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Unsung Sagas (Assorted Ficiton)
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Post by
oneforthemoney
There are stories that never get to be told. Maybe the larger tale they inhabited ended, or their players vanished into the wings of obscurity while others moved on. But these stories live on. In the imagination of their creators, or the words on a page that never had a chance to be read.
These are the Unsung Sagas.
The idea behind this is simple. It's a sort of collection where people can put up short vignettes or stories about their characters. Maybe backstories or perhaps events mapped out that never saw fruition in an RP. It's a kind of way to give conclusions to things that might not have been.
There's no real rules to it. Only that it itself is not an RP, and that anyone can post. It's like a short story collection. Anything goes, though I do advise that if you plan on using someone else's characters, better clear it with them first.
Post by
oneforthemoney
Kalra's Deal
(Industrial Azeroth)
Kalra pinned the piece of paper to the table with a single talon and slid it across the table.
“That is the price,” she said with an easy confidence. “It’s more than fair.”
The dwarf took the paper once Kalra withdrew her talon. He was dark iron, as evidenced in his dusky skin and red eyes, like some monster to scare children. His bristling beard hung low from his chin and brows like thick caterpillars climbed his brow when he opened the paper.
“What!”
The dwarf flinched at his own cry and glanced furtively over the rail. Their booth was on the upper level of the inn, reached by a set of stairs. Below was the common room, wrapped in the dusky half light of privacy. Shadowy figures leaned on tables nursing tankards and engaged in conversation doubtless as furtive as his own. Yet at his cry several looked up with a start, but quickly turned away.
Of course they did, the dwarf thought sourly. He glanced back to his companion, who seemed amused at his fear and furtiveness. And why not? She had no fear of being noticed. She flaunted herself.
Kalraevanda sat back in her chair, one arm propped on the table. Horns curved from her brow, her eyes glowing blue. Steel shone dimly on her skin, coating her with pieces of armour. Her fingers ended in steel like claws, her saffron skin lined with jagged green lines like the avenues of a circuit board. She was tall, her hair spilling about her head, her dark cloak brushed back revealing the swell of her breasts and the toned oval of her belly. By any standard she was beautiful. But there was a strangeness in her skin, in the metal plates and the way she moved and spoke. Something hard and deadly that made the dwarf’s blood run cold even if he had never heard of her. But there were few who fished the dark waters of the underworld who had not heard of her rapid rise to power. Or the bodies she had left in her wake.
Something must have showed on his face, for her lips curved with amusement. The dwarf scowled deeply and slapped the paper down.
“This…this is preposterous!” he snapped. “We’ll not pay so much for this device!”
“You will,” she said. She pressed her fingers together, leaning back in her chair. The utter picture of ease and confidence. “No one else can get such a thing. And even if they could, they wouldn’t dare try and sell it. I’m the only one with the resources to make it, deliver it, and guarantee it will work. But please,” she said, a cocky grin playing about her rich lips. “Try and argue with me. Let’s see if I can add another zero to that number. Hm?”
The dwarf seethed, but knew he’d lost. Knew it the moment he had sat down.
“Fine,” he said. His bluster bled from him even as he sat there, shoulders sagging and head bowing. “Fine. I’ll have the money sent to you.”
“And I’ll have the engine delivered to you,” Kalra said sweetly as she stood. “Warehouse beneath the Ironforge Foundry. The cave behind the statue of Ballan Ironfel?”
The dwarf gave a violent start. He gaped up at the metal skinned draenei. “You-“
Kalra laughed as she walked down the steps. Men made way for her, moving back into the halflight of shadows, watching her with the wariness of prey in the face of the predator. She relished their fear, soaking it in as she passed them and pushed her way out of the inn.
Blackrock was never dark. Rivers of living magma oozed from the carved heads of ancient dwarf lords high in the chamber. The square ringed a vast pit where the lava fell in a molten waterfall, casting the immense buildings carved into the living rock in a lurid light, throwing up shadows darker than ever could be in the light of day.
Kalra crossed her arms behind her and strode along the avenue. Not a soul was about so late in the day. Alleys cut past dark buildings, racing between the monolithic shapes of structures cut from the very walls of the chamber. They leaned in with masterfully cut square doors, but their hard edges and slopes gave the city the feeling of a mausoleum.
Such went through Kalra’s mind as she walked. Her talons flexed like the three toes of a raptor against the masterfully made road. No one did stonework like dwarves. But for all that, she didn’t care for the city. It had a feeling of fixedness. The buildings cut into the walls had been there for millennia, unchanged. Stagnant. She curled her lip a little in contempt to the idea.
It was the future.
And it was hers.
Well, not just hers. A brief flicker of something like fondness chased across her features. It was perhaps that which allowed the man to get so close.
He had come from an alley. Waiting until she passed, he had slipped out a moment later. No one was in the street to see. No one to witness.
He wore shoes which made not a whisper. Cloaked in rags like a beggar he raised a blade in a white knuckled hand.
Kalra never seemed to move. One moment she was walking forward, the next she had turned about. Her attacker’s eyes widened in shock and then her arm came up. From the iron of her wrist a blade sprouted, shearing through the man’s upraised arm. The knife went flying, the hand still attached.
The would be assassin fell to his knees. He screamed in agony, cradling his crippled limb. Kalra spared him the anguish of bleeding out with a contemptuous flick of a second blade from her other wrist. The assassin collapsed, staining the stones crimson with his blood, the scene lit by a screen of magma.
The blades made a snicking sound as they retreated into her wrists. She grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the rail overlooking the chasm. With an ease of a man twice her size she lifted the body and tossed it over the side.
She turned away as the corpse fell into the magma, devoured by the burning river in seconds, the only evidence of the scene the streak of blood across the cobblestones. Kalra didn’t bother caring. Such things were hardly uncommon in Blackrock.
She didn’t give the incident another thought as she made her way down a lightless passage away from the mountain’s heart. After all, she had hundreds of people who wanted her dead. From whole organizations dedicated to her death to lowly independent thugs like that one. She didn’t fear them. She had beaten them every time they came against her, had whipped them and sent them back to their holes. By now more believed in her reprisals than any idea of success. Only the lone wolves tried now. Fools who had nothing left but revenge.
Let them come! She tossed her hair, eyes flashing with light as she left the passage, eyes adjusting at once to the sudden change in light. Let them try and kill her. She would cut every one of them down. The underworld was hers! Bought through sacrifice and blood. She laughed as she made her way through the gate and into the ashen landscape of the Burning Steppes. Jagged mountains made a sawtooth pattern on the horizon. Beyond chainlink fences the barren landscape lay, the red sand like a dried sea of blood. She crossed towards the airfield, built outside of the city naturally, where zeppelins hunkered down against the dry suffocating wind. Her own was the richest of them all. A gas bag painted red, her personal colour, the symbol of a spider stamped on its side. Its gondola hung low, marked with delicate and elegant golden trim like it was some noble lady’s carriage. She cared little for the extravagance, but impressions were essential, and the airship provided her with an excellent first one.
Besides, beneath the gold veneer, it was iron. Windows tinted to block prying eyes and reinforced against bullets. A frame of specialized Truesilver that could resist even dragon’s breath, and the long barrels of cannons camouflaged with ostentatious gilt at its front and sides.
Two slender men stood guard at the ramp. On their chests were the black insignia of the spider, their bodies hidden beneath the professional clothes reinforced with steel and hidden weapons, crude compared to Kalra’s own, but she hardly minded. They should have worse than hers, after all. They were merely employees.
Besides, she mused as they bowed deep, their thoughts connected to her own at such range, fading as she passed them by, it was frankly miraculous they had even come that far.
And she had one man to thank for that.
She smiled as she made her way across the sumptuous carpets that sank with her tread like a mire. She found her way to a fine wooden door and eased it open.
Within lay a chamber starkly at odds with the rest of the ship. The room was narrow and wrought of metal. A large workbench dominated a far wall, and all along it in hooks and cradles were a myriad of tools be they wrenches, sprockets, tweezers or even a welding mask or two. Alchemical vials inhabited delicate holders like spice racks layered along the sides, though presumably spices generally lacked the nameless lumps of things floating in the green preserving fluids. Papers flooded the floors and tables, books stacked to bursting glass cabinets locked for the impending departure of the vessel.
A mechanical arm stretched down a ring of lights like a halo over the workbench. Sitting in a chair before it was a young man in white. His ears had the distinct sharpness of an elf, tempered to a slight round by human blood. His blonde hair stood out in a wild mass and his eyes were blue and fierce with intensity on the small mechanism he was assembling. He was thin, but not frail, for there was strength and certainty in his motions, and the delicateness of the task required a finesse that laxness did not foster.
Kalra smiled more broadly and sashayed across the room. She leaned against his back, her arms falling over his shoulders to cross his chest.
“Hello Leo,” she said.
“Kalra,” the young man said without looking up from his work.
“Having fun?”
“Always. The absolute essential component in life is to enjoy everything you do. That way, nothing is ever boring!” He lifted his head and gave a delicate sniff. “You smell like ash.”
“I was in Blackrock.”
“Oh. That explains it. I didn’t hear you go out.”
“Yes, well, I had business.”
“Mmm,” he hummed.
“By the way,” she continued, resting her chin on his shoulder. “How is that elemental engine coming along?”
“Eh? That thing? Pretty well. I managed to get around the matter of it breaking out. A reversal of the couplings in the-”
“Fine fine,” she said, quickly cutting him off. Experience told her what would happen if she didn’t. “But when will it be ready?”
“Oh it is.” He waved a hand idly, the black glove threaded with silver wires flashing. “It’s in the hold. Just needs a power source and it’s good to go.”
A thrill raced up her spine. Her eyes flashed and her veins like circuits began to glow red with her excitement. The profits. The power. Her hands ran down his chest. “Is it?” she breathed. “You’ve been busy.”
Leo laughed faintly. “Well I try. You know, in the wrong hands, that thing could be very dangerous.”
“I know,” she purred, her hooked tail lashing. Her clawed fingers hooked into the fabric of his shirt and tugged, rending the weak cloth and exposing the pale flesh beneath. “Because I have another job for you. Something I think we’ll both enjoy.”
“Really? Oh,” he gasped as her teeth nibbled on his ear. “Well,” he said, carefully setting down the mechanism and shrugging off his labcoat, “far be it for me to deny you that.”
Kalra laughed. “Oh Leo,” she purred, spinning about his chair. She planted a taloned foot on the edge of the seat, leaning over him as she shed her coat, baring her breasts and the lines of light which glowed with her desire. “No one can deny me anything.”
Post by
oneforthemoney
Kalra's Fall
(Industrail Azeroth)
The room was in ruins.
The carpeting was torn. Shards of glass glinted like jewels strewn amid the dust of shattered stone. Windows gaped like toothless mouths. A full half of the ceiling had been blasted away along with part of the wall showing a slate grey sky overcast and grim. It threatened rain but none fell yet.
Kalra sat in the massive chair at the head of the hall. It alone had survived. Even the desk before her had been broken, split in twain, the corpse of the man she had broken on it still resting in the crease.
Kalra slumped and looked around the room resentfully. She remembered when she had first taken this office. Wrenched it from the hands of Mister Chrome, the chromatic dragon turned crime lord. She’d killed him. On a clear day, she could look down from the tall peak the manor was built upon, look down and see the dragon’s bones bleaching among the woods already growing around it. No chance of that now. She wouldn’t risk the windows today. Instead she looked gloomily at the treasures she had once decorated her hall with. The display of the bones of an adolescent dragon had been shattered and lay strewn about the floor, a rib pinning a man’s corpse to the floor like a scientific specimen. Several bookcases had been knocked over, the rare volumes papering the floor. Vases lay like broken puzzles amid the shards of the podiums which had displayed them.
Once, this room had been a presentation of her accomplishments. A decoration of valuables that only the truly rich could waste their money on. Now, it lay, ruined by battle, peopled by the corpses of the men she’d slain. At least a dozen decorated the room, wearing the blue and white livery of the Stormwind guard.
And they’d gotten their marks in, despite it all. Gashes showed on Kalra’s once pristine scarlet skin, her leather and iron armour hanging in tatters of rags. One of the draenei’s horns had been chipped, ending abruptly in a broken mass. The rigid veins that spread across her skin like wiring on a circuit board pulsed slowly with the exertion of magic and strength she had needed to put forth. Her eyes simmered with blue light.
So caught in her own thoughts she did not notice the spiral design take shape in the air. Only once it formed fully, like a spider’s web woven against the background, did she look up. The pattern inverted as if pulled, opening into a gateway cut in the air, and from it, emerged a woman.
She was tall and cruelly beautiful, with a look of amused arrogance and assumed power. She had the look of a kaldorei with her pale blue skin and glowing silver eyes. But that was from the waist up alone, for her lower body was a thing of nightmare. Eight spider legs stretched from an arachnid abdomen. They were long and thin, with knobby joints and a single venomous talon at the tip of each which clicked audibly on the stone of the floor. She had long black hair done back in a ponytail baring her throat, held back by a crown of chitin. Her gown strapless and cut to just reveal her breasts. Four spindly arms rose from her back displaying wickedly curved talons. Her mouth showed fangs when she smiled.
“Oh my Kalra,” she said, looking about the ruins of the room. “I hope I haven’t come at a poor time.”
“What do you want Bren?” Kalra said, her voice hoarse and low.
“Why merely to see my favourite priestess. After all we have such history together.”
There was a flash in Kalra’s eyes. The gleam of the conqueror who had clawed her way to the very top. Her hands gripped the arms of her chair and two blades emerged from iron plates above her wrists with a snikking sound.
“I am not your priestess,” she hissed.
“And after all we did for you,” Bren said. “We made you what you are, my sister’s and I.”
“No!” Kalra barked. She rose, her taloned feet drawing sparks as they clenched upon the stonework. She slammed a fist against her near naked chest. “I made myself what I am! Not you. Not your sisters. Not my mother. I did. I built all of this!”
Bren’Corryn, unperturbed by the draenei’s sudden flash of temper, glanced about the ruins of the room. “And look at what it’s come to,” she mused. “What a shame.” Her eyes flicked back down to Kalra. “Such a shame.”
Kalra bit her lip. Still glowering, she sank back into the chair. “If you’re just here to mock me you can get out.”
“Me?”Bren gasped. “Mock you? Oh Kalra, never. I simply came by because I heard about the hard times you’ve fallen on. Your organization crushed by the law and competitors. Reduced to this,” she said, flicking a hand at the ruined mass of masonry that was the room, “your final fortress. And even here driven to the edge. Without a friend in the world.
“Well,” she corrected herself quickly with a sly smile. “Not completely.”
“What.” Kalra growled again. “Do you want?”
“Only to talk,” Bren said soothingly. She walked across the floor, talons clicking, until she reached the desk. She swept her hand through the air, and from the fingertips came strands of white thread. In a second she had woven a seat between the edges of the shattered desk. Stepping primly into it, she settled herself atop it, smiling warmly at the woman before her. “After all, much in your life changed since we last spoke.”
Kalra didn’t answer. She merely glowered hatefully at the spider, so Bren continued. She tapped a talon against her teeth with an exaggerated look of concentration. “Let me see…I think the last I heard about you was when your pet left. That one Imirias was so fond of. What was that mortal’s name?”
The wood of the arm rests creaked beneath Kalra’s tightening grip. “Leo,” she said. “His name was Leo. And that was two years ago.”
Bren snapped her fingers. “Oh yes! That’s right. Whatever happened there?”
“He left,” Kalra said, and for the briefest moment, a flicker of something other than hate crossed her face. “And that was that.”
“You poor thing,” Bren said. But that was all. She just said it. Didn’t mean it. The thing before Kalra didn’t care for others. Not as equals.
Kalra glanced up at the goddess, feeling a wave of contempt for the spider. Bren saw it, and for a second looked bemused and perhaps a little confused. But she brushed it aside with the same arrogance and laid her talon tipped fingers before her.
“Kalraevanda,” she said gently. Her eyes glinted as she rose and slowly paced about the chair. “Dear Kalra,” she said, voice honeyed with concern. Her talons scraped atop the chair. “You’ve been rather put upon, haven’t you? All alone up here. Ruler of rubble. All because you decided to try to go on your own. But you were never good at that.”
Kalra’s head dipped a little beneath the weight of those words. Seeing the effect Bren’Corryn pushed ahead, a talon always on the back of the chair as she circled.
“No. But I suppose you had to try. Try, and realize you couldn’t do it. Kalra. I think you know why I’m here. I’m here to make you an offer of course.”
Bren stopped. She was behind the chair. Leaning forward, she brought her lips near the draenei’s ear. “I can save you.”
Kalra twitched like a surge of lightning had passed through her.
“That’s right,” Bren purred. Her hands slipped over the chair and fell on Kalra’s shoulders. “I can get you out of here. I can give you even more power. And all you have to do is to serve me again. Be my priestess once more. Safe in my arms. In my service.”
Bren’s breath grew husky. “Serve me.”
Kalra didn’t answer. Still smiling, Bren drew back. She strode about the chair to stand before the draenei once more, the portal open behind her, the song of its magic sweet in the ruins. Bren extended her hand.
“Come with me.”
Kalra sat, bowed on the throne of her ruined castle. “You’re right,” she said at last. “I failed.”
“I am a goddess,” Bren said. “It’s my business to be right.”
“I built my empire,” Kalra continued as if Bren had not spoken. “I carved it out with blood and fire. I used every trick I had and I forced it about. I needed to be strong. I needed power, and I got both. Under my own strength. Always that.
“And that’s why I’m here.”
Bren’s smile began to fall. She withdrew her hand as Kalra looked up. Distantly, there was a boom of cannon from somewhere beyond the walls.
“But you know what?” Kalra said, and there was defiance there. “It all started to go downhill when Leo left. Then I was alone. I was really alone. I trusted none of my people and with good reason. I had to take care of everything. They were unreliable. Stupid.
“But I did it,” she said. The walls shuddered. Dust rained down to the thunder of explosions as Kalra transfixed the goddess with her glowing eyes. “I failed. I’ll admit that. But I brought myself this far.”
“So you said,” Bren said.
“I did. I failed. But I made it. And I’ll survive it.” Kalra stood. “There’s ways out of here. Even if it’s through an army. I’ll find my way out and I’ll try again. I’ll build my empire new if I have to. And do you know why?” She bared her teeth, snapping them shut. “Because it’s mine! Because I brought myself here, and I’ll see it to the end. Even if it means I die. This is my choice. This is my failure.
“And I am not going to run away to you!”
Bren kept smiling, but it was more of a snarl now. Her eyes flashed dangerously. “You could have been so much more,” she said coldly.
Kalra threw back her head with pride. “I’ll be whoever I make myself to be. And I’ll never be yours.”
Bren narrowed her eyes. “We’ll see, Kalra.”
The goddess stepped back into the gate. The walls contracted before her, reality closing in about the gateway. Soon only Bren’s face was visible.
“We’ll see.”
The portal closed with a snap.
For a moment there was utter silence. Kalra shook slightly, staring at where the goddess had stood. Regret washed over her, but it was a momentary weakness. When it passed, she let out a slow breath.
She was still hers.
Reality intruded with a thunderous roar. She stumbled against her broken throne as the floor shuddered under the force of an explosion. A shadow moved over the hole in the ceiling and she looked up to see the gas bag and gondola of a zeppelin pass above her manor. The bomb bay had opened on the bottom and ropes were being lowered. The tiny shapes of men were soon on them, descending into her home.
Exhilaration filled her. Kalra grinned and hurried across the hall. The shards of vases clinked beneath her claws and glass sang as she scattered them in her dash for the door. There was an anchor line in the south wing. If she got to it, she could maybe ride it down to the forest below. Failing that, there was her escape gate in the east wing. But that was where the soldiers were going. Maybe she should activate it, draw their attention, then take the rope. Or scale one of the ropes and steal the attacking air ship itself!
Kalra roared with laughter as she rushed down the hall.
After all, what was life without danger?
Post by
oneforthemoney
Thus Begins the End
A haze like a mist saturated Felwood. A poisonous green hanging deep over twisted trees and rotted grass. Rivers of brackish waters cut across the landscape in ragged strips and ruins of buildings lay slumped as if crushed by the grim atmosphere of the land. Lifeless. Diseased.
Salana shuddered beneath the ill aura of the land. The druid rubbed her arms, feeling the taint of the place seep into her violet skin, the dark whorls of her tattoos starkly evident along her arms. She wore little, merely a leather shirt which bared her toned stomach and another which embraced her hips leaving her long legs bare.
“We shouldn’t be here,” she said, looking warily at the ancient barrow. The entrance was black and seemed to breathe corruption. “The warlocks were scattered. They’re dead. There’s nothing here.”
She felt his hands on her shoulders. She shuddered beneath his touch, eyelids fluttering. “Then there’s nothing to fear,” Caliban said. His voice was soft, its tone like honey and made her knees quake and her breath grow short. His hands slid down her bare arms, leaving her skin tingling with desire.
She swallowed her lust with effort and turned around to face him. A night elf like herself. Strikingly handsome and tall. A long slender blade was sheathed at his hip. His muscular frame was draped by a robe, its open front revealing a toned stomach and chest. His features were sharply cut and well defined, his hair a green so dark it was almost black. And his eyes. The glowing silver of those eyes drew her in. She lost herself in them each time she faced him, but this time she struggled, pulling away from his compelling gaze and looking aside.
“It’s not that,” she said, rubbing her arm nervously. “We shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have brought you here.”
“You bested the coven. Didn’t you?” he said. He drew nearer. Her skin shivered, longing for his presence. The warmth he radiated. He seemed to surround her. His scent overpowered the stench of corruption. Spicy and sharp. She found herself breathing deeper. “You defeated the warlocks. And it’s not like we’re not armed.”
He was closer. She felt the heat of him. Fought the urge to mold herself against him. Her cheeks burned.
“I’m worried. For you,” she said softly. “I don’t know…”
He was behind her. His arms folded about her, drawing her against his chest. “Don’t worry,” he said softly. His hands ran down her ribs leaving her bared skin tingling. His hands rested on her hips, squeezing. “I’ll be fine. And so will you. I would never do anything to hurt you.”
Still she hesitated. Then one hand left her hips and touched her chin. Her head followed his touch, turning back. He leaned forward, pressing his lips to her.
Salana shuddered, melting beneath his kiss. She leaned against him, her hands resting on his sculpted chest. The kiss deepened, growing heated. She burned for him.
He pulled back, slowly. She leaned forward, trying to maintain the kiss. But he merely smiled down at her. “Later,” he said huskily. “Later. Now’s not the time. Show me,” he said deeply. “Show me the place of your greatest triumph against the Legion. Then, we will. When I see what you could do. When I see the warrior, and not just the woman.”
She nodded, shaking, her lips still tingling. “Y-yes. Alright…”
She turned back towards the barrow and led him into the gaping darkness.
Their footsteps rustled over the hard earth, the road winding down. Salana summoned a sphere of light into her palm, the ball of green magic suffusing the dark tunnel. The roots which interlaced the ceiling were withered and black. The earthen walls were gouged with what looked like claw marks. The supporting pillars were a deeper brown, the runes and markings marred by cuts.
They passed through wide chambers empty but for the stains of blood and the reek of death. The tainted fog of fel was so powerful in the depths it lingered on the floor in a hazy mist, swirling beneath their steps. Salana grimaced at the clinging sensation as she strode through, glancing back to see how her companion fared.
Caliban seemed unconcerned, his silver eyes sliding over every room they passed. The sense of wrongness, of corruption which filled the air did not phase him. The glow of her spell filtered through the air, illuminating the hard lines of his face, his eyes glowing a deep silver in the pale glow. She shuddered. There was more to him. She knew that. She feared that. But she led them on. Deeper.
She remembered the battle. Night elves battling with blades and nature the horned satyrs and their demonic minions. The weakness of her magic and the strength of the demons, drawing might from the sickened air. A small coven. Wiped out, but with heavy losses. She came across a chamber where blackened bones lay piled in a mass. Her eyes flitted to the profane sigils marked in the walls. Side chambers reeked of filth, rubbish gathered in the corners. Here and there their feet passed over etchings cut in the stone floor. Runic circles of demonic rituals.
They entered the deepest depths, and there, halted.
Before them stood the heart of the once sacred barrow den. The entrance was a circlular frame of wood, and wrought into it were runes freshly carved. The door itself was barren. Roots interlaced in a vast network of crawling fingers, forming a solid wall.
“Here,” she said, softly. “Here is where I faced him. The warlock, Razzack.”
“Tell me,” he said. He was behind her again. Close. The light in her palm flickered, dimming with her distraction. Shadows swamped the corners of the passage.
“We…came in the night,” she said. “Fought our way into the depths of the barrow. The satyrs were scattered. But fought fanatically. Trying to protect these depths. Where their master made his council.”
“You came on him?” he said. His breath brushed her hair. She could hear his excitement. Her eyes lidded with the memory.
“Y-yes. He stood here before the altar. He wore black robes, his horns poking through the hood. He was savage. Screaming curses and casting spells. He fought fiercely.” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I lost friends. Ballan Bearclaw. Issina Swallowsong. He burned her with fel fire. I heard her scream.”
“Yes,” he said. One of his arms snaked about her, pressing her against him. His presence enfolded her. “Go on.”
She sank against him. “It gave me an opening,” she said, her voice thick with desire. “He tried to cast but I was quicker. My spell took him in the chest. Scattered what he had on his workbench. He tried to get up. I used my dagger. Stabbed it through his black heart.”
His breath was hot against her. Her own came short.
“And you sealed his sanctum. Didn’t you?”
The spell in her hand blazed into life, illuminating the far chamber. A place where roots interlaced in an impenetrable knot.
“Open it.”
Her eyes flew open. She turned her head about and looked at him. But he wasn’t looking at her. He stared at the door. But his eyes were different. They seemed more gold than silver. Pulsating with desire.
“What?”
“You sealed it. Yes?” he said. “Then you can open it.”
“I…I couldn’t.”
His finger ran down her cheek. “Not even if I asked you to?”
She shuddered. “I…please. Please don’t. What’s in there…I…”
“I’m asking.” His hands slid down her flanks, brushing her front. She arched, pressing against him. “Do it.”
Trembling, she raised her hands towards the wall of roots. A tear slipped down her cheek as emerald light played across her fingers. “Please,” she whispered.
His lips pressed against her neck, his teeth skimming her violet flesh. “For me,” he said deeply, his words thrumming through her body. “Do it for me.”
“I swore…”
“Do it.”
She shuddered, and closed her eyes. Her fingers moved, weaving the magic.
The roots creaked, their interlacing figures cracking as they reluctantly turned, unwinding from their impenetrable weave. Like a careful veil being unravelled all at once the roots retreated into the sides of the doorway. They parted, and revealed a dark chamber beyond.
Darkness came forth like a foul breath of air, washing over them. Caliban’s robes fluttered in the air. Salana was pressed against him, the chill of evil in the chamber terrible. Then, Caliban snapped his fingers.
Red candles made of human fat guttered within the chamber where they slumped, half melted on the stones scattered along the walls. Half a banner baring the horns of the Legion still decorated the wall. Dark braziers revealed themselves in her weak light. And in the very center of the room, a massive stone block rose. Its surface was plain and flat, but the rusty stain of blood still draped the once altar.
And on the altar, lay the corpse.
Its black robes hung limply over rotted flesh. The skull of the satyr leered from what flesh remained, a dagger still jutting from its chest.
Caliban released her. He stepped towards it, his eyes flashing. A smile lit his face as he walked into the chamber.
Salana’s arms fell to her sides. She looked at the opened door with grief. But when he passed her and travelled through the door, she sobbed and fell against the frame.
Caliban kicked the corpse aside contemptuously. She lingered near the door as he searched, throwing aside weapons and books.
He stopped, delighted. “Ah,” he said. Reaching down he lifted up a chest. “This is it.”
He put his hand upon the lock. Emerald lightning blazed from it. Salana cried out, stepping forward, reaching for him, but stopped, drew back, horror widening her eyes.
He grinned as the emerald lightning clawed across his form. Stripped him of it. A whirlwind grew around him, whipping about his robes. His slender fingers grew thinner, nails longer and tinting black. His boots strained and then exploded revealing cloven hooves. His teeth grew sharper, canines longer and into fangs. His purple skin lightened, tinting a deep and lurid red. Silver was stripped from his eyes revealing gold, slit by black pupils like a cat’s. His hair turned truly black, and from his brow grew two curling horns. His robe strained, and from the fabric black wings slices through, fanning out like a bat’s.
He turned, and Salana shuddered as his presence struck her like something physical. Horribly handsome, his fanged lips smiling wryly. The storm of lightning faded, dying as the lock gave way. His slitted eyes flashed. “Finally,” he laughed, his voice rich and husky. He dipped his hands inside, and fetched out a small rubber duck.
Salana stared as the man she had known as her lover turned the strange little yellow thing about. She suddenly bolted, rushing for the corpse. She grasped the dagger and yanked it free, turning about to face the demon. She crouched, panting, fixing her eyes upon him. “You…” she gasped. “What have you done?”
The incubus cocked his head, amused. “Me?” he said, snapping shut the chest. “Simple. I have sought out one of the Legion’s most powerful agents. Sealed away in such an innocuous thing as this for years. Ever since the war for Outland. I found the cult which had taken it, and the heroic druid who bested them, and sealed the ruin. I took the guise of a night elf, and romanced her. Greetings.” He dipped in a low sardonic bow. “I am the incubus Salix. And it was my pleasure to know you.”
The dagger shook in her hand. Tears streamed from her eyes. “I trusted you!”
“You loved me.” Salix started to walk towards her, his wings fanning the air. “You still do. Don’t deny it.”
“Stop!”
“You didn’t lie. I could tell. Salana. Didn’t you say you loved me? That you always wanted to be with me? Has that changed? Do I repulse you.”
Salana retreated. Shaking her head. His words seeped into her mind like a poison. She trembled, torn. Her back struck the wall and still the incubus neared. “Don’t…”
He caught her wrist, raised it high, smiled affectionately down at her, then dipped down into a kiss. His lips were hot. He licked the tears from her face. The dagger clanged as it was tossed aside. With more care, he put down the box, and gathered her into his arms.
She sobbed, and was lost. She fell against him. Sank into the wonder that was him. Her thoughts drained away, her hate melting beneath the raw desire he awoke in her. He ended the kiss, and smiled cruelly down at her. “In a year time, perhaps less, the Legion will come again. They’ll rain fire from the heavens. Slaughter all those who stand against them. Grind this world and its people beneath their hell. And what is in that box will help us do so.”
His hands cupper her face. His golden eyes stared into her silver, devouring her. And he said with a knowing voice, his breath husky with desire, “And you’ll warm my bed as we watch your world burn. Won’t you?”
She couldn’t look away. His presence surrounded her. Encompassed her. She bowed her head, her shoulders sank.
“Yes.”
Salix grinned wolfishly. “Good.” He drew her up with him. “Now come along. We have more work to do.”
The druid, her head bowed, followed him. The ill light of the candles flickered as they passed, and one by one, went out.
Post by
oneforthemoney
Where All Paths End
(Industrial Azeroth)
Coins rattled on the table. “Wine. Your best.”
The bartender, a heavy built tauren, looked shrewdly at the woman. For woman she was, even though she wore a heavy cloak. She was draenei, though the red tint of what skin was apparent made that questionable. Horns curved from her brows to accent her face and her eyes were an electric blue. He spotted metal plates worked upon her skin like a set of armour. Jagged green lines like the wires of a circuit board travelled across her body. The tauren was wary at once, though it was not the hard look of danger in her stance that raised his guard. The confidence born of experience. Nor was it the small smile which hooked her lips. A certain bloodlust. A welcoming of such danger.
It was the fact that a second before, she had not been there.
The tauren stooped and fetched the glass and bottle. His movements were slow and deliberate. His tavern was not crowded. It was built of heavy stone, the ceiling high and a balcony shadowing the bar. The hot sun laid down slats through windows, wrapping the place in a cool gloom. A single fan hummed as its blades lazily chopped the air. He made no comment of her appearance, nor complaint. Few people came to Gadgetzan that belonged anywhere else. He had dark fur and a broken horn, and his thick hands were dexterous as they poured blood red wine into a glass.
She took it, her fingers ridged metal in the forms of claws. Her arm seemed to shimmer faintly, almost vanishing against the varnish of the bar, explaining one mystery at least.
“Will you be wanting a room?” the tauren said.
Kalraevanda laughed softly and took a drink. She brushed some of her long dark hair from her face, a wash of silver flashing down it. “I won’t be staying that long,” she said.
“Lots say that,” the tauren said.
They fell silent as the door banged open. Kalra cocked her head, watching the group enter slowly. They walked with the weight of weapons hidden in their fine clothes. Expensive thugs one and all, mostly trolls with hair spiked in the barbarous styles of the Zul’Farrak. But they paid her no mind. Their eyes passed over her, went above her. Their leader gestured, showing an arm of black steel. They moved to the steps and climbed.
Kalra drank her wine thoughtfully and glanced back to the tauren. She craned her head back at a sound of angry voices on the landing overhanging the bar.
“Always work,” the tauren said carefully. “Might be able to find you something.”
Her eyes snapped down. She smiled again, but more dangerously now. A wild look. The look of someone with nothing to lose. Who had reached the end and made enemies of all. He took her in again. Her fine figure sheathed in steel and cybernetics. Magic moved in the green veins which coursed across her armour. Nothing would be beyond a woman like that. The tauren’s hand crept below the bar and grasped tightly a club.
Kalra’s eyes sharpened. Her armour clicked like the rattling of a cobra.
There was a shout above. The ring of drawn steel. Kalra turn at the crack of the wooden railing and watched with interest as two men fell from above. A table buckled under their weight, crashing to the floor.
Kalra dropped her glass. She stared at the young half elf lying atop the shattered table and a stunned troll. Spectacles askew, wild blonde hair hanging about his face. His white lab coat was stained with the blood of the man beneath him and his hands were gloved in iron with a blue stone on the back of the palms.
“Leo?” she said.
He looked at her. “Kalra? What are you doing here?”
There was a click. They both looked up to see the troll, his arm of iron ending in the round muzzles of a gatling gun. It began to spin.
Kalra grabbed Leo and yanked him beneath the shelter of the overhang, moments before the table and the groaning man Leo had fallen on danced to the chatter of the machine gun.
Breathless, she found the young inventor pressed against her. She looked down into his faintly glowing blue eyes and grinned. “Always in trouble?”
“Well they started it,” Leo said weakly.
A roar heralded a second troll leaping from the balcony, a long curving sword in hand and his green hair arched in a mohawk. Without even looking Kalra brought up her fist. A blade sprouted from the steel on her wrist and pierced the man through the bottom of his chin and up into his skull. She held him, twitching on the end of her blade, before retracting her weapon and leaving him to slump to the ground.
More conversation was forestalled at the pounding footsteps as several other trolls raced down the landing. Leo grabbed the wine bottle and smashed it into the tusked face of one. Kalra broke another’s ribs with her fist and hoisted him over her head in the same motion. She stepped back and hurled the broken man at the troll with the machine gun. The troll shouted, firing wildly at the body crashing towards him before it struck him, bowling him down.
Her blood sang in her veins. Her eyes flashed with excitement. Leo killed another of their attackers, blasting him across the room with a touch of his electrified gloves. She grabbed the young half elf, dragged him behind the bar as more men pounded down the steps in pursuit.
The back door’s strong wood buckled beneath her clawed foot. She rushed into the street where a car sat idle. She launched herself into the seat and Leo jumped in beside her. She gunned the engine and roared away from the bar and down the dusty maze of streets of Gadgetzan.
She grinned wildly into the wind, her fangs sharp and fierce. She glanced back to him, breathing heavily from the exertion. “What did they want with you anyway?” she said.
Leo glanced her way and fished a rolled paper from his jacket. “This. It’s a map to the old Uldum ruins. I’d come to buy it but they said a few things and then there were guns and I thought it better to leave.”
“Bet they didn’t like that.”
“Nope.”
She laughed. She changed gears, careening the car around a corner, sending people diving out of her way. “You know you shouldn’t be around me,” she said delightedly. “I have a huge bounty on me. Every race on the two continents wants my head. A fortune for my death!”
“Oh, well. I have on too.”
“You!”
“Yes. I seem to have hit something with a train.”
“What did you hit with a train?”
“A town.”
“A town!” she cackled.
“Well one thing led to another…”
She laughed again. She felt alive. She swung around a corner and nearly rammed a food cart. The goblin who ran it screamed obscenities at her and she flipped him off. She felt the rush of energy and danger, her life spiced like it hadn’t been for an age. She grinned fiercely. “Well,” she said, glancing his way, blue eyes blazing. “I happen to be between work, as you may have heard. I might be willing to go with you to Uldum. Light knows you can barely keep yourself alive without my help.”
Leo brightened. “Would you?” He laughed delightedly. “It’ll be just like raiding with my sister again.”
She wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pulling him against her. She looked into his eyes, a lustful grin on her lips. “Well,” she breathed. “I hope not totally.”
Leo answered her smile with his own. “Well, I guess not.”
She leaned forward and captured his lips with a kiss. She could feel his heart beat faster in his chest. She felt herself warm, the veins of magic pulsing red across her body. She deepened the kiss, devouring him. He answered her ardour with his own. Matched her with a willingness she hadn’t known in the #$%^&s or lovers she had seized since their last parting.
They burst through the gates of Gadgetzan. Plumes of dust raced behind their tires as they shot into the desert. The heat shimmered ahead, casting mirages of distant things. Fading, forming, forever changing, in a place where no roads go.
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