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| Details |
| Author: | inkie |
| Summary: | Cobalt Company gets their final showdown with Fandral Staghelm. For some of them, it's been a long time coming. Like, millennia. |
| Rating: | T for Teen |
Fandral Staghelm’s firebird form has vanished to the northwest, lost among the blazing streaks of predatory firehawks and tumbling meteors of flame that fill the smoke-choked scarlet sky. Though the former Archdruid’s trail may be lost, his likely destination is all-too-visible: the distant, bladelike tower and burning beacon of Sulfuron Spire.
“Get after him!” cries Captain Saynna Stormrunner. “This one will answer to us for her treachery!” Behind her, the ranks of her Shadow Wardens and the Hyjal Wardens of Captain Irontree are closing in on the shrieking, razor-taloned bonfire that is Alysrazor, once the emerald dragon Alysra.
“Back!” Ben shouts. “Back to the road!”
The rubble-choked road that leads from Alysrazor’s lair toward the rearing spire winds among pools of lava patrolled by seething magma elementals and lumbering core hounds that drool fire from stony jaws. One such hound spies the group making its way northwest. It gives an earsplitting roar of rage and charges.
Anareline is near Ben's side as they run along the road towards the massive core hound. She pauses, flinching and twitching her sensitive ears at the cry, but her sword is already drawn. She is ready to fight.
Azizia roars back, stomping her hoof on the floor, as an intimidation method.
Not far behind Anareline is the black Doomkin that is Caspis, its orange eyes blazing. A blinding column of moonfire strikes the core hound the moment the warriors engage it, and then Caspis brings his clawed and feathered hands together, drawing together a silver ball of arcane energy for a powerful follow up strike.
Cressidha creates a crystalline ring of frost around Anareline and Ben that the core hound must cross to get to them.
Velrin slips into the shadows mid-run and moves into position to strike.
The core hound swings its two heads, intending to engage both Anareline and Ben simultaneously, but Caspis’s arcane druidic assault catches it off-guard and it stumbles on Cressidha’s frost. Ice gathers around the core hound's legs, freezing it momentarily in place.
Ben seizes the moment of advantage to fling a shield of Light at one of its heads and it staggers back a step with another, less certain roar, shaking both its heads. Droplets of lava spray from its jowls.
Anareline charges in to the other head, bringing her sword around in a devestating slash aimed at the front of its armored throat.
Azizia rushes at the hound and punches the same head as Ben's, with a rock covered fist.
Ralaea dumps a skin of water over her head, then joins the assault, charging in to strike at the creature's legs.
Auralind keeps to a middle distance from the encroaching beast. She suppresses a shudder — it is not easy to shake how these core hounds resemble the fel beasts that took her sight. "Thaeru'kal, the underbelly is weak… but be careful of the dripping lava!" The Sentinel nocks two arrows… one for each head.
Velrin reappears from the shadows to strike at the soft underside of the beast's necks.
The monstrous creature flounders, trapped by ice and assaulted on all sides. One of its heads sags, molten blood pouring from its slashed throat; the other head swings slowly, dazed. One by one its legs give out and it folds to the stony ground in silence. A pool of lava spreads out from beneath its corpse.
Thaeru'kal returns to Auralind's side, her ethereal fur singed by the core hound's lava. The Sentinel pauses to channel her meager nature magic to mend her companion's wounds.
"Keep movin'!" Ben orders. "We got to catch up to him!" He mutters what sounds like a particularly vicious curse word under his breath; a [Blessing of Might] falls over the group. He turns to jog past the fallen hound and continue along the road. Fire elementals surge here and there from the magma pools, attempting to surprise the group from the flanks as they go.
Anareline gives a battle cry in Darnassian to bolster the fighters, and follows at Ben's side. She keeps an eye out for the elementals, rushing to intercept any that threaten the others.
Caspis changes into elven form at Anareline's battle cry, calling back, "ANDU-FALAH-DOR!" before shifting back into to the Doomkin.
Azizia throws a frost shock at one of the elementals, extinguishing it. She turns her head towards Anareline and repeats the battle cry very badly. "And doo fallen ore!" She is not just harming elementals tonight. She's also butchering the Darnassian language.
The doomkin winces.
Yveris's ears twitch at the words, but she doesn't otherwise respond, focusing on healing any burns or injuries.
Anareline pauses long enough to stare at Azizia for a moment. Then she returns to the fight.
Azizia shrugs at Anareline's stare.
Ralaea doesn't even try Darnassian, her own battle cry ringing out, "Rocks aren't supposed to be on fire!" as she engages the elementals that probably don't care.
Cressidha introduces cold to the fire elementals, violently, from a safe distance.
Velrin doesn't slow down for a second, darting from one target to the next as the group advances.
Caspis keeps up a constant barrage of spells; they are not frequent, requiring a great deal of concentration to build up their energy, but when they hit, they hit hard.
As they progress, Anareline allows herself to be distracted briefly by checking Ralaea's fighting form. She nods quietly to herslef and turns back to the elementals. Student is doing well.
Ben never stops moving, but Light blazes under his feet and ripples out in punishing waves around him, slamming back any elementals that draw too close.
Ahead of them waits an open gate; stone-carved thorns open into a courtyard crowded with fire elementals that guard yet another, higher, fiery gate.
Cressidha looks unimpressed. Everything's fiery down here.
Ben holds up a hand to signal for a halt. He assesses the waiting elementals and looks to Anareline and Dane. "What you think? We can drag out those giant ones first?"
Dane leans forward, expression visible and grim as it peers out from underneath his helmet. He looks to Ben and grunts.
Ana considers Dane and Ben, and then nods. "We each take one, I think. Keep them slightly separate, so the fires don't overwhelm."
Yveris takes the moment of pause to sit and drink.
Caspis does too. Hydrate or diedrate, especially out here.
"Okay," says Ben. "We are gonna grab those ones' attention and draw 'em toward us, away from the others. Ana, you hold left one, Sir Atley, you grab the right. Rest of us will split teams to try an' bring them down together, fast. Rae, Caspis, Cressidha, Azizia, y'all with Anareline. Me, Ace, Aura, an' Velrin with Dane. Healers… do your thing. Everyone ready?" Ben looks over his shoulder at the hydrators.
Anareline raises her sword. She's ready.
"Ready!" Yveris calls back, rising smoothly to her feet.
Caspis rises with a low hoot of acknowledgement.
"Understood." Velrin raises her weapon and gets poised to strike.
Auralind nods firmly to Ben. "Understood."
Cressidha moves to follow Anareline. "Understood."
Azizia nods. "I follow Anareline, alright." She won't do a battle cry this time, that's for sure. Good luck getting motivation without her!
Anareline charges to the giant, getting its attention with a slash before pulling it back toward the group and away from its molten partner.
As Ralaea follows Anareline, she files another complaint with the elemental designer. "Why do they have mouths? Do they even put anything in there?"
Dane sprints towards the giant, Thunderfury crackling and strobing with electricity, the space between its twin blades blurring with audible and visual distortions due to pent up energy. It’s spent in a moment as he sharply swings Thunderfury around, blasting the Archon with a bolt, drawing its attention. “On me!” he growls.
Ben follows close on Atley's heels, but then sidesteps swiftly around to the giant's flank to batter it with Light and hammer.
The pair of ponderous giants behave, predictably, like their late Lord Rhyolith; they stomp heavy feet, bursting volcanoes from the earth around them. Swarms of small elementals pour out of the volcanoes toward our heroes.
Caspis lets out a growl of frustration. This again.
Cressidha was trained to deal with swarms. She weaves a blizzard neatly around Anareline, Ralaea, and Azizia so it hits only the elementals and the giants.
Caspis raises both feathered arms and summons a storm; lightning strikes both his burnt-tree antlers and then pours out of his hands toward the elementals.
Auralind draws Rhok'delar, Longbow of the Ancient Keepers — a floral arrow grows into place. She looses the arrow at the giant's eyes, followed in rapid successful by three more. If she can force it to protect its face, perhaps it will be less able to defend itself from Dane and their allies.
Velrin joins Aura's assault and slashes at the giant's legs to leave it open to Dane's attacks.
Azizia punches a few of the enemies, before slapping her hands together, lightning gathering around them. She zaps Cressidha's blizzard, the electricity jumping from one ice crystal to the other before reaching the enemies.
The elementals targeted by Cressidha and Aziza shatter soundlessly into showers of embers.
The giant being accosted by Auralind, Velrin, and Ben tries futilely to step on the quick-moving invaders as it plucks with clumsy hands at the arrows in its eyes. It stumbles and collapses.
The reprieve for Atley's team is short-lived; from behind the fallen giant, the two Flame Archons in the next rank surge toward them.
Ben steps aside to fling a blast of Light at one, drawing it aside and leaving the second for Dane. Around them, whirlwinds of fire spring to life, flinging scorching embers at anyone in their vicinity.
Caspis's feathers begin to smolder, giving off a rather unpleasant stench.
Yveris glances at her waterskin, then looks to Caspis. In a mimicry of Ralaea, earlier, she darts over to dump water over the head of the doomkin.
The doomkin hoots a soft thank you; he was occupied in concentrating on a spell, which he now hurls at the nearest giant in a burst of golden light.
The second giant shatters. Now only the two Flame Archons remain before the gate's final guardian. Ben is battling one grimly; Dane has the other. Ana charges in to Dane's side this time to add to the assault on the Flame Archon.
Cressidha keeps her distance and does what she does best, which is copious amounts of ice magic. She eyes the doors impatiently.
Velrin twists and bounds as she fights the archon, doing her best to avoid the embers spitting from the tornadoes.
The two Flame Archons collapse into embers, the burning whirlwinds dying out.
And now only the guardian before the gates remains.
He is a fiery, winged elemental in a metal mask and crude armor of chains and runed metal bands. It is armed with two cruelly barbed, blazing swords that drip embers. It raises those blades now, with haughty menace, and roars, "You are forbidden from entering my master's domain, mortals!"
"You have no power to forbid us," Ana says coolly, glancing to Ben and Dane to time her attack.
Dane turns around to scowl at the fiery, winged elemental, visible annoyance written onto his features. He sets his jaw and rolls his sword holding shoulder. “We won’t be denied,” he adds on to Anareline’s statement.
Caspis, standing at Anareline's flank, lets out a fierce growl of support.
Cressidha makes a faint noise of irritation and points Tarecgosa's Rest at the elemental, although she waits for someone to engage it first before casting.
"Go," Ben says grimly, and steps forward to throw his shield of Light at the thing.
The elemental bellows and clashes its swords together. "Fool mortals! Hurl yourselves into your own demise!"
Anareline hurls herself into someone's demise anyway. The fight is on.
Auralind mutters, "It would not be the first time," and she dashes forward, unleashing a torrent of arrows, trusting in Rhok'delar's magic that the shafts will survive the intense heat.
Dane charges at the monstrosity, shield raised, cloak and tabard flapping behind him with his speed.
Velrin bares her fangs and leaps into battle at Dane's side.
Azizia summons Rex, her earth elemental. He readies his weapons (his big rock arms).
Caspis seems to subconsciously complement Anareline's attacks, releasing spells that strike right after her blade rends something open, summoning swarms of insects when her foe starts to zero in its focus on her.
Anareline falls into the rhythm of the fight, a subtle smile on her fierce face each time she sees the nature spells weaving between her strikes.
A thin layer of frost traces up from Cressidha's fingertips to the backs of her hands as she alternates between frost bolts and frostfire bolts.
Azizia rushes at the elemental, headbutting it in the face with her head protected with rocks. Rex grabs one of the evil elemental's arm and pulls as hard as he can.
The elemental summons a violet crystal from the earth. The crystal swirls with ominous void and leashes those nearest to it — Auralind and Cressidha — with tendrils of agonizing shadow. "Burn beneath my molten fury!" roars the elemental, and lashes out with one of its swords. Whips of fire slash forth.
Ana dodges a whip of fire at the last moment, the heat singeing her armor.
Ben swears and stumbles back as one of the fiery lashes catches him. His tabard smolders. He dives back into the fray with another oath.
Cressidha grits her teeth as the shadowy tendrils eat through her ice barrier and wrap around her.
Caspis sees his friends in peril and aims a spell at the crystal, whether that may be futile or not.
Auralind snarls in pain, struggling against the dark tendrils. Thaeru'kal turns her attention away from the elemental and darts back to her elven companion to try to free her.
Velrin swaps her attention for a moment to step in and try to sever the tendril that has hold of Cressidha.
The crystal shatters under Caspis, Thaeru'kal, and Velrin's joint attentions.
Freed from the tendrils, Cressidha shudders and continues to cast.
Once Cressidha and Auralind are free, Caspis concentrates his full fury on the large elemental.
The L of the Lordaeronian sigil on Dane’s shield burns bright as molten steel.
"Your flesh is forfeit to the fires of this realm!" bellows the elemental, and attempts to raise its other blade. It is, unfortunately (for it) currently being arm-wrestled by Azizia's earth elemental.
Anareline does not let up the pressure, giving the elemental no room to fend off the elemental.
The monstrosity roars again in impotent rage and frustration, lashing out once more with its other sword. The attack is weaker this time. Its swords dip feebly as it staggers. "Mortal filth!" it snarls. "The Master's keep is forbidden!"
And then it collapses, and the gate behind it is clear.
The gate that opens onto a yawning, bottomless chasm of fire that stands between them and the keep on the far side. At the chasm's edge, though, a strange orb like a burning ember rests on a golden pedestal.
Cressidha takes the opportunity to drink water.
"What is that?" Ana asks, peering at the orb.
Ben shakes his head and approaches to lean in and peer at it warily. Magma seems to swirl and eddy lazily inside the orb, but the translucent surface is solid and cool to the touch.
From the other side of the chasm, a familiar, contemptuous voice echoes unnaturally. "Well, well. I admire your tenacity!" calls Fandral Staghelm. "Baleroc stood guard over this keep for a thousand mortal lifetimes. But none may enter the Firelord's abode!"
Caspis shifts abruptly back into elven form, his fangs bared in a snarl of rage. "Your admiration means nothing," he growls. "And we have been forbidden entry by more formidable foes than you."
Velrin takes in deep breaths and snarls alongside Caspis.
Cressidha moves closer to examine the orb, ignoring Staghelm.
Azizia stands by Cressidha’s side. Just in case the orb decides to explode.
Staghelm's laughter echoes. "Caspis Silvershade. And what do you propose to do at last?"
Anareline snaps her gaze up at the former Archdruid in fury when he speaks Caspis's name, but all she does is raise her blade and point it at Staghelm.
Caspis suddenly stands up an inch or two taller, his eyes flaring. A strange, cold calm falls over him. "So you know my voice," he purrs, a sneering, silken taunt. "All those times you pretended to forget me — lies, like everything else about you, to serve your twisted schemes. As for what I propose to do, I propose to bring a great number of my friends — friends, a thing you know nothing of — and watch you die."
Anareline steps closer to Caspis, but she doesn't speak. Today, at last, is the time for Caspis to be heard.
Though lacking sight, Auralind glares pure hatred directly at Fandral. "You will not escape justice again, traitor."
"By the order of the Shadow Wardens and on behalf of all Azeroth, we sentence you to death!" Velrin spits.
Fandral's mocking laughter echoes again.
"You drove away your mate," Caspis continues, a cruel twist in his voice. "You unleashed the qiraji that killed your son. You turned your daughter-in-law into a monster. Because of you, there will be no one left to shed a single tear when we break your body and send your corruption-dripping soul to whatever festering corner of the Shadowlands will take it."
There is only silence now from the other side of the chasm.
The silence brings a feral smile to Caspis's face — a cold, fanged thing.
Ben glances at Cressidha. "You reckon it is safe?" He juts his chin toward the orb.
"Hm." Cressidha puts an experimental hand on the orb, then lifts it up from the pedestal, turning it over in her hands.
Something shimmers at the edge of the chasm when Cressidha turns the orb.
Ben looks from the orb in Cressidha's hands to the elusive shimmer at the edge of the abyss and back again. "Do it again," he urges.
Cressidha rotates the orb slowly, experimentally, and then shakes it like she's trying to stir up snow inside a snowglobe.
A sheet of white-hot flame erupts from the chasm's edge and blazes to cover the gap. After a moment it takes shape, flowing and congealing into a bridge of molten stone; a moment later, with a creaking, groaning sound, the stone has cooled and a bridge of carved obsidian is now open before them.
"Well done, Cressidha," Ana says, possibly assuming Cressidha knew exactly what she was doing.
"Why in the world would he leave this on this side of the chasm?" Cressidha asks, looking at Ralaea in particular as the fellow questioner of their enemies' bad life choices.
Caspis cackles at Cressidha — this may be the first time anyone has heard him laugh — and then shifts abruptly into the form of a huge, dark-furred bear.
Cressidha stares at Caspis. Something strange has just happened.
Ana looks startled as well. She reaches out to touch the bear, as if to catch her balance.
Dane looks to Caspis as he takes on the bear form, studying his enraged friend for just a moment or two before he refocuses on the fight ahead with a grunt, his eyes like gleaming emeralds set in a face colored by soot and ash. To Cressidha’s inquiry, he growls with disdain and shakes his head, gesturing vaguely ahead with Thunderfury. "Staghelm wants us farther in."
Fandral Staghelm is no longer visible on the other side of the bridge.
"Let's go," says Ben grimly. "Form up. Everyone ready." He steps out onto the bridge. It holds solidly. He looks back and nods, then heads across.
"We will make sure he is never able to speak your name again," Ana says to Caspis. "After this day." She resolutely follows Ben across the bridge.
The bear lumbers up beside Ben and Anareline, not doing his usual thing of walking a couple of paces behind. He is clearly ready to Front Line this business.
Cressidha tucks the orb into a bag rather than leave it behind. She crosses the bridge.
Ahead of them on the far side of the bridge, a broad courtyard of red and gold stone opens up. On the far end, a flight of steps rises toward the terrace before the keep.
Waiting along the edge of those steps, a pair of Druids of the Flame stand with their arms upraised, channeling. "Kneel before the burning flame!" one of them cries, his voice echoing from the stone, and then a wave of flame washes across the courtyard toward the Cobalt team. It burns out just before it reaches them, though Ben has to backpedal a step fast. Now the hem of his tabard is also singed.
He looks over his shoulder. "Auralind," he says. "Cressidha. Take those two fellows out."
Beside him, the bear shudders and roars.
"It is done," Auralind says confidently, drawing her verdant bow, her ears turning to hone in on the location of the Flame Druid that tried to command them. The moment the arrow grows into place, she looses it with a fwip! It streaks through the scalding air to find purchase in the druid's throat.
Cressidha turns the other one into a sheep and then begins to channel a pyroblast.
Mmm, broiled mutton.
The two druids drop, and the waves of flame that rolled across the courtyard cease.
"Be ready," Ben warns. "And go careful. We ain't got line of sight up those steps yet." He moves cautiously out into the courtyard, shield up.
Dane grits his teeth and steps out into the courtyard, shield raised. He regularly looks from the fallen druids, to the sky, to their rear, his movements slow, and deliberate.
Anareline raises her shield and moves forward slowly as well.
The bear paces forward alongside Anareline, a dark, lumbering, shaggy, wetly snarling beast barely held in check by her presence. Its eyes are void of any sapience.
Cressidha follows behind the people with shields.
Azizia is pale after the flames barely stopped before the group. With a whisper in Draenei, she sends a few invisible air elementals up the stairs to see what's happening there with her [Far Sight], ready to issue a warning if bad things are awaiting them there.
And why wouldn't bad things await them there anyway?
“Very well!” bellows a familiar voice, and Fandral Staghelm paces arrogantly forward to stand at the top of the stairs before them. His eyes burn orange; he is wreathed in flame, smoldering wings at his shoulders and runes of fire scrawled on his bare chest and woven into his dark kilt. He surveys the group with a sneer, and his gaze falls on Auralind. His lips curve in a bladed smile, revealing his fangs. "Auralind Mistwalker. Your simpleminded shalan was ever softer than you, but now it seems you hasten to join him. What a pitiful collection dares come before me: A fool who wasted millennia preaching to deaf ears, a blind woman, and their motley of weaklings and mortals."
Auralind momentarily freezes, visibly shaken when Staghelm mentions her shalan. But the shock takes quick turn to rage, baring her fangs in a bestial snarl. "Do. Not. Speak of him! Murderer!"
Fandral lifts his hands before him. An orb of flame takes shape, spinning in the air. "As you have come so far, however, let me reward your persistence. Witness the raw power of my new Lord!"
He hurls the flame orb outward, and it tumbles through the air directly toward Anareline, trailing burning tendrils like fiery lightning to strike any who stand near. Fiery cyclones roar to life, writhing towers of flame all around the courtyard.
And then Fandral transforms into an enormous blazing saber, armored in molten stone and white-hot metal.
Ben throws a [Hand of Protection] around Anareline almost a second too late as he tries simultaneously to duck away from the snapping fire-lightning. One bolt catches his upraised shield and he cries out; there is an unpleasant burned-meat smell.
Anareline dives away from the orb, but there isn't enough time to get away from the fiery lightning. She tenses for the strike, just as Ben's [Hand of Protection] takes hold. She turns to him, nodding thanks, before she runs toward the blazing saber.
Atley raises his enchanted shield and swiftly deflects one of the fire-lightning strands, aiming it back at Staghelm out of sheer instinct.
The fire-lightning strand does not deflect; it grounds itself through Dane's shield and armor, as it did to Ben.
Dane issues a short, clipped snarl of surprise as the flesh of his shield-forearm is singed underneath his armor.
Bear charges forward toward fiery cat, heedless of the fire, trying to sink his teeth into shoulder armor and rip it off with the brute force of his powerful jaws. Healers gon be busy today.
Dane watches Caspis charge in and narrows his eyes, taking a step forward to join him before he consciously stops himself and stays back to protect the fighters in the rear.
Velrin blinks through the shadows as the battle begins to evade the attack and engage Fandral. She lets out a feral scream as she brings her blades to bear.
"You say we are weaklings and mortals," Azizia says, frowning and jumping away to avoid the fiery lightning. "But at least we knew how to pair shirt with shoulder armor of ours. You are missing half your outfit and showing disgusting toes!" She pulls on invisible leashes, summoning two ghostly wolves to bite at the transformed Fandral. "No amount of cat transformation will let us forget how ugly outfit of yours is."
Fandral seems absolutely unfazed by fashion criticism. He lashes out with vicious claws, slashing one of the ghost wolves to shreds almost effortlessly, and then leaps nimbly aside from Caspis-bear with feline agility and takes a snarling swipe at him as well.
Caspis is slightly smoldering from the claw-swipe, but he is so crazed with rage he isn't watching his health bar doesn't notice.
The fiery beast seizes what looks like an advantage and leaps away toward Ben. It lands with an explosive blaze, flinging back anyone standing near Ben, and a pool of merciless fire begins to spread outward around them both. But now there are two of them: An echo of the same beast remains behind, still lashing out at Caspis and now Anareline.
Anareline shouts at the echo, trying to draw its attention away from the bear.
Thaeru'kal roars menacingly, fueled by Auralind's fury, and charges the flaming saber. A flurry of arrows surrounding her, Auralind relentlessly fills the air with projectiles, leaving Fandral nowhere to go without facing the barrage.
But there is someplace for him to go, because now there are two of him, one a snarling fury who has turned on Anareline, the other lashing at Ben in a slow-growing vortex of fire.
As the first saber, caught between Caspis, Anareline, and now Thaeru'kal begins to falter under their combined assault and the hail of arrows, it leaps away again. Again it lands in an explosion of flame, this time directly at Auralind's feet, wreathing her in fire as well. And now there are three sabers.
"Focus!" shouts Ben, who has flung up a [Divine Shield] around himself and is trying to wade backward out of the flames, fending off the second saber with shield and hammer. "That one! First one!"
Anareline continues to fend off the saber still attacking her. She misses Ben's indicated direction and calls out, "Which one?"
"That one!" Ben shouts, and ducks a swipe from his own attacker; claws rake shield with a hideous sound. He is out of the fire, at least, though it continues to spread. "Your one!"
"My one!" Ana repeats, clashing sword and shield to draw attention from the other attackers. She smiles coldly at the fire saber. "Your new allies will not save you this time." Then she intensifies her attacks.
Cressidha does not need to be told twice to bombard the first saber with frost magic.
Auralind recoils at the intense flames blasting all around her, scalding the skin of her arms as she tries to shield her face. She hisses in pain as she backpedals from the third flame saber. Her bow has become useless at such close range…but her blades are not. With Thaeru'kal still far away, she is left alone to engage the fire beast. Aura slashes wildly, just trying to keep some space between her and her foe as she recovers her senses.
Dane gives Thunderfury an idle spin, the blade’s tips nearly scraping against the ground, and slowly side-steps away from the burning Vortex, his gaze locked on the giant, fiery feline attacking Auralind before he explodes into action, becoming a blur of muscle and steel to interrupt the saber pouncing her, attempting to rend it with Thunderfury, issuing a fierce Demoralizing Shout at his enemies.
The third saber turns its snarling attention away from Auralind to answer this new assault with burning claws and fangs.
Dane redirects his rage into Shield Slamming the saber directly in its burning snout.
Caspis continues hurling his ursine bulk repeatedly at the saber targeting him, in a display of mindless battering-ram fury that might call up all-too-unpleasant memories for Dane. But in this case he is not fighting someone who is trying not to hurt him. He is badly on fire, overworking the healers, and doesn't seem to notice.
Anareline continues to try to keep the first saber’s attention, doing her best to intervene enough to keep Caspis on his four feet.
Thaeru'kal arrives on cue to join Dane's assault and leap on the third saber. Even as the elemental fire burns her spectral fur, she viciously bites at the beast's haunches to force it to fight on two fronts.
Three fronts. The intervention of Dane and Thaeru gives Auralind time to get some range again.
She takes a moment to channel a healing spell through her connection to Thaeru'kal, offering what relief she can front the flames. Rhok'delar back in her hands, Aura sinks three arrows in succession into the beast's side. Though she can hear the arrows burning away, she could feel them making purchase.
Atop the stairs, the first saber is definitely weakening now under a focused assault as Ben and Dane hold the other two at bay. It manages to direct a vicious bite at one of Caspis's legs. Then it leaps backward and the other two sabers vanish, gathered in.
Fandral stands in elf form for only a moment — blood streaks his chest now and runs from his nose — and flings another orb of flame and lightning out toward the group, this one aimed directly at Dane.
Dane raises Thunderfury to behead his foe only to strike at empty air. He snaps his gaze towards Staghelm, eyes widening in rage. He grits his teeth and bends tireless legs, leaping out of the way to try and dodge this attack.
"Behold the rage of the Firelands!" Fandral roars, and shifts again. Now he is a massive, armored scorpion with molten carapace and burning claws, his jaws and stinger running with venomous flame. He lashes that stinger toward Caspis, and a wave of fire sweeps out before it, washing over the maddened bear and the courtyard beyond.
“Caspis!“ Dane booms in alarm to the maddened bear. He rushes to whatever ally is nearest, leaping in front of them and raising his shield to try and weather the oncoming firestorm.
Caspis is too stunned from the venomous stinger attack to process Dane's warning, or even the visual warning of the approaching wave of flame. He just stands there stunned as the fire sweeps over him, and lets out a brief sharp roar of pain that ends as his breath does.
In death he melts back into elven form, for a moment pristine and unburned, but that form also quickly blackens in the heat, charred featureless before it even finishes falling.
The sound of Caspis's roar and the stench of sizzling fur and flesh reach Auralind, and the horror of realization washes over. She howls in unfocused rage, summoning up Elune's fury to imbue her arrows with punishing arcane moonlight, each one a prayer of vengeance aimed directly at Fandral's scorpid visage.
Dane lowers his shield to see Capsis fall, dead. His features slowly contort into monstrous rage, and he booms again, a sound that should serve as another warning, not to any allies, but to Staghelm. “CASPIS — ! ” He growls and sprints straight at the scorpion, Thunderfury warbling and humming with escalating electrical power, singing like the otherworldly instrument of battle that it is. It grows louder and louder with each step, like a Draeneic dimensional ship preparing for lift off, until it’s shivering in his hand with restrained power by the time he tries to bring it down on Staghelm’s newest monstrous form.
"No," Anareline says, but it comes out as a whisper, her breath and voice taken away. Then she is not fighting Fandral at all, she is at Caspis's side, her sword falling to the ground as she gathers him in her arms, and repeats, "No. No. Come back."
Ralaea, joining the assault on the Stag Scorpion, calls to Anareline, "Trust the healers! We've got to win this, or it'll be for nothing!"
Velrin sweeps an arm in front of her to shield herself with a cloak of shadow that struggles to contain the flames. Her eyes go wide when she sees Caspis consumed by flame. Tears start pooling in her eyes and drip down the back of her mask, "No… no no no… YOU CAN'T TAKE HIM FROM MEEEEE!!!" Velrin shrieks and sprints forward to attack. She's already analyzing where she should strike in the gaps of the scorpion's carapace.
Azizia watches in horror as Caspis falls. Like Dane, she rushes to the scorpion as her blood runs cold. She pummels Fandral with her fist weapons, switching the elements bolstering her attacks after each hit. Earth, wind, and not fire but water accompany each of her punches.
Yveris, sending healing spells out to frantically deal with the waves of fire threatening to consume the team, cries out in surprise as Caspis suddenly melts. She leaps forward, her form shifting into that of a cheetah, carrying her swiftly into a more comfortable range before she begins her work on Caspis. Plants spring up around him, a small bed of flowers, orange as the flames of the Firelands, pouring their life energy into the druid.
Ana does not leave Caspis's side until he is alive again, and she has seen his eyes open and conscious. It might be that for Anareline, if Caspis fell here, it would already be for nothing. She lowers her forehead to his for a brief moment before she pulls away to return to the fight. She rises, taking up her sword in new fury to charge the scorpion with a wordless battle cry.
Caspis does not resume his bear form. He doesn't become the doomkin again, either. He is an elf: a new, pure, serene elf in blackened scraps of leather… and without a single strand of hair. He is calm, focused, detached and precise. His spellwork lacks the extra ferocity that it had when he was in moonkin form, but he now seems to take in the whole field, each person. Occasionally he mixes in a healing spell when needed. His anger, it seems, is finally spent. The man who returned is not the man who left. The scorpion is now just a monster like any other, one who must be removed for the good of the world. The monster that drove Caspis personally to millenia of frothing, futile rage — it seems that monster has already been slain.
With multiple armored people now attacking the scorpion, Ben focuses on placing himself and his shield in front of the fighters ranged out below the stairs. "Behind me!" he shouts to whomever might hear him, and flings a shield of Light at the scorpion as the beast lashes out again, sending another wave of fire outward toward those flinging ice and arrows at it.
The protection of [Divine Guardian] falls over the people near Ben briefly to blunt the fire's wrath. The prayer only diminishes the fire's force; it cannot block it entirely.
It also does not protect Ben himself, who has exhausted his [Divine Shield]. He goes down in a clatter of blackened armor and is still.
"Trust the… healers…" Ralaea mutters to herself, echoing her own words as she attempts to fight off the flames and the shock of seeing Ben fall. Her hands shake on her swords, but she takes a deep breath, steadies her grip, and shouts, "A scorpion on fire is a dead scorpion, even a child knows that!" She takes up a position near Ben's corpse in an effort to protect it from further damage.
Yveris reaches out to Ben with a cry of dismay, but she is already taxed to her limits keeping everyone else on their feet.
Cressidha's expression has gone very neutral. "Ben's down!" she calls.
Anareline moves, trying to maneuver between the scorpion and the people by the stairs to provide what shield she can to those who were with Ben. There is sweat at her temples, and a weariness in her eyes.
“Get him up!” Dane snarls without looking, slashing and striking at Scorpionhelm. “Everyone else, stay focused! KILL HIM!“
Velrin doesn't need to be told. Her eyes are blazing a brilliant white and she dances across the battlefield landing strike after strike. She isn't swinging wildly, though, each one is a carefully placed attack meant to kill. Her expert bladework is punctuated by curses and screams each time her crescent tastes flesh.
The scorpion snatches with a claw at an arrow protruding from beneath its eye. Its stinger lashes furiously now, but the waves of fire are weaker and diminishing by the moment. It turns this way and that among the fighters that have caged it in.
Caspis seems to feel his friends' calls in his very soul, and he notices Ben lying still on the ground. He pauses for a moment, an island of calm amid the fiery fury, and one hand reaches out toward Ben in an unconscious gesture as something nonphysical reaches out to him. That something whispers to Ben, remember that you are loved… remember the hearts that would break at your passing… see their faces, hear their voices… they are not yet ready to release you. You must return.
Ben draws himself up on the stone; his armor is still black with char but he is hale and whole within it. Well, except for his hair. We will worry about his hair later. He shakes his head, shaking off a moment's daze, and takes in the situation with a sweeping look.
The scorpion hisses, raising its claws before it to shield itself as it scuttles a step backward, lashing menacingly with its tail. There is a brief moment's flicker from scorpion back to elf — Fandral cries out as someone's weapon makes contact — and then the molten saber is back. It leaps toward Cressidha to land with an explosion before her in a renewed attack; the original cat still remains at the top of the stairs, battling ferociously.
Cressidha's ice barrier shatters quickly under the assault; she attempts to hit it with a frost nova and blink away.
As Cressidha blinks away from the cat, Ben slams into its side in a wave of Light, with a furious roar. The beast turns its attention on him, and he leaps back out of the pool of flames to taunt the icebound animal.
Azizia watches as the cat jumps at Cressidha. She follows the beast and plants an elemental protection totem near her friend. As she's kneeling with her totem in hand, the draenei's horns get covered by a layer of frost and she tries to stab a horn inside the fiery beast's belly.
At the top of the stairs, the saber is definitely flagging. Its molten fury has dimmed, and in the duller light it is apparent that it is seeping lava-like blood from more than one wound.
Cressidha forms a pair of ice lances along her right arm and fires them at the cat. There is relief in her eyes as she looks at Ben, but the rest of her face is blank.
The cat caught between Ben's rage and the twin attacks of Cressidha and Azizia seems suddenly at a loss, its focus uncertain. Now freed from the ice, it charges toward Ben and then stops short, snarling at the Many Pointy Icy happening to it.
The cat at the top of the stairs does not leap a second time. Perhaps it lacks the strength now. It is crouching low to the ground, protecting its belly as it lashes out. It creeps a couple of paces backwards.
Caspis sends some BEES at the top-of-the-stairs cat. This cat looks like what it really needs are some BEES.
Anareline's smile looks more like a snarl as she keeps pressure up on the top-of-stairs cat. If there is a gap in its defenses, she is ready.
Atley raises Thunderfury and swings it at the top-of-stairs cat, hurling a bolt of lightning to draw its attention and harm it. “On me, damn you!” he growls, tirelessly leaping steps at a time towards the saber more than he is actually running.
The cat did not need bees. It gives a surprisingly elven-voiced yowl of dismay before snarling again to lash out with razor claws at Dane. It has lost all focus on its clone, which now wavers back and forth, taking damage on both sides from Light and ice.
Cressidha has not lost any focus on the clone cat which tried to damage her robes. She is going to take this creature down or run out of mana trying.
The cat battling at the top of the stairs manages to lurch backwards just far enough… and changes again. The fashion apostate that Cressidha and Azizia are trying to murder with an assist from Ben vanishes abruptly. This time, though, the split-second that Fandral wears his own shape is a little more than a split second, and weapons strike true.
He manages the shift to scorpion anyway, but his stinger lashes in what looks like panic now, and he only holds his burning claws up before him to ward off additional blows. There are no more waves of fire.
"What did I tell you about scorpions on fire?" Ralaea asks, her voice a near howl of triumph. "Not that it matters to me what you choose to die as." She eagerly presses the attack.
Caspis calmly calls down a blinding ray of Moonfire. "Remember Her?" he says in his deep, drowsy voice.
Anareline has no Elune or quips to offer. Only rage.
The scorpion scrabbles at stone with its chitinous legs. Three go out from under it and it slips, collapsing. It hoists itself upright, tail thrashing wildly, and then collapses a second time.
This time, it does not rise. Instead, the armored creature seems to waver a moment, and then it is Fandral Staghelm again.
The once-arrogant kaldorei is on his knees, bloodied and battered. He lifts his hands in a sort of plea, and chokes out, "My studies… had only just begun…." And then he is sprawled on the ground, a lifeless husk, his fire gone out.
"They are finished," Anareline says, looking down at his body. Then she falls to her knees, the fire of the rage sustaining her gone out.
Ralaea moves to pick up one of Fandral's legs, attempting to drag him at least a short distance away. Don't kneel by the dead body, Anareline, gosh.
Ben straightens slowly and lowers his shield. He watches the former Archdruid's corpse for a wary moment, and then turns to make a survey of the people ranged around and behind him.
Auralind keeps an arrow trained on the fallen Fandral until her tensed arms start to shake. Finally, she releases the tension and lowers her weapon. With a heavy sigh, she drops to her knees. Silent tears fall from her sightless eyes, and she whispers to the mist of memory, "It is done, kal anu’lathar. Rest now…rest now."
Dane is at Auralind's side. He lowers to clasp her firmly on the shoulder, looking between his comrades before he stares at Fandral's corpse, looking a decade or so older than his true age. "S'over," he growls with a tone of finality. "He's dead." he says to no one in particular, growling with a single, definitive nod.
"Even at the last," Caspis says in a sort of lost, bewildered tone. "He never understood." And then he just closes his eyes, and starts to cry. Quietly, fists closing weakly, tears slipping out between eyelids burned free of their dark lashes.
Ana struggles to her feet and steps over to Caspis, reaching out a hand to him wordlessly.
Caspis reaches his hand to meet hers without opening his eyes, which still rain fresh tears.
Velrin stands and glares at Staghelm's body for a moment, her chest heaving from exertion. Once she's satisfied that he's dead her cold façade cracks. Her lip quivers and she sinks to her knees, "Not again…" She was so blinded by rage that she didn't notice that Caspis had been brought back until just now. She has to double take when she sees Anareline holding him, alive and well (relatively speaking anyway). She drops her crescent and takes off her mask. She's still crying, but not out of sadness anymore. She rushes over and hugs Caspis and Ana as tight as she can.
"All those centuries," Caspis says raggedly. "Elune… Nozdormu… give them back…" And then he just lets himself sink into Anareline's arms.
"We still have the present," Ana says, holding him tightly. "And the future."