottom glowed. At the last second, Movement slipped onto the pad and was gone.

“Have I sent her to her death?” Gimmlette whispered.

“I hope not,“ Superkind said.

They sat under the table and waited. At least it didn’t smell here, nor were there spiders, guards or miners to be avoided. The cultists went on with their work. Superkind pulled out his vial. The red liquid was quiet now, congealed at the bottom of the vial.
They waited. There was, really, no sense of time down here. It could be 2 minutes. It could be 5. It could be 45, for all they knew. The transporter that Movement left on sprang to life. The cultist who had left returned with an empty jar. She didn’t act like she had seen or heard anything different from normal.

They waited. Finally Superkind said, “I think it’s been long enough, Gimm. I don’t think she can get back here or she would have. Let’s go before we’re spotted.”

Gimmlette sighed. As much as she wanted to know what was on the other side of that transporter, she knew she wouldn’t be able to go without attracting attention. It was best if she and Superkind hearthed back home. If Movement really did understand what she had asked, as soon as she could, she would let Gimmlette know what she had seen. Then again, maybe Gauss would keep that information to himself and they would die horribly without the knowledge Spectacular Death possessed. It was out of her hands now. She needed to mobilize the guild with the knowledge they had less than a week to be ready.

She pulled her hearthstone out of her pocket. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “Let’s go home.”
What is there that makes life worth living?...Cats. Cats are nice. -- Death in "Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett
Posted Dec 1, 11 · OP
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Officer
Chapter 22

“This is bullshit,” Dolvange said as he stuck his daggers into the table in front of him.

“Sorry, dude,” Skaedi replied as she downed another beer. “Pinkel went to check but given how many people are still sitting around, the portals aren’t up.”

Dolvange looked around the beer garden. People leaned against the wall or sat on the ground. Quite a few were clustered around tables. Spectacular Death had been lucky to get one of the tables so guild members could sit together. The bar maids were quite busy selling food and drink to the packed crowd.

“They just don’t want us to leave,” Dolvange muttered. “They have a captive army by holding us here.”

“Really,” Ysanne said, looking at Dolvange. “The mages would cause Dalaran to tilt and spin in an effort to keep us here for an army?”

“It could happen,” Dolvange shot back.

“Not bloody likely, dude,” Skaedi said. She was cleaning and restringing her bow as they waited. “This is beyond Rhonin and his crew.”

“I’m soooo bored,” complained Keelvera. “I want to go kill stuff.”

“We all would like to get out of here,” Argia said. “Until they figure it out, look around you. We’re not the only guild or the only people in this situation. There’s Pinkel.”

The group looked up to see the pink pigtails of Pinkel winding their way through the throngs of people. The group perked up in anticipation of some news.

“Nothing,” Pinkel said. “It’s actually gotten worse. You can’t tell when you’re in the city, but if you go to an edge, whoa… Poods has been trying for the last hour to get a fix on Ironforge and she can’t. We had to go into the upstairs of a business to try because Rhonin has guards running around asking mages to come to the Violet Citadel to help stabilize Dalaran. Poods didn’t want to go in case someone in IF can reach us. I wonder how they are.”

A figure in a hooded black cloak approached the table.

“You gave up, Poods?” Pinkel asked.

Poods motioned to the group to be quiet and she walked around the side of the table and then motioned to be allowed to sit. Weryl and Ysanne separated and the mage sat down.

“I don’t want to be found,” she whispered. “It’s not like I don’t want to help but we need to get to Ironforge. The summons was very clear.” Poods pulled a letter out of the pocket of her robe. She looked down at it. “Gimmlette has been killed. Come now,” she read. “How can we if we can’t get out of here?”

“We probably just need to talk to someone,” Lesovika said. “The trick would be finding the right person.”

“Well, without Gimm, we don’t know who the right person is,” Argia said.

The group went silent.

“I wonder if everyone got their letter. Who might be out in the world and not know?” Skaedi pondered.

“The Azerthonian mail service is quite good,” Ysanne replied. “You’d have to be way the heck out in the boonies, maybe on an ice flow somewhere, not to be close to a mailbox. Besides not knowing whom to talk to, what does it mean for this upcoming battle that Gimm is dead?”

“No clue,” Dolvange said. “I’m still in it until they tell us otherwise. We probably have to have someone else doing all the leadership type work. S’pose we have to take marching orders from Magni or someone?”

The group went silent once again as they considered Dolvange’s words.

“Wait,” said Ysanne, “what if…?” Her voice trailed off.

“Huh?” Skaedi said.

“Come on. Unless it’s closed, there’s a way out of Dalaran, a spectacular way out,” Ysanne stood up.

The rest of the group looked at her, at each other, shrugged and stood up. They maneuvered out of Hero’s Rest Lodge which was packed with people. Once out in the street, the spinning of Dalaran became more noticeable. The clouds overhead raced one way, stopped, and raced back the other way.

“Poods!” Weryl hissed. “Hood!”

Poods froze as she stepped out of the inn. Guards were everywhere and they were looking at each person they came across. Poods backed back into the inn.

“Crap,” Keelvera said. “How do we move when they are going to grab Poods the minute we leave the inn?”

The group paused for a moment.

“Baby spice!” Argia said. She turned and tossed a handful of spice onto the mage. She shrank to a third her height.

“Now, pick her up and let’s get going,” Argia said. Dolvange picked up the mage. “Don’t move,” Argia whispered. “You’re a doll.”

“Gotcha,” Poods whispered.

“This way,” Ysanne motioned and the group turned left and began walking toward the Violet Citadel.

The street was clogged with knots of people. Everyone was a bit on edge and the accidental bumping or stepping on of a foot prompted an angry, “Hey, watch it noob!” The Violet Citadel was closed off. A line of guards stretched in front of the steps leading up. From the street, a bluish white column of light shown in the center of the first floor room where Rhonin would normally stand. The group stopped just short of the stairs.

“We have to get around them and go down into the sewers,” Ysanne whispered.

“Split up,” Skaedi said. “There are so many people moving here, we shouldn’t be noticed if we’re individual.”

Dolvange, still carrying Poods, went invisible. He sneaked past the guards and stepped over and around people lying in the street. He watched as the other members of the party walked around the people by the stairs and made their way to the open sewer entrance. Ysanne and Icxlock waited at the bottom of the first ramp.

“Why the sewers?” Keelvera asked.

“The sewers have an opening out of Dalaran,” Ysanne said. “Unless they have closed it off, we can get out that way.”

She turned and headed down into the sewers.

“Um…”Lesovika started to say, but held her thought as the group followed Ysanne down.

People were down here too. There was a lot of noise coming from the arena area to their left. All the tables in the sewer inn were filled and there were lines of people fishing. Ysanne led the group across the gangway and to the right toward the goblin who sold arena gear. To the goblin’s right was a large opening in the wall. Ysanne approached the opening and looked down it. There were no guards here and it was clear to the outside.

“Dude,” Skaedi said, looking down the pipe and then back at Ysanne. “You know this is a one way trip to splatsville.”

“We have a lock,” Ysanne said, grinning.

Dolvange set down the now full-sized Poods. “So, we slide down this, come out and plummet to our death in the forest below. This is stupid.”

“Hahahahahaha,” Pinkel laughed. “I love it! What could be more fitting for us? We get out of Dalaran via a spectacular death. I want to go first! Pleeeeasseee?”

“It’s kind of our only way out right now,” Ysanne said. She looked over at Poods who was standing, arms outstretched, concentrating hard. She stopped and shook her head.

“Nothing,” she said.

Icxlock concentrated. “Take it! Take a little piece of my soul now baby!” she said, and a small white orb appeared in her hand. “Who gets it?”

Ysanne looked at the soulstone. “Well, since Pinkel wants to go first, let’s give it to her.”

Pinkel giggled as she took the soulstone and put it in her bag.

“Just don’t fall on it,” Ysanne said.

“Oooh, right!” she said, and pulled her backpack to her chest. “I’ll land on my back. That will absorb the blow.”

“Those things are pretty tough,” Icxlock said.

“Now,” Ysanne said, as Pinkel climbed up into the top of the tube. “Because Dalaran is spinning, we’ll not land in the same spot. Give us a few minutes to find your body and we’ll resurrect you. Ready, Pink?”

“Absolutely!” the gnome cried. “I believe I can fly!” and she let go of the edge. The group watched as the gnome slid down the tube. “I believe I can touch the sky! I dream about it every night and …” and she was out the end and in freefall to the ground.

They stood in silence, looking at the end of the tube. Occasionally, they could see one of Dalaran’s floating islands pass by the open end.

“How long do we wait?” Argia asked?

Icxlock twitched. “Soulstone has just been used. It worked!”

“Yes!” Ysanne said. “Yes, I had my doubts since this is such a long fall. Who wants to go next?”

“Me!” Poods cried. “I want to get out of here before they find me.”

“Good point,” Ysanne said.

Poods climbed into the tube, took a deep breath and let go of the front. The group watched the mage slide down the tube and exit into the air of Crystalsong Forest. “I’ll go next,” Keelvera said.

“You’re going to be harder to find since you’re a dwarf,” Ysanne said. “I don’t know where the graveyard is so you might want to have the spirit guide point you in the right direction to run to your corpse.”

“Gotcha,” Keelvera said and down the tube the dwarf went.

“I should go next,” Lesovika said. “We need another healer down there to resurrect people.”

“I’ll go next,” Argia said. “This scares me, but it is a way out.”

“Dolv?” Ysanne asked. “You coming?”

“Yeah,” Dolvange said. “Argia’s right. It is a way out.” Dolvange climbed into the tube and slid down and out.

There was a noise out in the hallway. Weryl climbed into the tube as a loud voice bellowed through the sewer. “By order of Rhonin, this area is to be evacuated and shut down. All people currently down here are to vacate the premises and go up top. Your safety cannot be guaranteed and all able bodied people are to report to the surface.”

The goblin to the right of the tube shook his head. “There goes business,” he said. “Oh hey, nice idea for getting out, if you didn’t DIE at the end.” He got down off his box, picked it up and walked over to the goblin banker who stood next to the bank.

“We gotta go, now,” Ysanne said.

Icxlock and Skaedi went next. Ysanne watched them clear the end of the tube and then she climbed in. She looked back at the sewer area. Guards, lots of them, were moving people out of the sewer. “I wonder what would prompt Rhonin to clear the sewer,” Ysanne wondered. “I’m not going to hang around to find out.” She let go and started to slide. The tile lining the tube was rough and the slide was bumpy. It took 5 seconds to reach the end of the tube and there was the sky and Crystalsong Forest. Ysanne shot out of the tube and easily cleared the drag from Dalaran. She tried to look back toward the city but momentum carried her forward. There were clouds and then the ground started approaching very quickly. The crystal trees came into view along with the river. Ysanne suddenly realized where Dalaran was had allowed her to fly straight toward the river. She bubbled herself as the water came closer.

Splat. “Well that didn’t quite work out as I had hoped,” Ysanne thought as she met the spirit guide. “I wonder where the spirit guide is in relation to the river?” She looked around. The guide pointed and Ysanne started the run through the black, white and gray spirit world.

Suddenly, she stopped and shook her head. She knew that sometimes you can see the mobs and other things that are alive when you’re doing a corpse run. But there was something else in these shadows. It was on the edge of her vision. She stood still and focused on a tree in front of her. The river was in the distance. There it was. It was a fleeting vision at the corner of her eye. She couldn’t quite see what it was but it seemed to be translucent black, a fleeting image of a wraith or spirit.

“Here she is!” Ysanne heard. “Come to life,” Argia said and Ysanne was pulled into the land of the living. She was grabbed by her cloak and hauled out of the chilly river.

“We just have to find Weryl,” Argia said. “He must have landed way far away.” She ran off with Skaedi to locate the warrior.

“Did anyone see anything funny while they were waiting for a rez?” Ysanne asked. She sat down and took the croissant Poods offered.

“Funny?” Dolvange asked.

“Yeah, as in something at the corner of your eye, something you don’t see when you meet the spirit guide and start running back.”

“There was something,” Lesovika said. “I thought maybe I was imagining it. Like something flitting at the edges of vision.”

“Yeah,” Ysanne said, standing up. “If you looked square at where it was, it wasn’t there. But if you concentrated straight ahead, it was. It was like a wraith or something.”

“Oh yeah,” Keelvera said. “I saw it.”

“It’s probably related, somehow, to all this stuff going on,” Poods said. “Here they come with Weryl.”

Argia, Skaedi and Weryl ran up to the group. “He was downriver quite a bit,” Skaedi said.

“Okay, let’s mount up and ride over to the flight master. We’ll take the bird to Valgarde and take the boat back to Menethil,” Ysanne said. “Maybe once we get out of Northrend, you’ll be able to call up a portal, Poods. If not, we can fly or even ride to Ironforge.”

“Who are we going to make leader if Gimm really is dead?” Keelvera said as he prepared to mount his death charger.

“I think we need to wait to see what the rest of the group knows,” Icxlock said. “My vote is with Superkind, since he’s been with the guild the longest, but maybe someone knows something we don’t.”

“Oh for sure they do,” Weryl said, as he mounted his horse. “Let’s go find out,” and he spurred his horse toward Windrunner’s Overlook.
What is there that makes life worth living?...Cats. Cats are nice. -- Death in "Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett
Posted Dec 8, 11 · OP
0 votes
1157 posts
+22 votes
Officer
Chapter 23

Gimmlette stepped off the tram and waited for Superkind to follow. The rats, the smell and Haggle sifting through the trash never look better than they did now. She took a deep breath.

“Glad to be home?” Superkind asked.

“You know it,” Gimmlette said. “I cannot wait to fall into that bed in our house and sleep. I think I might sleep for three days.”
Superkind laughed. “Well, that will screw us up if you do that.”

“Oh like you’d even let me,” Gimmlette poked him in the ribs.

Gimmlette became aware of Haggle standing there, staring at her. “Super?” she whispered. “Do I look okay? Why is Haggle staring?”

Superkind looked at Haggle. “Afternoon, sir,” he called, and started walking out of the tram. Gimmlette followed him. She felt extremely uncomfortable. Haggle’s stare followed her as she walked behind Superkind.

“You’re alive?” Haggle asked. “But…but you were killed.”

Gimmlette froze in her tracks. She whirled around to face Haggle.

“I am very much alive,” she said. “I haven’t died in a long time.”

Haggle approached Superkind and Gimmlette. He looked about the tram area and said, in hushed tones, “At some point, you will need the tram to move goods to Stormwind to take the boat to Northrend. If you check your list, I’m on it. You come see me. We’ll make them look like rat kabobs.”

He winked and started heading back toward a trash bin. “Rats everywhere. Everywhere I see rats. Always looking at me with their beedy little eyes. I'll show them. I'll show them all”

Superkind looked at Gimmlette and shrugged. Gimmlette shook her head and headed toward the exit.

“Oh Miss Gimmlette?” Haggle called after them. Gimmlette turned around to look at him. “I’m glad you’re alive. It would have been really hard otherwise.” He saluted and went back to sifting through the trash bin.

Gimmlette gave him a lopsided salute and followed Superkind into Ironforge. The both stopped at the mailbox outside the tram to check their mail. Superkind pulled open a letter, read it, shook his head and read it again. “Here’s a letter from Tarsan,” he said. “Gimmlette has been killed. Come.”

Gimmlette looked over at the letter. “It was probably really hard for him to write that,” she said. “They figured you were still alive, which is quite a leap of faith for them since they knew you were with me. Oh! What’s this?” Gimmlette held up a letter. “I don’t recognize this seal. I think I’d better just stow it and show it to Magni before I open it.”
“Good idea,” Superkind nodded.

Gimmlette stuffed the letter into her backpack and the two of them walked toward the Hall of Explorers. The crossed the stone floor toward the rented house. As they got to the middle of the hall, Muninn came out of the library with a book. He took one look at Gimmlette and Superkind and dropped the book. “By Bronzebeard’s beard!” he exclaimed, staring at Gimmlette. “You do live!”

Gimmlette stopped and looked at Muninn. “What? Does everyone on this friggin’ continent know I had a little problem with being dead?” she said, incredulously.

Muninn picked up the book, ran up to her, grabbed her arm and started pulling her into the library. Superkind followed. Once they had reached the floor of the library, Muninn spoke. “They attacked Ironforge,” he whispered. The other librarians had moved to the front entry to keep a watch for people, or things.

“Who is ‘they’?” asked Gimmlette, setting her backpack on the ground.

“Tshogga’s minions,” Muninn replied. “Right here, in front of the library. They had a force field that kept your friends in but the rest of us out. There were three of them; a void walker, a warlock and the ugliest and biggest gargoyle I have ever seen. We couldn’t get out of here to help. Four of them went down, poof.”

Gimmlette gasped. “And I wasn’t here to help defend.” She looked past the library entrance to the hall. “But the hall looks fine.”
“Aye, Magni had the guards clean everything up. Unless you were here and saw it, you’d never know anything had happened. Your guild is amazing. Beat them down, they did, every one of them. Magni’s personal priest had to resurrect them. They went some place your priests couldn’t reach. Magni has me searching for Tshogga. I found the first record of him. There is a weakness.”

Muninn opened the book. The smell of ancient texts wafted up to Gimmlette’s nostrils. She looked down at the drawing and started to laugh. “That’s it?” she asked.

Muninn’s eyes twinkled and he winked at her. “Aye, lass,” he said. “That’s it. The trick will be knowing when to do it.”

Gimmlette leaned against the table. “Suddenly, this doesn’t seem so bad.”

“What? What?” Superkind said, “Can I see?”

Muninn held the book up so Superkind could see. Superkind looked over the image on the page and then looked at Muninn and Gimmlette.

“This makes no sense,” he said.

“Aye, laddie, it wouldn’t. You’re a night elf, see, and unless you speak dwarf, you can’t read what is written here,” Muninn said with a chuckle.

“But the drawing,” Superkind said, cocking his head to the left and right to look at it. “I can’t make anything out. Shouldn’t it be clear from the drawing what we have to do? This looks like someone squashed a very large bug in the pages.”

Muninn laughed. He turned the book and looked at it. “I guess ye would see that, but these marks here are symbols. If you’re a dwarf, ye know these. But, whoa, I have wasted too much of your time. Ye needs to head to Magni. He’ll be wantin’ to see you. Tell him I found it. He’ll know what it is and I’ll be by later with the book. Move along, swiftly now.”

He shooed them out of the library with a wink and a smile. Once down the steps of the museum, Gimmlette looked back as Muninn went into the stacks. “Yeah, we gotta see Magni, but I need to dump this backpack. I’m so tired of carrying it around.”
They walked across the rest of the hall toward their house. “What’s the secret, Gimm?” Superkind asked.

“I’m going to sit on that information for a bit, Super,” Gimmlette said. “It’s not that I don’t believe an ancient book, but, well…”
“You don’t believe an ancient book,” Superkind laughed.

“With all we’ve been through, how could an old god like Tshogga be killed so easily? We’re doing all this stuff…um…has the lock been changed?”

Gimmlette struggled with the door. Her key refused to turn in the lock.

“Here, let me,” Superkind said. He pulled out his key and tried to get the lock on the door to unlock. He struggled with it for a minute and then knocked on the door. “Hello? Hello? It’s Superkind. Open the door please.”

There was silence. Gimmlette switched places with Superkind and tried to get her key to work, while Superkind knocked on the door. The lock would not turn and there was silence from the other side.

“I’m getting worried, Super,” Gimmlette said. “Where are they? Where’s Tizzy? I told her to never leave the house empty, to find someone willing to sit when she needed to leave. Could they be asleep? Muninn said they handled whatever attacked but 4 did not make it. Could he have just been kind and not willing to tell me they were all killed before Magni could drive these minions away?”

“I don’t know, Gimm,” Superkind said quietly. “This is a concern.”

“What, ho? You there! You don’t belong here!” came a dwarf’s voice from the floor.

Gimmlette and Superkind looked up to see a dwarf guard running up the steps toward them. He stopped short of the top landing and pointed his crossbow at them. “State your business,” he snarled. “This place is off limits by order of King Magni Bronzebeard.”

Gimmlette looked at Superkind. “We’re members of Spectacular Death,” she began. “We rent this house only we can’t get into it. Someone seems to have changed the lock.”

The guard’s eyes narrowed as he glared at them. “Septacular Deaf? Never heard o’ them. You’ll state your business in front of Magni himself. Now move.”

“Well, Gimm,” Superkind said, “he’s the man with the crossbow and we did need to see Magni anyway.” Superkind started moving toward the stairs.

The dwarf looked at Gimmlette. “Gimm? You mean ‘Gimmlette’? This is THE Gimmlette? But..” his voice trailed off as he lowered his weapon, clearly pondering something he wasn’t quite able to get his head around.

“Oh for the love of beer,” Gimmlette said angrily. “EVERYONE seems to know that I died. Did Magni put up some sign outside Ironforge? No one said ‘boo’ to us in Stormwind. Why does everyone here know about it?”

“You are the Gimmlette,” the guard whispered. “Shhhhhh. Not everyone knows. The name is Macmanus Stonefist. I was here when the stuff attacked. Your guild mates have been moved closer to Magni. We’ve been told to keep people away from this house is all, until it’s rented again. Everything’s been cleaned out and moved. I can show you. Want to see?” He turned quickly and nearly fell down the stairs. At the bottom, he turned and looked up at them. “This way,” he pointed.

“Actually, Mr. Stonefist,” Gimmlette said, walking slowly down the stairs, “we should go see Magni first.” She sighed, shouldered her bag and turned to wait for Superkind to walk down the stairs.

“Oh, aye, aye,” Stonefist said. “Ye just come wi’ me. I’d be honored to escort you.” He started walking toward the throne room. Gimmlette and Superkind fell in behind him.

Ironforge now looked different. The almost impregnable fortress had been breached. The shadows cast by the lights looked more menacing. The Great Forge looked darker. Gimmlette felt there were hundreds of places now for a demon to hide, to gain strength and come after them. Was Ironforge such a good place for them to be, even if they were, as Stonefist said, closer to Magni? She felt a chill run up her spine. Even though she now knew how to defeat the beast they were to fight, there were too many steps to cover between now and that time and she knew they had less than a week to get them done.

Stonefist rounded the corner into Magni’s throne room. “Oh look, Gimm,” Superkind said. In front of them, a series of tables had been formed into a square. Magni Bronzebeard was standing on a box in the middle of the square. He was reading off a scroll. Seated around the tables, both on the inside and outside, were a bunch of people, all wearing green tabards. Those who didn’t fit around the tables were seated in small groups on the floor. Everyone had a small scroll and a quill and was writing things down. “It looks like everyone’s here.”

“So,” Magni was saying, “the armor is almost complete. The vests need to be cured by having the dragons of Blackwing Lair breathe shadow flame on them. Easy enough to do. The bracers still need assembling. The weapon coating is completely done, correct?” He glanced over to the entrance to the throne room. “…and what in the name of Khaz Modan…” He looked at Gimmlette. “By Anvilmar’s beard, Gimmlette is alive.”

Magni jumped down from the box on which he was standing, vaulted the table in front of him and ran up to Gimmlette. There were gasps from the members of Spectacular Death seated around the table and crashes as drinking mugs were dropped in surprise. Gimmlette walked into the throne room and met Magni. She kneeled before the king. Magni picked her up by her shoulder pads. “Let me look at you,” he said, excitedly. Gimmlette stood in one place as the leader of the Ironforge dwarves walked around her looking her up and down. Magni took one of her hands in his. “Ye don’ look the worse for bein’ dead,” he said. “Welcome back!” and he clapped her so hard on the back that she fell forward a bit.

The members of Spectacular Death swarmed Gimmlette to hug her and shake her hands. Superkind was also swarmed with hugs and “welcome home” messages. Once people had welcomed her back, there were comments of “What happened? We heard you were dead.” Gimmlette looked around at their eager, anticipatory faces. They needed to know everything, but this was not the place to tell them.

“King Magni?” she said. The King stepped forward. “I have a lot to tell people but, no offense, I am not feeling safe and secure in your throne room. Hearing what happened in Ironforge, the shadows look darker and more menacing. Can we head down?”
Magni looked at her for a moment and then looked around his throne room. He opened his mouth to begin to object to the lack of security in this room but then nodded. “Aye, lass,” he said. “We need a very secure place. I’ll get my advisors. Stonefist?”
“Aye?” said the dwarf who had lingered by the front door.

“We need the key. You know whom to ask,” Magni said.

Stonefist nodded and turned to go out of the throne room. “Tell Muninn he’s to come, too,” Gimmlette called after him. Stonefist turned back toward her, nodded and saluted. Gimmlette turned back towards the guild. “You were taking stock in what we’ve done and what needs to be done. Please continue.” People turned and Magni lead the way back to the tables. Zelde motioned to Gimmlette to sit down.

“Here boss, take my chair,” she said. “I can sit on the floor. It’s so good to have you back.”

Gimmlette waved her away. “No, Zel, sit in your chair. I’m going to use my pack as a pillow and just listen.”

Gimmlette entered the middle of the square and set her backpack on the ground. She sat down, fluffed it a bit and then stretched out with the backpack as her pillow. Magni climbed back up onto his box, and started reading again from his scroll. He had a very soothing voice. Thrall’s was gruff, scratchy. Magni’s was like a cold Rhapsody Malt on a hot summer day while sitting at the end of the dock overlooking Loch Modan while fishing.

“All right,” he began again. “Where were we?” He scanned up and down the parchment. “Oh right, weapon coating. That’s completely done, right?”

Junas spoke up, “Yes, sir. Completely done.”

“Good. I’m crossing that off my list,” the king replied. “Gems and enchants? Who has those?”

Beyondlight’s voice answered with, “I have the gems. There is one more cut to be made and we need to go to the Sunwell to do it. I have to hold the imbued gems over the Sunwell and finish cutting them.”

“Bah humbug,” Magni said. “The blood elves don’t like outsiders tapping into their precious Sunwell. I’ll see if Tyrande can give you papers of passage. You’ll need a good dozen with you. Form a tight circle around him while he cuts them. There will be questions. I’ll hand that off to Tyrande. They’re her people, sort of.”

“Enchants?” Magni looked around the room.

“I am behind,” Rineva said in a rather small voice. “I need crystallized water, 6 of them for each enchant. We just got the mana wrym essence so I haven’t started on the water. Once the initial enchant is put on parchment, then they are rolled up, stuffed in a vial with wyrm essence. That’s got to sit for a minimum of 4 hours. Then I pour crystallized water in a ceramic bowl and ‘wash’ the enchant in the water. I guess it’s supposed to freeze them. When that’s done, I have to go to Ras Frostwhisper’s lab, have an alchemist mix up an agility flask and pour the flask over the frozen enchants in that same bowl I ‘washed’ them in. Only then will they be ready.”

“A lot of busy work, to be sure,” Magni nodded.

“Yeah, but I need to do 4 separate enchants; a weapon, a chest, a boot and a glove. That’s a lot of water,” Gimmlette could hear, from Rineva’s voice, that she felt a bit overwhelmed.

“It’s not a problem, Rin,” piped up Starrfyre. “We have enough people, we’ll go in groups of 5 to all those places where crystallized water can be found and we’ll just get it.”

“Do you know how much I need?” Rineva asked.

“Ooooh maths!” Tarsan exclaimed. The guild members chuckled. “Is Gimm asleep? She doesn’t like us doing maths.”

“No, I’m awake,” came Gimmlette’s voice from the floor. “It’s nice to have someone else running a meeting.”

“I think that’s 240 waters,” Rineva said. She set down her quill and leaned back in her chair.

Kaitrine came over to the warlock and rested her hand on Rineva’s left shoulder. “It’s okay Rin. We’ll have those waters by this time tomorrow. You’ll see.”

“It’s about pulling together to get things done,” Magni said. “You all understand the problem and how we have to work together to end this scourge before it enters the world. There are enough people…”

Gimmlette drifted off to sleep. She was running now, across the plains of Nagrand. There was a rumble behind her and lightning of a purplish black color shot past her. She didn’t dare turn to look to see who was following. She had to keep running and running and running and the scene changed. She was now running through the woods of Darkshore. She could hear the sea to her right. Bears and nightsabers took swings at her as she ran by them. There was a cackle behind her.

“You should turn about,” came a high pitchy scratchy voice. “How can you run from what you don’t know?” Gimmlette knew turning around was a bad idea so she kept running and running and running and then she was running up the hill into Ironforge. There was the sound a dozens of feet behind her. Her backpack started to get heavier and heavier the higher up the road she went. The weight of the pack made her slow down to a walk. Then, with the top of the ramp in sight, she had to stop, set down the pack and start pulling it. She knew she had to get the backpack to the great gates of the city. It was so heavy. She pulled. She tugged. The backpack seemed to be cemented to the ground. She started to cry.

“It’s all going to fall apart,” she thought. “All because I can’t lift this. It’s too heavy.”

Suddenly, she felt a presence around her. It was one, but it was also more than one. This presence lifted the backpack up off the ground and carried it forward into Ironforge.
What is there that makes life worth living?...Cats. Cats are nice. -- Death in "Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett
Posted Jan 4, 12 · OP
0 votes
1157 posts
+22 votes
Officer
Chapter 24

“I think we’re all here,” Gimmlette shouted. “I need everyone to sit down so we can go over everything.”

She was standing on a table in the Stoutlager Inn in Thelsamar. Innkeeper Hearthstove had been only too happy to rent the entire place to Spectacular Death and post guards to keep others out, when Gimmlette showed up with all that money.

“Absolutely, lass,” he said, his eyes wide. “Ye kin ‘ave the whole place fer as long as ye needs it. No questions asked. Everyone gone.”

He was as good as his word. In the morning of Day 7, when Gimmlette and Superkind awoke, not a soul was inside the Inn. A hearty dwarven breakfast was on one of the tables with instructions to just leave the plates and left over food and they would clean it up after Gimmlette and company had left.

Gimmlette looked around the room as people settled down. Guild members were stuffed everywhere. All their eyes were trained on Gimmlette.

“We have completed a week of prep work on this. We were given three weeks to get ready. I’m telling you, we don’t have 3 weeks. We have to be ready to attack as soon as we can. Our limitation is Zel’s potion, but everything else can be pushed.

“Why am I asking us to push? Because we have competition for getting rid of this thing and the knowledge, from a source at the center of the corruption that they are pushing to have the demon enter this world earlier than Tyrande and company expected. Our competition will fail. They don’t know what we know. They don’t know about the fire, about the shadow, about dying and going to a place you’ve never been before and maybe not being able to come back. They just know Thrall has charged them with taking this thing out. They will try, but they will fail. Their failure will make this worse.

“See Thrall wants and I guess I best tell it all, wants Three Score to defeat Hogger, even though, right now, Three Score doesn’t know it’s Hogger they will be fighting. Thrall wants to save face because the Horde let this thing back into the world. It started leeching into the world via the quarry under Warsong Hold, a quarry horde started with Alliance slaves.”
There were murmurs in the guild. “Wait,” Squidchin said. “Thrall has said there are no places left in the horde where Alliance are used as slaves.”

“He would like Alliance to believe this. I don’t know that he approved the use of slaves to do the mining but he’s not stopped it. Folks, that’s a problem not for us to handle. Superkind and I saw the slaves. We went to the bottom of that mine. The essence of whatever this is lies at the very depths of Borean Tundra and the horde’s desire for pure saronite tapped this essence.
“Thrall thought it was contained because he told Garrosh to ‘plug the leak’ when it was reported. Garrosh threw slaves at it. What neither of them realized is that this thing feeds on our souls, our very essence and Garrosh only fed it, making it grow stronger. The more slaves he gaves it, the stronger it got. When throwing slaves at it stopped the quota of saronite coming from the mine, Garrosh shrugged, put up a guard and let it be. Twilight Cultists moved in and are tapping that essence now. We don’t have 2 more weeks. We don’t know how long we have until it decides it’s strong enough to come fully into this world.”

“What is it?” Junas asked.

“It’s an entitiy, a presence. It was locked away by the Titans and the old gods so it probably was here when Azeroth was created or it settled here when the Titans and old gods found Azeroth. How do we know this? Two words: Brann Bronzebeard.”
There was an audible groan from the assembly. “Figures,” Hercules remarked.

“The insatiable curiosity that drove him to discover Ulduar and ‘accidentally’ awaken Algalon led him to search for the pieces to this long neglected puzzle. As much as Brann is a pain in the arse, he knows every single book in the Hall of Explorers, every single tablet and artifact at Bael Modan or Whelgar, every single oral song sung by the elves. The Naaru and the Draenei have never had a written history. It was all orally saved. They have a written history now. Brann saw to it. Along the way, he’s found stories and fragments that tell of this thing that lived here.

“The stories are vague. It’s been described as a presence. Sometimes it’s a fog. Sometimes it’s a demon. We’ve seen those. Most of the time, it’s a feeling. Yeah, you can dismiss it as ‘the willies’ before you head into battle, but it’s real. It usually took the shape of the collective fears of everyone.”

“Oh come on,” George scoffed. “We’re not afraid of Hogger.”

“That’s what it used to do,” Gimmlette continued. “It used to feed off the fears of those it faced. Brann thinks it was happy here on Azeroth for a long time. It probably lived in harmony with the old gods and the Titans. Something changed. He doesn’t know what, and it became a threat to the Titans and the old gods. The problem is that it’s so intertwined with the world that they couldn’t destroy it because it would destroy Azeroth. So, they tricked it to go deep into the planet and they were able to lock it away. The fact that almost no one currently alive remembers reading about it suggests it actually was happy where it was.

“So what’s changed? Brann suspects the horde tapped down too far in the hold. The need for saronite for both the war against Arthas and the war against us caused them to mine deeper than they should have. The stone around and under Warsong Hold is of an exceptionally strong nature. It’s ideal for battlements and buildings that need to be strong. It’s only found in this area and this area is also home to the Nerub’ar, spiders, another very ancient race. As they mined down, they opened up the Nerub’ar tunnels and that drove people from some sections of the mine. So, then started mining in another area and stumbled upon this being.

“Brann’s not for certain, but he thinks their initial contact with this thing did not go well and that caused it to decide life on the surface needed to be eradicated. He also suspects someone, a twilight spy, tricked both factions into opening up their libraries. In the libraries are books that talk of this thing and the power it wielded so long ago. The Twilight Cult figured out a way to bottle this thing’s essence. They may or may not know what they have but they don’t care. They have given this essence to the most innocuous boss they could think of, Hogger.

“For Hogger’s part, his limited cranial capacity allows him to only see that he’s beating up on people who may have beaten him up in the past. That’s a heady feeling, revenge. It’s probably driving the being, too. It’s been disturbed. It’s being siphoned off. It probably doesn’t care who gets ‘eaten’. It’s part of the battle to stay alive.

“Lest you think only the horde are responsible for this, that’s not true. Alliance have allowed it to seep into the world. I’ll be taking 9 of you there this afternoon. We have to see how badly the area is overrun and report back.”

“How do you know all this?” Zelde asked.

“I couldn’t sleep the night before Super and I went to meet Thrall. I got up and wandered. Ironforge is a beautiful city. It makes me feel secure and strong. I wound up at the throne room. Magni was still up. We talked. You know, Skip, how we suspected we weren’t being told everything?”

Skipperdo nodded.

“Well, we weren’t. Magni was afraid if he told us everything, we’d run screaming for the hills. I must admit, that’s a tempting thought. I didn’t run. In fact, I checked out this story. Superkind and I went to Warsong Hold, went to the mine, saw the slaves and we saw the Twilight Cult.

“I’ve died to it, twice now. Some of you have died twice or just once. You know the result. Instead of a white and gray spirit world, it’s a black hole under your feet and a voice taunting you. Suddenly, you’re shoved and you feel yourself falling, being engulfed. You know, deep inside of you, that if you fall far enough, your whole essence will be snuffed out. You want to know what fear is? That’s fear. When my lifeline is finally up and I’m facing the Titans at the end, I want to go peacefully, willingly. I don’t want to go into a black hole where everything about me will be destroyed. Imagine the whole world being like that. You can’t. We don’t have the ability to think in that big of terms.

“When I sat in that dusty tent in Mulgore and listened to Thrall, I realized that as much as I whine about having to save the world and not wanting the job, it’s what we’ve been tasked with doing. This isn’t about glory. There won’t be monuments erected in our honor nor will there be parades through town and retirement cottages along the ocean. Brann is chronicling everything but his book will go up on the top shelf of the library and very few people will bother to read it. Millennia from now, if this is ever awakened again, someone might remember that a guild wearing green took on the boss and defeated it. It’s hyperbole to be sure, but this is for survival.”

“So, where do we go from here?” Anjinxy asked.

“We have to step up our efforts to be ready. After this last attack that killed me, we will find it tougher to bring down the demons it summons. When we go to kill Hogger, we must have everything we’ve been asked to make done and ready. Rineva is working on the enchants; we need shadow and fire protection. Skipperdo has the glyphs the 10 of us need to equip the day we ride into battle. You want to tell them, or should I?”

“Oh let me,” he said, hopping up onto the table. “I just want to see their faces. We have to use a Lexicon of Power to affix the glyph to our spellbook. And this glyph is a one use thing. Once we attack Hogger, we have just so much time to make sure we down him before it disappears, not to put any pressure on the party.”

“Superkind has made vests which will be worn over our chest pieces and bracers to be worn in place of our regular bracers,” Gimmlette continued. “We have to get some of the Durotar red clay, distill it to a slush and spread that on our exposed skin when we face Hogger. I need a group of people to take some disguises and go get some clay, but only go at night. All our jewelcrafters have gems to cut for the vests and bracers. I have to decide who is going with me to do battle. The rest of you can come and stand at range to launch attacks. If you are someone who usually smashes things with your mace, you’ll need to practice shooting at target dummies and I suggest you go to Darnassus or Exodar to do that. Ironforge has been breached and while Magni will do what he can, he can’t completely protect us. I can only take 10 people total to fight this thing.

“As I said, we’re waiting on Zelde’s potion. That is the most intensive item to be crafted. Where is it in process, Zel?”

Zelde stood up. “It’s done maturing inside the barrel. Tonight, we go to the Wetlands and take a look at our vials. The liquid inside them should be azure blue. The stuff in the cask wound up making 53 vials. After the sun sets, I, Byndi, Pinkel, Fontaine and Branni are going to the windmill. We’ve got our Froststeel tubes capped with crystal corks. Meanwhile, Savien, Connacher, Brighide, Dirtdart, Duellona, Revyk, Clairc, um…who am I missing?”

Alpinedoelin stood up. “I’m going,” she said. “Me, too,” said Icx. “And me,” said Vervaine. “I wouldn’t miss it,” said Wodehermit. “I think all three of us are planning on going,” said Acord, as Ive and Deadwarf stood up.

Zelde turned to Gimmlette. “This group is taking the tubes to Ragnaros’ Lair. We don’t need to fight him. We just need to get lava from the pools surrounding him. When that’s done, five warlocks are summoning us to Icecrown Glacier and we’ll be adding snow ‘until the fizzing stops’, whatever the hell that means. Then, this has to go to Enchanter Nalthanis who puts the final enchant on it. They sit for 48 hours and we’re good go. Three more days, tops.”

Gimmlette looked around the room. There were no smirks. The people who stood up, volunteering their time to enter Molten Core has resolute faces. Gimmlette nodded. “We have trips into Blackwing Lair with the vests and the bracers. We have trips into Shadow Labs to capture Pandemonium’s essence for gems and the final cutting in the Sunwell. Junas needs to use the forge inside Utgarde Keep to turn the weapon coating liquid. It’s a lot to do, but we can get it done and we can get it done in three days.

“I am not about to shame the warchief into admitting the horde opened the way for this thing to come into Azeroth. Can you imagine what Wrynn would do if we walked into the Keep and said, ‘Oh, by the way, Thrall and company allowed the most devastating thing ever to escape a prison deep in the bowels of Warsong Hold? And, here’s proof.’ He may have every reason under the sun for hating the horde, but I can guarantee, it will be nothing compared to the fury Wrynn will exhibit when we tell him that.

“But, no longer are we going to scurry like rats around the corners and edges of this kingdom. We have a job to do and I don’t care who knows it. 80% of the people we meet won’t believe us anyway. So, go do what you have to do openly, in the middle of Ironforge, on the roads and in the hallways. If it’s going to attack Shatt and Dalaran, it doesn’t care who knows anymore.

“Do we offer help, like, the Kirin Tor?” Brighide asked.

“No, don’t offer help. Rhonin, for all his smarts, has no idea what he’s facing and I don’t have time to explain it. If you get hauled before Wrynn or Jaina, tell them to talk to me. Don’t volunteer, but don’t deny. No one joins Spectacular Death until this is over. I’m not taking new recruits because only 10 of us can battle Hogger in the end anyway. Superkind, Skipperdo, Junas, Zelde and Rineva are already tagged. I have room for 4 more and I don’t know who it will be.

“But what about Dalaran’s spinning,” Brighide continued. “The stories are that it’s gotten worse.”

Gimmlette paused and looked down at the table. “I know it has. The word out is that if you didn’t get out, as I’m told some of you did in spectacular fashion, you are now there until this is over. I’m told the Lich King has been seen flying at the edge of Icecrown, looking at Dalaran with what we can only imagine are hungry eyes. The destruction of Dalaran removes an impediment in his complete conquest of Northrend. But there’s nothing we can do to help except kill this.”
Gimmlette turned towards Skipperdo. “Hand them out.” Skipperdo nodded, picked up a small red bag and started working through the assembly handing out a shiny metal disc to all the mages.

“All guild mages must wear this on your chest piece. It needs to be in plain view,” Gimmlette said. Rhonin got the various leaders to agree to have any and all mages head to Dalaran to help stabilize the spinning. Guards in every city walk up to mages and order them to submit to be teleported to Dalaran. It doesn’t matter if you’re a new mage or an old mage, you’re being conscripted because they don’t know what they are battling. This badge gives you special dispensation not to be sent to Dalaran. If you forget it and you are approached, I can’t help you. Period. You’re gone to Dalaran. Guards in the outlying cities won’t bother you and there are stories of groups of mages meeting in Gadgetzen and Booty Bay. My advice is, unless you need to be in the capital cities, stay out of them. Wear your badge at all times and never go alone anywhere. You are welcome to go to Anvilmar in Dun Morogh. It’s not cushy, nor does it have many amenities. In fact, I don’t even think there’s a mailbox there, but it’s way out of the way and the long reach of Alliance forces doesn’t get to Anvilmar.”
Gimmlette looked around the inn. “This place is good too.”

“All done,” said Skipperdo, who sat down next to Prinny. “Shiny,” Prinny said and stuck the badge on the front of her chestpiece.

“One last thing,” Gimmlette said, pausing in mid stride on the table top. She had been pacing back and forth, punctuating the oration with hand gestures. “We cannot die. I know you giggle and think, ‘But Gimm, we’re Spectacular DEATH.’ I’m serious here. We cannot die. We don’t have the luxury of having a personal shaman running with us who knows how to call someone back from this so the key is to not die in the first place. When it comes to Hogger, I will die. I will die for this guild and for this world. We might be successful without anyone dying but, if it comes down to a sacrifice, I’m it. I’ve made provision for Superkind to take over. I can die, but the rest of you cannot.

“Travel together. Do not travel alone until this is over. Any other questions?”

The room was silent. Then Totorodoo raised his hand. “What’s next?”

Gimmlette pointed at Tizzy. “See Tizzy for what things can be done next. I need the following people to mount up and ride with me; Superkind, Junas, Kaitrine, Corda, Skipperdo, Amaranthaer, Rineva, Tarsan and Squidchin. We have an excavation to visit.
What is there that makes life worth living?...Cats. Cats are nice. -- Death in "Sourcery" by Terry Pratchett
Posted Jan 4, 12 · OP
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