[Alliance] Chapter Five: Session Fifty-Eight
Appearing Characters: Arator Windrunner, Arellas Fireleaf, Baptiste Voss, Fellari Swiftarrow, Finnall Goldensword, Gilveradin Windrunner, Grommash Hellscream, James Vishas, Kael'thas Sunstrider, Lirath Windrunner, Lilian Voss, Nazgrim, Remnii, Rommath Pyrewing, Seria, Theo'remar Goldensword, Uther Menethil, Velameestra Windrunner, Victor Prestor, Zagarra
October 31st
Grom roared and focused on the nearest Penitent Exsanguinator, which had grappled him, and he wrenched Gorehowl down and into the iron maiden.
Vishas started to flail in a panic. His poker glanced off Uther’s armor, and he tried to drive his other one at Vel, but she ducked around the attacks with loud hiss. He then darted behind the Penitent Screamer and tried to shove it between himself and the feral vampyr. However, he had run right into Seria’s claws. With a shout, he instead grabbed the Penitent Screamer and threw it at Seria.
The banshee wailed at Seria and blasted a concentrated screech at her, but she shrugged it off as she started to tear bits of the cage apart.
Seria once again roared at Vishas.
Vishas screamed.
The Penitent Exsanguinator near Remnii fired a lance at her, and it glanced off the wall. Another one was loaded and it started to scuttle down the hallway.
Arator backed Remnii up and cut down the interrogator that was harassing her. His body was shoved into the stream, and he then turned toward the injured Penitent Screamer. He swung once, and the blow was blocked by chains, but the Ashbringer seared with holy light as he cut through the cage and freed the banshee, which promptly dissipated. The way was cleared, and both Arator and Remnii ran forward. Remnii’s healing magic wafted around Vel, and she then cast a blast of holy magic at the other Penitent Screamer.
Other Scarlet Interrogators started to fire at Seria, peppering her flank with bolts.
Grom released another blood-curdling roar, which drew Vishas’s attention away just long enough to give Seria an opening. She struck into Vishas and brought him to within an inch of his life. She pinned Vishas down as he screamed in terror and agony.
The remaining interrogators exchanged looks and opted to flee. However, Arator’s eyes flashed over to them.
He swung the Ashbringer through the air, conjuring holy chains, and Uther and Gil also aided in trying to prevent the interrogators from escaping. It slowed them down just enough that as they entered the hall there was a series of screams and a flash of blood red magic as Rommath ensured they wouldn’t escape.
Vishas continued to scream and he grabbed at a button. A single sleeping dart hit Seria in the neck, but it was completely ineffective as she was not affected by the poison.
Nazgrim rent open the Penitent Exsanguinator, and the corpse of a dead vampyr spawn tumbled out onto the ground. Gromm roared and leaped over the stream as he slammed his axe into the Penitent Screamer.
Arator then ran forward, and in a swath of flame, the other side of the cage was cut open, releasing the banshee inside. At that moment, Vel scrambled up over the now-empty cage and her eye fell on the pinned Vishas. She screeched and fell upon him as he fruitlessly struggled against Seria, and her fangs found his throat. She began to tear into him as he continued to scream, but his screams turned into gurgled gasps and then eventually stopped as his blood spurted from his throat.
Gil fired a series of arrows at the sole remaining Penitent Exsanguinator, and Seria turned her attention toward the construct. She started to tear into the iron maiden, and it stabbed her back with its bloody lance. They tousled for a moment, but Seria finally managed to wrench it open.
Rommath materialized on the platform, blood caked on him from dispatching other crusaders. Vel continued to dig into Vishas’s body in a feral frenzy, and as Rommath reached out to her, he momentarily froze and recoiled, unable to do anything as he stared at the feral vampyr.
Uther knelt down behind Vel and placed a hand on her shoulder. The feeding vampyr immediately recoiled with a hiss.
She bared her fangs defensively, still half-kneeling on the ground.
Vel seemed to be more coherent than she was, as she was at least able to manage speech. She stepped away from him still eyeing him warily as if she was unable to fully comprehend his presence.
Arator stepped into Vel’s periphery. Her remaining eye widened as her focus shifted over to him and her fangs clicked.
She snapped at something unseen as she once again grew defensive. Her face, hair, and body was still completely soaked in a mixture of fresh and dried blood.
Uther’s voice cracked.
Arator took a few steps forward and kneeled down a few feet away from his cousin. He offered her a kind smile, though tears were streaming down his face. Vel’s voice was also cracking as she spoke, though it had a strange, faint flange to it.
Rommath stepped forward, seemingly having regained his composure.
Vel looked over at him with a shake of her head.
Her gaze shifted back to Arator, and Rommath scowled behind his collar.
Vel suddenly looked back at Uther as if she had suddenly fully seen him for the first time.
Uther looked around, but Gil pointed out she was in fact talking about him. Uther seemed baffled and he covered one eye and then the other, and he argued he could see just fine. Remnii produced a hand mirror so Uther could look at his reflection, and Arator looked completely mortified as he was staring at two people he loved that he was responsible for maiming.
Uther’s eyes widened as he touched the injured side of his face.
He looked over at Arator.
Arator shuddered in response and then looked at Vel and asked if there was anything he could do for her. Rommath scoffed quietly to himself.
Vel looked over at Arator and then down at herself. She seemed to realize there was a stump where one of her arms should have been and she started to ask Arator where her arm was.
He looked over at Remnii and asked her if there was anything she could do for Miss Windrunner, and Remnii nodded. She looked at Vel and started to hold out her hand, but stopped herself and instead channeled [Greater Restoration] from a short distance away so that she didn’t need to touch the clearly distraught vampyr.
Vel visibly flinched away from the Light, but it seemed with the mixture of powerful magic and the feast of blood, some of her vampyric abilities were starting to ease off life support as some of her severe injuries started to slowly knit together.
Gil had gotten her dismembered arm down from the other chain and held it out to her. She took it and affixed it to the stump of her arm, where it also began to slowly knit back into place, though it appeared her missing eye and the brand that seared across her torso had not started to regenerate at all.
Grom stepped forward.
He looked over at Nazgrim and ordered them to search the cells and free anyone left.
He looked over at Vel and gave her a smirk.
The orcs departed to join the fight as Nazgrim gave them all a nod.
Vel asked the group what was going on, and Rommath folded his arms as he regarded her.
Rommath used magic to clean some of the caked blood off of Vel at a distance and he looked around and located a cloak, which he levitated over to Vel to cover herself with.
She snapped on something unseen.
Rommath narrowed his eyes at her.
Rommath looked at her for a moment, filing her behavior away for later.
Gil tried to pretend he wasn’t looking at his sister.
He glanced over at Vishas.
Victor stepped forward.
He looked over at Vel with a small smile.
Vel only seemed to just notice that he was present as well, and her eye widened as her voice seemed to crack.
She approached him and reached a hand out, but seemingly unable to bring herself to actually touch him, she grabbed onto his cloak instead. Her tattoos flickered as a abruptly powerful surge of magic was channeled into a [Mind Blank].
Victor blinked, completely flabbergasted as he realized what she was talking about.
Vel nodded at him weakly as she staggered from the expenditure of magic. Victor instinctively held up a hand to catch her, but she regained what scarce amount of composure she had left.
He gave her a wavering smile, clearly partially blaming himself for her state. The group turned to head back to the graveyard, and behind them they could hear the sound of blazing fire as Victor’s arm conflagrated and he started to unload firebolt after firebolt into the man’s corpse to incinerate it. They could not see his face, but it was an expression of cool anger and unhinged glee in his eyes.
Vel was glued to Arator as they left, hovering little more than a few feet away. Her cousin struggled to look at her, guilt clearly written on his face.
Arator looked at Vel with an expression of raw sorrow over the thinnest glimmer of happiness.
Arator shook his head.
Vel nodded.
Gil used his sending stone to inform his father that Vel had been found and she was still alive. Lirath informed him they were trying to clear a way to the chapel, and he asked Gil to take care of his sister. He sounded overly relieved.
As they made their way back to the courtyard, they were greeted by Radiant and the unicorn. Radiant was glad to see Vel was rescued, and Rommath’s eyes turned skyward. He sent a telepathic message to Kael’thas, and a moment later, the massive vampyr lord landed a small distance away. He spoke in a deep, flanged voice as he stalked forward.
Vel’s mouth flapped as she struggled to process the form he had taken in her present state, and Kael moved to approach her and take her hand or her face, but before he could, Rommath grabbed his arm.
Kael’thas looked at Rommath, and then back at Vel.
Kael’thas looked around at the rest of the group, and his eyes fell on Arator.
He bared his fangs.
He started to move toward Arator, but Vel broke her shocked confusion the moment he showed aggression and she firmly planted herself between the Crimson King and her cousin with a loud hiss accompanied with bared fangs.
Arator didn’t budge, but Kael’thas almost seemed to shrink away from Vel’s sudden show of protective aggression.
Vel momentarily interjected to quietly say “I will”, but Arator continued to speak.
Kael’thas flicked his tail, but nodded.
Kael’thas turned away.
He took a few steps away and opened up his wings as if he was about to take off again.
Kael’thas looked at him with a harsh snap.
Rom: How do you think this looks? This rampage you’re on? What do you think the masses will think as they watch you rain blood from on high?
Kael’thas snarled.
The crimson in Kael’thas’s eyes flickered blue for a moment.
Rommath visibly untensed as he realized Kael’thas could be reasoned with in this form.
Kael’thas turned and looked at Vel once more.
Vel nodded in acknowledgement. Kael’thas turned and took off into the air. Vel watched him go, clearly trying to process what had happened and what it meant that he had attained such a drastically different form as Rommath looked over at her.
Vel tilted her head as if she had heard him, but she began to mutter quietly under her breath as she tried to continue reasoning things out. Rommath caught the statement “not in this timeline”, and he squinted at her, but chose not to say anything more.
Remnii said she believed she could help everyone recover their strength, and she cast [Prayer of Healing]. Gil spent the time trying to spoon feed Vel what information he could to try and distract her from everything else. He also gave her the ring Rhonin had given him to protect her from being charmed or controlled.
While they were resting, a white raven had flown down and landed on Arator’s shoulder. He raised a hand to stroke the creature’s neck.
Vel shook her head.
She looked up at the raven intently.
The raven fluttered off Arator’s shoulder and bobbed over to Vel, where it looked up at her. She felt a connection to it, similar, but also different to the connection she felt with her familiar.
The raven bowed its head to her. A faint smile touched the vampyr’s lips as she looked back at Arator.
He gently scratched the raven’s head.
Rommath informed them he had been able to reach out to a few allies and the library where Arellas had holed up was not far. They needed to move quickly and silently.
They fought their way towards the library where Finnall, Theo, and a few of the Aurum Blades were fending back the Crusaders.
She pushed one of the Crusaders back to glance over at the group, but then did a double-take as she noticed Vel.
Theo shot daggers at his mother.
The group surged through the barricade in the halls and started to approach the doors to the massive library. Uther moved to throw open the doors, but Rommath stopped him.
His hand glowed with brilliant red energy, and the door was blown apart, dispelling the trap. He then gestured for Uther to go ahead of him.
They were immediately greeted by the sight of fire inside the library. A half dozen inquisitors were burning as many of the books they could. It was an active evacuation. A priest with a shaved head looked over at the entry, as did the elven magister Arellas Fireleaf.
He hurled a bolt of fire, but Rommath blocked it aside.
Rommath’s hand was wreathed in dark magic as his eyes shone a crimson red. At that moment, there was fighting outside as another battalion of Scarlet Crusaders arrived. Victor and Arator called they would watch their flank, and they turned to focus on the soldiers in the highway.
Seria also looked up and saw the same ranger-captain from earlier perched up above and taking aim at all of them. She also saw another figure cloaked in darkness that seemed to match the description of the assassin that Remnii and Maraad had encountered.
As Uther stepped in, Vel saw something flicker on the ground in front of him.
Uther stopped dead in his tracks, inches above where he would have touched a symbol spell. Those in the library drew blades
Lilian Voss dropped from the ceiling and immediately charged at Vel. At the last second, the vampyr sensed the presence of something dangerous as she caught the keening of the assassin’s blades. She narrowly dodged, but as Lilian whipped around with the anointed blades. Vel tried to grab the blade as it seared her palm.
Vel recognized Lilian, and her eye fell to the runes that were emblazoned on the undead woman’s flesh.
Horror passed across her expression as she realized that the information Sally had torn from her mind had likely been used to enslave the woman before her. Her grip tightened on the blade, and her eye flared with magic as she channeled a furious surge of arcane energy through her body.
The screech of outrage was not directed at Lillian, but instead whoever had perverted her magic to enslave her, and the sheer strength of the [Wish] magic cast to replicate the effects of the awakening spell she had created caused the runes on the assassin’s flesh to sear with eerie, necromantic light and then shatter
Lilian staggered back and dropped her blades to the ground with a clatter. As she recoiled, she fell into a fetal position on the ground and clutched at her face as she unleashed an unholy, distraught scream.
The priest across the room scowled and raised his hand, as if to attempt to reassert his control over Voss.
Vel’s eye shot over to him as she recognized that he was the controller, but she staggered as a wave of lethargy from the power of the magic hit her. She was only able to stand defensively over Lillian as she struggled to regain her composure.
Rommath sent her a sideways glance.
Rommath [telepathically]: Miss Windrunner.
His tone was clearly disapproving in a manner that said “stop overexerting yourself” but Vel bared her fangs in response.
Rommath did not reply with anything more than an exasperated sigh, though it was obvious there was a list of rebuttals that went unsaid.
With the assassin incapacitated, Seria roared and rushed straight for Arellas. Her claws raked into him, and he swirled his staff around and commanded Seria to be gone from his sight. He used [Disintegrate], and a beam of magic blasted right into her side. It seared through her fur and burned her flesh, but Seria roared, as she was still standing.
One of the windows broke and Zagarra manifested to kick Fellari Swiftarrow in the face. The ranger was knocked off the statue. Zagarra looked down at her with a smirk and dissolved into sand.
At that moment, a blast of magic rocked the chamber and a support beam swung down on Gil, Uther, Vel, and Rommath. Most of them started to duck out of the way, but Uther raised his hands and braced. There was creaking from both the beam and the armor until the beam slowed to a stop and he pushed it off to the side.
An echoing scream from Kael’thas radiated through the room. Vel felt her heart rate quicken as the benefits of [Haste] affected all vampyrs and bats, his very presence invigorating them.
High Priest Baptiste Voss stepped forward, and Vel’s eye shot over to him as she realized the spirit guardians around him were a swarm of enslaved spirits.
He held out his hand and blasted Seria with a wave of magic.
A god ray of light appeared over the group and then exploded with a massive [Sunburst]. Seria winched as the light flashed, and she was momentarily blinded from the bright light.
Two other Inquisitors fired a series of spells at Uther and Gil. But one of the attacks that went wide exploded over them. Uther leaped out of the explosion of magic and charged for Baptiste. He swung Bryntroll into the priest.
Meanwhile, Gil focused on Fellari and used [Arcane Shot] as he drew his arrow back.
Two arrows struck the ranger, and she fell to the ground, dead. Gil disappeared and reappeared on a nearby ledge.
Rommath looked over at Arellas.
He used [Dispel Magic], and Arellas’s spells were ripped away from him. Vel reached out and grabbed the magic as she seized control of the [Foresight] that had been dispelled.
Rommath blinked as he looked over at Vel, not mad, but somewhat incredulous that she had stolen the spell he had been aiming for.
The silence he returned was translated into “...alright, that’s fair”.
He then hurled a [Fire Bolt] that slammed into Arellas. The spellbreaker disappeared as he used [Greater Invisibility]. He teleported to Rommath and tried to drive his blade into the vampyr, but he missed as Rommath grabbed the blade in a claw.
Remnii leaned down next to Lilian.
Remnii used [Soothe] on the screaming undead. As the magic washed over her, she looked up at Remnii in a state of recovering shock.
Lilian snapped to attention, and her look of confusion soured into a look of rage. Remnii offered a hand to Lillian, and Lillian nearly pulled Remnii over in her effort to stand up. She scraped at the ground and picked up her blades. One of them was pointed at the priest.
Baptiste’s brow furrowed.
Lilian released a blood-curdling howl, and she started to race at the man and leaped onto the causeway. She covered the rest of the distance to reach Baptiste and attempted to use [Hold Person]. He resisted the spell, but she carved into him with her blades.
Gil turned his bow on the arcanist and with two shots, the arcanist was dropped to the ground. A Scarlet Crusader burst through the door behind Remnii.
Lilian drove her blades into Baptiste, which ripped his spirit guardians away. However, Baptiste started to move towards Vel and clanked his staff on the ground.
A blast of magic radiated out from the priest, and they were assaulted with a psychic command. However, everyone resisted. Baptiste then used [Bane] on Seria, Uther, and Lillian.
Seria continued to rip into Arellas.
The Scarlet Inquisition Instructor held out his blade and a pulse of energy radiated through their minds. However it didn’t take hold. He hurled a beam of blue fire at Gil and sent a spike of pain through his head. However he tapped into the Demon Soul and resisted.
Vel used a [Death Coil] on herself and then raced at the spellbreaker. However, her attack went wide. The spellbreaker attempted to take advantage of the opening, but she deflected his blade aside with her claws. Meanwhile her bats swarmed around Baptiste.
Remnii used [Spirit Guardians] and shadowy naaru manifested around her.
Arellas hurled a wrathbolt at Seria, and then he used [Cone of Cold] over Uther, Lillian, and Seria. Seria felt the death ward on her trigger as the cold washed over her.
He conjured dark magic as he started to summon a [Ravenous Void]. The spellbreaker attempted to counter it, but Vel countered the counter, and the spell went off as a gaping, hungry void opened right in the center of the room and started to suck everything into it, except for the group.
Uther closed on Baptiste and swung at him as he continued to wear down the priest. Meanwhile, Rommath closed on the instructor and grabbed him. Then cast [Living Bomb].
Vel rounded on the spellbreaker and used [Vortex Warp]. Magic scintillated around the elf and she forcibly hurled him into the void Rommath had just opened and he started to scream as the void started to tear him apart. She looked over at the Crusader that had just entered with a hiss.
The man paled as Vel then turned to Arellas.
She ripped open a gushing, bleeding wound, which was enough for him to stagger and get swept into the void. He grabbed on to a banister.
She broke the banister with her claws, and he was immediately swept into the core of the void and disintegrated. Vel snapped at someone no one could see.
Rommath started to drag the instructor toward the void as well.
Vel looked over at him as he started to use [Divine Word] and sneered.
She countered the spell.
He tried to smite her, but she dodged out of the way. Baptise summoned a pillar of holy radiance on Uther and Seria. Seria was knocked out of her wild shape and hit the ground.
Meanwhile, Rommath shoved the instructor into the void just as the living bomb he primed went off.
Lilian Voss raced at her father and leaped onto his back and began to stab as Gil fired twice into him. Baptiste started to cough up blood.
Lilian slit his throat and Baptiste’s body started to hurl into the void. But Lillian grabbed his body and began to stab him again and again.
The void continued to rip and tear everyone that was within it, and the crusader that Vel had intimidated also got swept into the black hole. Rommath stepped forward and closed his fist, shutting the black hole.
Meanwhile, Lilian continued to stab again and again into the body of her father.
When she stopped, there wasn’t much left. She slumped onto her knees.
Vel looked over at her.
There was a pause as Lilian looked up at her.
She started to cackle.
She continued to laugh.
The woman got to her feet and looked down at the mangled body of her father.
She spit on his body and walked away as Remnii moved forward to heal Seria
