[Horde] Chapter Three: Session Three
Appearing Characters: Ariok, Arthak Saurfang, Azgadaan, Azuka, Caria Felsoul, Belo'vir Salonar, Dal’rend Blackhand, Galforr Siegebreaker, Garona, Garrosh Hellscream, Gramgun Laughingeye, Grotan the Herald, Gul'dan, Halno, Jorin Deadeye, Jubei’thos, Kargath Bladefist, Kaz the Shrieker, Levia Blackflight, Maim Blackhand, Mor’ghor, Nyxxa, Relgor, Sadras, Sagaz, Selin Fireheart, Sinestra, Thura Saurfang, Velhari, Win’thas Keenblossom, Zagarra
Locations: Silvermoon City, Quel'danas
November 22nd
Upon arriving on the mainland, Halno and Azgadaan sell their spell scrolls they had created.
Halno goes to seek out Gul’dan, and he is directed to the very pinnacle of Stormreaver Spire. Gul’dan was at the top of the spire above an expansive and partially destroyed library. One of the great wings that just out from the spire had been destroyed and replaced with some sort of bone or white wood, and it is crackling with fel energy that is shooting up to the sky and striking against the ban’dinoriel.
Gul’dan seems to be commanding the lightning, but ceases as he notices Halno’s arrival, and he turns toward him.
Gul’dan’s eyebrow raises.
Gul’dan thinks for a moment.
He looks up at the crystals, which are still crackling with fel energy.
He bows and starts to back away. Gul’dan nods to him, then turns back to his work.
The rest of the day, Halno holes himself up in an arcane sanctum with some tomes, as the meeting was going to be taking place in the Spire the next day.
Arthak and his company seek out a place to stay with the Ironmarch to bide time until the meeting.
Nyxxa familiarizes herself with the city, which is now quite thoroughly under orcish control, and Arthak presents his game plan.
Sadras ends up raising a question of what Arthak is trying to do, such as if he is attempting to delay the dropping of the barrier until the Resistance is dealt with. Arthak responds that he is not, as they are not going to be able to eliminate all of them. The goal is to limit the damage the Resistance can do, while hoping dropping their command structure and eliminating any mages.
Gramgun asks how much of Arthak’s resources he wants to involve, and Arthak responds that they are going to still prioritize taking care of their clan, but this is a training opportunity for the warriors of the clan as well.
Nyxxa is a bit apprehensive about the situation, but she reassures Arthak that she will not do anything to threaten Arthak’s position of authority during the meeting.
Azgadaan seeks Arthak out later that night to present an idea: namely present a high value target to cause the Resistance to do something rash. Specifically, they could probably speak with Gul’dan or Shaspira about it.
Arthak takes note of the idea, and agrees it may be a good one if Gul’dan or Shaspira do not have a more pressing things to attend to. They can speak about it later.
But Arthak does ask Azgadaan if he will be comfortable with the work ahead, and Azgadaan responds that he will be comfortable enough.
Arthak also tells Azgadaan that he was informed that Aracyra had been sent after a specific artifact (namely the sword). Azgadaan confirms that is correct.
Arthak asks if Azgadaan was helping her, and again, Azgadaan confirms.
Azgadaan also says that he is intending on sending Aracyra Arthak’s way in the future.
He also asks if Arthak wants some aid during the presentation (in the form of enhance ability), and Arthak asks if the Shadowsword would notice or take offense. Azgadaan doesn’t think they will.
Arthak is left puzzled on what “makeup” is, because there’s no real orcish word for it.
Overnight, Halno also summons his familiar: an animated orc hand. It was likely his former hand.
November 23rd
The group heads over to Stormreaver Spire with the two representatives from the Ironmarch. Early that morning, they are introduced to Ariok, the last remaining son of Eitrigg. Both himself and Galforr would be representing the Ironmarch.
The spire leads into a large central atrium that connects to some of the upper sections of the spire. One by one, the Ironmarch takes their places around the circular room. Likewise, Arthak and his people also take their places, and Halno comes down to meet them. His skeletons spread around the room within about 30 feet of their master.
The first ones to arrive after are the representatives of the Shadowsword: Selin Fireheart. To his right is Win’thas Keenblossom, who has a small imp perched on his shoulder. A few paces behind them is the dark-haired, leather-clad woman with asymmetrical horns and white skin. Her eyes are down as she enters.
Next to arrive is Jubei’thos. He is alone, and he nods at Arthak.
Next are the representatives of the Warsong clan. Garrosh is accompanied by a female raider with a short brown mohawk.
The Bleeding Hollow is next, lead by Jorin. To his right is a red-haired hunter with a ponytail and a bright red beard. He has white tattoos on his face and body. He is introduced as Relgor, one of the master scouts of the clan. His lieutenant is a greenskin orc with long dreadlocks: Zagarra. There is a chain wrapped around her right arm, and she is dragging a female krokul with her.
The Thunderlords sent two hunters along with Grotan the Herald, one of the new chieftains. While he was not invited personally, he wanted to represent the Thunderlords in a gesture of good will.
There is another solitary figure: Velhari. She strides in, her eyes flickering to those present, but says nothing as she takes a position against a far wall. Nyxxa is able to tell she clearly does not want to be here.
Then, stumbling through the dooors with the scent of alcohol on them, is Kaz the Shrieker and another pyromancer.
The next people that arrive, much to Arthak’s chagrin, are Rend and Maim. Rend approaches Arthak and greets him, still referring to him as “cowardspawn.”
Noticeably, however, they didn’t shoulder check Arthak as they passed, which they would have previously done.
The next person is the fel orc Mor’ghor, the chieftain of the Dragonmaw, and he is pulling a large cart with a black sheet over it, covering a cage. Following after him is a familiar elf: Sinestra. She offers a kind smile in Arthak’s direction.
She directs the orc to take the cart with the cage to the side, and they can hear a soft rattling from inside, and they can a guttural language. The orc slams his fist on it, and there’s a yelp. Nyxxa, however, can understand the language. It’s draconic, though a broken version of it. It was basically asking where it was at. It seemed frightened.
Everyone is starting to get antsy, and Galforr asks Arthak if everyone was present. Arthak said they were still waiting on Kargath.
However, at that moment, the door goes slamming open, and as he is draining a drinking horn of its contents, Kargath strolls in with a solitary other orc.
He claps Arthak on the back as he strolls by.
The orc following after Kargath has a ritualistic sword replacing one fist, and he has a mask over his face. He is not introduced, but is identified as an Iron Blood Mage. They use warlock blood magic combined with a practice of shamanism and divination. They can manipulate blood, but the depths of their powers are largely unknown.
Azuka is watching the pair with a degree of cautious recognition.
There are some shouts and nods of agreement.
Selin looks up, listening.
As he speaks, the imp on Win’thas’s shoulder translates.
Selin nods.
There are general nods of approval.
Nyxxa scopes the room, and notes Levia acting dejected in the back. Rend and Maim try to poke holes in Arthak’s logic, Galforr seems to have concerns, Kargath seems to want to leave anytime.
Sinestra readies herself to speak of the Dragonmaw clan and whatever is in the cage. She elegantly walks forward
She introduces herself to Arthak as a friend and ally to the Dragonmaw.
Revealing the creature inside, she burns off the cover. Inside of the cage, is a humanoid between 5ft and 6ft tall. It hisses and covers its eyes. It is hunched and covered in scales. Its arms have fins and its fingers covered in claws. It has a muzzle with protruding teeth. It hisses again, a kind of Draconic-humanoid.
Nyxxa notices that it translates best in common to “Scale Slave” or “Scale Servant.”
Arthak thinks hard.
Arthak scrutinizes. He thinks that what he’s looking at is the result of civilians. It’s quite possible that she’ll use the non-coms to create more of the Skardyn.
All eyes are on Arthak as he thinks hard.
Nyxxa leans over, whispering to Arthak.
Arthak nods, hrrrming.
Nyxxa detects good and evil. She can feel the Undead in Halno and the skeletons, she can also sense the Fel. But she senses nothing else. She opts to keep the aura up to scan.
Sinestra’s smile washes off of her face. She strides closer to the center of the arena.
Her visage starts to change slightly. Her eyes glow, shifting features. From beneath her raven hair, two long horns begin to snake out. Her eyes take on a ghostly glow. Her voice waivers.
Sinestra raises a hand, beginning to cast a spell. Azgadaan then attempts to counterspell the mysterious elf. Her eyes flare.
Arthak feels tendrils of shadow wash over him. His body seizes in pain. Azgadaan steps forward and a bolt of magic blasts the shadow away.
Wild-eyed, Sinestra looks at Azgadaan. A long tail whips out from her dress. Azgadaan armors up, quickly, as they challenge each other.
The others in the area reach for weapons. Sinestra, meanwhile, composes herself.
Sinestra faces the Eredar.
Sinestra turns, and places and hand on the cage. She looks to Arthak with her orange and yellow eyes.
Sinestra turns around, magic around her begins to ripple. All three of them vanish into thin air, leaving the Clipped Wing Coalition alone.
Arthak gets back to business without missing a beat. There is silence, but a voice rings out in the atrium, speaking in Eredun only.
Nyxxa translates.
Everyone can hear glass breaking. A figure comes flying from the spire. Someone is falling. Within moments, the figure makes contact with the ground. It’s an elf, a mage.
The Shadowsword steps forward.
The figure comes out, flipping through the air on two big, black wings. It spirals downwards. There’s a flash of steel. The figure lands on top of the Magister’s corpse. A blade is plunged deep into its chest. Its wings are curled up and out, looking to Arthak.
A violet skinned elf, with the aforementioned wings, and long front-curled horns and black hair meet eyes with the Chieftain. Her hands are long, covered in long, black nails. They’re wrapped around beautiful glaives of a similar design to Nyxxa’s. The weapons appear to be ancient--the edge is still keen. The blade’s edge glows white-hot.
Nyxxa stops mid-sentence as she looks at the mystery woman.
The other demon hunter smiles, genuinely, at Nyxxa. Arthak looks between the two.
Arthak and Caria clasp arms. Caria takes his hand with a surprisingly strong grip attached to her.
Caria smiles.
There is the telltale sound of an arrow fwip. They’re sticking into the banners that were hung in the hall. The arrows are ablaze. Halno glances behind him. He can hear footfalls running down the hallway. A skeleton turns that way.
In very short order, a number of things begin to catch fire. One of the flames explodes in an extra burst. The hulking torso of a large humanoid creature, much like an Ogre, explodes from the center. Raging elementals explode around the room.
Jorin looks to Arthak, noting that there are strike teams set around the room. He opts to suggest trying to fell them and leave the hall. Gramgun takes Sagaz to leave, and as he gets to the door a couple of arrows sail past him. One strikes true, but he shakes it off and finds the door barricaded.
Magic surges. An Orcish blade flies down the hall, swinging into Halno’s skeleton. The elementals continue to run amok. The skeletons clash with various enemies to varying degrees of success.
Magical weapons bust out of the hallway, and metallic poles burrow in, one after another. A collection of anything the resistance can find bombards the party. They attack the nearest things, once again, to varying degrees of success. One hits Azgadaan, but he easily shields it away.
From up above, there is a dart as an Elvish sniper tries to take a pot shot at a skeleton, it crumbles.
Nyxxa comes down in a flurry of steel onto one of the elementals. She misses both times, but continues her assault. Nyxxa is slightly singed, but she manages to hit the elemental over her third and fourth attack. She knows that she has to dig too deep to fell the creature. Still, she flips up and digs her hands into its core. She can feel the Elemental binding waiver, it is stunned.
Sadras spins around and growls, looking to help get Sagaz to safety. She rages towards a number of the animated weapons. It waivers in the air as she strikes true.
Battle continues. Orcs, Farstriders, Shadowsword, and Animated Weapons all clash. Jorin banishes one of the Elementals, succeeding to keep it away for the moment despite an onslaught.
Azgadaan scans the room, looking for Caria and Velhari. He moves towards them, as they’re unfortunately across the room. He calls out to his fellow Eredar.
Azgadaan casts haste on Velhari, and Velhari swings into action. She uses her Aura of Oppression, as she draws her blade. The gem in the center becomes blue. An aura of magic grows heavy around her, and the offensive blades struggle to stay afloat.
An opposing magister summons another set of fire elementals before retreating. Azuka, meanwhile, hides behind a pillar, looking for ways to strike. Fighting and skirmishing continues.
Halno’s last skeleton falls to an animated weapon, leaving him defenseless.
A fire elemental washes over Garrosh and his companions. It whirls around, making extra attacks against Garrosh. Meanwhile, Velhari eviscerates one of the floating weapons.
Still, as weapons are destroyed, more continue to pour in. There are seven elementals in the room.
Arthak notes that the weapons and the fire are distractions. If they kill the mages and fighters, they’ll cut a pass through. Thura listens and charges ahead.
Arthak looks up to the balcony level. He squints, looking for people. He rages like a good barbarian. He closes with one of the animated fortifications, attempting to knock it down. He crits and sends the thing crumbling, knocked immediately out of the air. Still on the warpath, Arthak goes for an animated warblade, in narrowly deflects.
Sagaz makes his way to the party, trying to stay away from the flames as he moves. His eyes close, but upon opening them, he blasts out an arcane missile. As expected, they land true.
Halno conjures lightning in his hands. Unfortunately, a Spellbreaker nearby. The lightning crackles and fizzles. Halno’s attack is lost.
Still, the Spellbreaker’s location is revealed by his own actions. Meanwhile, Warsong berserkers crit twice in a row like champions.
Caria runs forward, wings spreading, speaking to Nyxxa in Darnassian. Her glaives gleaming in the firelight.
All four of her attacks connect, in a whirlwind of blades. She seems to absorb some of the elemental damage into her weapons. Still, she’s a burnt girl. It doesn’t affect her as much as she should, though. Nyxxa could tell, early on, that she was completely a fiend now.
Looking to Nyxxa, Caria smiles and tells Nyxxa to keep up.
They grin and continue into the fray, except Caria goes again! She attacks the elemental a few more times, easily carving into it. She flips her blades around, and its essence dissipates. She looks to another elemental and leaps towards it.
The fight continues, magicked weapons pour in and clash. Gramgun escapes a sword. Another Elemental is defeated.
A small sword gets an aggressive hit into Halno, though he feels nothing. Still, a chunk of him is removed, along with his temporary hit points.
Sadras swings down at another weapon. She connects and slams it into the ground, severing the magical connection holding it. It fights back and knocks her back. Still, she stands with little to no issue.
The fight continues! Sagaz dodges, all out of juice, thus he just tries to be careful. Gramgun goes to aide Halno. Gramgun is struck and bleeding, though he remains standing even while heavily wounded.
Arthak calls out for mages to focus on the weapons. He wants everyone else to focus on the elves.
Arthak turns back to the fortification that has been harrying him, looking to get rid of it as fast as possible. He downs it in one strike, cleaving through it. He looks towards an Elvish magister, Arthak takes a Javelin off of his back and hucks a javelin at the elf.
Archers in the back yell and attempt to strike the coalition. A magister sends a fireball down the hallways, it swirls and expands as it meets the center of the room. Halno stops it with a simple gesture and counterspell.
The resistance begins to show signs of retreat, calling for “fall back!” among other words.
Thura defends Azuka as a weapon comes for the little one. She easily fells the weapon before her, making sure to see if Azuka is unharmed. She is.
Nyxxa got rather beat up, thus she tries something different. She seeks to put out fires as she goes. She runs around, extinguishing fires to minimize damage to the surrounding structures.
Halno turns around to target, animated weapons. He readies himself to push his spells, connecting easily to one, missing another. He, too, nukes a number of Resistance fighters. One is dead upon impact. The two remaining seem stunned. Halno, in return, succeeds in his massive corruption save.
The tapestries are still ablaze as the fight carries on. A number of weapons fail to the heat in the room, as ambient burning continues.
A shadowsword member hops off the side, near Azgadaan, she maneuvers towards him. Her eyes are white on black. They darken entirely.
An elven magister clouds the room with a thick, greenish-black fog. He obscures the room. Meanwhile, on the otherside, Velhari carves a warpath to the exit with great success. Allies within 60 feet of her cannot be charmed or frightened, as she clearly doesn’t give a heckin’ heck. Azgadaan moves forward, charging a lightning bolt with the Shadowsword member. The bolt is charged with inky darkness toward the elementals. It drops one of the blades but the damage spreads easily through the remaining distractions.
Caria takes even more fire damage as she attacks her elemental foes. Still, she doesn’t seem phased.
Arthak, while heavily obscured by the mist, Arthak hopes to give chase while getting out of the obscured. He strikes at the mage keeping up the miasma, and though she got hit, she manages to maintain the spell.
Nyxxa races to help Sadras, aiding in beating back the last of the floating weapons. The orcs and co. barrel through the din. Thura also swings down at a resistance fighter near by, erupting into a hit, she kills the mage upon impact. (Girl power paragraph).
Gramgun disengages from his current opponent, downs a weapon, and bolts to the rest of the party in an effort to stay safe.
The Resistance calls, once more, for a full retreat. The remaining members start to peel away from the fight. With one fighter left, Halno offers the idea of surrender. The fighter has none of it. Halno leaves him in smoking wreckage.
The situation begins to wind down. Azgadaan finishes off his enemies. Velhari stands amidst the corpses of three elves, easily felling those inside. The party and company find the door barred and barricaded. Orcs are moving to open the door.
Arthak grabs the body of a magister. Halno also takes his quarry. The situation around them seems to be calming down. As the doors are open, they find that the Resistance had struck outside. The Blood Shrike and a well armored human wielding the Light. Another human teleport them away before anything could have been done.
While there were some Orcish casualties, the damage seems to be medium.
Looking about, they cannot find Rend or Maim immediately. Their attention is drawn away by Gul'dan.
Gul’dan looks about the wreckage. An equal amount of Orcs seemed to be felled, but Arthak counts that mages for the elves are finite.
Heavy footfalls are heard from behind Arthak. Coming from a quarter of the fight that the party wasn’t in. Dal’rend is holding Maim’s body. The lifeless body of Maim Blackhand is laid upon the ground.
Gul’dan scrutinizes the situation for a moment. He strokes his chin.
He motions at a group of warlocks.
Rend shakes his head.
Arthak gives Rend a sympathetic nod and then he moves to follow Gul’dan. As Arthak does, Azuka comes out from behind the pillar she was still hiding behind. She looks about, straying towards Nyxxa.
Azuka quietly watches the rest of the situation. Nyxxa praises her and ruffles her hair. Azuka protests but doesn’t seem too concerned about actually stopping it.
Sadras heals Gramgun’s wounds nearby. He’ll survive.
With the situation at large handled, Garrosh left a very different way through the front door, storming out as soon as Maim was taken away. The implications seem clear.
