The party of Bella, Stella, Flutashe, Mena and Raida entered the once sacred halls that were now occupied by a fanatical group of arakkoa. It wasn’t long before a pair of guards came around the corner, likely in time for a change in shifts.
One of the crazy birds squawked, “Intruders in the Sethekk Halls! Aa-ak!”
If subtlety was ever an option, it wasn’t now. A disintegration beam from Stella and a black ocular beam from Raida disposed of them. The latter ended up frozen in black crystal before the demon hunter shattered it with a Chaos Bolt.
“Since when could fel magic do that?” Mena asked.
“It doesn’t,” Raida answered. “Whatever I got from that strange demon I absorbed, no other demon hunter could replicate that power, not even Lord Illidan. Even more odd was that I had to absorb the souls of more demons just to be able to use fel magic like everyone else.”
“Maybe it was a void demon?” Mena guessed.
“It would still be the weirdest void demon I ever saw. Most void demons look like some sort of shadow elemental or, as they’re commonly called, voidwalkers. The one I saw looked like a two-legged gray Xorothian Dreadsteed with a jet black mane and a curved red horn. It sorta looked like some sort of horse person. Plus, no void demon we know of could create black crystals.”
“Could be a mutation or a special strain or an anthropomorphic pony from a universe beyond our own or…” Mena trailed off as they entered the next room which contained a small army of arakkoa.
Arakkoa of various colors of plumage were waiting for the party as they began to channel their dark magic. Large birds of prey prepared their sharp talons. They noticed that some of the bird people were transparent. Given that they were in the middle of a haunted mausoleum there might have been some sense in ghostly arakkoa being here but that was likely not the reason, nor that it mattered.
Bella began using the Light to consecrate the room to burn the arakkoa ghosts while the others engaged the various defenders in the room. Mena let Surprise take over and show the birds who was the better shadowcaster by attacking the minds of the melee oriented arakkoa. Flutashe shifted between her bear form and her cat form, the former to endure the strikes and bolts of shadow, and the latter to attack. Stella unleashed an earth shattering wave of magma which set the nests and tents on fire. This attack worked a little too well as it set every flammable object in the room on fire, which was to say everything in the room was flammable including the cobwebs which clung to their nests.
Taking that as their cue to move forward, the party moved into the small hallway into the next room. Stella put up an ice wall behind her once they were through. She hoped it would be enough to isolate the fire and she made a mental note to watch the fire attacks from now on. With the place in disrepair, of course erosion and cobwebs would be prevalent here.
The next room was circular-shaped with more arakkoa, nests and tents. It was still smaller than the previous room and Raida had no problems unleashing a tempest of blades as she pulled out her twin warglaives and summoned Truth and Lady Heartswell before they unleashed their fury upon the birds.
It lasted about a minute, but it was a minute filled with clashing steel and pained squawks as bloodied arakkoa and hawks piled on the floor.
Despite how amazed she was by Raida’s martial prowess, Mena ended up pouting. “Aww, I wanna show off too.”
The party moved deeper into the halls, fighting more arakkoa and birds as they entered a hallway that turned left at a corner and into a similarly-shaped room with a single arakkoa standing on an elevated platform. Little else of note was in the chamber short of a caged arakkoa next to him.
“Mmm…new pets. Rak! You belong to Syth now,” the uncaged arakkoa said.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, we are nobody’s pets,” Bella firmly stated.
“Pets need to be broken first. Come my pets, let us tame them. Aa-ak!” Syth then summoned a number of elementals in the form of fire, water, arcane and shadow and ordered them to attack.
A blast of light from Bella quickly banished the shadow elemental while Stella drained the arcane elemental and unleashed a torrent of ice magic to banish the fire elemental. Raida vaporized the water elemental with a blast of felfire.
Syth was angry that his pets fell so easily so he tried casting various spells at them. Before he could get one off, he stopped and lowered his arms. This confused everyone at first before they saw Surprise had successfully taken control of his mind. The gnome then ordered the arakkoa to open the cage and let out the captive. The prisoner was confused by this until she noticed the shadowy influence on his mind and realized what was happening.
“My thanks to you, strangers. I am Lakka, and as much as I hate to admit, the sister to this foolish bird.” She let out a low squawk. “Would any of you happen to know where my brother, Isfar went? He said he would free me and help me get to Shattrath.”
“We saw him at the entrance,” Flutashe said. “He asked us to free you.”
“Typical, afraid to stand up to his brother…” She grumbled, which sounded like a pigeon cooing. “I will make my way out of here on my own, thanks again.”
“Wait, do you know where there is a key around here?” Stella asked.
“A key? I did hear some arakkoa talking about how they found an enchanted lockbox that had a key in it. Ikiss is likely trying to break the enchantment.” Lakka then ran back the way the party came from. The party silently hoped that the fire had died down enough for her to escape.
Once Lakka was gone, Surprise obliterated Syth’s mind to end him. Though as the arakkoa collapsed, a book fell out of his possession and slid toward Stella’s feet. Curious, she picked up the tome. It had no name on it, but she sensed power coming from it. Not wanting to allow a book to fall to tatters in this place or fall into the wrong hands, Stella decided to hold on to it for the time being.
The party continued onward. The next room had more arakkoa nesting areas along with a large wind serpent that was flying around. Once they were wiped out, they proceeded up a flight of stairs to an upper level that had a few more arakkoa guards for them to defeat.
The next room featured more of the same except there were flocks of trained hawks for them to eliminate. Some of the arakkoa also had a familiar ability that they experienced back in the Temple of Atal’Hakkar where their spirits emerged from their bodies upon their expiration and slowly chased one of them for a few seconds until the spirit destabilized and faded away.
After fighting through the flocks of birds and bird people, the party entered another room which was oddly empty for some reason. As they entered however, they couldn’t help but sense a presence that felt ominous, yet not hostile. Avian idols sat in the room, each one depicting a type of bird: a hawk, an eagle and a falcon.
Once they were halfway through the room, a small crow suddenly appeared and perched itself on Flutashe’s head, much to her confusion.
“Found yourself another friend Flutters?” Raida chuckled.
“I’m sure he’s just nervous about the atmosphere of the…” Flutashe trailed off as she felt a chill run down her spine, as if something powerful was staring at her, judging her. The feeling soon faded, but not before leaving her with a strange sensation as she could more consciously feel the air in the room and a desire to shift into her bird form and fly around. She suppressed that feeling as there would be time for that later. The crow suddenly flew away and quickly vanished.
“Are you alright, Flutashe?” Stella asked.
Flutashe shook her head, “Yeah, just a weird feeling. Let’s move on.”
The party was glad to be out of that strange room, as they shook off their apprehension, they noticed that the next room had one arakkoa within it. The room featured four pillars and several carpets surrounding the center where the arakkoa stood.
The arakkoa saw the group enter and began rambling, “Ra-ak! Trinkets, yes. Pretty trinkets! Ak! Power, great power. Ra-kaw! Power in trinkets! Ak-caw!”
“This guy clearly seems insane,” Mena said. “Too bad Violetta isn’t awake, though.” Everyone except Raida breathed a collective sigh of relief. Raida gave a confused look.
“May I?” Stella asked. “I can see the arcane energies swirling around him, so he’s likely a mage.” She smiled as her friends nodded and backed away into the previous room.
She frowned as she turned to the arakkoa, arcane energy dancing on her fingertips. “Come on!” she challenged.
“Mmm…you make war on Ikiss? Aa-ak!” He then fired several arcane bolts at Stella who blinked to the side and fired several bolts of her own. Ikiss blinked away as well.
Ikiss was sloppy with his spellwork, so Stella could sense his teleport location. In response, she quickly set up a Flamestrike at the destination. The moment he appeared, Ikiss was burned by a pillar of fire. He squawked as he patted out the fire before he blinked away to avoid a follow up from his enemy.
Stella blinked in pursuit of her enemy which was a mistake as she was immediately blown away by an Arcane Explosion and fell to the ground. “Ikiss slice you up!” he shouted as he pulled out a dagger. His swipe missed as Stella quickly teleported away. Ikiss looked around for her but failed to notice a large ball of fire being launched at his back which sent him flying forward a few yards and he fell to the ground in a smoldering heap.
Ikiss tried to get up and cast a baleful glare as his enemy. “Ikiss will not die!” he screeched before he began channeling another arcane spell. Stella quickly recognized the spell being cast and raised a mirror barrier. There was no way she would allow the arakkoa to turn her into a sheep. The moment the spell went off, it bounced off Stella’s shield and struck the caster, turning the bird person into a sheep. One last Flamestrike turned the sheep into charred mutton.
The rest of the party returned and cheered at Stella for her accomplishment. She blushed a little before her attention was drawn to a small box in the back of the room. She sensed that the enchantments had been removed so she looked inside to see what was inside.
Thankfully, Ikiss didn’t do anything with the key inside as they would need it to infiltrate the Shadow Labyrinth.
Once they were finished celebrating, the party headed down a passage that led out of the room. The way ramped downward until they reached the end where they found themselves in the first room. They concluded this because of the smoldering piles of ash in the room where nests and tents used to be. There were still some small fires in the room but they were slowly fading. A mostly melted ice wall once blocked the passage to their right.
“Looks like these halls circle around,” Raida said. “There might have been more to this place once but those passages had probably collapsed a long time ago.”
With nothing else for them here, they returned to the entrance. They found that Isfar was no longer lingering there so they guessed that he left with Lakka somewhere, probably Shattrath.
They didn’t linger on that because they now had to explore the important section of Auchindoun where their target was located. They proceeded to the door at the south side of the ruins.
What they weren’t expecting was an assortment of different races standing in front of the door equipped for combat. They weren’t certain if they were hostile or not so the group approached them with caution. One of them, a human, noticed their approach and yelled behind him. They were too far to hear what he said though.
A minute later, a broken emerged from the crowd and walked over to the group. “Greetings strangers, I am Field Commander Mahfuun, leader of this expedition into Auchindoun.”
“Umm, greetings to you as well, good sir,” Bella said cautiously.
Mahfuun chuckled, “Worry not, we are allies against the Shadow Council. We are operatives from the Lower City of Shattrath, so we are on your side.”
The party relaxed at that and proceeded toward the door with Mahfuun by their side. “We have been waiting for you to arrive with the key to the Shadow Labyrinth. We will assist you where we can, but it will be up to you to defeat the leaders inside.”
“We can handle that,” Stella said.
Once they were at the door, Stella pulled out the key and felt around for a hole. It was small, but she managed to find it and insert the key. With one turn and a clunk, the stone began to part. Once the door was fully opened, a surprised orc who was guarding a lever by the door took a few steps back but that didn’t save him from a shot from an operative’s crossbow.
“Secure the room!” Mahfuun ordered before the operatives fanned out and set up their stations for their headquarters. The broken looked at the group, “Reinforcements will arrive soon, once they are here, we will begin pushing inside. I hope you five are ready to lead the charge.” The group nodded and proceeded to wait.
A few minutes later, more operatives flooded into the chamber, just in time as the Shadow Council launched their own offensive against the Lower City operatives. However, they ended up blinded when Bella threw a hammer at them that exploded in a radiant blast. The operatives were far away so they were not affected as much. This gave them the advantage to take the cultists down.
“They know we’re here,” Mahfuun said. “Advance into the next chamber!”
The party led the way into the next chamber which was occupied by a large number of orc and broken cultists. Some wore robes while others wore leather armor and carried a polearm. There were a couple of warlocks in the room.
The party and the operatives engaged the cultists. Raida focused primarily on spellcasting since she didn’t want the operatives to know that she was a demon hunter; her demons had no such restrictions. Flutashe brutally mauled several cultists in her cat form. Stella countered the warlocks’ spells before she incinerated them with her Magma Breath.
Once the room was cleared out, the operatives set up defenses while the party and Mahfuun moved ahead themselves. They proceeded down a curving hallway past a couple of braziers that gave off a shadowy flame.
The path curved into a half circle and led into a room that was shaped similarly to the previous one. The previous room had five broken pillars, this one had six intact pillars and groups of Shadow Council warlocks were channeling their magics into them, causing the gems atop the pillars to glow red and fire a beam toward something in the back of the room.
Mahfuun pulled out a pair of binoculars to see what else was in the room. Aside from the warlocks and a few large felguards, he spotted what the warlocks were trying to bind. “There is a terrorfiend in the back. The warlocks appear to be binding him while they feed him the souls of their prisoners. He looks quite strong and I would rather not risk our operatives losing their souls fighting him.”
“I’ll say he’s strong, that’s Hellmaw. He’s an ambassador from the Burning Legion,” Raida informed. “Terrorfiends like him are less predictable than their doomguard counterparts since you never know if the mouth on their torsos might do something.”
“We shall deal with this demon quickly,” Bella said.
Bella and Raida handled the patrolling felguards. Raida’s knowledge of demons and their weaknesses allowed her to restrain them while Bella incinerated them with holy light.
Meanwhile, Flutashe, Stella and Mena attacked the warlocks who were maintaining the binding spell on Hellmaw. The three groups in the area stopped what they were doing and retaliated. Most of the spells they used were typical mage spells that used the arcane, fire or frost schools of magic so Stella was able to counter most of their spells. One of the warlocks tried to addle Mena’s mind to keep her contained while his allies attacked the others but that only ended up with Surprise taking over which broke the spell and surprised the warlock. His mind ended up crushed.
The group of warlocks on the other side of the room where Hellmaw was located noticed the commotion and that their comrades were losing. Weighing their options, the warlocks decided to release the demon. Once they stopped channeling their magic into their respective pillars, Hellmaw was free from the spell. The demon snarled and feasted on the souls of the remaining warlocks before turning his attention to the intruders and pulling out his curved sword. “Pathetic mortals! You will pay dearly!” he declared.
The party prepared for a fight. Flutashe switched to her bear form and grabbed the demon’s attention. Bella and Mena focused on unleashing their light magic on him with Stella using her dragon essences.
Hellmaw counterattacked with a shadow spell that made everyone around him flee in terror for a moment to disrupt their formation. Surprise proved more resilient and bombarded him with searing shadows. Raida recovered much faster than the others and summoned her demons to unleash their fury. The ambassador then opened his lower mouth and sprayed a corrosive acid in front of him which coated Raida’s demons and gave them severe acid burns.
The demons’ distraction gave the others time to recover with Flutashe switching to her cat form and punching Hellmaw’s lower face and breaking a few teeth. Raida blasted him from behind with a Chaos Bolt which pushed him forward and into another punch to the lower face. A hammer of light slammed into his upper head and blinded him momentarily which was long enough for Stella to unleash a powerful Disintegration Beam which punched through his torso.
Bleeding profusely and on the verge of death, Hellmaw made one last warning to them, “Do not…grow…overconfident, mortals…” He then fell on his back and stopped moving.
Mahfuun entered the room with more operatives who took up positions. The field commander approached the party with a pleased look on his face. “Thanks to your efforts, we have secured the Arcanium. We are much closer to eliminating the Shadow Council. The next room is the Refectory, the scouts reported that a sermon is scheduled to take place around this time. The ogre mage, Blackheart the Inciter, often conducts his sermons in there so expect a lot of cultists.”
Taking heed to the warning, the party cautiously crept into the next room where large groups of cultists were sitting on weathered pews with several shivarra demons patrolling between the rows. They were thankful that the cultists were paying too much attention to the sermon given by the ogre before them to look behind them.
“We will aid you against the Shadow Council while you focus on Blackheart,” Mahfuun offered.
“We will gladly accept your aid, Mahfuun,” Bella said.
Mahfuun ordered several units of operatives to get ready before he ordered them to charge in. The cultists inside were taken by surprise as their makeshift chapel came under attack by infidels. To make sure the attackers had a fair chance at victory, Bella and Mena bombarded one shivarra with holy magic until she was vaporized by the light. Raida drained the soul of another shivarra out of her body and absorbed it. She was glad that warlocks could absorb souls in a similar way to demon hunters.
Once the shivarra were defeated, the party moved up to the stage where Blackheart was observing the chaos and was laughing for some reason, as if the sudden interruption was some form of entertainment for him. Though given that he was a two-headed ogre, that was probably the case.
His disposition quickly changed to anger when his right head was struck from the side by a hammer of light. “You’ll be sorry!” he growled. He then pulled out a large warhammer and started swinging. Bella sidestepped a downward swing.
Blackheart proved that his attention span was very short and he quickly got bored fighting Bella so he turned his attention to Stella. He charged at the dracthyr with his hammer raised with intent to smash her into the floor. He didn’t expect a thick pillar of rock to suddenly burst from the floor right between his legs. A high-pitched scream rang throughout the Refectory which caused the cultists and operatives to stop fighting momentarily to feel sorry for the poor ogre.
A wicked gleam appeared in Surprise’s eyes as she unleashed a slicing wave of shadow magic while Blackheart was distracted and severed his right wrist, causing him to drop his hammer.
“You pay for that!” Blackheart yelled, both in anger and agony. He then unleashed a wave of dark magic that cause everyone to fight each other indiscriminately. Under the power of this spell there were no allies, but at the same time they couldn’t fight Blackheart.
However, Surprise was unaffected by the spell, and while her friends were fighting each other, she unleashed another slicing shadow wave while the ogre was distracted by the chaos. Blackheart turned just in time to save one head from being severed. The remaining head took a few seconds to register what happened but that was much too slow to keep up with what happened in the next two seconds as Raida leaped up and decapitated the other head with the back blade of her right warglaive.
Once the spell wore off for everyone, the cultists, who were less organized than the operatives, were left in a state of confusion long enough for the operatives to capitalize on that and finish them off.
The party quickly regrouped and ate some of their supplies to regain any lost strength. Mahfuun had them move on ahead while his forces recovered from the battle, saying that they would catch up quickly.
Bella nodded and took point as the party advanced. Stella used the key to unlock the stone door leading forward and they proceeded through a seemingly empty hallway, save for some rubble and a couple of skeletons.
As they turned a corner in the hallway, the skeletons suddenly began to move and stood up. Bella quickly reacted and shattered one skeleton with her hammer while her holy magic exorcised the dark magic making them move. Within a couple of seconds the hallway was silent once more.
The next chamber they entered featured several opened sarcophagi and a couple of piles of bones. There were also a few demons and a small camp of cultists in a far corner. Bella and Mena quickly exorcised the nearby bone pile in case they decided to come to life like the previous skeletons. Raida and Stella both fired beams from their eyes and mouth respectively and blasted a hole in the chest of a felguard before they engaged another demon in the room. The cultists tried to take arms against the intruders but they were ambushed by a two-legged cat who quickly mauled them before they could register what happened. Once the demons and cultists were down, the paladin and priest exorcised the other pile of bones.
The next hallway they entered was much like the previous except Bella and Mena were much more cautious around the bones.
Mahfuun and his operatives soon caught up with the group. The field commander shouted for them not to go further as he approached. Once he caught up, he took a moment to catch his breath. “The remaining leader of the Shadow Council, Grandmaster Vorpil lies at the end of the next chamber. Just like before, we will deal with the cultists between us and Vorpil.” The party nodded in acceptance of the plan.
Once they were ready, they proceeded with the attack. The operatives engaged more of the cultists, surprisingly able to deal with the ones who transformed into hounds blazing with green fire. There were also several piles of bones in the room which the healers blessed with the Light to exorcise the dark magic coming from them.
Vorpil stood atop an elevated platform in the back of the chamber. He saw the small army heading for him. “They are here! Minions, destroy them!” he shouted. While every cultist in the room engaged the operatives, the party emerged from the chaos and ran after him. He glared at them for a brief moment before he opened several rifts. Voidwalkers began to emerge from them and creep toward Vorpil. Mena and Bella clashed their light magics against the voidwalkers while the others engaged the master warlock.
No matter what they did the voidwalkers avoided fighting and continued toward Vorpil as if it was their only purpose in life. To make matters worse, more kept emerging from the rifts. “Everyone, please kill him quickly!” Bella shouted. “I don’t think we want to know what will happen if any of these things reach Vorpil.”
Vorpil wasn’t having that so he temporarily banished Stella out of this plane of existence to prevent her from attacking him. He then fired bolts of shadow at everyone else.
The voidwalkers drew closer to the warlock and Bella and Mena could only kill so many at a time and the fiends were emerging from the rifts at an increasing rate. Soon, the voidwalkers were feet away from the warlock.
They never reached him.
Black tentacles emerged from the floor and feasted on the fiends, leaving only their armor on the floor. Once there were no more voidwalkers to devour, the tentacles began to feast on the rift energies. “What? No!” Vorpil said. “That power is mine!” That was the last thing he said before a tentacle appeared in front of him and bit his head off.
Bella, Flutashe and Stella were stunned by what they saw while Raida had a stronger reaction. “WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!”
“Mena, I thought you said that she was asleep?” Bella inquired.
“She is.”
“Then why did those black tentacles appear?” Stella asked.
Mena shrugged, “Maybe she smelled the void energies and started sleepeating?”
“Can someone tell me what the hell just happened?” Raida shouted.
“Raida, calm down!” Flutashe chided. She then explained the eldritch horror that lay within Mena’s mind and that she wielded the power of an Old God which made the demon hunter nervous when she looked at the gnome. “I felt the same way once. She doesn’t seem interested in eating us, only void energies and the insane.”
That didn’t make Raida feel much better since she had no idea when the creature known as Violetta would change her mind and go after them. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do about this, only react accordingly if or when that scenario occurred.
Once the sounds of battle died down, the party heard a sound coming from further ahead. It sounded like fighting but there was also what sounded like a strange cacophony of musical instruments playing discordant notes.
“What is going on further ahead?” Bella questioned.
“Maybe some Shadow Council meanies decided to start a band and now they’re in the breakup phase?” Mena offered. “I’ve heard those can be pretty violent.”
Ignoring Mena’s comment, the party moved forward. Mahfuun stayed behind to examine a floating scarlet book hovering over a ritual circle.
They moved into another hallway with a corner which led to another door for Stella to open with the key. Once the door opened, they witnessed utter havoc. The remaining Shadow Council members were currently battling what appeared at first to be an air elemental the size of Ragnaros. However, there was something off about its appearance. The creature was throwing what looked like orbs of visible energy that emitted rings as it flew. One Council warrior was slammed to the ground by it, the impact sounding like thunder.
The warlocks struggled against the elemental but were slowly losing the battle as it killed a couple of them with a beam of concentrated sound that caused their heads to explode. Summoners brought in more reinforcements to battle the cosmic being. However, their numbers were dwindling and the summoners were being targeted by the elemental, either disrupting their spells or killing them.
“Grr…even in its weakened state it’s still killing us one by one,” one Council warrior growled. “Where is the Grandmaster? He needs to be here so we can finish the summoning to fulfill our masters’ wishes.” A beam of sound ensured that was the last thing the warrior said.
By this point, only a handful of Council spellcasters remained. The party knew they were about to face something incredibly powerful but they have faced powerful enemies before. The five of them gulped and slowly advanced forward.
By the time the party was standing before the elemental, whom they could only believe was Murmur whom A’dal mentioned, the Shadow Council members were completely wiped out. However, the being was showing signs of instability in his form, if their past experience with elementals applied here. The warlocks must have done a number on him or the summoning ritual was incomplete, which meant there was still time to drive him back to whatever plane of existence he came from.
Flutashe, Bella and Raida ran in and attacked the base of the giant elemental. Murmur swung his truncheon down which they dodged. Stella and Surprise attacked from range with their various spells. Weakened as he was though, he was able to take the hits like they were nothing, showing how tough he really was.
Murmur targeted whatever metal pieces Stella and Mena had on them and magnetically pulled both casters to him in order to smash them. Mena dove out of the way while Stella froze herself in a block of ice which blocked the strike though it shattered her protection.
Seeing that his attack failed, Murmur began to pull air towards himself while making a motion that he was doing so in order to release that air all at once. There wasn’t enough time to escape the blast so Raida quickly erected a wall of black crystals between themselves and Murmur. It was a few moments later that the elemental unleashed a powerful shockwave that shook the entire room. Powerful as it was, the crystal barrier barely withstood the blast but ended up shattered.
The shockwave also jarred loose a nearby canister which rolled down into the pit. Sensing nearby danger, the arcane energies protecting the container erupted from it and took the form of an arcane elemental. Believing that Murmur was threatening the container the elemental began to strike at it. Murmur became distracted by this newcomer.
Seeing the two combatants, Stella had an idea. It was a dangerous, and probably stupid one but it was their best chance at getting out of this. “Everyone, find a place to hide! Quickly!” Everyone complied and found a nearby pillar to hide behind.
Stella flew over to the arcane elemental and began to channel more arcane energies into it. The elemental grew until it was half of Murmur’s gargantuan height, though at the same time it became increasingly unstable. Stella continued feeding arcane magic into the elemental while sparks of arcane energy began to fly out of it. It wasn’t long before the construct reached critical mass.
Stella quickly teleported to the others with Murmur bashing the elemental one last time which was the last straw and the elemental’s form could no longer be sustained. A violent explosion erupted and shook the room and possibly all of Auchindoun to the foundations. Raida fortified their hiding spot with crystals to weather the blast while the rest of the area was exposed to arcane contamination.
Once the rumbling subsided, the entire area turned quiet, eerily quiet. Knowing how to handle herself in the event of an arcane fallout, Stella volunteered to check the aftermath. “Wait here,” she said. She emerged from the crystalline shell and teleported to the pit and found that all that remained of the elementals were Murmur’s truncheon and a metal piece that she suspected had once been part of a key. Stella quickly realized that it might be part of Khadgar’s Karazhan key so she quickly put it in her pocket.
As for the matter of Murmur, she used her magic to gather up what essence she could of the planar being from the weapon and condense it into an orb form. She would need to show it to A’dal as part of his trials. She was glad that her theory was right and that the rush of arcane energies disrupted the incomplete summoning ritual and banished him.
She teleported back to her friends. “Alright, let’s get out of here.” Stella then walked back toward the entrance of the room.
The others hesitated for a moment. When she looked back, they gave her a questioning look. “If this is about a portal to Shattrath, I can’t do that here. There’s too much interference from arcane contamination for anything short of short range teleports. There’s too much risk of creating a portal to places outside the laws of physics.”
Stella rambled on about the dangers of spatial magic in a magically oversaturated area until her explanations broke the minds of her fellow party members so she simply walked onward while the others robotically followed.