[Horde] Chapter Three: Session Sixteen

Appearing Characters: Ameer, Arthak Saurfang, Azgadaan, Caria Felsoul, Gel'nok, Go'el, Halno, Kaza, Khadgar, Levia Blackflight, Nyxxa, Rehgar Earthfury, Sadras, Sagaz, Samaara, Sinestra, Sorak Thunderforged, Sylvos Windrunner, Val'zuun, Viridius

December 7th

The rest of the day, Arthak opts to just take the day off as a day of resting and reflecting. Meanwhile, Halno was splitting his time between a spell scroll and teaching Sagaz common.

Azgadaan returns with Rehgar about halfway through the day, and he is able to catch up with everything that happened after he helps Rehgar get the skarvyn to where he needs them. Arthak approaches Azgadaan after he returns to Gramgun’ker.

Azgadaan confirms, mentioning he got most of the group that attacked them--they actually had to leave a few behind.

Arthak confirms, and after Azgadaan finishes helping Rehgar getting the skarvyn into a secure frostwolf pen he does some shopping.

However, as he is wandering around, he spies Sadras with the Frostwolves. She doesn’t notice him at first.

She has a number of satchels, and she is lashing some things onto a few bags. Summerpaw is sitting nearby.

Sadras takes a deep breath.

She elbows her frostwolf, who whines back at her.

They part ways, and Azgadaan gets the sense that there is definitely a lot on her mind. As soon as he’s far enough enough, he opts to send Arthak.

The reply is left at that. Azgadaan sighs and then heads back to Gramgun’kur with the stuff he purchased. He finds Arthak without much trouble.

Arthak walks Azgadaan through what happened.

Arthak confirms.

As they are about to part ways, someone walks in through the southeastern palisades that lead toward the Sunwell Plateau. The figure is unfamiliar, but the answers come to them as they see them. It’s an ethereal. There is a satchel slung over his back. The energy under his wrappings is a brilliant white, and the clothing this individual wears is set for traveling, but it is also very nice. He doesn’t seem to have any weapons on him.

He is taking a look around.

Azgadaan messages the ethereal and draws his attention to the pair of them. He raises a finger in their direction and ducks his head down and makes his way over.

Arthak approaches as they are speaking.

He pulls out a small metal device with a focusing crystal in it. He kneels down and tinkers with it, then holds it into the sky and looks up at the barrier.

Viridius bows and then takes another look around, finds a more sparse area, and he then begins to pull things out of his bag. There’s a small rod which magically grows. He does that three more times, and there’s a tarp that follows as he sets up a tent.

Azgadaan also sends Levia, and asks if she is doing okay and if she can get a curse removing spell. She confirms she can, and she’s doing alright. Azgadaan also asks if she wants some orcish lessons and if she can help with some things, and she confirms she can.

Azgadaan goes to collect his armor from Gel’nok, and the mok’nathal does have it done.

In the other room, there is an armor stand with the armor on it. The gemstones of the Vindicator armor have been replaced or reinforced. It still has hints of draenic origin, but the colors are more unified, and any amount of ornamentation has been replaced with flat metal.

Gel’nok holds his hand out to collect the rest of the payment, and Gel’nok pockets it.

He lumbers away and leaves Azgadaan to collect his armor and shield. The rest of the day he heads off to start working on his projects, though he stops by to check on Levia.

Azgadaan opts to send Nyxxa to inform her that Levia is doing okay, as Nyxxa remained on the mainland. Azgadaan also informs her that they got a lot of skarvyn, but they weren’t able to help the elven spirits. Not yet, anyway.

He speaks in Darnassian.

Azgadaan heads back and starts working on his project at his home.

Back on the mainland, Nyxxa was spending her time scouting. She has been slipping her sleep schedule so that she can do most of the scouting at night. She does receive a notice from Azgdaan that Levia is doing well, and learning orcish, and Azgadaan himself is trying to make a sending stone.

As Nyxxa is lazing about waiting for evening and resting, she finds a pile of corpses that were likely thrown there from the many battles. It is obvious that the corpses are of not only orcs, but also elves, and the smell is powerful. There are also hundreds of rats swarming over the pile. The rats seem to be pretty distracted, but fearless.

Nyxxa does know that the lowest forms of creatures, like insects and vermin, can sometimes fall prey to more base natures and feed off the unnatural states they may be in. She realizes that she should likely not alert them to her presence, as the rats have likely gorged themselves on fel-infused creatures and become more violent.

Nyxxa uses detect evil and good, and she doesn’t sense any undead or fiends. It doesn’t seem the rats have become fiendish, but they are much more aggressive.

Nyxxa steers clear of them, but as she is starting to get to work, she notices that she is being followed. As she casts a glance back, she sees an orc with a gray leather hood covering the upper half of their face. The hood, at parts, seems to be dyed with blood. She has seen some of these orcs before--the orc’s right hand is missing and replaced with saw of some sort that has been dyed red. Otherwise, she has boiled leather shoulder pads and a harness that covers her breast. Her lower half is covered in a half-skirt or kilt.

The orc grins and gestures with her head for Nyxxa to follow.

Nyxxa strolls closer.

Nyxxa follows the orc and she leads her into a ransacked alley. Nyxxa is keeping an eye out for exits. There is a lot of debris, and there are some small ingresses that would lead into the sewers. However, Nyxxa can hear skittering, and she sees a flash of dark eyes from down below. It’s skarvyn.

The orc stops, and Nyxxa can detect at least two others.

The orc then smiles again.

Nyxxa detects that her exit has been blocked, and a large skarvyn has stepped into the path.

Nyxxa nods.

The orc steps forward.

The orc, clearly Sinestra, offers a hand, and Nyxxa takes the hand. As she does, Sinestra grips it, and there is a sharp pain in Nyxxa’s hand, and she takes necrotic damage. And Nyxxa feels dizzy suddenly. She staggers back a bit, but she retains her stance. However, her hand is paler, and she feels light-headed. There is a single drip of blood that falls to the ground.

The skarvyn behind her climbs back into the building and disperse.

Sinestra, still in the guise of the orc, turns and slips into the sewer grates.

Nyxxa takes a moment to go over everything that just happened, then she heads off to do scouting. Khadgar also messages Nyxxa that night, and she relays any info she found about the boats.

She also uses see invisibility to look for any spies, and she mentions she followed through with the conversation she spoke about earlier.

Nyxxa gives the general time.

Nyxxa does.

Sadras does not return to Gramgun’kur as the sun sets.

December 8th

The next day there is a light rain and a strong wind blowing through the trees. Arthak makes some inquiries as to where Sadras was. Those he asked say they saw her storm out, jump on Summerpaw, and ride toward the Frostwolf camp.

He then goes to meet with Azgadaan outside Gramgun’kur as he is finishing a casting on a spell that Arthak had never seen. A flaming portal opens and a large, four-wheeled, infernal machine appears. It’s much more spiky and garish than Azgadaan likes, and there is a hatch in the top the two can climb into.

They get in after fetching Viridius, and they take off. It seems to be powered on straight fel energy. They drive straight into the Dark Portal and materialize back on Draenor. They can see the Vitiator above them, and Azgadaan knows that nearby is a teleporter.

In the distance, some ways away, Arthak can see a Frostwolf banner.

Azgadaan casts sending to Sadras.

Arthak sighs.

They get back in the vehicle and drive over to the Frostwolves.

They stop the infernal machine just outside the Frostwolf camp. They see Go’el, and about a half dozen orcs. Sorak and Wintermaw are also there with Sadras. Azgadaan hops out to talk to Go’el and Sorak to give Arthak and Sadras some privacy.

Sadras has a look, and has not stood up.

Go’el looks at Arthak, and then to Sadras, who did stand up to walk away from camp.

Go’el sighs and shakes his head.

Arthak follows after Sadras, who walks a short distance from the encampment. She stops and turns back to him.

Sadras looks down.

Sadras shakes her head with a quiet laugh.

Sadras smiles and she wraps her arms around Arthak and presses her forehead against his. Then she turns back to the camp with Arthak’s hand in her’s.

In the meantime, Azgadaan was speaking with Go’el.

Azgadaan is sure Go’el isn’t telling him everything, and it is passing strange that the chieftain of the clan would be leaving now, of all times.

He winks, and Go’el cocks his head.

Azgadaan expresses he wanted to apologize to Sorak, but he’s busy, and Go’el says he’ll pass a message along.

Shortly after, Arthak and Sadras return.

Go’el shakes his head and puts a hand on her shoulder.

Sadras smiles sheepishly and heads into the camp to gather her things. Go’el gives Arthak a nod, and Arthak returns it with a faint smile. In a matter of moments, Sadras returns with her things. The rest of the Frostwolves gather their belongings and ride off, bidding one last farewell.

Azgadaan just says he’s intending on doing some shopping, specifically a jeweler’s kit.

Arthak looks to Sadras.

Azgadaan opts to run to the Vitiator first before dealing with the ethereal, and he is back relatively quickly.

Arthak takes a look at the vehicle while Azgadaan is gone. It’s very heavy and sturdy. The wheels are large and can likely drive over a lot of difficult terrain. He looks into how it runs, and he can tell whatever powers the vehicle has a fel green glow under the back two wheels. He can’t get a real good look at it. The best he can tell is that the power source is a magically, mechanical hybrid that burns fel fire. Inside the heated core is a flaming, pulsing heart of fire.

As Arthak continues to poke around, Viridius sets up his communication device as Azgadaan returns.

They give him the go ahead, and the device crackles to life with purple energy. A translucent image of another ethereal appears. He has a long armored skirt, and battle armor that covers much of his body. He also has white energy beneath his bandages.

The image then cuts.

The group heads back through the portal to Azeroth.

December 8th-12th

During the brief time skip, Halno continues to work on his scroll, and he then once again tries to talk to Sylvos.

However, this time, as Halno tries to do the same thing he did before and segment his essence to the scepter. His senses dull and he almost blacks out. He has trouble tracking a lot of things.

He comes back to and he finds himself in the same place he was. He’s not sitting exactly where he was, and his things are a bit of a mess. An ink well is spilled completely. But the ink is long dry. As he looks outside, it's a drastically different time and weather. As he checks, Halno finds that he had been comatose in a meditative trance. At one point Sagaz heard a ruckus, and when he checked on Halno, he was sitting and rocking back and forth strangely, muttering something in a language he didn’t understand, but when Sagaz tried to say something, he slipped back into the trance. It had been about three days.

As Halno rationalizes what happened, he wages that because the connection had already been tampered with, but the more time that passes between the time at Falthrien Academy, and Sylvos’s emergence, and now, the harder it is going to be to coax him out. Also, keeping track of the passage of time in the comatose state is exceptionally difficult. However, he is able to get a pretty good grasp of what happened.

It seems Sylvos had a panic attack, tried to leave, stumbled, and then had a bit of a breakdown.

Halno opts to try sending Sylvos.

Halno waits for a moment, but there is no response. He can’t tell if it worked or not. The spell did not seemingly fail.

Halno has Sagaz fetch Levia.

Levia blinks.

Levia's mouth flaps for a moment.

Levia blinks again.

Levia eyes him warily.

She nods and watches Halno closely as she leaves.

Halno turns his back to her and continues what he was doing. Which is continuing on his scroll he was working on.

In the five days that Nyxxa had, she continued to keep an eye on things, and then heads back to Gramgun’kur. She passes all the info to Samaara, and Samaara gives her a note in draenic to pass off to her second-in-command, Hama, who is the blacksmith of the Ati-kaso.

Before Nyxxa leaves the mainland, she finds Caria and tells her she’s going back to Quel’danas, but when she comes back she wants to go hit up the Shadowsword to find some recruits.

At Gramgun’kur, Nyxxa catches up with Arthak and learns everything that happened. Including that he’s missing an eye.

Nyxxa processes the situation. And accepts the situation. It could have been worse.

But she asks what the plan is.

Nyxxa uses see invisibility.

Nyxxa rubs her temples.

Nyxxa shrugs.

Nyxxa grimaces.

She snaps her fingers.

That evening, Nyxxa gets a sending from Khadgar to check in.

Over the next few days, Nyxxa spends some time with Levia, and she also makes some daggers.

Nyxxa also thanks Mother Kaza for teaching Levia, and Kaza expresses that she had been useful, especially given Sazget is due to give birth soon. Nyxxa asks Levia if she wants to wait to go back to the mainland until after the birth, given more hands on deck are always good, and Levia agrees. Nyxxa tells her to meet her on the mainland after.

Azgadaan was working on his sending stone during the entire time.

Arthak was focusing on his clan, and he was able to tell Sadras about everything. She primarily just sat listening and digesting.

Near the end of the five day period a voice calls Arthak’s name. It’s low and smooth and unfamiliar.

Arthak looks to the source of the voice. It’s a male eredar, and he is tall and a bit more lithe than Azgadaan, and he’s also much smaller. He is wearing a heavy cloak, but his burning green eyes peer from beneath it. He bows.

He opens his cloak and his hand seems to disappear in his cloak, and he pulls out a small strip of paper and hands it to Arthak. The handwriting is neat and a bit loopy. It’s clearly from someone Arthak knows.

When Arthak looks back up, Val’zuun is gone.

Arthak reads the note a few more times then, with a smile, lights a cigarette and disposes of the note.

The night before Nyxxa leaves to go back to the mainland, Levia goes to find Nyxxa. She looks a bit uncertain.

Nyxxa uses see invisibility.

This page was last edited on November 22, 2020, at 08:27 PM

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"It’s not weak to be afraid. Fear is not something that ails us. Fear is something that drives us to do something else. To protect ourselves and others. To make something right. I know this because I too have been afraid for a long time."