(2026-05-29) The Consequences of their Dark Ambitions

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Author:	inkie
Summary:	Following reports of goblin activity along the Krasarang coast, the 7th Legion's 6th Expeditionary Unit investigates.
Rating:	M for Mature 17+

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Faction conflict, violence

The jungle night simmers. The heavy, humid darkness prickles with a thousand restless sounds: the whine and buzz of insects, the small, shrill songs of tree frogs, the occasional restless rustling of the undergrowth, and now and again the splash and ripple of something moving in the black Krasarang river.

One thing that doesn't make a sound comes easing out from the deeper murk between two trees. Katerinn Greywatch's pale braid has been coiled up and tucked beneath a dark green hood; her face is streaked and mottled with paint and jungle mud. She moves silently toward the small group of other figures gathered at the edge of the treeline and shakes her head. "All quiet," she says, low-voiced. "Camp's nearly empty. No sign of Horde arrivals, no new gear or supplies."

A very small and similarly-camouflaged figure, which closer inspection would reveal as a muscular gnomish woman with shock of dark brown hair, looks over at Katerinn in confusion. Zinfandel Copperstill says in a low voice, "They're not in contact with the others? Why not?"

Celaven Evensong stands back for the moment, faded into shadow. He has not gone for mud and paint, instead just wearing dark and neutral colors that blend in with the jungle around them. He can shadowmeld, give him a break here.

"That is for us to find out," says a cold, velvety voice.

Captain Zath Tyrrell of the 6th Expeditionary Unit of the 7th Legion stands as still as the clouded night sky as he receives Sgt. Greywatch's report. His pale sharp features are smudged with sooty paint such that only his ice-blue eyes are clearly visible in the darkness.

He gives Greywatch a sharp once-over, then looks to the rest of the group.

Lt. Crowley stands at his right side; the nondescript human mage is dressed in a blackish-green hooded robe, but no one is looking at him anyway.

Sgt. Saion stands in the back, arms folded, towering over the rest of the group. The dranei warrior is clad in dark-stained armor, pale face and horns blackened, trying not to move or even breathe too much so that his bulk doesn't make excessive noise. He is, for some reason, smiling faintly.

"Sneak in and poke around more?" Zinfandel asks, tapping one dark-booted toe. "Or if it's nearly empty, maybe we don't need to sneak."

"If they're not with the coastal aggressors," Celaven says mildly, "we certainly wouldn't want to encourage them in that direction."

A slim figure in dark leathers and a dark green hood similar to Sgt. Greywatch's moves away from the nearby tree where she has been loitering near-invisibly. "As far as we know, the Sunwalkers have been here on their own business, not Hellscream's, and they're set up in the Vale now like our people. If there's no activity at the camp here, then we're probably best-served finding out where there is activity and watching which direction it moves, rather than standing in a direction and waiting to see if anything moves our way." Sintha Fallon has also not bothered with face paint and mud. It's bad for the complexion.

"Let's move west," Captain Tyrrell says quietly. "Cross the water toward the northern tip of that island, which my Eye indicates should be unoccupied. Swiftly over the water, in case there are watchers in the darkness we've not seen. Sgt. Evensong, you'll assist."

Given context, it seems that Tyrrell is asking Evensong to levitate them across the narrow stretch of sea between themselves and the small landmass off the coast.

"Understood," Celaven says in a low voice. "I'll be ready, when we reach the water."

"I'm kind of hoping we run into a few," Zinny says quietly, with a fierce grin. "Few enough that we can keep our cover, of course."

Captain Tyrrell glances skyward, then begins moving westward toward the water, motioning Sgt. Copperstill to her usual travel position between himself and Lt. Crowley. Sgt. Saion takes up the rear, snapping twigs underhoof.

Zinny takes her position, one hand hopefully on the handle of her mace. Her footsteps are… not exactly silent.

Celaven drifts along silently near the back. After a moment, he gestures, and Zinfandel and Saion lift a few inches off the ground. The twigs will be grateful.

Katerinn ranges out ahead of the group, a silent shadow. Sintha moves with the others, a stealthy and remarkably subtle presence herself; her footfalls are not italicized.

The beach is a pale expanse of moonlight between them and the dark gleam of the sea.

Tyrrell gestures to Evensong as they step onto the moonlit sands. "Cross the water as swiftly as possible," he murmurs to the others. "It would be the worst place to be caught unawares."

Celaven whispers a prayer to Elune and the rest of the groups' feet lift off the ground.

Katerinn lifts her crossbow silently from her shoulder and loads a bolt into it from the pouch at her waist without slowing down. She glides across the dark water watchfully.

Celaven hangs behind with the rest of the team, for when they cross, but keeps an eye on Katerinn.

Zinny keeps her position between Tyrrell and Crowley.

As the seven of them glide onto the opposite shore, Tyrrell cancels his own levitate spell immediately, his boots landing smoothly on the sand. Saion, at the rear, seems to prefer hovering slightly above the ground, and lets the spell linger. He stares down at his own hooves in amazement.

Sintha drops catlike out of her levitation too, soft on the sand, and moves perpendicular from the group, directly toward the shadows of hills and trees at the inland edge of the little island's beach.

Zinny cancels her levitation on the shore and lands a little more heavily than one might expect, given her tiny stature. Maybe it's the massive mace and shield, adding weight.

Ahead on the beach, Katerinn makes a sharp movement, a hand signal in the air, and Sintha halts abruptly. Katerinn's attention is fixed on the sand ahead.

Tyrrell halts as well, waiting, his glacial gaze attempting, it seems, to pierce the intervening distance to see what has caught his scout's eye.

Saion stops a second or so later than everyone else. It takes a while for visual cues to climb all the way to his brain, perhaps. He is still levitating.

Celaven also remains floating, near the back of the group, an ominous dark presence… there to heal.

Lt. Crowley is there. Probably.

Katerinn, her hand still raised in warning, creeps forward a little distance on the sand. She turns to look over her shoulder and her gaze unerringly finds Sintha. She points at Sintha, points at something ahead.

Sintha draws a knife from her hip and moves silently forward to pause beside the dwarven scout. After a moment the pair of them creep forward, Katerinn's hand still in the air to signal a halt to the others.

A couple of minutes pass, and then Katerinn backtracks to the group. "Device on the beach ahead, sir," she reports to Captain Tyrrell. "Master Sgt. Fallon is assessing. She thinks it's safe to approach."

"She thinks," Tyrrell repeats acidly. "Yes, by all means, everyone charge forward because Master Sgt. Fallon thinks. Sgt Saion HOLD," he adds at the precise moment before Saion begins to charge forward as (he thinks) ordered. Saion stops immediately and cheerfully.

Tyrrell lifts a gloved hand and, with a swirl of smog the color of an old bruise, summons an Eye of Kilrogg. The sickly green orb floats toward Sgt. Fallon and hovers at an annoying spot in her periphery as she works.

"That is extremely annoying," Sintha says to the orb. The object she is crouched beside is a device like a windmill on a rusty scaffolding that looks like someone stapled it together and patched it in places with tin foil and paint. "If you could glow a little less it might help me see better. Anyway it's perfectly safe to approach. The only injury this could inflict is on someone's aesthetic sensibilities."

Tyrrell seems satisfied , either by her assessment or by the fact that he has annoyed her, who can say. He gestures to the group: forward.

Zinny marches forward with the team. As Sintha and the device come into view, she moves forward with interest. "What is that? It's hideous."

Celaven is watching the people more than the object, in case of sudden damage from unseen traps.

Sintha rises to her feet. "Goblin-make. Obviously. There's a sort of wind-driven drill probe in the sand below," she reports. "I can't tell what it's assessing for sure without uprooting it, but that workman and the reports he recovered said oil, and that seems likeliest. I can uproot it, though. Whoever put it here didn't expect it to be disturbed, it's not booby-trapped."

"If you can, safely," Tyrrell says, "please do." He often makes his orders sound like polite requests, just as he often makes his praise sound like disapproval. It is the Tyrrell Way.

"Ugh, goblins," Zinny says, her eye twitching. "Never met a land they don't want to despoil, have they? But if they need oil, that means…"

"Boom!" Saion theorizes.

"Or it means they plan a more extensive operation," Celaven says quietly, his attention shifting to the device. "Something that will require a power source."

Zinny looks vaguely disappointed with this line of thought. She was more with Saion on boom.

"All right," says Sintha. "You may want to step back. I don't expect explosions, but oil stains can be impossible to get out."

Celaven takes the threat seriously, backing up a full three steps. He has dealt with oil stains before.

Sintha moves around to the side of the machine and examines a panel hanging askew there. She punches a couple of buttons. Nothing happens. She frowns and tries a different sequence. Again, nothing happens.

"Bloody goblin engineering," she mutters, and seizes a fistful of wires.

When she yanks these loose from their connections, the machine makes a distressed whining sound and then a series of clanks, and then the drill probe retracts in jerking fits and starts from the sand. The last several inches of it are indeed coated in tarry black oil.

Zinny steps forward in open curiosity, staring at the wires. "Remarkably effective, Fallon. I like your approach to goblin engineering."

Tyrrell massages his temple gently with three fingertips of one hand. "Yes, elegantly done, Master Sergeant. Thank you. Now I believe we're going to need to scout southward, sweep the whole island for other… devices. Lieutenant, please take detailed notes on our find– ah, you are already doing that."

Yes, Lt. Crowley was. No one noticed.

Zinny gives Crowley a thumbs-up.

Katerinn nods once at Captain Tyrrell's direction and begins moving south along the beach, within the shadow of the treeline, her crossbow raised before her.

Celaven drifts silently towards the front of the group, to better be in range in case Katerinn runs into trouble.

"Better be careful," Zinny says ominously. "Goblins love their landmines."

"Perhaps levitation would be advised for more than just the water," Tyrrell says dryly, his pale eyes scanning the periphery for this or any other salient details. "Well noted, Sgt. Copperstill. Sgt. Evensong, if you would."

"Of course," Celaven says, and there's another round of shimmering moon-Light, as he lifts everyone's feet off the ground. "I would hope they wouldn't put landmines in a place they're actively working."

"Haven't met many goblins, have you?" Zinny says dryly, as she rises six inches. She is still the shortest.

Sintha snorts what sounds like agreement (if a snort can be agreeable) with Zinny's sentiment. "Thank you, Evensong," she says sweetly.

Ahead, Katerinn has stopped lightly in her tracks waiting for her levitation. As soon as it comes, she drifts carefully forward again.

Tyrrell's sharp eyes scan the area on all sides, and for good measure he sends his Eye of Kilrogg to wander in a slow wide zigzag, expanding their search radius as they proceed.

Celaven and Zinfandel both keep in formation, watching carefully as they move.

Celaven flinches once, looking back toward the tree-line. Then he shakes his head and refocuses on the beach.

Katerinn, moving with silent efficiency through the dark, is little more than a slight shadow ahead when she halts again and raises a fist, signaling a halt.

Sintha, off to one side just within the cover of the trees, freezes obediently and drops into a (floating) crouch.

Celaven immediately fades into shadow where he floats.

Zinny freezes in place, but not in the literal ice sense.

Tyrrell echoes Greywatch's gesture, for those in the back.

For Saion. He's lagging behind a bit, as though levitating has made him forget some of how to walk.

Zinny tries to stretch on her toes, to see whatever it is Katerinn called a halt for.

Katerinn stands still for a moment, and then backtracks smoothly. "Fires ahead, sir," she reports in an undertone to Zath.

"How close can you get?" he asks her. "I'd like numbers, disposition, a sense of what they're doing."

Katerinn nods and moves forward again at a stealthy half-crouch. She float-creeps along the beach to her prior position, pauses, and then picks a course up to the treeline and through its very edge, toward the beach around the curve in the island's coast.

"Gosh," says Sintha very quietly, possibly just because she hasn't said anything in a long time and needs to hear her own voice.

Celaven drifts in Sintha's direction, just in case the lack of giving commentary is actually doing her physical harm.

"Shh," Tyrrell says sharply. Not looking at Sintha, but definitely at Sintha.

Gosh, Sintha mouths silently. On principle.

Katerinn is back. She goes directly to Captain Tyrrell. "Seven fires. Two not visible head-on because they're sheltering behind boats. Three boats on the beach, two more being used as barricades. Orcs and goblins, no more than two dozen, but there are supply crates."

Zinny looks like she likes those odds. She looks hopefully at Tyrrell.

Tyrrell hisses out a string of curses that would curdle milk, and begins to pace. While levitating. Quite a sight.

"They"re clearly an advance party for a larger force. If we attack them, the larger force will know they are discovered…"

He paces more, then stops and turns abruptly to the unit, his eyes glacially cold. He shifts, uniform stretching to fit as he expands, becomes a shaggy pitch-black wolf-creature with glacial eyes now luminous with bloodlust.

"Let's leave them a warning," he growls in a deep, nightmare voice.

"All right," Zinny says quietly, moving into a fighting stance.

Celaven stiffens, glancing back at the jungle tree line once more, and then focusing fully on his team. "We can hope they have no healer."

"If they do," Tyrrell growls, "take them out first."

Sintha checks one of the pouches on her belt. "I have tripwires," she says under her breath. "And some very dramatic grenades I can wire them to."

Katerinn hefts her crossbow and waits for orders.

"Lt. Crowley," Tyrrell almost literally barks. "Take Fallon and Greywatch to a spot to set up traps and a distraction. Evensong, stay in healing range of them and the camp. Copperstill, Saion, with me. We'll wait for their forces to divide and then storm the camp. Shock and awe."

"Shockanaw!" Saion repeats in a my favorite!! tone.

Zinny smiles, heading over to stand by her nightmare worgen captain and the giant draenei. She seems to think she's approximately the same size as the other two.

Celaven nods quietly and fades slightly, ready to move.

Katerinn and Sintha both salute and fall in behind the nondescript mage, moving east through the trees toward the far side of the camp ahead.

Zinny waits in anticipation, head cocked to listen more clearly for an explosion.

Celaven keeps an eye on both teams, shifting to a midpoint between them.

Tyrrell prowls a bit closer to the camp, on the opposite side from where traps are being set. When he gets near enough for a proper charge, he holds up a halt fist, not fully curling his black claws into his palm. He might have made that mistake before.

Little shimmers of green chi energy gleam briefly over Zinny's fists and then settle. She is so ready.

A silence elapses.

Then, from the darkness across the firelit camp, there is a fitful violet fizzle of arcane light, and then a man's voice says, "Oh, shoot." It seems like it was intended to be quiet, but sound carries along the nighttime beach.

The camp takes notice; all heads turn in that direction. A big orc at the center of the camp picks up the axe beside her in the sand at the fireside and rises to her feet. She squints in the direction of the disturbance.

A branch thrashes and the man's voice mutters again.

The orc lifts a hand to point, and barks an order. A group of orcish warriors and some unpleasant-looking goblin bruisers head for the kerfuffle in the trees. They go crashing into the leaves and shadows.

An abrupt explosion lights the night, silhouetting the trees around it starkly against a blazing fireball. Rough voices erupt in panic and anger. A second explosion follows the first, and then there is a series of icy snapping sounds and a slick patina of frost slides from somewhere within the treeline to coat the beach.

A goblin staggers from the jungle and loses his footing on the frost, upending with a grunt. He is not likely to get up again; the iron shaft of a crossbow bolt protrudes from the side of his neck.

Zinny clenches her fists, but she waits for the GO signal. She has discipline.

Celaven drifts a little closer to the distraction team, after the explosions. They sounded violent.

Tyrrell gives the signal, then immediately charges into the camp, down on all fours, a deep savage snarl reverberating in his chest in a way that would raise the hair on the back of the neck of anyone who wasn't used to it by now.

Zinny is used to it, but she loves that their enemies are not. She snarls, somewhat less effectually, and follows the charge into the camp, a little ball of distracting violence.

The orc woman at the center of the camp whirls around, axe ready to meet this unexpected threat, but she was not prepared for the sight (or sound) of the black-furred worgen, and falls back an involuntary step. A handful of goblins break and run for it.

Shimmering spirit energy bursts out of Zinny's hands to richochet through the goblins. She's been practicing Pandarian ways. She rolls forward, ready to stop them from escaping.

Stealth seems to be complete. From where he's hidden by the camp, Celaven lets out a terrifying shriek, just to add more confusion to the conflict. He fades right after, and stays off to the side.

A goblin who had been fleeing toward the trees freezes in a panic at the sound of Celaven's shriek, and an orc trips over him with a curse.

Zinny swings through with a slashing kick, stopping two more goblins in their tracks.

Zath stands up to his full height, lets out a bone-chilling howl, and rains down fire.

Zinny grins, sidestepping out of the fire herself, and shoving her goblin opponents into it.

The camp erupts — both figuratively, in panic, and literally, where a crate of explosives was being stored alongside one of the propped-boat barricades. Pandemonium reigns.

Saion lets out a joyful, booming laugh as he springs from one panicked goblin to the next, mowing them down with his massive greatsword.

An orc bellows and charges at Saion, double axes whirling.

Sintha slips out of the treeline and gently underhand-lobs a grenade at one of the makeshift barricades. This boat, too, goes up in shards and splinters with a crash of flame. Fire rains from the air, and the blazes from the shattered boats leap upward joyfully to meet it.

"FOR DRAENOR!" Saion bellows joyfully as the orc charges at him. He scarcely seems to notice the whirlwind of blades meeting and shredding his alabaster skin, and he almost casually kicks out with a massive hoof to the orc's chest, giving himself room to swing the greatsword in a massive cleaving arc.

A massively cleaved orc ensues.

Celaven chimes a prayer of mending on Saion, which bounces around the team. He shields Tyrrell, Saion and Zinfandel. And then, since things are going well, he quietly starts smiting whichever orcs and goblins he can reach, and searing them with holy fire.

"Don't let any of them get away!" Tyrrell snarls as he sets a fleeing goblin on all kinds of fire.

Crossbow bolts from somewhere within the treeshadow drop two fleeing goblins.

Sintha slips out of the darkness again, this time with blades in hand, and hamstrings an orc who is busy screaming a war cry. Now he is just screaming. And also not getting away.

"If none of them escape," Lt. Crowley mutters, "how will this serve as a warn– oh." Gazing at the smoldering carnage, he belatedly gets it.

Zinny knocks another goblin down. As then next turns to flee, she jabs him somewhere very precise, rendering him temporarily immobile. Then, she renders him permanently immobile.

"Nice one, Little Sergeant!" Saion yells.

Zinny laughs, and raises a thumbs-up in Saion's direction.

As Saion's shout echoes away down the beach, a peculiar quiet falls around them. The crackle of flame and the occasional soft groan or sob are stark in contrast to the bellowing furor of moments ago. Boats lie charred and broken, the sand churned and stained, supply crates toppled and smashed… and everywhere, orc and goblin bodies sprawl on the sand. Some in more pieces than others.

Celaven steps forward into the carnage, his attention on the living as he checks them over for any lingering injury.

Saion sees to the business of finishing the ones who are suffering.

"I'd say this is a pretty good warning," Zinfandel says in satisfaction, turning to Captain Tyrrell. "And a good preview for what they've got in store from us here."

"Let none who serve Garrosh Hellscream escape the consequences of their dark ambitions," Tyrrell snarls in his deep, growling worgen voice.

Then he collapses back into human form with a shudder. He catches his breath for a slice of a moment, and then casually tugs on the cuffs of his gloves, turning away from the aftermath as the others put the finishing touches on the scene.

"Gosh," says Sintha. "Very dramatic."