(2023-09-06) The Battle for Voldrune

Details

Author:	Aly
Summary:	A unit consisting of Argent Crusaders, Knights of the Ebon Blade, and mercenaries from Cobalt Company press into Voldrune to serve as a distraction for the rescue team.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

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Heavy violence and gore, mind control fatality by jumping, insects and worms, body horror? death knights, death knight trauma, temporary character death, really just a lot of brutal violence, read at your own risk.

It is a startlingly clear day in the Grizzly Hills, the sun beaming through the trees and the temperature mild. It is a day that would be well suited for picnics, or other leisure activities.

In a clearing near Voldrune, a death knight in black saronite, the armor embellished somewhat from the standard, waits with such obvious impatience that he might as well be wearing a flashing neon sign over his head. Roper's left hand has been tapping, unceasingly, against his left leg, just loud enough to be audible to those closest to him, most notably his wife. The movement alone though is visible, even as the rest of him holds uncannily, eerily still. He hasn't made any move otherwise, waiting for the leadership of Cobalt to commence the offensive strike. He seems focused, nothing at all of banter or small talk unless directly spoken to.

A slight figure of similar height in saronite armor, Syarra Sunstrike, stands next to him in perfect stillness.

Vond Satterly and Etone Greennote are standing by at the designated meeting point of the assault team, a bit apart from the death knights. The paladin is fully equipped in chained libram, simple dark armor with clear Argent Crusade colors, a hulking shield of obvious Scourge make and a Vrykul blade at his side. The battle priest is likewise garbed up in greys and blacks with his face mostly enshrouded, offset by the attention grabbing brightness of a heavily enchanted stave and tied hair of an unmistakable red.

They have the expectant serious air of tested fighters gauging the particulars of imminent work, ready to take direction from Cobalt who have more hands on scene, as they had readily agreed - or to assume more responsibility if necessary.

Dame Briellen Clay has arrived with the Argent Crusaders, and she is the one to approach Roper and Syarra. She is dressed in white and silver plate armor with the tabard of the Argent Crusade over it, and she looks very much like an obvious paladin. "Hail," she says to Roper and Syarra, flipping the visor of her helmet up so that her scarred face is visible.

Roper gives her a returning up nod, his helm still covering his face fully. "Hey." His voice is clear, with neither drawl or husky note clouding it. The tapping does not stop.

Dane Atley stomps into the situation. The bright blue and white of his tabard are a crisply sharp contrast against his bulky, spiked armor. His helm is on, obscuring most of his features, and by initial appraisal he might pass as a third companion to the pair of waiting death knights. He moves to stand directly between the death knights and the argents, perhaps on purpose, perhaps not. “Crusaders,” he growls, before slowly turning to face the death knights. He looks over their equipment and readiness and provides them with a brief grunt of acknowledgment. “Time to see how hard you are against other deaders.”

He turns away from the death knights and performs a brief head count against whom he’s been told would be attending the siege.

Roper spreads his hands in an open, somewhat ambiguous gesture as if to say, who knows? but it seems amused, the tapping stopping briefly as he does. His expression is hidden behind his helm, but, perhaps surprisingly given how chatty he was the last time Dane saw him, he says nothing.

The missing head in the headcount arrives shortly: Pericleia, whose armor, shield, and sword all look distinctly draenei in design. She is wearing her Cobalt Company tabard over it all, and her face is hidden by her helmet. She radiates an aura of [Shadow Protection].

Syarra looks over the assembled, raising a hand in greeting to Vond, Etone, and Briellen. To Briellen, who is next to them, she says, "Greetings." She does not raise her helm, but there's no hostility in the word.

Atley eyes Roper for a moment through his helmet. The disdain is palpable. He flicks his gaze to Pericleia and grunts. “Right then, you lot, gather ‘round. Close.” Atley steps forward and waits for people to congregate. “We’re to be loud and brutish. If those wretches in there know a thing about the Company, they’ll know me to be loud and brutish. We approach, and bark a bit at them, as if we mean to merely intimidate them. Let them underestimate our wits with me at the helm. Then we charge in for the bite, and we bite hard and fast. You’re all sturdy sorts —“ he pauses and looks to the death knights.. “I don’t care wot’ happens. I don’t care if you’ve got an arm or leg lying on the bloody ground. If any of us are left behind, I will hold you two personally responsible. You want to prove how bloody useful you deaders are? Today is the day.”

"Sir Dane," Vond answers when addressed, with a hand on his libram, looking ready. He nods across the space toward Syarra in return as well.

"Have a care when this gets underway," he speaks to the death knights, not entirely hostile but with perhaps some confidence. "The Light will be upon us, especially if we're to make the scene."

Etone offers a curt nod in greeting. "Nnf, something we agree on." He mutters to himself as Atley addresses the death knights.

"Syarra, mouthy one." It's some kind of comedy noir he's trying to inject as the tensions are already high.

The draenei introduces herself: "I am Vindicator Pericleia. We fight as allies today."

Roper laughs, a faintly echoey sound at Etone's greeting. It doesn't sound hostile at all — it sounds genuinely amused. He steps slightly forward, his body language loose and relaxed. His helm is directed more towards Dane and Satterly. "I'm not gonna get in your way. I'm not gonna talk them to death though. I save that for special occasions," he drawls. "We've been fighting non-stop in Zul'Drak for fucking weeks, and we were there fighting with you at the Sunwell. We're not gonna flinch at the Light. We know what we're doing."
Vond looks pleased to see Pericleia, a hand raised in greeting. He then studies Roper dubiously for a moment. "Long as we're not gonna get any groaning if someone gets a singe. Do what you need to to get them in the flare and not yourselves."

He turns a sharp nod to Dane after that. "Heard and understood. All bark for a turn."

Roper up nods Pericleia in greeting.

Briellen asks, looking between Roper and Syarra, "Will my healing cause you harm? Or my blessings?"

Etone perks an eyebrow, clearly interested in the answer as well.

"Blessings are usually fine. Don't waste your healing on us though. We get injured, we've got ways to fix it, so long as there's still something to fight." Roper shrugs, a loose up and down motion. "It's not like we're gonna die. And if we're hit after everything else is on the ground, well, we're still not gonna die, and we can handle it. It's not your problem."

"If you forget, in the heat of battle, it will still heal," Syarra adds quietly. "And it will be fine. I've practiced. As he says, we can handle it."

Atley slowly shakes his head and half lids his eyes in his helmet. “I don’t care how long you’ve been fighting or how many lives you can take, death knight. This world’s not short on killers. I’ve a mind to see how many you can save. When we retrieve these prisoners alive and in good health, with no casualties, you’ll have my nod.”

"Between three of us, three auras," Pericleia says. "I protect us from magic of Shadow. You two, one bolster physical defenses, one to resist magic of cold." She indicates Vond and Briellen.

Briellen looks at Vond. "Devotion or Frost Resistance? You pick first."

Vond responds readily to Briellen's initiative toward sorting this detail. His eyes lower in momentary focus as a vague glint rolls across an unfolding geometry of intersecting lines with himself at the center, gone as quickly as a breath, and the bite of the wind is slightly dulled. "Cold."

Etone's voice picks up in song, not nearly as loud as he usually would - but enough to get the blessings across the group.

Atley grunts, and looks between Syarra and Roper. “Now, you two, if it were you held up in there, how’d you go about defending the position? Wot’ can we expect?”

"Defending the position? You can expect that as long as there's something to fight, we won't stop. We won't tire, and we won't quit. There's no end to it. We can hold for as long as we need to. As for the specifics, what, you want a detailed dossier?" Roper still sounds amused. "Sword, ice, minions. We've got what we need for anything. That's the only difference between you and us. We don't ever have to stop, not to drink, not to eat, not to even fucking breathe. This drags on, we can keep it up. We get pinned down, doesn't matter. But for how hard and fast we can go from the start?" He makes a vague gesture with a hand, a rolling motion of his wrist. "This is what we were built for."

"Yes, yes, very impressive." One might wonder if Etone is actually impressed or bored.
"I expect you'll keep your end of things busy while the others make a quiet approach?"

Vond nods to Etone. "The rescue team is already taken up at their meetin’ place by now. We're all on to pin ‘em down while they work, make a scene of it."

Etone seems satisfied by Vond's answer and simply offers a quiet grunt.

Atley eyes Roper all throughout his answer. The disdain is there still, but there’s something else now. A concentration, a focus, like a bloodhound taking to a scent.

Atley’s eyes briefly flick to Pericleia as he listens in, before he nods and looks back to Roper. He nods at Vond, next. “Right then. Change of plan. No barking. All bite. Only a forward charge down their facking’ throat once the rescue team sends the go ahead signal.”

He looks between them all. “No one is left behind. Not even these charming frozen corpses we’ve got as comrades. If you’ve got anything to add, now’s the time.”

Briellen closes her eyes and the air around her shifts as she draws her [Devotion] aura to the front. The effect is barely perceptible only by the especially sensitive, and not at all by most - a brief sensation of the Light gathering to protect.

Vond looks agreeable to this shift, and verbally confirms, "Done." He quickly gauges Etone and Briellen that they've keyed in as well, like someone accustomed to counting heads and confirming comprehension.

He plants his palms together with a brief and earnest murmured prayer more personal than audible, conferring a slight bolstering edge of physical toughness - Sanctuary.

Roper cuts Dane a surprisingly accurate military salute, with just enough genuine fluidity to make someone wonder if he was once a soldier. Maybe he was.

Briellen murmurs under her breath about wisdom and might. Blessings for everyone.

Pericleia casts her [Blessing of Kings] a little more loudly and obviously, but it is in Draenic and thus the words of the prayer are likely a mystery to everyone present.

In quick succession, Fortitude followed by bolstering of Spirits and additional resistance to shadows bless the party while Etone finishes, on a quiet crescendo, a personal blessing stoking his inner fire. He nods to Vond signaling his readiness. "On your mark, Cobalt." Again with the ill placed levity.

Roper doesn't flinch when any of the blessings land. If they caused him any pain at all, likely only Syarra knows. He does unsheathe both his runeblades, tips pointed down to the ground. Frost spreads across his armor in a lacey coating of ice, and then he waits — with obvious impatience in the way he stands and the tapping of his hand on his runeblade hilt — for the signal.

Atley grunts. “In an ideal world, we’d fight until the whole bloody garrison is slaughtered and burned, but this is a rescue. If the prisoners and the rescue team have made clear, and this group still finds itself outnumbered by the enemy, we withdraw, immediately. If by then the enemy’s nearly defeated, we linger and wipe them out. I’ll give the word.”

He points at Syarra, then to Roper, then to Vond and Etone. “You lot tie down the enemy death knights. You’ll each take one,” he growls at Syarra and Roper before he looks to the Argents, now. “You two ought to burn yours down swiftly. The rest of you are with me, keeping the rest of the enemy off their backs.

Understood?”

"Understood." The redhead offers in a tight military-esque assurance.

Vond touches his hand to his heart as the Confessor responds for them both. It's an ongoing question who answers to who. His overall bearing is focused and keen to move.

"Yessir," Briellen says, saluting Dane as well.

"Understood," Pericleia repeats.

"Understood," Roper says, no hint of the drawl now. It's clear that he's focused on the task at hand.

Syarra doesn't react to the blessings either, but her face is obscured by the helm. She says, "Understood. And we'll leave no one behind."

A little gnomish box begins its quiet chirping, alerting them that the rescue team is in position.

Atley grunts and pulls out his sword. “Let’s get this done,” he growls before trudging towards the enemy.

The vrykul stronghold of Voldrune is built atop a rocky cliff, making any approach from the sides extremely difficult, and not recommended for an assault in force. There are but two ways in: from the front, or from the sea. The front, where the strike team is headed, is a long road into the heart of the place, guarded by a lone watchtower on the right. A massive horn is mounted to the tower, and four vrykul patrol its top floor.

Three shield bearing vrykul patrol the road itself, still far enough out that the other buildings are only just visible. There is no tree cover along the road, affording the vrykul on watch a clear view of the approaching threat.

Vond keeps pace with the advance, alert and guarded, and the sight of the signal horn and overall dearth of options once spotted isn't lost on him. There is no telling how many of the giants might descend on them once alerted, but they have thrown in their lot with the Scourge, granted them deference, harbor, bodies.

A last check that his goggles are secure, and at the prospect of a limited time frame to make their way through the patrol he is both grave and ready, arms to bear - for either Dane's movement, or the vrykul's.

Syarra rests a hand on the hilt of her runeblade, eying the watchtower and waiting patiently for orders.

Atley walks at first before he builds into a jog, exploding into an all out run, a pure charge. He sprints at the three patrolling vrykul on the road, and levels his sword in their direction, practically leaping with each boot step and outstretch of his leg.

“CHARGE!” he bellows, voice intentionally booming like a war horn. “TAKE THE TOWER!”

Vond reads the changing speed peripherally while fixing one of the three with vrykul with resolved intent. When his shoulders jar and visible light briefly scatters across his shield, Etone seems to read it as a signal.

Soon the paladin is surrounded by an envelope of shimmering distortion, propelled by the priest to catch up with Dane's charge at speeds that seem improbable for such heavy equipment - all the extra momentum aimed to batter the target directly. It looks like it would be a rather hazardous impact for Vond if not for all the layered magics between them.

Roper is off like a shot, headed for the tower at a speed that would be punishing to maintain — if he was alive, that is. He ignores the patrol (that's someone else's problem), headed directly to the tower, as per orders. He can't avoid the line of sight of the tower, but he can make it a double edged sword, watching for the moment a vrykul is within his visibility. A hand of shadow stretches out through the air, closing around the neck of a vrykul warrior, and drags it down to the death knight waiting with open runebladed arms to slay the giant with brutal efficiency. If he's savoring the pain of the kill, it isn't evident in anything he does — he isn't dragging it out. It's all business.

Pericleia makes an authoritative gesture, a [Hand of Reckoning] drawing the attention of another of the now three remaining vrykul atop the tower. The vrykul approaches the edge, easy prey for a similar trick from Syarra. Pericleia herself makes for the trio on the road, drawing her sword as she goes. She isn't as fast as Dane or Vond, but she is on her way, and when she gets there, if they've saved any targets left for her, she's going to clean them up.

Syarra follows, keeping pace with the team on their way to the tower. There's only the slightest hesitation before she takes the opening Pericleia created and yanks down a third vrykul, bringing her heavy two-handed sword around to cut him down before he can find his feet again. She takes one hand off her sword hilt and raises it towards the vrykul's body, but then she changes her mind, dropping the hand back down to grip her sword and prepare for the next combatant.

It happens so fast and in such force that the vrykul are forced into a scramble. Two are pulled from the tower before they can act, but the remaining two prepare for a fight. One of them takes a deep breath and sounds a mighty blast on the horn. It echoes and reverberates through the entire stronghold with bone rattling force.

Immediately following, war cries rise up from deeper in. Many, many war cries. They merge into a solid roar of sound, and the first ten vrykul can be seen rushing towards the entrance to engage the intruders.

The other remaining tower vrykul begins to chant, and runes appear in the air. She begins throwing fire down at the two death knights, probably hoping to force them away.

Etone begins to stride into the open past the clash with the patrol, in the direction of the tower, with peculiarly gliding movements. On an unrelated note, the flamebinder who had drawn attention to herself by casting down runic fire, seems to have a sudden change of heart, and flings herself from the high perch. Perhaps a drastic ritual to their so-called Death God.

The vrykul with her hands still on the horn loses her grip as she's pulled down from the tower by a twisting shadow to Roper, and silenced more permanently.

Vond wrenches his sword from the stunned and now felled patrolman and speeds on past that position to catch up to Etone and cover him more closely - his movements quick and tense - as the priest stalls in a moment of concentration. A shining manifestation of light coalesced into the form of a second shield rings out and collides with a few advancing vrykul on the ground level, momentarily hindering their advance with the dazing impact, while others continue to converge.

The death knights now have fire-free freedom to roam.

Atley charged his patrolman, swinging his sword with precise strikes, powered by a savage rage. Each blow chipped away at the wooden vrykul shield, sending splinters flying through the air, until merely a forearm was raised in defense of Atley’s heated onslaught. The vrykul falls to the ground as Atley deprives it of its arm, and the knight keeps striking to similarly deprive the vrykul of its life. It’s not pretty.

He tosses his sword to his shield hand and produces a hatchet. “Incoming! Hold them here!” he yells, before lining up with picture perfect posture, and flinging his projectile straight into the unarmored throat of an incoming enemy with a practiced athletic accuracy.

His eyes look past his most recently slain foe for the enemy death knights.

Roper's dual swords pulse as the runes activate. The vrykul converging on the warrior grind to a sudden frozen halt as ice and shadow twist violently up to catch them, halting them for a moment, before there's an anguished wailing sound of wind rushing past that shatters the ice, of the closest few, leaving them bleeding and staggering forward.

Right into the open arms of the frost covered death knight, who pulls one a vrykul still shuddering as though with fever to him, and shoves a runeblade through the proto-human with a deceptively casual, almost warm and soft sounding, "Hey."

Syarra turns towards the oncoming patrol and stretches out a hand, and the ground roils with corruption. The vrykul weaken further as disease begins to take hold. No one but the vrykul are harmed, even if they step on the poisonous soil.

Syarra unsheathes her sword and moves into the fray, fighting with a cold, methodical precision. One vrykul attacks in a wild fury, only to be cut down, Syarra smoothly sidestepping the falling body as she scans for a next target.

Pericleia gets into the middle of the patrol and consecrates the ground around her in a slightly different circle than Syarra's patch of corrupted ground. The vrykul caught in the center of the overlapping circles are probably going to have a bad time. So are the ones in reach of her sword or her shield.

Briellen hangs back a little, close to Vond and Etone, throwing out flashes of healing as she deems necessary.

Vond's wide open gaze is diverted momentarily by flashing runeblades, then back to closer dangers. He seems to be concentrating his awareness on Etone and Bree's positions while placing himself in a decent spot to intercept anything.

Though he remains facing outward toward the enemy, his sword is briefly raised and tilted back behind himself in the loose direction of one fellow Argent, then the other, the motion punctuated by visible but transitory light glints, signaling his trust in them to watch each other as he moves.

A ready stance is quickly resumed as he barrels in to help pin a pair of weakened vrykul against Pericleia's stand, paring down, while Etone's bright voice rings out and a column of divine fire joins the giants’ collective misfortunes.

The remaining vrykul succumb to the combined force of magic and disease, granting a temporary reprieve from combat. Though there are clearly more vrykul in the camp, no more of them rush immediately towards the group. It’s almost as if they are being invited deeper in.

The air around the redhead warps slightly, his shadow distorts and vanishes, his narrow eyes wide and vacant as if searching beyond his ability. He's careful with his positioning while his vision jumps from anything with seeing eyes, the level of trust is rather impressive - even if the spell doesn't linger more than a few moments.

Blinking back to his own vision, Etone picks up in hymn preparing to shackle any undead that might happen upon them from the inner reaches of the camp.

Syarra looks back at the priest, and says, "Did you see anything unexpected?"

Briellen takes the brief pause to drink some water.

Roper's helm moving is the only indication that the death knight is looking for something. It's likely that like Dane, he's looking for Kaela and her squad, waiting impatiently for the signal to push forward into the camp with its suspicious opening, and the strange Darkmoon Faire like cannon in the center.

Etone shakes his head, "Nnnf, no, can't see anything past. Take care to be on guard…" As if it needed to be said.

Atley gives his sword a spin, flicking a streak of fresh blood onto the ground at his boots. “Push forward! If these bastards don’t want to meet us in open field then we’ll flank them inside!” He returns to his explosive sprint and charges straight up towards Voldrune’s main entry, leaving a small red vrykul blood trail in his wake.

Roper doesn't need to be told twice, as he keeps pace with Dane, just a few steps behind, the cold around him a growing chill in the air.

Syarra falls in behind Dane, next to Roper, her gaze intent and focused on the camp ahead.

Etone promptly follows in line beside Vond, keeping an eye out behind them in case of ambush.

Vond moves in keeping, watching for Etone and Briellen as they go. He does not seem hesitant at all about getting out of the open and into closer quarters, despite the defense potential the vrykul may have. He has a braced expectant bearing, sensing out for the presence of nearby undead - aside from those already present.

There is not a gate, probably the result of vrykul hubris in combination with the strong natural defenses and sparse viable entry points. The buildings are scattered in a circular pattern around the stronghold’s center, where sits a massive bonfire. The vrykul — and there are many, many vrykul — are gathered in neat rows and columns around the bonfire, though none of them have their back turned to the intruders.

In the center of the stronghold, beside the bonfire, sits the oddly out of place cannon, tilted skyward and pointing in a northeastern direction. The three death knights have gathered by it, and behind them, bound at the base of the cannon, is Brendol.

One of the death knights is lanky, but not particularly tall, with a hood hiding his face. Another other sits on the cannon, tossing one of her runeblades up casually, and catching it. Her hair is short and black, and she watches eagerly as the invaders approach. In the middle of the other two stands Kaela Mondragon herself, taller than both, but only just, with her white hair loose around her shoulders and plainly visible.

The vrykul stand by, probably awaiting her signal.

“I will give you a chance,” Kaela calls, projecting her voice to the intruders. “If you want your little Crusader back, take him from us.”

At the sight of Brendol — not where he should be — there's a low, savage, "Fuck," from Roper, as he rolls his wrists, the runes in his blades flashing. "Well, isn't that just fucking sporting," is the follow up, a drawl softening the cutting edge of the echo of his voice. His attention zeroes in on the smaller, hooded death knight.

Etone offers a low hissing sound as he sucks air between his teeth, clearly unimpressed with the turn of events… What did the others run into…?! He jerks his head around to look behind once more.

Pericleia looks at Dane for orders.

Briellen appears to be gauging the distance to Brendol.

Vond's eminently readable face betrays alarm to see the unexpected Brendol situated beyond the hostile crowd, and he exchanges concerning glances with Etone, eyeing him for his assessment.

The Light-users present might be the best equipped to attempt to reach his location and shield him from further harm, but getting out again intact is a second question, and two Argent healers are great stakes to wager.

Syarra looks from Brendol to the cannon, and mutters something under her breath. Then she lifts her gaze to fix on Kaela and raises her bloody runeblade.

Atley comes to an abrupt stop upon seeing the death knights, his boots skidding across the ground, spitting up turf and earth. He sets his jaw and narrows his eyes in his helmet, rapidly taking in his surroundings, and their enemies.

He's still and quiet for a long moment before growling out a reminder to his comrades, as if Kaela hadn't spoken. "You lot have your ordered targets." He starts stomping towards the gathered assembly, each step falling just a bit faster and harder than the last as he prepares another charge. He does look over his shoulder and lock his gaze on Briellen.

"Brendol."

Before anything else, he explodes into another sprint and charges the nearest vrykul, issuing a battle cry. "HAVE AT IT!"

Syarra looks once toward Roper, and charges into the fray. Even As they meet combat with the vrykul, she does not lose focus on her goal - the death knights. She works her way towards them death by death.

Roper is even more dismissive of the vrykul, but he turns his attention to the draenei, to Pericleia. "Hey, Vindicator. Whatever that cannon's pointed at, make it point at fucking something else as soon as you can," he says, before he ignores most of the incoming attackers, skirting the edges with a reckless speed.

Pericleia takes off towards the cannon with Dane, a glimmering shield of her own Light flickering around herself.

Roper and Alver

As soon as Roper's got a line of sight to Alver, out goes that hand of shadow, the twisted thing that reaches and grabs and pulls, away from the cannon, and away from Kaela and Taya, away from the large building, and towards the slight cliff of the edge of the vrykul village. It puts them in all too easy range of another building, but if Roper is bothered by the prospect of more vrykul joining the fight, it isn't obvious by his positioning choice.

As the [Death Grip] drags the other death knight, Roper braces, frost heavy on his saronite armor. "Hey." It's a threat, and it sounds like one.

Alver’s sword is already drawn, to his benefit, and he meets Roper’s threat with a low growl. “Ebon Blade scum. Mourn was too cowardly to come himself? Had to send his pets?” He holds back from attacking, keeping his runeblade, a long, thin sword, between himself and Roper.

Argents

Vond breaks out of the moment's evaluating pause when Dane addresses Bree. He follows up to Etone, "Shield Clay as we go," and sets off down the inner enclave at a tear opposite Roper but not quite as fast, layering up with renewed invocations along the way. There is a shift in the reserved focus he'd been displaying and now there is as much clamor as there is quick action. The contact is loud and it is bright, all ringing clangs of light-made-manifest ricocheting about amid the darting chime of a prayer of mending, the paladin making of himself the most conspicuous threat he can muster with a vocal shout to match.

Backlash wounds full of brilliance and consecrated earth meet all who answer the suddenly confident and purposefully prominent advance as he makes a play to provoke the cannon-sitting death knight into interfering, with a small sparking buffet of light arcing out at her from a distance.

Briellen gets to about eighty feet from Brendol and stretches out a hand towards him, spinning out some sort of Light tether between the two of them. It does not seem like a standard Holy technique - perhaps something taught to her from the Libram of Compassion? She continues closing the distance.

Taya, the cannon-sitter, meets the Light sent at her with an anti-magic shell, flicking any remnants away with an annoyed snarl. “Yo, Commander. Argents are here. Can I go play? Pretty please? Just for a bit.”

Kaela scans the incoming Argents, her impassive expression finally breaking into a frown upon seeing Etone in their number. “Mind the inquisitor,” she says, then finally raises her hand.

The vrykul converge like a crashing sea upon the intruders, and Kaela begins to head —at a calm, relaxed walk — towards a nearby building. It is not the building which should house Jenzelle, at least.

Kaela and Syarra

Syarra's attention remains fixed on Kaela as she slashes her way through the wave of vrykul, intensely enough that she is not distracted by the pain of so much death around her. The building is not the one the rescue team should be in, but still…

"Mondragon!" Syarra calls, making towards her. "Fleeing already?"

Kaela Mondragon pauses at Syarra’s call. She turns, sliding her twin runeswords, like two frosty fangs, from their sheathes. “I have letters to write,” she calls back, “But, you’re here to end things, aren’t you? Very well. Let’s see if you can.”

Syarra raises her own two-handed sword with a smoothness that belies its true weight, an illustration of strength gained in death.

"You may not know me, but I've been following you," Syarra says, moving in with caution. "Since the Plaguelands. Ralaea is safe. And we took Mevlin. You haven't had many victories, Mondragon, so I wouldn't count yours prematurely here."

“Haven’t I?” Kaela sounds almost surprised. Is she losing? “Ralaea Westwind is in Stormwind, with my dear friend and student, Mourn. Did you know that? They bought a little apartment in Old Town. When was the last time you saw her? When you broke her spirit? I have probably seen her more recently than you have.” Kaela’s own movements are cautious, and she hangs back, waiting for Syarra to make the first move. Her gaze is assessing, even as she taunts the other death knight.

"I'm not concerned with her spirit," Syarra says calmly. She does not comment on the living arrangements, but she shows no outward sign of surprise. "If it can be broken so easily, perhaps she should take more care."

Dane and Pericleia

Meanwhile…

Atley almost looks comical leaping into a group of towering vrykul in full plate. Shield and sword become equal weapons in his hands. He issues no more words, no more orders, but speaks only through his implements of war.

His bashing shield caves in a vrykul's knee like the snapping of a log. One, then two, then three metallic rings of his sword chime out in a melodic parry and riposte combo until hot red blood is cast from the throat of another vrykul like a deep scarlet bedsheet. A basic, but perfectly executed maneuver ripped straight from any footman's field manual, as if he were hacking at trees.

The symbol of a [Seal of Justice] forms momentarily underneath one of Pericleia's hooves, and her sword shines with divine light. The clang of a Light-empowered hammer sounds over and over again as Pericleia mows through the vrykul towards the cannon, wielding sword and shield and Light as one well-rehearsed dance, leaving a path of stunned or dazed vrykul in her wake for someone like Dane to finish off. A net catches around her hooves, and she tears through it with a noise of impatience, light shining orange and purple around her hooves as the [Hand of Freedom] guides her steps.

Argents and Taya

Taya reappears near Vond, pausing just outside his ring of consecrated ground, having darted easily through the vrykul madness. Her size and agility set her up perfectly for dodging giants, it seems. “So, Argent Crusaders now,” she taunts. “Got tired of being a silver dawn? Bet I’ve killed more undead than you!” If one was counting, there seem to be less vrykul on the Argent side, perhaps due to Taya’s presence. This also presents a clearer shot to Brendol, assuming they can get around the little death knight.

Vond seems energized by the clashes with the vrykul rather than drained, and refreshed by infusions of Light sung into being by Etone. There is a cadence of close fighting followed by fan-spreads of weighty hammers fused from the surrounding turmoil of radiance that follows the Argents, each knelling with bursts of seal-empowered force as they strike beyond the limits of the paladin's own reach. They advance in a procession of fearful music, repelling contenders who chance the risk of crushing injuries and relatively bloodless autocautery, as they make a bid to carve a clearer path for Briellen.

The stare that meets Taya is no longer one of self-enforced confidence as much as goldflecked elation better suited to a particularly raucous prayer chant than a bloodbath. "Sister, at last you can know rest," Vond answers her, a hoarse voice threaded with disconcerting fervor and no trace of taunting. His hand would be extended to her in welcome if not for the hefty shield in his grip.

Taya laughs at Vond’s statement. “Oh, I have no intention of resting.” She scans the Argents again. “My sister isn’t with you? Didn’t you tell her I would be here?” Her playful demeanor shifts abruptly, as a fit of rage takes her. “Why?! Why didn’t you tell her? Are you keeping her from me?” All at once she lunges forward, hammering into Vond’s shield, again, and again, and again, each time hissing as the Light strikes back at her.

Roper and Alver

Roper's fighting style makes keeping a distance difficult, as Roper uses his dual swords more like long knives, pressing into Alver's guard with a terrifying speed. There's a fluidity to his motions, making them harder to predict, but it's also clear within the first few strikes that there is nothing especially complex about his sword work. He may be varying it up, but it's a conscious choice.

What is much more dangerous, however, is that he's using force and speed through footwork and weapon limitations to push Alver where he wants him – too far for the death knight to be of immediate use, and out of range to strike at Brendol. The techniques won't beat out a better swordsman for a killing blow, but Roper's not exactly looking for one at the moment.

"Hey, just because you're someone's fucking pet doesn't mean the rest of us are into it," Roper drawls. "Personally, I'm more of a white knight kind of guy. It's just that white doesn't go with my complexion anymore and washes me out. And I'm a fucking monster, but I'm not about to commit crimes of fashion." The words don't match the brutality of his actions at all — for all their casual banter, he's ruthlessly focused on his goal.

There is no indication that Alver notices Roper’s true goal; he is focused on the fight, managing to defend himself even with the disadvantageous positioning from Roper’s uncomfortable proximity. He is fast enough to keep up with Roper’s movements, while his own swordwork is precise, practiced, fluid, even under pressure.

“When was the last time I fought a dead man?” Alver grins beneath his hood, a savage expression of pure enjoyment. “Since I was raised, it’s been nothing but traitors, traitors, traitors, everywhere I look. Their flesh is fun to carve, but this feels right.”

"Yeah? You know how many knight wannabes I had to carve through to get to where I am?" The words come out conversational. The accompanying right hand strike is hard, aimed at Alver's legs rather than his torso, meant to continue to push him back, interfering with his footwork. It's also a cover for his left hand sword moving too quickly, quick timed strikes to the side intended to force Alver to angle his sword into a diagonal to catch both strikes.

"I've destroyed enough that you?" Roper exhales a soft ha of a laugh. "Fuck, you're not even gonna rank in the top five most impressive I've taken down. I don't know that in a year I'll even fucking remember you." It's a taunt, delivered at the precise moment that he rolls his wrist, a brutal, wailing wind rushing against the other death knight so that Alver's hood is thrown back violently, shards of shadowed frost and ice filled with disease to slow him down scattering across his exposed face.

Alver’s face is scarred in a thin line from the center of his forehead into his right eye, where the blade that killed him likely found purchase. His short black hair is a wild mess that the sudden wind actually seems to make better, rather than worse, and his eyes narrow to a squint against the blast. The shards of ice leave numerous shallow scratches across his face, deep enough for the disease to take root.

Alver lets out a wounded shriek as the sunlight touches his face, unearthing some buried trauma, most likely. He reaches blindly with a shadowy grip, pulling the nearest vrykul between himself and Roper and executing it immediately. Before it has even finished its death throes, its arm shoots forward in an upward, clawing grasp, aimed to scratch Roper’s own face, and tear off his helm.

“Traitors… TRAITORS!” Alver screams, preparing to cut through the fallen — then raised — vrykul to get at Roper.

Roper makes a harsh tsch sound as his helm is sacrificed to the vrykul to give him an opening at the freshly raised ghoul, chains of shadow and ice covering it, stopping it for a moment before he sends a runeblade through its thigh, ripping across it to disrupt the muscles and tendons holding it in place. He pulls it free and steps outside of its reach, using the momentum of a spin to swing both runeblades at Alver, using his momentary greater speed to press a small advantage to meet the strike.

The helm hits the ground. The death knight whose face was long hidden by the helm is…ordinary. He was a young man when he died, mid-twenties, of regular enough features to be not notable in either direction of beauty or unusual appearance. He is, however, unmistakably dead — there's a dark grayness to him, his features starker for dehydration after death, redness around his eyes that mark him for dead even without the blue glow.

But more than anything, the revelation of his face betrays his expression — for all his words of banter, there is nothing of it in his face: it's hard, and intensely focused on Alver as his runeblades make contact with the other knight; his voice has been a deception. "You've got something there, on your face." It's drawling, with an edge of mild concern, like he's trying to tell Alver he's left some breakfast to the side of his mouth. His expression doesn't shift to match it, a cruel light in his eyes.

The runeblades meet through the vrykul-made-ghoul, causing an explosion of gore that only serves as fuel for Alver’s frenzied state. His strikes become less controlled and precise, but increase in speed and frequency as he goes on the offensive, still trying to keep Roper at his ideal range, but using his body to check him if he gets too close. Whatever is going through his head at this point is not forming into coherent sentences.

“I have… EYE have…!” He bursts into breathless laughter, grinning widely.

Kaela and Syarra

Syarra moves in, slowly closing with Kaela. When she attacks, it is with a sudden speed, a slash cross-wise at her torso.

Kaela steps in, as if expecting such a movement, her twin fangs parrying the blade near the hilt, where the momentum is weakest. A coating of thick ice reinforces the runeblades. The force does push her, even with her feet firmly planted, but she keeps her balance, draws back ever so slightly, and thrusts one of the blades towards Syarra’s side.

“You may work with the living now,” she says, “But they will never truly accept you. I mean to make sure of that.”

Syarra pivots away from the counterattack, and the stab hits only air. Runes pulse and fade in Syarra's blade, and the ground beneath them tinges red. Syarra glares at Kaela through the visor of her helm.

"Perhaps not," Syarra says, shifting into another strike, slightly higher, trying to draw up Kaela's defenses. "But we will stop you. And witness, the living at my side."

“Shall I witness them?” Kaela asks, avoiding the strike altogether this time, as a howling, frosty blast buffets Syarra and two runes on one of her runeblades flicker out. “Or… Shall I kill them?”

Beneath her, the violently decaying ground begins to eat away at her boots, the red, death bringing energy eventually splashing against the more exposed areas on the back of her legs. The only sign of its effectiveness is a slight flinch now and then as it strikes a less protected surface.

Syarra shifts diagonal and braces with her sword to take the icy blast, the frost collecting on her armor. She lifts one hand, and a vrykul corpse close to her begins to stir. Then, she hears Briellen call out, and she lets the vrykul's body drops back motionless. Instead, bones explode out of the ground near her, whirling around her in a shield.

"If you kill them, it will be because I am not here to see it," Syarra says simply, edging around Kaela, looking for an opening. "Though I don't keep company with people who can't fend for themselves."

“That’s good to hear,” Kaela says, putting some careful distance between herself and Syarra. “Let’s test that.”

Dane and Pericleia

The majority of the vrykul force are rushing to engage Dane and Pericleia, avoiding the two death knights on the edges, and staying out of Kaela’s way as well. Some have climbed to the tops of buildings to shoot crossbow bolts and magic down into the chaos. The path to the cannon feels like an endless swim against the current of a river.

Pericleia continues stubbornly wading through the sea of vrykul to get to the cannon. She does not stop, although the chiming of the prayer of mending as it chooses her as a target to ricochet to and from multiple times does imply that she is not invulnerable, just durable and well-sustained.

Argents and Taya

As the fighting intensifies and the short death knight engages the Argents, Etone offers a flat, "Am I supposed to know who you are - let alone make arrangements for your sibling -" He pauses to suck in a large volume of air, "- to join us." Whether or not he actually knows the deceased is up for debate - though from his pinched nose expression he does seem to know of their ringleader.

The air warps around the redhead as he offers out a soundless scream, the Psychic Horror of whatever he's screeched into the death knight's mind causing her to falter for the briefest of moments. If her grasp on her weapon wasn't as iron bound as it was, she'd probably drop the thing in sheer panic. Shadowy tendrils cling about her legs as the eldritch horror they belong to gnashes its toothy maw against her greaves mindlessly.

Mind the Inquisitor indeed.

Meanwhile Vond's expression somewhat wavers in what looks like something approaching sympathetic concern as Taya batters against the solid barrier he presents. "Who…?" He shows no clear recognition of who she speaks of, and after a few impacts of her weapon, presses at their positioning. Unlike Roper's misleading melee with Alver, Vond's intent to force Taya further apart from the cannon is blunt and direct, bulling forward slightly with the mass of the shield between solid-armed blade parries - letting her test her endurance of the steady proximity burn, and perhaps aided by Etone's mindbending should it succeed in finding purchase.

If the paladin notices the horrifying lashing shadows below, he does not appear to pay it any mind. Perhaps it is all in her head. "You can tell us who to notify," he adds in a tone like a consolation, then raises his sword arm behind his substantial defenses for another vague gesture toward Etone then aside.

The redhead takes Vond's signal and casts a barrage of protective spells on Briellen, the blinding brilliance of the prayers and blessings might seem excessive - but he's not taking any chances.

Kaela and Syarra and Briellen

Kaela raises her arm towards the charging Briellen, who has just entered her range in her efforts to reach Brendol. Kaela lifts three fingers from her runeblade, and an arm of shadow snakes out and wrenches the paladin from her mount, pulling her directly between the two death knights. The sudden barrage of protective spells from Etone was well-timed, it seems.

Endurance, Briellen's charger, continues on a path for Brendol without his rider.

Briellen lands on her feet, surrounded by excessively bright Light. She brings down a hammer of Light above Kaela's head, attempting to stun the Death Knight for a few seconds. Her shield is raised defensively; her sword is still in its scabbard, untouched.

Syarra flinches backward from the blazing Light, raising a gauntlet to shield her eyes. She recovers quickly, though, and makes a different sort of gesture with her free hand. There's a sound of wings and a gargoyle materializes out of shadow behind Kaela.

Syarra herself sidesteps around Bree, trying not to get singed.

Kaela is forced to back away from the paladin as well, though a green anti-magic shell envelops her, thwarting the Hammer. Perhaps she has come to expect paladin shenanigans. Ignoring the gargoyle for now, she pushes with speed back into the Light while her barrier holds, in what is probably a reckless move. Her blades bite blindly in Bree’s approximate direction, hoping for a hit while the paladin remains more or less unarmed.

As Kaela moves to attack Bree, a mass of writhing shadow manifests in Syarra's hand and she flings it at the anti-magic shield. The gargoyle spits dark energy at her as well. The shield is not going to last long.

Briellen brings up her own shield, and between that and Etone's Shield protecting her, she remains unharmed. "I don't have time to play your games," she says to Kaela, already starting to back away in Brendol's direction.

Dane Atley, covered in the blood and viscera of fallen vrykul — many not even by his own hand — spots the charger and widens his eyes within his helmet. He shield checks a single vrykul in the side, and with a crunching of ribs the giant staggers. Dane breaks out into yet another sprint and attempts to encounter Briellen's charger en route to the cannon in an attempt to swing himself atop and ride free to get to Brendol!

Roper and Alver

If Roper has any sense at all of the fight unfolding, there's no sign of it. Likely, based on his attacks on Alver, the death knight has focused so narrowly on his task that the rest of the battlefield has blurred into some din of pain and violence. He laughs back at Alver, as if they're sharing a joke together over a tavern's table, Roper's echoes unusually loud, a darkness to them in counterpoint to the living sounding mirth. He falls back to Alver's offensive, moving in a smooth motion, like they're dancing and it's Alver's turn to lead.

It's a lie. A cheat. Roper waits for Alver to take an obvious opening, and then twists his blade around in a way that would damage the ligaments of a living person's wrists — and there is, even in a dulled, deadened sense of it, pain from it — to score a burning cold line of his left handed runeblade across the same line as the scar on Alver's face. The frost fever that follows is devastatingly cold, jagged shards spreading through the veins of the other knight, slowing him with every moment they have root.

Alver wails, half in pain, half in remembrance of his own demise, and launches a shadowy coil at Roper in an effort to drive him back and away, to stop the freezing, burning agony in his skull.

Roper's pain ripples out in a wave from him, as he grits his teeth against it but making no sound at all, turning into the shadow to let the wracking pain it causes fuel his defense, catching his feet under himself as he staggers back from Alver, enough to lose the ground he'd gained.

"Ah, you know what they say. An eye for an eye makes you go fucking blind," Roper drawls out, that conversational tone still at wild odds with the cold look on his face. "You wanna see how fast you can heal an eye now, or you wanna see if you die from it if I hit it hard enough?" It's as if he's asked Alver if he wants a whiskey or a lager, jovially. To punctuate the question, however, is not a welcoming hand, but a pulse to his right hand runeblade as it is coated in black ice, in preparation of a more deadly next strike. He isn't paying any attention at all now to Brendol's rescue, or Syarra's fight with Kaela. Everything has come down to Alver.

Argents and Taya

Taya does indeed freeze in a moment of panic, her eyes wide, their glow flickering. Burns have started to appear on her skin from overexposure to the Light, and it isn’t until she tries to flee that she notices the toothy creature at her feet. She hacks at it in the attempt to free herself, finally jumping clear of the tendrils, the Light, all of it.

With a savage growl, she cuts down the nearest vrykul, practically bathing in its blood. The burns begin to heal, and blood worms, small maggot-like creatures, emerge from the corpse. It’s no longer a surprise why the vrykul are trying to avoid the death knights.

“Hey,” she says, her attention now focused on Etone. “Nice trick, but I can keep going. There’s two of you, so let's make it even.” Another pair of runeblades, clones of her own, appear beside her at her command, and when she lunges back in to engage Vond, the second pair of blades floats straight towards Etone. “My sister,” she hisses as the Light burns her again, “Is Tabiana Lynds.” The blood worms join in the attack, but don’t last long on the consecrated ground.

Etone offers a slight gag as he stomps on the bugs that encroach upon his limited personal space. Ew ew ew ew.

The shadow fiend (friend) dissipates into nothingness. Perhaps it's a distraction as golden chains reach up around Kaela, reinforced by jutting pillars of pure Light, shackling the undead aggressor in spot. It's not more than a brief few seconds allowing Briellen a taste of free movement while she closes in on the captive Argent.

Vond is given a reprieve from another encroaching vrykul who sees Taya sustain herself on a compatriot's lifeblood and decides to find elsewhere to apply himself. There is a shift in the paladin's look of entrancement as well at the outpouring of bloodworms against a backdrop of a gargoyle's shriek, pulsing shadows and roiling corruption, bones of the living being pulverized and those of the dead ingloriously repurposed.

The bearing of compassion mislayed falls away, replaced with something tense and simmering. Sudden outward-spiraling bolts of holy wrath that pass through the nearby living harmlessly aim to briefly stun Taya, while Vond is caught in an exchange of blows with wielder-less flying runeblades that would be slightly ridiculous if not for the deadly keen edges. He works to run down their dark empowerment and focus on covering Etone as the priest makes his bid to present Kaela in the distance with some surprise interference.

The shackles of Light land before Kaela can stop Briellen, halting Kaela momentarily in her tracks, the shell of anti-magic having already been spent thanks to Syarra’s efforts. Though it is only for a few seconds, it is long enough that Syarra now has an opening for a free attack, if the shackles themselves do not repel her. Somewhere behind her, on their way to Brendol, Ada, Sil and Alysson pass by. Things are probably starting to get out of hand for Kaela’s crew.

Dane, Pericleia, and the Rescuers

Obscured by the flash and noise of battle, Sil slips out of the building and threads a careful but swift path towards Brendol and the cannon, trusting Alysson to follow behind.

Endurance is a special horse. He feels even more tangible than he looks, but there is still an otherworldly gleam to him, and his eyes shine with the Light. He accepts his new rider easily and continues on his course without any of the usual directing needed from Dane.

Pericleia slams her shield into the cannon with a loud clang. She draws back a few more steps and charges it, throwing the full weight of her body and shield into it, and the barrel of the cannon does shift off-course a little.

Endurance reaches Brendol's body and snorts as he comes to a halt, letting Dane do his thing.

Sil appears, kneeling next to Brendol. He pulls the potion out of his pack and says, low enough not to carry over the battle, "Jenzelle's safe. Drink this and we'll get you to Stormwind. No time to get you free, we'll just carry you."

Atley continues raving towards Brendol at full speed thanks to Endurance, but moments before he makes contact, he spots a silent stepping Sil.

Atley widens his eyes, and tries to steer Endurance clear. He manages enough strength to leap off the sprinting mount, in full plate, to slam his entire weight against the cannon, shield first. He soars right over Silvestre’s head. “Bring it down!”

Roper and Alver

Alver backs away even further, putting more space between himself and Roper. One hand clutches his wounded head, where the blade went into his eye socket, while the other remains on his sword, tip pointing at Roper, gathering another shadowy coil. Unholy insects begin to swarm Roper, seeking the gaps in his armor, gnawing, hungry little bugs. Beyond words now, Alver only hisses in reply.

"Fuck." The insects burrow through, converge on Roper's unprotected face, as they crawl into the edges of the armor. Their stings begin to accumulate, chipping away at the frost that covers him. The pain is just enough to build on the damage already done, leaving Roper's teeth clenched hard in between words. He's still talking, as he flicks his runeblades back into play. He's slower than he was a moment ago though, as the wind covers him, blowing at the vile insects digging into his flesh.

"What, you too cowardly to hit me yourself, that you've gotta send your pets?" It isn't just the words thrown back at Alver — it's his own voice, a mocking close approximation of it, like hearing your own voice through a recording, enough to recognize it, and just off enough to make you think that you hope you don't really sound like that. "Turns out you're just like the fucking traitors. Your flesh is just as fun to carve." Goading, mocking, mimicking — it might be easy to miss the subtle reverberations in his voice, a dark command to keep Alver focused only on Roper.

“Trai…traitors…!” Alver backs up another step, his one eye never leaving Roper. He launches the death coil and then, behind him, fallen vrykul begin to stir, clambering to their feet like an army of the dead. Apparently, yes. He is going to send more pets. Lots of pets.

Roper's attention leaves Alver for the barest seconds as he looks behind him, ignoring the insects crawling over his face, seeking purchase on the frost, stabbing where the ice is weaker, sending small shockwaves of pain through the death knight, and he catches sight of the first waves of the undead army rising. "Well." He returns his focus to Alver. "Fuck." There's the start of a gathering chill surrounding Roper, in preparation, as he repositions his stance to be ready to deal with multiple attackers coming at him. He doesn't take note of Briellen and Syarra's fight against Kaela at all — perhaps his confidence in Syarra is too high to think he needs to be concerned.

That's a mistake.

Kaela, Bree and Syarra

Briellen takes a few more steps back towards Brendol, but she doesn't take her eyes off of Kaela and Syarra. Too dangerous.

Syarra takes the opening without hesitation, an intake of breath the only sign of discomfort at the nearness of the Light shackles. Runes pulse and fade on her sword as she turns into the strike, bringing staggering force down into Kaela's shoulder. The attack is precisely targeted at the joint, both to damage the metal and hinder future mobility, and to cut at least a little through to the dead flesh beneath.

The shackles fade mere moments before impact, but Kaela does not have the time to mount a proper defense. Syarra’s blade splits through the thin layer of gathering frost and bites into the armor itself, deep enough to bend the metal and even draw a bit of blood. Kaela drops to one knee from the force of the blow, and as she gazes up at Syarra there is a slight, almost contemplative hesitation. Then all at once the moment is gone, and two more runes darken, this time on her other runesword. The temperature drops, and another frozen blast crashes against Syarra, and this time, Briellen is also within its radius.

Leaving little recovery time, Kaela launches herself at Bree, lashing out with her one good arm, while the other remains at her side. She might be having trouble moving that arm. A third rune darkens, leaving only one red glowing rune on the sword. She is attempting to [Strangulate] Bree. To cut off the flow of magic and prevent any nasty paladin surprises.

Syarra was bringing the sword around for a second strike, this one at Kaela's neck, when the icy blast staggers her balance. Kaela is after Bree before Syarra can recover.

"No," Syarra says, low enough not to be heard over the sounds of battle. She looks up to where the gargoyle was, but it has already returned to wherever it was before. For just a moment, Syarra's eyes rest on the vrykul corpses scattered on the ground, such inviting raw materials. Even quieter, she breathes, "Not like that."

Instead, Syarra launches herself toward Kaela and Bree, angling to place herself between them.

Brendol

Brendol is lying on his side. He tries to lift his head to look up at Sil, but it seems as though he’s only partially aware of what’s going on. His arms are bound behind his back, though it looks like nobody bothered tying his legs. He won’t be able to run on them anyway. “Jen…zelle…” he murmurs, recognizing her name, at least.

Alysson crouches next to Sil. Ada is suddenly nowhere to be seen. “Are we doin’ headsies footsies, or from the sides?” he asks. His eyes grow wide as Dane sails over them and smashes into the cannon. The cannon tilts, then shifts in direction. It is now facing more Northwest, towards the Horde stronghold of Conquest Hold.

Sil flinches as Dane soars overhead, and then focuses back on Alysson. "I'll get under his shoulders, you get his legs? Careful, he's hurt."

Sil leans over Brendol, uncorking the potion and tilting the contents into Brendol's mouth.

With a surprisingly gentle scoop, Alysson cradles Brendol’s legs, just before they flicker out of sight. “Say, Sil? You seen Ada? I lost ‘er durin’ the whole…” he gestures with his shoulder to a vrykul charging at Pericleia.

Fortunately for the rescue team, the vrykul number does seem to be noticeably dwindling, giving them actual breathing room, and a better view of their surroundings. From where they are, they can see all three enemy death knights, and how the combat is going.

"She's not going to Stormwind, right?" Sil says, fitting his hands underneath the vanished man's shoulders and hoisting his side into the air as well. "She's probably got clear. She seemed sharp. Let's get him through to safety."

Sil starts making his way back toward the tower where Cressidha and the portal await, as stealthily as two guys carrying an invisible guy can.

Atley staggers to the ground after the blow, but pops back up to his feet in half of a moment. He feverishly shakes his head back and forth, no doubt concussed, and looks around at the battlefield, his gaze lastly falling on the cannon…

His eyes narrow. There’s half of a second of deliberation as some internal battle is waged and then decided. On foot, he ignores the many foes surrounding him and hefts his enchanted sword, using it to savagely strike at the support base for the cannon, even if it means actually hacking wood, to try and not only disable it but drop it on any lingering vrykul.

Pericleia sees what Dane's doing and covers his back, shield raised, fending off approaching vrykul.

Finally, thanks to Dane’s efforts, the cannon breaks free from its stand with a mighty snap and crashes to the ground, beginning to roll across vrykul living and dead.

Taya and the Argents

Vond batters a levitating runeblade that had begun to quaver and slow into the ground. Though he had succeeded in diverting Taya further out of the range of the other Scourge, he has pushed them far from Briellen, and he only has a scant moment to scan the field for the now-absent Brendol - beforeTaya recovers her bearings and monopolizes the paladin's fortifications with her persistent ability to rejuvenate herself in the face of the steady backlash burning.

"Confessor…! They rise!" He alerts Etone to enormous vrykul corpses in various states of intactness stirring, first in the distance then nearer, then fall in upon them in a disorganized swarm. Streams of flickering light pour past Vond's shoulders like fraying ribbons as the two Argents are forced into earnest, intensive defense, and for a moment they are too concentrated a blaze for undead to approach without peril of joining with the brilliance in total.

Kaela, Bree and Syarra

Briellen's movements slow as frost forms on her armor. Her lips move, but no magic happens for a moment - and then the resilient gold of a [Divine Shield] snaps into place around her, Kaela's magic finding no more purchase. Twelve seconds of being untouchable, a paladin's ultimate form of self-protection, baited out early. That's it for the duration of this fight. She glances over her shoulder to see Brendol gone and quickly returns her focus to Syarra and Kaela.

Briellen raises a hand crackling with holy lightning, but as the [Holy Shock] jumps to Kaela, its power is significantly reduced - another side effect of the divine shield.

The shock of holy energy is still strong enough to draw a cry from Kaela, but her strike is committed, and she can no longer stop. Either by a stroke of luck, or due to Kaela’s skillful manipulation, Syarra’s move places her in the path of the strike, and the runeblade finds a target after all.

Kaela's twin runeblades came with the full force of death knight strength behind them, piercing Syarra's armor and sinking into her ribcage on either side. Kaela’s wounded shoulder begins to heal around the shattered metal, painful, yes, but a quick roll tells that she can move it, at least.

“You do not trust your allies after all,” Kaela murmurs to Syarra, “And now…you will pay for that.” Frost gathers on her runeblades, and she prepares for a finishing strike.

"No. My choice," Syarra says, in a brief gasp of breath, falling to her knees in front of Bree, her runeblade falling from her hand. She looks up at Kaela. "Not yours."

Across the battlefield, the scent of Syarra's pain, one single note on the wind of dozens, hits Roper as though Kaela's blades have struck through her into him as well.

"No."

His head whips to the side to look at her, to watch her runeblade hit the ground. Roper forgets about Alver. He forgets about the living allies. For the first time in his existence, living or dead, Roper forgets about the mission.

Roper's voice echoes in a scream of anguish. "Syarra!" The pain is real enough to be felt by every death knight on the field, as he sprints to his wife, a maddening blast of a blizzard clearing a path. Everything he has goes into that run, desperate to get to her before that final blow can land.

He is not going to make it.

Ending

Briellen drops to one knee, holding her shield in front of Syarra to at least stall a finishing blow. "Roper! Bring her a living vrykul!" Briellen shouts, her voice carrying out over the battlefield. "Three minutes!"

The divine shield around Briellen does not fade, it just vanishes. A shell of Light encases Syarra. It does not touch her skin, it does not burn her, but it freezes her body as if in time. She can think, she can see only in the direction she's already looking if her eyes happen to be open, but her injuries are not worsening. For now. All of Briellen's Light goes out, and her body crumples. She falls forward towards Syarra's back, but hits the outside of the Light shell and slumps against it.

Syarra is frozen staring up at Kaela, with helpless rage alongside something darker in her gaze.

Roper's rage is less helpless but no less savage as he closes the distance too late, as Briellen falls, and Syarra is caught behind a shield of the Light. There's no words directed at Kaela, no banter, no taunt — just a wordless raw sounding scream as the death knight crashes into the undead commander with the reckless abandon of someone who is not thinking of anything beyond the strike he is currently making. He is not thinking of his allies. He is not considering the ways to survive. He is not planning ahead, not feinting for strategy, not testing her limits.

He is trying to destroy her. At all costs.

Death made of black ice is heavy and dark as a moonless midnight on his blades, obliteration promised in his eyes.

"CLAY!"

The cry from across the field is a distant rough peal of infuriated woe with a reverberating heart pang to match, tantalizing to the pain-driven. Ignited with avenging wrath, Vond is straining out toward their direction, slowed by the sheer mass of mindless risen throwing themselves against smoldering demise.

Surprise is written plainly across Kaela’s face as her runeblades strike the shell of Light gathered around Syarra. She spares a glance at the body of Briellen, then takes a step back, throwing up her guard just in time as the screaming Roper crashes into her.

“Commander!” Alver follows on his heels, a rune on his sword blinking out as chains of ice bite into Roper, allowing Kaela a bit more space. Seeing her face seems to have brought some semblance of sanity back to the death knight.

Short on time, Kaela throws aside one of her runeblades in favor of a flare gun, which she fires straight into the air. “Taya! We’re leaving!” she commands, her voice carrying easily across the battlefield.

Taya, noticing the sudden chaos erupting behind her, leaps out of the path of the paladin and takes off towards Kaela at a sprint. She tosses a smoke bomb behind her for good measure — a last remnant of the team’s engineer.

Around them, the ghouls swarm the living, providing cover for the death knights. Alver takes his place between Roper and Kaela, while the latter begins to retreat towards a nearby building. Taya snatches Kaela’s discarded runesword on the way by and calls back to the Argents, “Playtime’s over, but I’ll be back! Bring my sister next time!”

Roper thrashes against the chains for only a moment before ice coalesces around him, through him, glittering darkly in the light of the day, faceted glass catching reflections of the Light from around Syarra's shield, the chains of ice breaking off in brittle pieces. He lunges forward, a hand of shadow gathering in his left hand runeblade, ready to pull Kaela back to him. Alver doesn't exist. All he knows is that the thing that hurt Syarra is getting away, and Roper is willing to do something truly stupid to prevent that, including having absolutely no guard up whatsoever, all his focus on the fleeing form of the commander.

Alver takes full advantage of the death knight’s reckless lunge, his runesword slamming into Roper’s chest with unguarded force. “This time Commander, let the sacrifice be mine…” he murmurs.

Kaela spares a glance behind her, but the hesitation is only slight. She and Taya disappear into the building, the door closing behind them. By the time anyone arrives in pursuit, it will be too late to follow.

The hand of shadow wobbles. The blood doesn't even well up around the wound, frozen in Roper's veins, the pain muted and faded. In that moment, before he can gather the shadows back, the door closes. Only then does he look down at the runeblade through his chest, with an eerie calm, as though Alver had put a hand there to stop him like a man holding another back in a bar fight, a gentlemanly, now, sir, won't you reconsider? He takes a step forward anyway, but something of the battlefield breaks through the mania.

The mission parameters. Reality reasserts itself. Roper Sunstrike has never abandoned a mission. Syarra might still be saved. The living are still fighting.

Roper gives Alver a crooked grin with death pouring from his eyes in blue flames glowing brighter. The runes on Roper's runeblades match, as the air around them grows so bitterly cold that it snaps in lungs, catches breath in place, and freezes the dead around them.

His faster left hand blade arches up into the soft space of the underside of Alver's jaw, the blade tip catching in the sinus cavity to force Alver's head back, as the stronger runeblade of Roper's right hand swings hard, carving through the death knight's neck, severing the spine, but leaving the head dangling like a poorly chopped tree. He rips with inhuman force on his left runeblade, tearing the flesh of Alver's neck to finish the job, as Roper inhales deeply, some unseen power entering him.

The body falls lifelessly to the ground as whatever stitching keeping the soul in place tears away. Around them, the army of the dead collapses into dust, leaving only a small number of living vrykul left in the fight. On the rooftops, a white worgen engages the vrykul who had sought a better vantage point, savagely ripping them from their perches and throwing them down to the ground. Some of them die. Some are not so lucky.

Roper steps a boot onto the head, scraping it off the blade. He pays no attention to the rest of the fight, turning in place. At the sight of Syarra, still suspended within the Light, he collapses to his knees in front of it, Alver's runeblade in his chest. A living man would be dead already, his heart crushed, his lungs punctured, even as his lifeblood poured out of him. Roper is just inconvenienced, as he falls back onto his heels, staring at Syarra with unblinking eyes. He rocks back and forth slightly, not quite in rhythm, but as if he repeatedly is trying to reach out to her and physically stopping himself. He transfers his left runeblade to hold it with his right — the right hand blade has a crack running through it, not interfering with the runes, but damage done from Alver's bones.

Roper pulls the runeblade out of his chest with a death rattle sound, the ice melting as blood begins to drip sluggishly out of him, the armor bending free at least in the right direction mostly. He sets his left hand on the ground, and another dead begins to rise; it doesn't last enough to do anything but twitch, before a shadow pours out, into Roper, and the worst of the hole through his chest mends enough that at least no one is going to see through him.

So, okay, Dane, that's another advantage Roper could have mentioned.

"Hey, baby," Roper says to Syarra, his voice an echoing scrape of sound, something wrong in the way his air doesn't quite last, the internal damage still there, pain in every word he speaks. There's a terrible, deadened, bleak looking humanity in his exposed face. "It's gonna be okay." His eyes look unfocused as shadows gather around his left hand, ready to pull a vrykul to him to hold onto it for Syarra to kill in two minutes.

Syarra can't move or answer, frozen in place. Then the stasis drops and Syarra falls forward on her hands, drawing in a rattling breath. "Briellen. She… Why would she…"

Roper's left hand goes out to her — the gauntlet that ends in spikes of his fingertips, the shadows dissipating for a moment. "Sh, sh, sh." It's a gentle shushing, deceptively so, and if there's a tenderness to his action, as he tries to pull her towards him, into him, there's also a dangerous hunger warring on his face as Syarra's pain hits the air again.

The two living Argents finally make their way to the scene of the recent clash with Kaela, having lost sight of Taya entirely. Vond is covered in slashes of black soot that was once the matter of undeath, and Etone is actively shielding them as they struggle to clear their lungs of smoke.

The paladin's countenance is stricken with anger still as he stoops toward Briellen's lifeless form, casting over-vigilant glances around them for any immediately incoming trouble. The signs of the Light's furious indwelling fade from a mortal body that can no longer bear the gravity of its presence, and he catches his breath when it departs, pouring sweat and rattling metal reporting on limbs taken to shaking.

"What were you thinking!?" he demands of the corpse, and reaches for her, unanswered. "Confessor!"

Syarra winces and brings her hand to her side, reaching one hand weakly toward her runeblade.

Roper sets his hand over hers, and there's a bad moment when he starts to press down — something that would help a living person, perhaps, from bleeding out, but in this case is a very, very bad idea — and stops himself. He leans in closer to Syarra, his head just above her shoulder, pressed against her helm, his voice nothing but a murmur to her.

Etone narrows his eyes as the scene unfolds. Who needed three minutes, this could have been done in seconds - and in a way that wouldn't have damaged their undead companions, Foolish thing…

The redhead points in an arching sway at the remaining risen valkyr, the word from his lips simply "Pain". As the last one is marked he sucks in a hissing crash of discordant sounds - nothing like the soothing songs he's used up until now. Shadows engulf the giants as their vitality is quickly seized and spread across the priest's party. The Light users - if given a moment to properly process this - would probably find it offensive that their wounds were healed in such a way - though the undead should find it rather easing.

It's not a pleasant sight as his Vampiric Embrace thrives off the shadow damage his Words weave.

With a clear voice he commands, "Light bind you to this realm Briellen Clay!"

His song is warm and pure once more as light surrounds the lifeless Briellen's body. "Light's Will Be Done! While your soul still lingers I BIND YOU!"

Vond has lost any attention for the Ebon Blade as the nearest ghouls he was watching for mysteriously wither, slow and still. He simply releases Briellen, presses his palms together and tips his forehead to them, underwriting Etone's commanding effort with some distraught and fervent muttering.

His upper body is seized with a noticeable ongoing shiver that he doesn't seem to fully register.

Roper's pain eases at the shadow surging through him from the priest, slipping through the cracks of his resistance to the Light through the other side of the coin of the balance of shadow and light, and he presses closer to Syarra, inhaling deeply as if trying to find a scent on the wind.

Atley stepped out of the way of the rolling cannon, and swiftly turns to face lingering undead vrykul that had shambled his way, sending severed arms, heads, and even a few legs flying through the air. At the commotion of the others, he stomps over to join them, his heavy breathing escaping through his helmeted visage with a filtered, metallic sound.

All he can do is watch, with a firm glare, as he looks over the others, eyes most certainly taking in Roper's performance and method of self-rejuvenation.

Pericleia's brow glows with the sign of the Naaru as she heals her own wounds somewhat. She examines the cannon like she's looking for the answer to the mystery of why it was there. Maybe it has some weird human writing on it that she can recognize, even if she won't be able to read it herself.

The cannon does indeed have human writing on it!

Briellen inhales sharply and her aura of Devotion reasserts itself. She blinks rapidly up at the sky.

"Vond! Grab her and go!" The priest closes the gap between them and murmurs, "Hear my voice, don't become lost in it now."

Syarra draws in a firmer breath, confused at the cessation of pain. She grabs the hilt of her runeblade and reaches out for Roper as she struggles to stand. "We stay here. She wasn't supposed to die."

Roper glances over at Briellen, looking pretty alive. "Eh. She only died for a little bit. All the cool paladins do it," he drawls. The voice suggests humor. The intensity of expression suggests he wishes there was still something around to kill, as he pushes up to a stand, his arm firmly on Syarra's. He scans the field, looking for Dane. "Hey. Sir Atley. The extraction targets — they get out alive?"

Meanwhile, having cleared the rooftops, the white worgen watches those below her with unblinking green eyes. Perhaps trying to glean information in the aftermath of the chaos and decide when to flee.

Briellen looks quite disoriented as she sits up, removing her helm. "Is it over? What…?" She is in full plate and not very easily carried.

Vond moves forward again with a start when the felled Argent stirs. The look of horrified seething snaps to something breathlessly hopeful in an instant like the turn of a page. He responds to Etone's command with promptness and his reassurance with an incomplete but noticeable calming.

"Pardon, ma'am," he tells Briellen while moving to take her hand and offer an insistent pull to her feet while she is still reacquainting with her own senses. He definitely looks prepared to try to direct her somewhere else, or even attempt to carry her in some fashion should she not be able to move about, but he is waiting for something, staring back toward Dane. The shivering is improved but present.

"Who reads?" Pericleia calls out to the crowd. "Are writings on cannon important?"

Roper's attention shifts to Pericleia at the yell. "Yes," he yells back. "Especially with this fucking crew." He stares back at Dane for the answer to his question, waiting for Syarra to gain her footing, but it's obvious in the impatient way he stands that he wants badly to look at that cannon's writing.

Estel pushes open the door to the room that Jenzelle was being held captive in previously and yells, "Hey! They're through! Portal to Stormwind's in here if you want it!"

Briellen accepts Vond's hand up, stumbling a little but gaining her balance quickly enough. "I heard your song," she says to Etone. "Thank you. Syarra?" She looks down at the Death Knight.

Syarra gains her own feet, still supported by Roper, then turns toward the paladin. She pulls off her helm, letting it fall, and looks from Bree to Vond and back. For a moment, a flicker of envy crosses her face.

"Why would you do that for me?" Syarra asks, and the question sounds genuine.

Something the others probably wouldn't notice, Etone plants a firm hand on Vond's back and murmurs something while a soft rainbow light surrounds his hand. "We should take the portal and discuss the particulars somewhere safe."

Roper can't wait another minute — he's gotta see the cannon. He leaves Syarra's side to stride to it impatiently, to where Pericleia is, looking for the writing, his face alight with intelligence and menace both.

Briellen blinks at Syarra. "You're on your very last chance, the two of you," she says. "If you fell here, I don't know if you could have been brought back."

Pericleia points it out. "Look, writings. Read it for me? I do not read your languages."

The writing on the cannon says, in very official, standard, trademarked text, “Property of the Darkmoon Faire.”

"Anyone need healing who ain't had it yet?" Estel shouts.

"'Property of the Darkmoon Faire,'" Roper reads out, with a following hiss of tsch. "Fuck. What the fuck was this doing here," he says, looking up to where it was pointed — where Estel is shouting. "And what the fuck was she going to do with it." The questions might not be for Pericleia exactly, but he looks the draenei over. "Good work fucking it up."

Atley grunts and begins to answer, "Aye, they're —" Estel cuts him off, and he just gestures towards her. He seems to sense Vond's attention, and looks back to the Crusader as he walks, before looking all around. "Learn wot' we can from their doings here. We shove off soon, 'fore a possible reinforcing force can arrive," he barks.

Pericleia nods to Roper. "You probably did good work too. I did not see. I was busy… fucking up this."

Estel looks directly up at the mysterious white worgen and grins.

Syarra stares at her for a moment, waiting to see if she'll say more. When she doesn't, Syarra just shakes her head.

"That's not what I…" She looks over at Etone and nods. Turning back to Bree and Vond, she says, "The one that died. Ralaea will want his insignia. If you're going through the portal, you should take it."

Roper aims a crooked smile at Pericleia, one that might have once been charming when he was alive. There's still too much violence in his eyes, a Hunger there reaching into him and twisting the expression, but he laughs a ha. "Yeah. You smell anything strange from it, around it?" He's still holding his two runeblades in one hand and it takes him a second before he finally sheathes them both, setting a hand on the cannon, touching it as if he can feel anything through the gauntlets. "Does this feel warm or cold to you? Like it was fired recently at all?" He steps around it, to try to look into the cannon.

Pericleia sniffs at the cannon. "Maybe you ask Sir Dane, he is of normal human warmth. I have the Light inside."

Atley grunts and takes a tedious moment to unclasp his gauntlet before he lays a rough, bare hand against the barrel of the cannon with a thoughtful glare.

The cannon is cold, and smells solely like a chunk of metal in Northrend. It seems it never saw use.

"I can handle that. I know Rae." Estel has made her way over by now. "Hi, I'm Estel. Which one's the one that died? Can you point 'em out? I didn't see." There are a lot of bodies on this battlefield.

Vond fails to conceal something like a displeased grimace when Briellen offers her matter of fact explanation to Syarra, and steps back when assured by her posture that she has found her feet without his aid. He darts a somewhat surprised look toward Estel, and after Dane speaks, he calls to her, "Is the portal still open?"

He answers Syarra's suggestion with an openly accusatory glare, before nonetheless stepping aside to search what Roper had left of Alver for such an identifying token. "This one…" He glances back to Etone with a brief touch of his hand to his own left shoulder as he goes.

Roper's brows flick up and down, waiting for the assessment of Dane's Normal Human Warmth Meter, as he looks inside it, then around it, as if trying to piece together a story of how this cannon got to where it is.

There are no drag marks in the dirt except those caused by the attackers, even though the cannon stand had wheels. It may have been portalled directly to its current location from…somewhere.

Estel gives Vond a thumbs-up. "Yeah, if you hurry, or the mage can do one to Dalaran if that's better. She's in there turning some guy's hat to fancy enchantment dust or somethin'."

Cressidha is, in fact, still in the building.

Syarra points at Briellen, and then blinks, dropping her hand as she understands the question Estel asked of which one died. Vond is already on it. Syarra might not be at maximum sharpness at the moment.

"I'm Syarra."

"Nice t'meet you." Estel doesn't question it, she just goes to claim Alver's insignia.

"It was Alver," Roper says, just barely loud enough for his voice to carry to Estel a few feet away, his attention still on the cannon. He sounds conversational. He looks like he wants to rip the cannon to teeny tiny metal pieces. "We're gonna want to burn the body until it's fucking ashes, and then scatter them. Leave them nothing to use to bring him back."

Atley looks back to Roper and gruffly shakes his head. "S'cold. Never been fired." He looks around to the others. "Our work here's finished, you lot. Let's bugger off."

"Can they bring him back?" Briellen asks Roper.

Roper straightens from his crouch, scanning the courtyard as if looking for something — marks from the wheels maybe. "Don't know. I'm not a fucking necromancer, just a guy who was dead for four years who isn't anymore, and who watched after the Lich King burned a knight to ash for taking a fucking nap, and then had him resurrected to be an eternal ghoul. Not taking any chances."

Vond throws Briellen a meaningful look at Estel's confirmation that the way remains open. He clearly would like her to get on that, seeming concerned about her post-revival status. "Go on if you've got your feet, we can look after–"

Estel finds the insignia before he does. He doesn't contest this, nodding at her agreeably. She'd know where to find the Cobalt member in question.

Briellen nods and takes a few experimental steps. "Endurance!" she calls, and there is the horse again, not where he last vanished but closer to Briellen. She gets into the saddle. "Are we all leaving by portal?"

The Stormwind portal times out.

"No one left behind," Syarra confirms.

"No one left behind," Briellen agrees.

Roper turns his attention to the living, counting heads now maybe, and then turns to face Dane. He flicks his brows up, and even if he's doing a facsimile of a smile, higher up on the right side than the left, the look in his eyes persists in revealing the Hunger beneath that he's keeping on a leash. "Prisoners delivered alive, with no casualties still on the fucking ground." He waits for something. Maybe the nod Dane mentioned earlier.

Atley stares at Roper for a moment.

The moment continues.

Atley finally growls. And nods. "You've done your duty well."

Roper spreads his hands out in a gesture that would look magnanimous if not for that dangerous smile. "Ask your Captain who found them in the first place, told her where to send you. I'm not a fucking white knight, but I'm not just a killer." He looks over to the remains of Alver, and shrugs, knives welded to his armor moving with the motion. "Although I'm also fucking that."

"Light, if we can get to Dalaran that'd save us quite a bit of time… I'll - we'll go secure transport."
The redhead would like a portal to Dalaran please and thank you.

Inside the building is Cressidha, standing next to a dead vrykul, putting a jar of something into her bag. She looks up at Etone. "Ah. You're one of the Argent Crusaders, yes? Did everything go well on your end?"

Atley's gaze lingers on the death knights before he looks to Etone upon his suggestion, and nods once.

Vond goes through a series of conflicting expressions as Roper speaks, turning away to follow Etone toward the presumed portal location and urge Briellen to come as well.

"We may have to take what we can get," Vond adds only to be surprised by a mage actually being present.

Roper moves back to Syarra's side with stalking steps, violence bristling around him like a static charge in the air. "Syarra. You good?" He does an up and down of her over again as if he's starving for a look of her, desperation flashing on his features. His helm is still somewhere in the mess of the dead and dirt.

Syarra lowers one hand to her damaged armor and there's almost a smile when she looks at him, even though her eyes are dull and she seems a little unfocused. "I think I'll need a blacksmith. But… it didn't hurt. Whatever it was he did before. To Dalaran?"

"Yeah. And a portable blacksmith is what you married me for." Roper reaches up a gauntleted hand tipped with claws, brushing a hand along her cheek with something that looks like tenderness, as he skims the surface of her skin too lightly to leave a mark.

"Dame Clay," Roper calls out to Bree. He waits for her to look back at him before he stares directly into her eyes for a moment. The Hunger stares back out of him, but so does a man who still, sometimes, loves something in the world. "Thanks."

Briellen looks at Roper and nods gravely. "Take care of her." Briellen directs Endurance to follow Vond. She seems more comfortable in the saddle than she was walking on her own.

Etone is very much done (tm) with the day and offers a subdued gasp in appreciation that Cressidha is present after all. "No comment, could you please open a portal to Dalaran?"
Perhaps it's the lighting, but he's looking a little more gaunt than usual at the moment.

Vond supplements Etone's curtness with an apologetic but also pleading look, and shivers lightly like he'd too thin a coat, rather than well padded plate.

Atley grunts and looks to Cress.

Cressidha nods and produces a portal stone. "Of course." She begins the channel, smiling faintly as she sees other people getting closer, although she does not say anything because she's casting. The portal stone cracks open to reveal the room in Dalaran designated for incoming teleportation.

Alysson has, by this point, completely vanished. He'll turn up somewhere later. Probably.

Roper up nods to Cress, moving with Syarra towards the Dalaran portal. Neither death knight's armor looks like it's in great shape. You can see Roper's chest through his. It's fine. "Hey, Lady Cressidha. Bill me for another set of shirts, one for me, one for Syarra." A beat. "Please." He clicks his tongue against his teeth. "At least this time it wasn't fucking harpoons."

Cressidha nods to him. "I shall send you the invoice. And the shirts, now that the mail is safe."

"Thanks. Same place in Kaskala." A beat. "Thanks for the portal." Whew, all this being polite is tough work. Roper reaches into a bag, one made by Cressidha herself, to pull out one handed a cloak with a hood, also made by Cressidha. Black, of course. He's basically a walking advertisement. He secures it over himself, pulling it down over his face before he enters the portal with Syarra.

Atley lingers, perhaps waiting for everyone else to step through before him.

Etone grips Vond by the wrist and drags him off into the portal with a 'polite' grunt of thank you to Cressidha for her much needed portal service.

With his heavy shield slung over his back, Vond's palms meet once more, this time in a gesture of thankful respect to Cressidha, though he gives mild pause at what seems like a business exchange. He starts to move to offer Bree help with descending from the saddle but is instead waylaid by a peculiar amount of force from the slight-built Confessor, staggering through the passage.

Atley gives one last look around, his gaze lingering on a pile of slain, undead vrykul, before he too stoops his head and marches through the passage after the others.