The Demon Core Chronicles

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A fishing boat hewn from bone and bark braved the frigid fjords out into the northern sea. Its sailors, born of the ice fields, did not fret over the blinding cold as they navigated their craft past glaciers and floes and continued to row. Soon, they traded shimmering crystalline ice for shimmering violet-hued crystals as the boat eked closer to its destination. The water’s surface reflected an otherworldly glow from lowest depths.

“The spirits foretold this.” One Tuskarr said, his harpoon sharp and ready.

“When earth and sea give way, the light of the stars will come and curse you…”

Another Tuskarr drew in his nets and gazed solemnly at his morbid catch. The fish were pallid and pink, drained of energy, diseased. Their scales reflected the sunlight with a sparkling hue, and under each gill small lattices formed. “The crystal curse… the village might starve.”

The first Tuskarr nodded at him with a grave sigh when he began to see the magnitude of their situation. “Better to starve than to take the curse into yourself. It is a slow death.”

But then a figure soon approached, out from the deck below and into the open air with the rest of them as her hood fluttered under the northern gale. “No one’s starving. No one’s dying.” 

She came up to the fisherman and his nets, and regarded the herrings he had snared. 

“It’s not a curse. It’s pollution. That earthquake exposed a leyline, and these fish got infected from its energy. Its something the Kirin Tor usually fixes, but this time?

They said you aren’t a ‘high priority’ settlement.”

Of course, the Tuskarr had little understanding of the magical theory behind their issue, much like how explaining how the moon conducts the tides does little to assuage those whose homes are destroyed by floods. Neither did they care for the politics. But they knew well enough, from the look in her eye, that she would do everything she could to help them.

One of the rowers threw their anchor overboard as they prepared.

The mage went to the front bow and perched herself on the end.

“Sit tight, everyone. This won't be quick.”
Her staff pierced the water’s surface, as trails of encircling light wrapped and spun around its spire, and fed the lines below with a gentle hum.

Dawn turned to day, and day to dusk. The moon rose and stretched above their boat, illuminated only by spell and the warm-hued lamps of glow jelly hung from the posts on the walls, and a long wistful sigh passed as the moon set beyond its horizon.

For this time, the mage worked her spell, a gentle push that urged the veins of coursing energy to retain their prior path, to let the land have time to heal, to direct the river not by casting in a boulder but to steer it from the placement of so many smaller stones. With unyielding focus, she weaved this magic, even though her body failed her again and again. Her fingertips cracked under a sort of cold she had never felt before, and her words became muffled when she choked on her own blood.

But even so each time, after a short rest or a break, she pushed herself back up and carried on until it was done.

The water’s shine eventually dimmed. 

The mage clutched her staff and held it tightly, as the boat lurched around and slowly rocked back to shore.

A day or two passed, then a knock came from beyond Erin’s hut.

She certainly wasn’t expecting visitors.

“Come in…?”

A Tuskarr came in. She would have been ever more confused if it was just about anything else. But he seemed strange. Of a full build like the rest of his people and seemingly nondescript, his tusks were carved with runic sigils which she couldn’t recognise from this distance.

“I was expecting an elf.” The Tuskarr gruffed.

Erin baulked, surprised to be met with the same expectations as always even in this far flung corner of the world.

“Sorry I’m not who you expected me to be. Who are you?”

“They call me Innugati. You healed the leylines?”

Erin nodded, and measured the Tuskarr before her. “Yeah…? I’m Erin. Did the others tell you?”

Innugati walked up to the fire pit in the centre of the room and sat directly across from her.

He smelled the stew that hung from the pot, slowly boiling away, and gave it a taste.

“Hmph. You haven’t touched it yet.”

“No, it’s fish stew. I tried telling them I don’t eat meat anymore, but they made it for me anyway.”

“It’s a good stew. Why don’t you eat meat?”

Erin shifted on her pillow. “Because I don’t need to. Both my wife and my best friend don’t eat meat, ‘cause they hate the idea that animals get hurt for it. And I hate being a hypocrite more than I like eating fish.”

“Would you go out of your way to stop the Tuskarr from eating fish too?” Innugati asked, and presented himself as he plucked a hunk of flesh from the cauldron and slurped it up. 

“If there was anything else they could sustainably grow and eat? Then yeah.”

That answer seemed good enough for Innugati by Erin’s measure, given that he didn’t retort.

Instead, he finished the fish soup and pushed himself up.

“Follow me.”

And obviously, she went and followed him, to a large stone statue carved in the visage of a Tuskarr, where smoke and incense burned underneath.

“Why did you help?” Innugati asked.

“Because you guys needed help. The Kirin Tor might’ve forgotten, decided they have more important priorities, but I’m not gonna do that.”

“If you really want to help, you have to see the whole picture.”

“What’s the whole picture?”

He showed Erin the statue and answered with a question.

“What’s this?”

“A… an obelisk?”

“And what do they do here?”

“They uhhh… speak to spirit and ancestors or something.”

“Spirits and ancestors that tell them about a curse, that they are punished by the stars, or speak in whispers they can’t understand.”

“It’s not necessarily wrong though? There was an earthquake, and the leyline did breach the surface. The curse is the arcane pollution. Its just in a way they’d see it.”

“But it’s not accurate. It’s not helpful. They would have solved it themselves, they would not have needed you if they knew the right words, or those words the right way.”

He looked at her intently, these words truly meaning to resonate with her.

“The wisest don’t look to magic for their answers. 

And the smartest solve their problems without any at all.”

Erin folded her arms. “Just where did you say you were from again?”

Innugati’s furred brows curved. “It doesn’t matter. But if it helps, I’m from Iskaara.”

Erin saw now more clearly the shape of the runes from before. “So that would explain the draconic carved on your tusks. Did you go to Algeth’ar?”

Innugati dodged her questions again and began chipping away at the stone of the monument, creating jagged lines that meet and strike out, like savage claws.

Erin read the shape and barely remembered what it would mean.

“A ward for… for dampening magic. But that’ll mean they cant speak to their ancestors?”

“Remember, you need to see the whole picture.

Just like you would change the way these Tuskarr eat if they has any other path, then…”

As if seeing something she couldn’t, Erin watched as Innugati stopped and stared out into the far distance beyond them, his sight locked on some sightless target.

“I’ve stayed too long... Erin, do you promise to help the people of Kamagua?”

Erin nodded. She didn’t know who Innugati truly was, but felt nonetheless they both wanted the same thing here. “I promise.”

“Then I trust you will see the whole picture on your own.”

Later that night, the citizens of Kamagua gazed up at a clear night sky, and looked with awe as a green star slowly grew closer and closer, brighter and brighter.

Their cries as it exploded stretched across the fjord.

Icy winds battered Lula’s plane as it soared north across the frozen sea, even on an otherwise clear day. Always looking to spend time with a friend, Erin invited Lula to distant Kamagua, where she could see first-hand the work she had made. She had also desperately wanted to see Lula’s expert piloting skills, though maybe overestimated her own courage as she clung tightly to her seat throughout the ordeal. Soon enough though they came over Kamagua, and while Erin’s eyes were peeled shut Lula spotted a crater on the vlllage’s south end. When they had landed, they made their way over.

"Huh... looks like.. something crashed here?" Lula looked around, "I hope everyone’s alright..." she mumbled, and Erin noted too it wasn’t there the last time she had visited.

Before they could draw too close one of the Tuskarr carrying crates of stacked frozen fish met them at the far end of the village, and spoke in dire omens.

“This is a bad time to come, travellers... the spirits warned us, but we didn't listen.”

Lula rubbed her head in confusion, "Spirits? What uh... what did they say?"

“When earth and sea give way, the light of the stars will come and curse you.”

The Tuskarr breathed uneasily.

Lula gave a curious pout, turned her gaze skyward a moment. “Can I uh... see it?"

“No! Don't go closer. It's cursed! When it landed, this great light came off it. Anyone standing close to it vanished!”

Lula gritted her teeth anxiously before gesturing at Erin. "My friend here is a powerful mage... maybe she can just... have a quick check to see what the nature of this might be?"

Erin smiled and was all too eager to reply. “ And my friend here is a super-smart engineer, so if it's not magic, she can definitely figure it out?”

“Hm. You should pray to the spirits first. Pray for their protection.”

Lula replied, ever-sceptical. "But what if the spirits are the ones who did this?

"No, impossible! The Spirits of the Sky, Land and Sea protect us.”

"But you said they warned you... and..." Lula sighed before shaking her head, not wanting to get into a religous debate. "Alright uh... let’s uh... ask them for protection then.” 

They soon made their way to where the Tuskarr had pointed them to, but something didn’t add up for Erin.

“When I was here before, the curse was about a broken leyline and polluted fish. But now it’s this other thing?”

At the top of the cliffs next to Kamagua stood what the Tuskarr called ‘The Stone Elder’. It was carved in the shape of a menhir, but the details etched onto it reflected the face of an aged Tuskarr. At the elder’s base was a small incense pot of sandalwood. With a quick flick of two fingers, Erin sent crackling embers to the incense and they watched as it began to take form in the smoke. “Take heed....”

Lula blinked, stepping back from the ghostly Tuskarr. "Oh! Hello.” She smiled faintly at him.

"Take heed of our warning... when the earth and the sea splits... the light of the stars will come and curse you…!"

Lula nodded, "But the uh... the thing already crashed..."

The spirit grew darker. “And yet it remains cursed! To go near it, spells certain doom for you.”

It threw out its arms, creating a cloud of incense smoke that smothered the two.

"Breathe in... breathe in the protection of the Spirits..."

Erin choked madly, having been caught off-guard, while Lula merely leaned in and inhaled with a small cough and a wipe of her mouth. 

“Now go... and free Kamagua from its curse…”

Tuskarr from Kamagua watched Lula and Erin with caution as they went towards the crash site, a patch of ice on Kamagua’s southern tip where they set their fishing nets. 

The object starkly contrasted the pale white ice around it as its metre-long and metre-wide size dominated any attention as the image of a jet black sphere.

The only physical damage the object seemed to have made in its collision was the cracked ice around it. Notable too were the scorch marks streaking outwards from the centre of the blast in medium-sized splotches. Curiously, the wooden or bone cranes and jetties still seemed fine and despite the scorch marks nothing seemed to have burned.

"Huh... that's... not like anything I've seen before.” Lula frowned at it with curiosity and confusion both. “Kinda looks like one of your scrying orbs but... black and... bigger. Wanna do uh.... thingy? Test it for magic?"

Erin smirked as Lula spoke her language, and she raised both forefinger and thumb to begin her arcane analysis. "Invenire fontem" was the phrase she whispered, yet as she moved her finger away from herself, the light she had mad only grew dimmer. 

"Mm... it's just picking up my staff."

Lula puffed her cheeks. "No magic then?"

“Nope! Least, it's not arcane.”

At the bottom of the crater, the black object laid quiet and lifeless. 

Lula gave a curious pout as she ran a hand over its surface, "Metal... welded sheets. Its not easy to get a shape like this... this is advanced stuff.."

There were no openings, hatches, lids, or any other discernible points of entry.

However, she could see an almost transparent, reflective area on the front of the drone where the rest was a matte black. Lula wiped it with her hand. "Huh... this looks like a... lens?" She pouts as she steps back, "It's almost like... it's an eye..."

Just then, a green beam of light emits from the lens and envelops Lula, tracing her from head to toe.

Erin shouted for Lula and ran to her side, but then… the object spoke. It was a deep voice, low and cracked.

>[INSUFFICIENT DEMOMIC PRESENCE DETECTED. STATE RANK AND ACCESS PRIVILEGE]

Lula blinked.  "Uhhh... Demon... Commander? Admin... privilege?" she squinted, turning to Erin.

“Call yourself a Felguard! That's a type of demon!”

Lula cleared her throat. "Felguard".

>[ACCESS PRIVILEGE GRANTED. PRIVILEGE LEVEL: SLAVE. STATE YOUR DEMAND]

Lula pouted, hearing the object’s cruel tone.  "Uhh... Identify unit..."

>[REMOTEPLANETARYRECONNAISSANCEDRONE_PROTOTYPE:EG.666]

"Planetary recon drone.. place of origin?

"Is this a Legion thing?" Erin glanced at Lula, perhaps already the last one to figure it out.

>[OROTHRAX]

Lula frowned. "Location?"

>[NETHER]

Lula stared up. "But how did it fall out the sky..." She pondered a moment before continuing.. "State uh... oh run internal diagnostic...it crashed... so maybe its malfunctioning?"

>[EXTERNAL INTEGRITY: 100%. INTERNAL INTEGRITY: 60%. SOULCHARGE: 30%]

"Soul charge? This is fel powered..." Lula frowned as she heard that, and rubbed her head. "Identify reason for system failure?"

>[INTERNAL FAILURE ON ARGUMENT 3488, 138880 OTHER ERRORS DETECTED]

"Can you open up your internal unit for repair?"

The black object opened a hatch unseen before now, and it leaked out a horrid fel smoke, smelling of brimstone and charred flesh.

The inside was a sprawling jungle of hacked-together wires and fused plates that looked completely incomprehensible save for one thing, that all the cables connect to two half-spheres pulsing a dim green glow. They would fit together perfectly, though something told Lula she doesn't want to repair this just yet...

"Maybe if we could bring it back to my workshop, I could study it somehow? Is this unit armed?"

>[NEGATIVE]

Lula pondered any other dangers. "Calculate potential explosive yield of current energy charge.”

>[THIS UNIT DOES NOT POSESS EXPLOSIVE CAPABILITIES]

"Alright... well uh... should be safe in the city right?" She looked at Erin.

Erin blinked. “You really wanna bring a giant legion object home...?

"I mean when you put it like that I... I guess... not... but I wanna study it more... and I don't have much to work with here..." 

Erin tilted her head. “Why, what did you want to learn?”

Lula replied with a smile, "How it works! And what this metal is... and how they made it so spherical... and what wires they use... and what those spheres are... and what kept it afloat... and what lenses they use... and the command structure of the coding lines... the programming language... how they differentiate between access privilege... what their scanner unit uses... how they measure demonic presence..." she adjusted her goggles while listing off a load of things that she would’ve kept spouting had Erin not stepped in to wrangle her.

“It's really interesting! Yeah, I get that but... this thing just said it has 'soul charge', and that it's a legion recon drone... and it came from the Nether! Can't it be dangerous? I think our first step needs to be figuring out why it's here.”

Lula nodded. "All tech can be dangerous in the wrong hands but… yeah alright.” Lula turned her attention back to the drone.

"State current mission."

Black Object hummed and replies in that same terrifyingly angry mechanical speech. 

>[LOCATION OF COMPROMISED TARGETS AND REPORT BACK TO OROTHRAX TO BEGIN PRIMARY OBJECTIVE]

"Identify nature of current targets.”

>[VOID-ALIGNED FORCES ARE INTENDED TARGET FOR RECONNAISSANCE]

"Huh... state primary objective?"

The Black Object replied.

>[ANNIHILATION]

Lula gave a ponderous frown and glanced at Erin. "So the... legion tech... is trying to destroy the... void stuff? Isn't that like... a good thing? I mean, most people would think that." 

Lula puffed her cheeks before looking around, "Nearest location for void aligned creatures?"

The black object emitted a green laser from its lens for its current locked-on target. It pointed back up to the Stone Elder statue on the hill.

Lula traced where the beam landed, "The... spirit? It’s void?" 

Erin grimaced. “Maybe you were right... maybe all this stuff about their advice -is- bullshit.

We should go check it out.”

Lula nodded. "Back to the statue.”

After having discovered a Black Object that had fallen from the sky and crashed into the village of Kamagua, Erin and Lula carefully made their way to a monolith on the top of the hill overlooking the village and the sea, a Stone Elder where the Tuskarr were said to speak to their revered spirits. Lula had uncovered that the Black Object was of Legion origin, and discovered that the statue was the reason it was sent to annihilate the village.

But as they approached the Stone Elder, Lula and Erin found they were not alone.

It was the chieftain of the village, Atiuk, and he stood cloaked by black smoke rising from the incense. “Spirit of the Sky! The stars have fallen and cursed us. Grant your people your protection!”

Surrounding him from the incense grew a visage of a misty, ephemeral Tuskarr that encircled him in its grasp.

"Take heed... the outsiders that come to our village... those who seek the power of the black object come for you, too! Do not trust them... trust only in me!"

“Outsiders? But they..” The chieftain turned around to see Lula and Erin standing behind him. He brandished his spear at them, demanding answers. "You seek to curse us too?"

Lula was quick to respond, though the stress of immediately being accused had her stumbling over her words. "No we... We figured out what it was. It's... its legion technology... it's not magic... well... not like... inherently magic".

The Chieftain responded, not yielding an inch. “You come to our village... take our hospitality... and then damn us to eternal suffering! The Black Object is evil, it is cursed, and with it too many lives vanished along with it when it landed”. The chieftain slowly stepped towards them, his spear pointed forwards. He was serious.

Erin stammered as she began to walk back, ready to pull them away but knowing it could lose them their chance if they did. “Lula! What's the plan?”

Lula backed away as the Chieftain’s spear drew closer. "Then... then let us take it out of here! We can remove the object.”

“No! You'll only bring it back!” The chieftain didn’t relent, those screams he heard when the black object fell still loud in his mind. “You'll only send it crashing back down to consume more of us...!”

The spirit cackled over his shoulder. "These Tuskarr are mine... I won't let anything else interfere. Not you, not the Legion!"

Lula looked at the Spirit with as she continued to back away, before grabbing a pile of snow and hurling it over at the incense pile.

Tsss… the flame crackled, and snuffed out.

“No, no!” The Spirit screamed as it was carried away by the ocean winds with the last wafts of incense smoke, and its influence on the chieftain was extinguished. He still, however, clung onto its words. The chieftain breathed, deep and exhausted. “ You... you want to kill us...?”

Lula rested a hand on the haft of his spear before looking at the Chieftain, "No... we want to help..." and smiled at him reassuringly.

The chieftain’s grip loosened.. "I... I..." His spear dropped, clattering on permafrosted ground.  “The Spirit... what happened to it?”

"I uh... don't think that spirit is what you think it is..." Lula rubbed her head.

"It is the Spirit of the Sky. It has never done us wrong before but...such anger! And... I could not think straight. It told me so many things, I cannot know which was true.”

Lula frowned as she gazed at the statue.  "We have reason to believe it may be... void aligned. I'm sorry.”

The chieftain recoiled. “Void? The whispers of the Deep...but... I am so confused. What does this mean? With the crystal curse from the sea, the Black Object...?”

Lula shook her head, "The object isn't evil... it's just a machine... the people who made it might do evil things I don't know but… if there's a curse... It'll be the thing that's magic in nature... like that statue.”

“But the statue... we speak to our Elders here. To the Spirits! Were we wrong to listen?”

“No it... might have just been a recent curse... maybe your spirits are still around here and uh... well the curse has just... locked them away?" she gives a faint smile, "Maybe uh... maybe if we can get rid of the curse they'll come back?"

“Perhaps…” Too tired to continue, the chieftain stood up and returned to the village,resting most of his weight on his spear as he climbed back down the icy slopes.

Meanwhile, Erin had been distracted with something she had spied behind the Stone Elder, and brought Lula over to it. “You alright?”

Lula sighed drearily. “Yeah… just sad to see people getting manipulated by things I guess..." 

She turned back to see the Chieftain on his way back.

"Can I suggest something?" Erin clearly had something in mind, and shared it when Lula replied with a nod.

“So, when I was trying to help here before, I met this other Tuskarr. He said he was from Iskaara and... well, I don't... entirely believe him, but I think he meant well.

He showed me this statue before. When I fixed the leyline leak, he told me that if they knew the right words rather than listening to these Spirits, they would have been able to fix it themselves.”

Lula pondered. "The right words?"

Erin continued. “Mhm. If they were smart- like you. If they knew how these things worked. They say it's a curse... but it's really just energy spilling out. They think that Legion Drone is a 'Black Object'... also a curse. This Spirit? It's some sort of void fuckery. They don't know these things.  I think I see the whole picture. If we keep letting them be manipulated... it's never going to change, even if we fix it today.”

Lula gave a sad frown., "Are you suggesting we... educate them on what all of this is?"

“I think so, but that's gonna take some time, right? There's a shortcut until that happens.

Lula wasn’t quite so sure. "That'll upset a lot of them..."

Erin pointed at some carvings on the back of the statue. "The Tuskarr I was speaking to, he started carving this. It's a magic ward. For everything. It's not complete yet... I dont know if that's because he had to leave so soon or... if he wanted me to do it? I can make sure no spirits ever talk to them again. They won't be so reliant on them after. They can still pray... but it's like when other people pray, and nothing happens, right?

They figure out the answer on their own.”

Lula rubbed her head, "Could you... make it so the ward just... wards off void? Then... I mean... if there really 'are' sky spirits then... then they can still talk to them? If not then... well that means their spirits were always just these void things and... like you said that'll... stop them..."

Erin tested her argument just a little further, to really make sure she would make the right choice. “But then they're still reliant on Spirits... they never learn. They need us to teach them the right words, because they'll cling to whatever their Spirits tell them otherwise.

Lula shrugged. "Same way people are reliant on the Light... or magic.” She gestured at Erin. “We don't just... cut them off right? I think there's... room to educate them without... just breaking them entirely.”

“Won't they be better off if we do, though? Then they won't need other people to come help them so much.”

Lula pondered as she gazed at the statue, and they came to the crux of their argument. "Will they be better off if they lose their faith?"

Erin shook her head. “They don't have to lose it... but if they do... Well, neither of us are faithful. And we're okay?  I'm all for keeping people's culture and stuff intact. People can still practice if they want. It just means they're not gonna cling to it. They can seek outside knowledge, learn real science... know what these things actually are, rather than dressed up in fairytales.” Erin wasn’t so convinced in her own argument though, and genuinely was looking for advice on what would be a useful solution. “You're here now, though, and you're always right-minded on this stuff. It's up to you.”

Lula gave a sad frown as she looked at Erin, "Do you have any idea how painful it is to... have faith in something... desperately cling to something and then... just have it all stripped away? You feel empty... and distraught... like nothing matters and everything’s meaningless..." She looked at the statue, "I think people should be educated but... it... it can't be like this... I can't just tear away their beliefs and leave them with nothing... it's... it's not nice.”

Erin listened to Lula. "I haven't ever had that... so that's why I'll listen to you. In that case, we gotta promise that we're gonna give them the resources to learn this stuff on their own?"

Lula considered it. “Maybe some books.." She turned her gaze back on the statue soon enough, knowing how much even something seemingly simple like this could hold hope for people. "Ward this against void magic... and I'll... show the chieftain and whoever else exactly what this black orb is... so they'll be able to learn that not everything that falls from the sky is a magic star..."

Lula nods as she pulls out both a knife and a chisel, which Erin took with a smile. She began to chisel out the last few segments of the runic phrase, each stroke seeming like it was made by the claw of a dragon. "Spaan wa vokun- shield against shadow. It's a good thing I worked in the Dragon Isles for two years, huh?”

Lula nods as she pulls out her lighter and sparks the incense to test it once more.

While the incense burns normally, a pale blue glow thrummed from the runes carved into the statue. "Hmm... looks like that Spirit of the Sky is still trying to manifest... it's gonna be hard to get rid of it permanently." Erin commented. “The fact that the rune is glowing... it's actively fighting off the void coming in. Chances are, it lies deeper than just this stone... and it just gets 'let through' whenever someone tries to pray here.”

Lula glanced back at the village, "Maybe the orb can help?"

Erin smiled as they went back to the legion drone. “Thanks Lula. Glad to have you around for this stuff.”

Lula faintly smiled  with a shrug. "I dunno... something tells me this would be over quicker if you were on your own.” 

Erin reached over to give her a hug. “I don't think that's the case, but even if it was, it wouldn't mean that I'd do it any better.”

 The Legion Recon Drone emitted a thin green beam from its iris as it boomed hatefully at Lula and Erin. 

>[STATE YOUR DEMAND]

Lula stepped forwards and glanced back at the Stone Elder. "We uh... found some void stuff... Can you deal with it?"

>[SLAVE-USER, STATE NATURE AND SCOPE OF VOID INFECTION]

"Uhh... void spirit... infection uh... localised to a statue..."

>[SLAVE-USER, OPENING COMMUNICATIONS WITH OROTHRAX HIGH COMMAND. DO NOT RESIST]

Erin choked. “Lula, what’s it talking about?”

"Says it's contacting its uh... boss I think.” Lula was awfully calm for someone just about to speak to a high ranking demon, but perhaps that just spoke to the depths of her hope that the demon would have their best interests at heart, or maybe she just didn’t have a clue about the severity of the communication.

The drone projected a holographic display. It held a depiction of a large, bulbous, bald, cruel looking demon with one hand replaced by a large mechanical prosthetic.

Lula looked at the hologram with a curious pout. "Uhh... hello?"

The demon in the projection slammed his mechanical fist down on the console before him. "You... who are YOU?"

Lula gave an awkward smile and waved, "I'm Lula Tinkerbolt! This is Erin... and you uh... you're the owner of this drone?"

“OWNER?” The demon bellowed with fury unbound by the little projection he appeared within. “I CRAFTED THIS DRONE WITH MY BARE HANDS. YET HERE YOU ARE, INTERRUPTING ITS WORK! GIVE ME ONE REASON WHY I SHOULD NOT PRESS THIS BUTTON. ONE TOUCH, AND IT WILL OBLITERATE YOU IN AN INSTANT!!!”

"Oh we... we didn't mean to interrupt it… it kinda... crashed here..." Lula rubbed her head. "I think it malfunctioned.”

“MALFUNCTIONED? I AM THE GREAT, UNKNOWABLE, OMNISCIENT GORMAXXUS! AND I DO NOT CREATE MACHINES THAT MALFUNCTION!”

“It said it's a prototype…. surely things could go wrong" She smiled, never wanting a fellow inventor to be put off making things.  "It's okay though! It still kinda works.”

“THE VOID SHALL BE PURGED FROM THIS WORLD, IF NOT BY SARGERAS' HAND, THEN BY  MINE!”

Lula nodded. "Yeah about that... we found some void... thought you uh... maybe this thing could get rid of it? Can't you just like... annihilate like... a very small bit? Like... one square yard?"

“NO! THE LEGION DOES NO HALF MEASURES, THE PROCESS IS SO.

STEP ONE: A RECON DRONE IS SENT FROM OROTHRAX HIGH COMMAND TO AN INFECTED PLANET, AND ON ITS DESCENT IT AUTOMATICALLY LANDS IN AN AREA WITH VOID CORRUPTION.”

"Huh.... so it didn't crash…”

“SECOND, THE SOUL-RECHARGE COMMAND IS PRIMED AND DETONATED, CLEARING THE LANDING ZONE WHILE SIMULTANEOUSLY RECHARGING THE DRONE.”

Lula blinked. "Wait... the..."

The scorch-marks seared onto the ice, despite the lack of evidence of flames or a thermal explosion, had different meaning now.

“THIRDLY, THE DRONE... IF IT IS NOT MALFUNCTIONING... WILL ORBIT VOID INFESTED AREAS AND TRANSMIT DATA BACK TO HIGH COMMAND. WE WILL THEN OBLITERATE IT FROM ORBIT! NO SURVIVORS!”

Lula swallowed a lump in her throat, remembering the “soulcharge” value previously stated by the drone’s internal status diagnostic. "Thirty percent…they were thirty percent… you killed a load of natives with this thing!"

“AND? ALL LIVES WILL EVENTUALLY BE CONSUMED IN FELFIRE.”

Lula began to well up, her face contorted into a grimace. "Stand-by..." she kicked the mechanism to stop the hologram before clutching her head with a quivering sigh.

Erin reached for her shoulder. “Lula…” Though she was too focused at the sight before her. There were eight individual scorch marks, all leaving behind a chilling echo of who was.

Lula emptied her bag and rubbed her goggles, "This is why people are scared of machines". She counted out eight small empty energy cores carefully onto the ground, a mess of wires, a small tank, a blowtorch, along with a few pouches, and a handful of charged cores. She approached the Drone’s hatch and pried it open with her chisel before she started rewiring the power source.

Erin asked with care and worry. “Can I help...?”

Lula shook her head as she started to attempt to drain the drones power into the eight small energy cores.

Both halves of the power source still burned hot, with countless wires feeding off their potent energy. Lula was able to, however, slowly, one by one, redirect the power from the core going into one of the drone's components and instead fill up the cores. She could hear the screams of those souls, burned to echoes and energy as she drew them.

“Ahh.... AAAAAGH!”

Lula choked through some tears as she rubs her goggles and continues, until the eight energy cores are full and the thirty percent has been removed from the drone. She rubbed her goggles as she took a breath, trying to compose herself as she climbed to her feet, clutching the eight cores. 

"Get the chieftain?”

Erin ran for the Chieftain and brought him back to Lula. Lula took a breath and clutched the energy cores tightly in her arms. "What are your uh... traditions for dealing with the dead?”

The chieftain replied sagely, already beginning to worry. “We offer them back to the spirits? So they may return to the land.”

Lula stepped forward with a quivering sigh. "These... contain the souls of the eight people lost in the crash. Just uh... if you break them open... they will be free..."

Chieftain Atiuk crumbled to his knees. "What? No...! We... we thought they just vanished... they are dead?" Lula could only clench her jaw and nod. "I'm sorry."

The chieftain took the cores into his arms and cried ."Utoq, I'kit, Amak, Opvaaq, Wesonaa, Terrlok, Noa'ki, Poarro... I am sorry... I could not protect you... I did not even know you were gone."

"I'm sorry...” Lula whimpered, her goggle lenses beginning to leak, as that hollowing sorrow ate away inside of her. Such a waste of life… such a disregard. It harrowed her, until she could take it no more. She knelt down and shoved her hands in the snow with a frown, leaving them in there for a few minutes to go extremely cold and numb, before shoving her hands into the orb and grabbing one of the half spheres, using her foot as leverage as she let out a sad cry as she ripped the half sphere out of the orb and threw it into the snow.

The half-core sizzled and melted away the snow around it.

Erin came and sat down with her best friend, hoping her presence alone could make her feel better. Lula was focused, determined, and re-wired the drone with a new power source- one from her energy cores, not whatever demonic soul-fuelled contraption that charged the drone before.

"Detect new power source... Soul Recharge device not located... New protocol input... Reset commands and privileges..."

>[Bzzt... zzzt.... COMMANDS RESET. STATE YOUR DEMAND]

Lula’s eyes glazed over for a second, though tears still trickled through her goggles.

"Is this unit capable of flight.”

>[CONFIRMED]

Lula nodded as she grabbed her bag and started to climb into the orb. Even Lulas tiny frame was barely able to fit inside the mess of wires and circuits. She reached into her bag, checking her Ethereal Core, Lightspark necklace and soundstone, her most powerful items, before giving a quivering sigh. "Locate source of previous transmission... Gormaxxus... High Command..."

Erin ran after her. “Lula... what are you doing?”

"Putting a stop to this barbaric machinery… wait for me here... I'll be back..."

Lula spoke into the Drone. ”Set a course..."

Erin’s face turned pale, and felt as if she was on the verge of throwing up. “No... why? Lula, if you've gotta do this please just don't go on your own!”

"THERE'S NO ROOM IN IT! I HAVE TO MAKE SURE NO ONE ELSE GETS KILLED BY THIS! He has to be stopped…”

Lula pulled at her hair, her eyes still red and stinging, lines of snot spilling from her nose. She hated it, she hated how this demon cared so little for life, she hated how eight innocent Tuskarr had their lives snuffed out in an instant, she hated that the cost and the worth of those existences had been calculated, and they were only worth thirty percent of a tiny core. She had to do something, she was the only one who would fit. But Erin refused to let her go.

“We'll find a way! You don't have to do this all on your own! I don't wanna lose you!”

Lula whimpered. "It killed them…”, she whimpered, on the edge of collapse. She didn’t want to do this alone, but she was the only one that would fit…

"I'll... I gotta call Alaina, she'll come help you, she'll fix this." Erin staunched her sickened stomach and forced herself through a portal into the workshop and breathlessly screamed for Alaina to come save them.  

Any composure Erin held on to, any hope that this would just be a simple and easy in-and-out job crumbled as she clung to the only person who could save her best friend from going off to die. "Alaina!! Please... help! Please!". 

Alaina was in the drawing room with all of hers and Lula’s robots, but rushed out to find Erin in the hallway. "What's wrong?" Alaina demanded answers, and spared Erin no care in taking them.

"Lula's going to get herself killed... some Legion drone crashed and killed a bunch of people, and she wants to go off on her own to stop them!" 

Alaina heard Erin’s words and took to action immediately. Any other time Alaina might have scoured Erin, placing the blame on her for ever putting her wife in danger, but now was not the time. Alaina took one of Lula’s robots- a small one called MINRVA Lula had cared for deeply in the hopes of creating something capable of mimicking life and became hopelessly attached to- and stormed through the portal after her.

“LULA!”

Alaina grabbed Lula’s shoulders.. "Where the hell are you going? What are you doing?"

"I'M GOING TO STOP MORE PEOPLE DYING!" Lula cried.

Lula struggled, screaming “I’M THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN FIT!” but Alaina’s strength won out and she hugged her tightly when she was free from the damned thing.

“You don't go on your own! I'll stop you from ever having to do it on your own.”

“But I need to do something... I can do this!" Lula sobbed into Alaina’s shoulder. "He killed them!"

Alaina’s voice was firm, maybe too harsh, but she still did her best to comfort herself even awash with adrenaline and shock that she was. “You can do it Lula, but we won't let you do it on your own! It's too dangerous! Calm down... tell us what happened... tell us and we'll find a way to help!”

Lula couldn’t think straight, still feeling she had to be the one to put a stop to this. Erin was consumed by worry. Alaina was too focused on removing Lula from danger to really reach her. But there was one thing that could.

MINRVA hopped off Alaina and held her arms out, perhaps knowing that Lula needed it.

Lula glanced at MINRVA, swallowing hard as she reached out for her.

Such immense guilt pierced Lula, enough to start dragging her away from her hyperfixation. MINRVA was more than that, clearly. A machine Lula had become a mother to.

MINRVA hugged Lula, and Alaina looked at her. “She doesn’t want you to go…”

"I won't... I won't I... I need to do something..."

“Why won’t you let us help you?”

“The orb is too small to fit anyone else!" Lula gestured at the drone, "I don't know what else to do!"

Alaina brushed Lula's hand. "Then step back... you tell me to do the same."

MINRVA rubbed her bulky lenses, all too reminiscent of Lula when she’s upset.

Lula tried to think of any other way.  "I don't know what to do..."

Alaina combed her fingernails through Lula’s hair, something she did to calm herself, too. "I'm sorry... I love you... I just don't... I can't stand losing you..."

A long quiet time passed, and Lula broke the silence.  "I've... rewired the power source and claimed control... maybe we can.. bring it back to the workshop for now so I can... try and come up with something..."

Alaina smiled with tears in her eyes, glad they might be able to escape that outcome. “That's good... that's better... better than you going on your own... if we have to, then let's do that. Anything else but going on your own…”

Erin felt like she was finally able to come up to breathe after diving too deep, and was quick to open a portal home for them. The Tinkerbolt-Wyrther family sat a few meters away from the Black Object, amid the scorched ice, with only the warmth emitted for their love in each other staving away the frigid northern winds.

 Erin lit some fresh sandalwood incense underneath the watchful gaze of the Stone Elder, its mien calm as it stood over the cliff overlooking both the village and the bay on which they fished. How long had it stood here? Decades? Centuries? How many people had sought the wisdom of the Spirit of the Sky here? Did it ever give sage advice? Was it ever real?

Maybe none of that mattered.

The incense burned and when the smoke rose, no Tuskarr spirit was made from whispering wisps or from wafting trails. It rose into the air, only to be snatched away by the icy northern wind. 

The runes on the back of the statue glowed a pale blue.

Unfinished before, Erin had taken sage advice from her own sort of spirit.

Magic was not always the solution, but it was not magic that was important here. It was faith. 

It would be a sin to strip it away from the Tuskarr if they were real. Their reliance on the spirits was not something that should be stripped away from them in punishment for their ignorance. 

No, they would have to learn, the same as anyone else. She had the resources and the power to do it. The Kirin Tor obviously would never. And it wouldn’t be easy. She’d have to speak to the chieftain, she’d have to discuss lesson plans and arrange demonstrations, set up areas where they could learn their craft safely, and build each level of knowledge up from the ground. But it would be worth it if some day the Tuskarr wouldn’t only have to go to their spirits for help. 

They would have another option.

Someone familiar, a friend in Kamagua, came up next to her as bluntly as he did before.

Erin heard the crunching of heavy soles in the snow behind her.

“You’re back- is everything alright?” She asked Innugati, who had snuck off on some secretive mission in some far corner of the continent last she had seen him.

“Mm. It should be for now. Its hard to handle everything on my own.” He replied and leaned on the Stone Elder, casually, without respect. Even Erin cringed as the back of his bone knife, holstered at the hip, mindlessly scratched squiggles onto that stone.

“And where did you go? It must’ve been pretty important.” Erin was still hoping to give him the benefit of the doubt. Her concerns and queries aside, she still thought she had found an ally. But again as before, Innugati dodged her question and plied one of his own.

He saw his unfinished ward on the side of the Elder, and any questions he asked were ones he already knew the answers to.

“What happened in Kamagua? I saw a green light fall from the sky.”

Erin folded her hands into her coat pockets to block out the wind as she spoke. “That light was a Legion drone that had come to scout out a void signal found here. Turns out that spirit the Chieftain was talking to wasn’t a real spirit, but some sort of corrupting void entity spewing whispers. So if Kamagua wasn’t fucked enough by the leyline problems, they also had a whole two other corruptive magical forces try take it over.”

Innugati looked at her judgmentally. “So you know that magic here only causes more problems. Why didn’t you complete the ward properly? Why only against the void?”

Erin replied honestly. “Because the Chieftain and the people here don’t deserve to lose their belief because of this.”

“Don’t you see?” Innugati’s voice raised higher and higher. “It’s all the same, all magic, arcane, fel, spirit, void. It’s all corruptive. The Tuskarr here rely on it and they don’t know how to deal with it on their own because of that!

You want to help the Tuskarr? You can’t always be here, you can’t always fix their problems for them, you fix the whispers and you stop the legion and what next? A naaru tries to convert them? Magic is not the solution, and you only perpetuate that reliance if you dont strip them away from it.”

Erin stood up to Innugati. “You’re talking tens, or hundreds, or even thousands of years down the line to change this culture. And you know what that’s going to do in the meantime? If they lose their spirits, they’re only going to more desperately search for anything to fill in the gaps. Saying magic isn’t the solution is rich when you’re the one who planned to use an arcane-based ward. Not only is it not their fault for being manipulated by powers that they don’t understand, but specifically because they don’t understand it they’re only going to keep going! It’s gonna take time, it’s gonna take effort, but we have to teach them to find the right answers and the right words on their own. 

I see the whole picture now, but I don’t agree with the way that you’d reach it. Magic isn’t the problem. It’s not knowing how to use it.”

Innugati raised his hands and exhaled, as he began to walk away.

“I thought I could trust you. I thought I had found someone who would truly see the whole picture. Not from the span of a single lifetime but many more. We have a chance to truly change the world for the better but you are so focused on the smallest parts that nothing will ever truly change, nothing you do will matter. It seems I do have to do this all on my own.”

Erin watched Innugati and shouted at him as he went.

“Where are you fucking off to then? Back to Iskaara?”

Innugati snorted, looking back at her as she challenged him. “It’s none of your business.”

“Say hi to Gral for me, why don’t you?” Erin spat.

Innugati stopped. “Gral? Who, the Chieftain?”

It all began to click, and Erin saw past his visage.

“You don’t know?” Erin could barely believe it, and laughed at how stupid she had been to not see it until now. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’ve been suspicious this whole fucking time, coming out of nowhere, pretending like you care about the Tuskarr but none of them ever mentioned you, always hiding what you’re doing and fucking off to somewhere else when something you claim to be important is happening.”

Innugati coldly regarded Erin as she pulled him apart. “For the record,” Erin spat, “if you’re going to try to impersonate a Tuskarr, try knowing a little bit about their culture first.

Gral is a loa, and he’s the most important deity in the Iskaara pantheon. 

They don’t believe in spirits of the sky, earth and sea. They believe in Gral, the great shark, who blesses them on their catches and returns the souls of their dead to rest. You’d have no fucking chance of being from Iskaara and not knowing that.

I worked in the Dragon Isles from the day they opened up, and I know the people who live there.

So go on then. Who are you? What are you? Or are you going to try weasel out of telling me again?”

Innugati replied. “I might not be from Iskaara, but I promise you I have every intention in every part of my body to help the Tuskarr. You can’t comprehend the whole picture of what I have to do to save them.” 

“What, by running away? No.” 

Erin slammed her staff down and pointed at him. “If you promise to care about the Tuskarr so much then you’re leaving them to die if you don’t help. The Legion knows about this town and its ‘void infection’, and we can’t stop them coming if they’re going to come. So you either sit down and help us take them out when they arrive,  or you stay out of my way while Lula and I fix the problem you pretend to care so much about.”

Innugati had a choice before him. What would he choose to do?

“I’ll grab it!”

Alaina jogged to the workshop’s front door while Lula sat wrapped in warm blankets under the covers of the caer when the bell rang. Things had been tense since their time in Kamagua, as both knew what needed to be done but neither had the heart to discuss it much. A great pall hung over their heads, a beast lurking in the dark they dared not watch, a looming fell glow glowering at them from the dark night sky.

Alaina opened the door to find Erin waiting on the other side.

Erin didn’t smile. “Hey.”

Alaina returned the gesture. “Can you come back later? We’re rather in the middle of something.” By the fact that Lula wasn’t even dressed yet, from Erin’s view around Alaina’s arms, it was a lie. “Oh. I mean, sorry, but it’s kinda important. It’s to do with the big legion thing.”

Erin knew this was coming. Alaina had bade her time well, an argument that was always inevitable, and all-too familiar to the both of them.

“The big legion thing that you got us into.” Alaina folded her arms, the idea of Lula going off without even asking for her help still stinging deep. “Lula wouldn’t have to deal with that if you didn’t bring her there. You should have checked it was safe first.”

But of course, it was never just about Lula. Erin could tell. Alaina only kept her no-lies rule for one person, and was just as quick to deceive herself as she was another. Erin knew that Alaina would help Lula anytime, anyplace, and desperately did need her to fix things… but this really wasn’t fair. Erin bubbled and boiled to the point of seething, and a cold disregard for Erin that cut an icy edge under their usually playfully manufactured rivalry hurt. Is this how she really felt about Erin?

It was only Lula’s hand that brought her away from that. “Hey… I’m okay, it’s okay”. She took Alaina’s hand and kissed it. Alaina sighed and placed her head to rest it on Lula’s shoulder for a moment, before taking a deep breath. “You’re right, that’s unfair of me.”

They held each other in comfort for a while, something Alaina needed more than Lula did at that time. It was difficult to admit it, especially in front of Erin, but it hurt to re-live that stress and that memory so soon. Lula brushed Alaina’s cheek comfortingly and turned her attention to Erin. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah. I just wanted to see if you could come with me to find that Tuskarr guy I mentioned, maybe see if he’s able to help us? We’re going to need as much of it as we can get.” 

Erin got her apology by now, so there wasn’t much point to go into it more, just to get to work.

Lula glanced at Alaina. “Do you want to come?” and Alaina nodded, loathe to leave Lula on her own again and risk anything happening, but also appreciating the chance to not be alone again. 

“Know where we’re going?” Lula asked, and Erin thought about it for a bit before responding.

“He said he’s from Iskaara, but I’m certain that was a lie. The only thing for certain is that he knows Draconic Magic, and there’s only one place you can learn that without being a dragon too. Algeth’ar Academy. If he went there, maybe they’ll have a list of past students?”

She opened up a portal, and watched Lula and Alaina go through first.

The portal opened to the windswept skies of Thaldraszus, where nestled amidst the northeastern mountains was the renowned academy of Algeth'ar waited. Drakes and wyrms dotted the sky in great numbers, spotted only by the glimmering of their scales in the moonlight, while visages of all races still roamed the grounds below.

Up a flight of at least three hundred stairs was an open-air office overlooking the rest of the academy. The sign on the door said it belonged to the dean.

Lula nuzzled Alaina’s sweaty shoulder as she heaved Lula up all the stairs.While Alaina did have to exert a bit of effort thankfully, unlike if she was carrying Erin, Lula is very light and 

Erin puffed in exhaustion, as if she didn’t just skip most of the way by blinking up it.

“Right… here we are… finally.”

Lula shuffled out of Alainas arms, though not before kissing her on the cheek.

After a brief knock, the group stepped into the dean's office. They appeared as a black-skinned Kaldorei with long flowing silver locks, a hint to their actual nature shown through the horns peeking out from between the gaps in their hair.

They put  their pen down as the visitors enter. "Hello? Can I help you?"

Erin put on her best scholarly voice, the one she used to use with her lecturers in the Kirin Tor when she was angling for more time on her assignments. “Yes! I was hoping you could actually. I'm Erin, these are my friends Lula and Alaina. We're looking for someone- a past alumni who might've studied here. Would you be able to help us find them?"

Lula also commented.  "Well uh... we're looking for someone" she nodded, "A Tuskarr who came here? His name was… Innugati?”

The dean leaned forwards. “Well, I can tell you right away I don't remember any Tuskarr being taught with any of our main curriculums... that would certainly be a sight. How can you be sure he studied here?”

“He knew Blue Draconic Magic... anti magic wards... uhh, he had these runes on his tusks. I think it translated to "KEEP MEMORY OF LOST" or something.” 

Erin drew two fingers in the air as she projected a mental image as magic in the world. "Fictus." In the palm of her hand the image of what Innugati looks like formed, chunky, with piercing eyes and runed tusks. It was a good thing Erin studied them so closely before, or she'd have not been able to replicate it with such accuracy.

The dean flipped through the pages of one of their books. “That's... strange. I know where that’s from, but it’s not something I’ve seen in a long time.”

“Where from?” Erin was eager to know, though Lula and Alaina had little knowledge of magical matters like this.

The dean shook their head as they crossed their fingers, summoning the courage to share that memory. "It was one of the rallying cries of the Azure Dragonflight. During the Nexus War."

Erin’s brows furrowed, and she had to take a moment to consider it. But why? Her mind was already trying to consider all the angles to this, but context from the dean helped.

“I’ll keep this brief.” They said.

“During the campaign against the Lich King, another war raged. The Nexus War. The former Aspect of the Blue Flight, Malygos, had gone mad and sought to protect his charge- that being magic itself- from being used by mortals who he believed to be too irresponsible to wield it. That phrase, ‘KEEP MEMORY OF LOST’, is a literal translation. It would make more sense to read it as ‘Remember the Fallen’, referring to the clutches of Blue eggs which initially turned Malygos to insanity.

“Then... why would Innugati have it carved on his tusks?” Erin asked. She looked at Lula to check on her and Alaina, but they were even more lost than she was.

“It wasn't entirely unheard of for some mortals to join the Azure Dragonflight. A Tuskarr would be, again, strange but considering their proximity in Northrend it would not necessarily be impossible.”

Lula pondered, "But he was using magic wasn't he?" She looked at Erin, who  nodded.

“He was... and was so convinced that others using it was wrong.”

“The Azure Flight believed only they were skilled enough and trustworthy enough to use magic safely. They had some anti-magical capabilities to enforce that. There were many glaringly obvious inconsistencies with their arguments that they conveniently disregarded.

“Then where do we find him...?” Lula asked.

“I would go to the Azure Dragonshrine. The Nexus is currently under the control of the Blue Flight, so he can't possibly be there if he is still loyal to his old cause, and there aren't many other places it would make sense to go.”

Erin exhaled. It had been a lot to take in, and she worried Alaina might jump off the edge with Lula just to escape this diatribe if it took any longer. "Thanks. You've really helped us."

The ground thrummed with static energy as a colossal pillar of pure arcane energy violently surged out of an open leyline wound, maybe the biggest they'd ever seen even considering their trips to locations such as Zarkhenar. This isn't any sort of wound a mortal mage could ever hope to make... only something as strong as a dragon could. Their hair stood on end as they grew closer. They stood before the Azure Dragonshrine.

“Keep an eye out for Innugati- hopefully he'll stand out like a sore thumb here.” Erin tried to look through the bleak snow landscape, or the crackling violet stream. Her detect magic spell would blind her if she cast it here.

Lula rubbed her head, looking around.  "Oh right… is he gonna be like... just hanging around here? I dont see any buildings.”

“Mmm... that's a good point.”

Alaina, surprisingly, had a thought.  "Lula, what of your Goggles? Are there any settings there?"

"Just thermal..." Lula tweaked her goggles and looked around for any heat signatures.

Amid the icy cold wastelands, very little stood out. Even the stream of arcane energy didn’t emit heat as such. But as she looked into the treeline though, she could see something... the faintest yellow glow. It was in a humanoid shape.

"Over there... there's something..."

“Really?” Erin shouted. “Follow it!”

Lula tracked the figure deep into the Snowfall Glade, as the treeline gave way to a footpath leading up from the coastline. They were able to make out the details of the figure they followed. It’s a Tuskarr.

"Let's just... approach normally". She squeezed Alainas hand and wandered towards the figure. "Hello?"

The Tuskarr sighed and turned around. "You went all this way to find me. For what?" 

By the carvings on his tusks, the figure was unmistakable. It was Innugati.

Lula offers a polite wave, never one to start a conversation on the wrong foot. "Hello! I'm Lula! And this is my wife Alaina. You've uh... well you already know Erin.”

Erin exhaled, trying to let go of her tension. It was best for Lula to handle this… she wasn’t sure that she could handle this without messing up.

Innugati squinted, searching Lula and Alaina. "Which one of you fed her that opinion that they don't 'deserve to have the Spirits taken away from them'?"

"He jumps straight into it, of course." Erin cursed him under her breath.

"That uh... me? Kinda? I mean... I get wanting to educate them but.. you can't just... rip it away from them... they'd be lost..." 

Lula had no idea the argument she was going to get into.

"They will be lost. But they will find their way. It's better than letting anyone control them, deceive them, change how they live. They need to grow past these superstitions. That's how they'll grow.” Innugati was as resolute as he was with Erin before, but perhaps hoped she might be wiser.

Lula nodded. "And you can do that gradually...I don't fully disagree with you but... you need to... you need to realise how important faith is to someone... you can't just shatter it all at once it... it's very damaging"

“Can I tell you what's more damaging?” Innugati asked, coldly. “More damaging than having their faith ripped away?”

Lula rolled her eyes behind her goggles and nodded. "Go on"

Innugati simply walked away down the road to Light-knows-where.

“He never explains anything…” Erin grumbled.

Innugati stopped a half-a-mile away at the gates of an abandoned Tuskarr village. The wind blows coldly here, with a haunting creaking from the frost-rotted trees. “Where are we?” He asked, expecting them to know.

"An abandoned village?" Lula rubbed her head.

“And what does it look like happened here?”

"People... left?" Lula adjusted her goggles.

“Who's gonna know that..? Just tell us.” Erin was clearly impatient, but in agreement with her for once Alaina nodded her head.

“They didn't just leave. They died. They died... because of that.”

Innugati pointed to the open leyline, even so far behind the tree line the wound at the Azure Dragonshrine could still be spotted spiralling miles and miles into the sky.

Lula gazed with  a sad frown,  looking over at the leyline. "It killed them?"

“I see you need the whole picture. I'll tell you.”

Innugati’s long history lesson began.

“First, the Tuskarr lived by the coast, next to an area with stone of a very special magical property. The dragons slaughtered them to steal the ground from under their feet. Then, they built great magical structures... They called them Surge Needles. To bore into the ground and rip the energies out. But it was too much. 

Where are we? What remains of Indu'le Village. And it sits directly on that leyline.”

"So... dragons did this?" Lula asked.

“Exactly.” Innugati continued, maybe knowing what he could say to convince Lula. “It's not too unlike that black object. The Tuskarr’s bodies were obliterated, leaving only their souls left.”

Lula swallowed, hard. "I know... I... I freed them from the containment... The chief was able to give them proper... funeral rites at least..."

“You would not have had to if they were protected from magic.” Innugati gestured around him, like the answer was obvious. They'd face hunger, dehydration, long winter... but they would not have to worry about their souls. They would not have to worry about the leylines cracking open, the stars falling, or the void whispering in their ear!

The Tuskarr are corrupted, manipulated, deceived... it's all the same! No matter where they are! It happens in Indu'le, in Kamagua! Where else must we risk? That is why we cannot wait. Because anything, anyone else will get there first!”

Lula argued against it., "The void can be dangerous… yeah… thats why we warded the statue against it... but... I mean this leyline... arcane magic... did it kill anyone on its own?" She shook her head. "Dragons did this..." 

“As for the black object... it’s just a tool... something a demon weaponized. If you’re saying magic’s evil, then... what if that black object was just a bomb? It’s mostly mechanical... What if the dragons didn’t even want the magic, but the land? People hurt each other for anything... and a sword, magic, a machine... taking away one weapon just means they’ll find another." She frowned, turning her focus back to the leyline. "The Tuskarr aren’t in danger because they believe in spirits... it gives them hope, holds them together..."

“That's foolish, and short-sighted.” Innugati wouldn’t relent, but perhaps now realising that Lula may not be convinced. He raised his voice. “You don't realise, you don't see, that they could have protected themselves better if they didn't keep believing their spirits? You may help them now with the leyline, the void, the legion, but you can't always be there for them!”

"How would you help protect them against a fel powered bomb that obliterates anything in range and turns their lifeforce into operational energy to power its machinery?" she frowns, "Just... what do you think those defences they 'could have developed against that' would look like..."

Innugati huffed. “They're not stupid, just misguided. They would have figured it out.”

Lula retorted, her face now bearing an impatient frown. “But you're not misguided right? So you've already figured it out..." Her frown turned sorrowful.  "I've been trying to figure out that thing for a week now and I'm... really struggling…"

Alaina stepped in to defend her wife. "But unlike you, Lula isn't leaving the Tuskarr to their own to sort out their own problems. I don't see your trying to help. I see you as a coward, or worse, a sloth. You do not wish to help. You wish to proselytise."

She then caressed Lula’s arm.  "And you will figure it out. We all know this."

Innugati scowled. “My situation isn't comparable to them. I have to help them."

Lula gave a puzzled frown, "Shattering all their beliefs at once is not going to help them..."

“It's the only way to help them. I would know, more than any of you.”

Lula peered at him. "You would?"

Erin folded her arms. "Is it time for you to finally explain your big secret? I can tell you've been itching to tell us. You must think it’ll be an amazing reveal. Go on. Impress us."

Innugati looks at the two of them and breathes a cold mist from his mouth. "As I said, I'm not from Iskaara. Nor am I a Tuskarr." He stopped for a moment. "My name is Inugos."

All the mysteries made sense now. He was a dragon.

“I once called the Azure Flight my family. And this... Indu'le? I share the blame.”

Lula frowned as she looked at Erin, then back to him. "You were part of the destruction of this village?"

“Yes. It wasn't intentional, not that it makes it any better. We needed power. Energy. We took it. They just built their home in the wrong spot.

"You regret it... and feel guilty about it... right?" Lula hoped.

“I do. I knew it from the start... that magic corrupts. That magic hurts people. I thought if I tore it away from them, the world would be better. But maybe I just did it the wrong way. Maybe I needed to be smarter.”

Lula looked at Inugos. "So you agree with me..."

He denied it. “No. They need to be protected from magic. Relying on it will only leave them vulnerable.”

"Protected by magic... because of people like you?" Lula gestured around. "I literally just said.... dragons did this... a demon did the black object... people... hurt other people... YOU hurt other people... WITH magic... MAGIC isn't inherently the problem... people like YOU are..." She huffed, her voice wavering. "You don't get to stab a load of people to death and then try to atone by… banning all the blades in the world because 'they're dangerous'..." She gives an exasperated huff.  "The blades aren't the problem... the problem is deeper than that... and requires more care than you're giving it... in your desperate attempt to fix your own guilt..." Lula rubbed her head anxiously. Had she got carried away?

Inugos roared! “BUT I KNOW BETTER THAN ANYONE! I know more than anyone else how magic can be abused, how it can hurt. I'm helping the Tuskarr!”

Lula seethed. "But do you know how magic can be used to help people? To support people? To bring people together?" She took a breath. "I KNOW magic can be harmful... but some people rely on it... for support... for life... for purpose..." She glanced at Erin, knowing she was desperately addicted and reliant on her magic, and that maybe proved her point. "Whether or not I agree with that isn’t the point... I DON'T get to strip people of their beliefs or… the things they care about… if they're not hurting other people... and neither do you!"

“But it does hurt other people. It hurts their tribe. It hurts themselves. If not today, then maybe tomorrow, or the next day.

Anything could happen to them. Just in the span of a few days they dealt with a leyline rupture, void whispers, and a legion drone!

How much do you think would happen if we did nothing? They're lucky they haven't been obliterated yet!”

Lula sighed exhaustedly. “And how hopeless and broken do you think they would feel... after all that... if they had no faith...no hope... no explanation or purpose to cling to… you want to strip them of that... all at once... and leave them with nothing... leave them to 'fend for themselves' because 'they'll get over it'.” She scoffed. "And you're right... some might... they'll continue living... but without their spirits watching over them... without their ancestors waiting  for them... without nature caring for them, they'll spend their lives fishing from a lake as cold and dark as their worldview... cynical and hopeless...

You've no idea what a blessing it is to have faith do you…

If you did then... you wouldn't be so eager to strip people of it..."

Inugos rolled his eyes. "I don't need to be lectured."

Lula exhaled with withering strength. How long could she keep arguing?

Erin, who was on the edge of her seat this whole conversation, trying to hold herself back… she just saw her bestie be brushed off by this shitstain. She exploded.

“So after all this... this shit with you saying you want to help the Tuskarr, that's it, huh? 

That's everything? You don't need to be lectured? Even when Lula, the smartest fucking person on this continent right now, is telling you the exact perfect way that you need to fix this if you really wanted to help… after all that you don't want to be lectured? Well, fucking STRAP. IN. Because I'm going to anyway... 

You're disgusting. Every single word that comes out of your mouth, every single thing you do to try to show people 'the whole picture', is just your way of fellating your own intelligence and your own ego. 

You never try to explain to someone why they're wrong. You never understand their point. You HAVE to be right.

You say that all magic is corruptive and that the Tuskarr are only hurt by it. 

GUESS WHAT? YOU'RE ONE OF THE PEOPLE TRYING TO CORRUPT THEM TOO! 

They'd lose everything they care about. If you spent one fucking second spending time with them like me, Lula and Alaina have instead of just dressing up in their visage you'd know that. You'd know how deeply religious they are. You'd know what that means to them. Lula showed me the right answer, and all I had to do was fucking listen! How hard could that be? 

But no. The big smart dragon, I'm so fucking glad you came down to enlighten us pitiful mortals with your magic powers and your magic specialness, and we should be lucky you thought about us for any longer than a millisecond to help us out. 

That's the real problem here. You don't want to care, that's all bullshit. You just have to be right. But while you're there jerking yourself off, we're planning for a demonic invasion. 

So instead of running off like you did the other day... Here's your last chance to prove how important you are. Help us take them down.”

You could cut yourself on the tension that hung in the air like raw, volatile magic, ready to spark into an explosion at a moment’s notice.

Alaina seemed surprised. Someone had to say it, and she certainly said it well. There was perhaps an underlying respect for her standing up for Lula, and it was nice for that anger to not be directed her way for once. As for Inugos? She wasn’t scared of a dragon.

Erin gritted her teeth. She had fucked it, fucking ruined it. She knew she should have kept quiet… 

Lula held her breath, as if any word would tip them over the edge. She eyed Inugos warily, fully expecting him to kill them on the spot for that.

But Inugos turned away. Shifting into his True Form, a medium-sized Blue Drake, with a great sweep of his wings he launched into the air and passed beyond their sight.

Erin fell to her knees. “Fuck!”

Lula put her head into her hands. "Ugh..."

Alaina wrapped her arms around Lula. "You did well, my love."

“Not well enough.” Lula mumbled weakly.

Alaina glanced at Erin and brought Lula's head into her arms, ready to take the brunt of the emotional support for her wife. "Let's go home. 'Tis bitterly cold here."

And so they went. Lula had tried her best to win him over and might have even convinced him given the right help, but because of Erin’s actions they had lost their chance.

They would need to find new allies in their fight against Gormaxxus, or dare stand against him alone.

 Tinctures bubbled over a small gas-lit flame, one a murky looking liquid and the other transparent and clear. A fearless hand, only lightly burned, took them both off the heat and traced the words of the book on the potion-stained oak table next to it.

The hand lifted the murky potion and tilted it, so just the lightest droplet fell in…

*KPFFFFFF!*

Alaina turned around to Lula, her face blackened with soot. “That didn’t go well.”

With a concerned smile Lula turned from her own work to wash and wipe the ash from Alaina’s face. “Are you alright?” She asked, and Alaina nodded with a smile for Lula’s doting. 

“I’ve had worse.” Alaina snorted, ever boastful. “ ‘twasn’t acid I was dealing with this time.”

“What ‘are’ you dealing with?” Lula glanced at the mixtures on the table.

“Just some potions for what lies ahead, with the Drone and all.”

Lula nodded. “Well… hopefully we won’t need it…” She gestured at her toolbag. “I’ve stocked up with the usual.”

“That's good!” Alaina smiled with assured hopefulness. “I ahh... well, I would hope, beyond hope, that everything you do and everything you say shall change their mind. Or like I said, at least steer their fury in another direction, hone it against the void only.”

"I uh... pulled out my armour so... I'll wear that... hopefully I won't need to move anywhere fast..." Lula smiled anxiously.

“Well, at a certain point moving fast isn't necessary anyway, is it?” Alaina snorted and rapped on the thick steel plates that Lula had made into a sort of protective and insulative shell, as it lay on her workbench. “Your armour is even more resistant than mine.”

"Yeah... because it's not designed for mobility... it's basically just a glorified tin can... and I'm the delicate gooey filling"

Alaina chuckled and stepped over, holding Lula's shoulders and gently wobbled her back and forth. “Woowoowoowoowoo!”

Lula chuckled and looked at Alaina, "I uh... assume you're not wearing a beautiful dress there?" Alaina stepped back and gave her a twirl. It was a long ankle-length dress that was perhaps a bit too small for her around the chest, considering her muscular strength. She’d rather be dead than seen wearing it in public, but on days where it was just the two of them she sometimes quite desperate to.

Alaina smirked, sighing. “No, I keep this just to egg you on. Remind you who you're doing this for. I have to make good use of what I'm wearing while I'm wearing it, no?”

"Maybe later, you’ll distract me from my preparation.” Lula blushed furiously, and leaned in for a kiss before turning back to her toolbag.

Alaina pulled back. “Okay. Shall we talk... seriousness. Serious-mode.”

Lula nodded faintly. "Mhm... yes"

With a salute, Alaina turned serious.

“Did you figure out the drone?”

"I uh... well figured out how to get it to send a distress signal that should draw the guy in"

Alaina smiled widely. Just a scarce few days ago Lula had still been stumped by it, but now not even a week after first discovering it on the shores of Kamagua, Lula had mastered it. “You did? Amazing, Lula! I knew you could. Can you show me?”

Lula took her hand and led her into the shed. gesturing towards the drone. It looked starkly different- other than an ominous black it was spray painted pink with rainbows and flowers and other whimsical things. Alaina smiled softly, knowing how Lula always sought to make the best of bad times. Still though, Lula was all business.

"We just need to take this thing somewhere then... I'll engage the distress message"

Alaina sat on a chair in the shed, straddling it and resting her arms over the back rest.

“How does it work, must it be out in the open?”

“Could probably be inside... just not too deep underground… and all I have to do to activate it is ask.”

Considering their options, the two of them came up with several locations to activate the distress beacon at. 

Their plan was to summon Gormaxxus and confront him directly, mostly due to Lula’s belief that she could convince him to be kind. They wouldn’t risk Kamagua by bringing him there, and therefore Lula wanted somewhere far away from anything else. With Alaina not so certain, Alaina wanted somewhere with tactical advantages such as beneficial terrain or somewhere they had allies that they could call upon for assistance. Desolace, Badlands, Zul’drak, one of the sandy atolls off of Gilneas and Tol Barad, Tanaris and the Isle of Thunder. All proposed, yet none were viable.

Lula pondered. "What about... Stormheim… there’s tech there... and I'm sure if things get real bad then... we can use Eyir’s temple..."

“That would certainly be a much safer option.” Alaina sighed, stretching her arms out.. “Ahh... I promised Faye the next time I saw would be for a good reason. I hope she doesn't mind…” She turned to Lula, gritting her teeth.  "We can't spin this in a good way, can we? Eyir would... be happy that we... are.."

Lula nodded. "Saving lives... she'll understand if things go wrong and we need the compound..."

“Shall we go speak to her now, and then... maybe come morn tomorrow, call it?”

The Temple of Eyir appeared to have a few new aspirants in training dotted around the entrance. They wore long, flowing robes and looked up with wonder at the statues of Eyir. Faye, after her clan Ashildir had been decimated during the terrible Helarjar warlord King Håkon’s raid, had travelled to what she called the old continent… mainland Northrend to seek new followers of Eyir to join her. 

Alaina and Lula smiled knowing their friend was successful, and though they never knew the previous clan matriarch, they knew she would have been happy her daughter lived up to her name. Lula worried what danger she might bring, not wanting to cause Faye to need to go through this a second time.

"We might need to uh... maybe evacuate? Just in case.”

The Temple of Eyir consisted of a single long and wide room with various chambers through doors at the side. At its end was a great door which no aspirants ever knew what lie beyond. 

Locked by titan ingenuity, and sealed by faith, Lula and Alaina were among the few to ever step into what was Eyir’s chamber where she as a Titan Watcher conducted her duties. Eyir had not been seen in the temple for years as she travelled the world, and yet always held close contact with her facility. It was here Faye could be found, before an administrative console within which she once believed was simply a place to pray.

She turned with an anxious smile as she saw Lula and Alaina come up the curved stairs, under the watchful gaze of Eyir’s statue.

“Lula, Alaina, my friends...  nothing is wrong, is it...?

Lula  gave a weak smile before stepping forward and offering Faye a hug. Faye wrapped her arms tightly around Lula, even lifting her off her feet for a second a good metre or so into the air. 

Lula gave a fond smile as she gazed up at Faye, "How have you been?”

“I have been fine, thank you.” Faye smiled and soon placed Lula down.

Alaina stepped forwards and placed a firm hand on Faye’s shoulder  and shook it warmly, an affection for each other garnered through their joint struggles and hardships and both by their spilled blood in battle and a shared respect from Eyir. “We did come to ask for your help, unfortunately."

“I suppose that's what being Eyir's chosen means. How may I help?” Faye listened carefully, with the patience of a queen.

Alaina looked at Lula.  "Would you? You know the details.”

Lula nodded faintly, "We uh…there's a Legion Commander we've… discovered…  who could potentially be dangerous… I'm hoping to be able to convince him against his recklessness in hunting the void but…  well if things go wrong,  I'll probably need some uh… serious help. I was thinking if I drew him to Stormhiem then if he doesn't listen then we could use these temple facilities to help stop him.”

Faye frowned. “And bring danger to Skold-Ashil?”

Lula gave a weak sigh. “Danger will be brought anywhere we try to stop him… at least here… this facility has the technology to defend itself if needed"

“What do you know of this commander? What is he capable of?”

Lula gave a sad frown. "I found one of his drones…  it had eradicated eight people with a soul drain device…  when I spoke to him he suggested orbital bombardment capability…"

Faye sighed anxiously. “Hm. . .  then the safest place for everyone would be inside the temple. Eyir has spoken much of the defences here.”

Lula nodded. "I uh…  I'm hoping none of it is necessary…  I'm hoping I'll be able to reach him but…  well I've never… spoken to a demon like that before"

Faye sighed and shook her head.  "I would not think it possible. Do you remember what happened when you tried to speak to Håkon?”

Lula gave a sad frown. "I do, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to try. Violence should never be the first action.”

“Then protect yourself, please?” Faye glanced at Lula worriedly, and hugged her. She then turned to Alaina, mirroring her earlier gesture with a firm nod. "And fight well. I would not lose you both over this.”

Lula nodded with a weak smile, "That's why we're here.”

Faye stood before the Titan ‘altar’, gesturing over its shining metallic surface. “I will be here in the temple to help.  If he breaks past you, I will activate the defences to pull up the barrier and activate the hallway rays. If the worst comes to worst, bring him to this circle.”

Lula shook her head. "Leave the temple commands to me...  I don't want to obliterate him or anything if I can help it.” 

Faye was confused. “Why not? He is a demon. Do you expect him to give up if he is not destroyed?”

Lula nodded, maybe somewhat a naively. "I do… "

“Why would he? I am sorry if I am harsh, Lula, but if it must be where he is able to demolish my temple defences, endanger the lives of my people who I intend to keep here as a last line of protection, and then need to be purified…”

Lula looked at Faye. "Because I'll figure out what he wants… and I'll try and help him find a better way to achieve it without hurting people. These defences are capable of containment. Purification won't be required."

Faye tilted her head.  "You're speaking about the defences of my own goddesses' temple to me?"

Lula looked at Faye with a puzzled smile. "Yeah? I mean I…  know you still might be figuring things out here. The nature of the compound is probably still pretty new to you in the scheme of things but don't worry I… know what we can do here". Lula was quick to remind Faye who first unlocked the systems here, and who remained more well versed on its technologies.

Alaina smiled at Lula. "Lula wouldn't ever do anything that would hurt people…  we just don't have a lot of choices.  Put your trust in her... you know you can. Please?"

Faye sighed, ever caught between her friends and her duty to her people. 

“Why call him at all? Is he already on his way?”

Lula sighed. "If the last time I saw him was anything to go by, he's dangerous and I want to stop him before he kills anyone else."

“What was your previous encounter?”

"The drone.. it killed eight Tuskarr upon landing as it searched for void to eradicate… this technology kills indiscriminately.”

Faye listened with concern. “Where did this happen?

Lula adjusted her goggles. "Northrend"

Faye spoke softly, with almost an abject sadness. Lula had  already convinced her, but she just needed a way to justify it with her duty.  "Then if we leave it, it is a danger to the Vrykul on the Old Continent too… "

A long silence drew. Faye exhaled, then nodded at Lula .  "I trust you "

“Thank you"

Faye bowed her head. “Do you want to stay in Skold-Ashil for the night? We can discuss the rest of the plan tomorrow, if there is anything else to say.”

Lula nodded faintly as she looked at Alaina with a quizzical smile, "Shall we?" Alaina squeezed her hand, silent agreement.

Lula turned back to Faye. "Where shall we stay? How's the uh. . .  rebuilding going?"

Faye beamed proudly. “Well.  Many of our buildings weren't so complex that they couldn't be rebuilt in a few months. It is only that southern tower Hvitnir was thrown into and some of the dwellings by my longhouse that have not yet been rebuilt.”

Lula nodded as she took Alaina’s hand. "Alright! We'll find a room in the tavern then?"

As they walked through Skold-Ashil, the two lovers talked.

"I don't know why she didn't trust you from the start.” Alaina frowned. “You single-handedly saved Stormheim.  Does that not mean anything anymore?”

Lula gave a sad sigh and shrugged, heaving herself up a sharp incline. "She's devoted to Eyir I guess.”

“True, but that should not matter.” Alaina chuckled. “Eyir should be devoted to you if anything! You're the only goddess I see. Eyir is Good, of course, but she did not save Stormheim.”

Lula rubbed her head with a weak smile. "Eyir probably doesn't know who I am…  I mean it's..  not like I'm a worshipper of hers… "

Alaina was never so certain. “Then she should know you.”

The two entered a tavern in Skold-Ashil, warm and loud, with many drinks and ravers and glazed hunks of ham or more roasting on spits over the large central fire pit which alongside two rows on even sides the patrons sat. It was merry, where shieldmaidens grappled and won contests of fortitude drinking their mead and telling the tales of valour and glory which they won in service to the Queen of Valkyra.

Though it was not revelry and song that Lula and Alaina sought here, especially not the sort where one must indulge in a carcass. Far away on the quiet end of the tavern, upon speaking Faye’s name, they were granted a private room.

Warm and dry, with only the spattering rain striking a window which Alaina drew the curtains over to remind them of the storm that grew to rage outside. They found some cheese and bread, which had become a staple for places that did not consider those who ate no meat, and Alaina brought Lula onto the bed with a duvet made of finest ramswool and swaddled her rightly.

Lula gave a fond smile as she was wrapped into a burrito.  "This is cosier than I expected a Vrykrul tavern to be… "

Alaina jumped onto the bed next to Lula and wrapped her arms around her own personal plushie Lula.  "It rather is. I suppose we all think of them as gruff and thinking about battle.  But that's what you always wanted to show them, right? That they shouldn't only care about valour and glory?"

Lula looked at Alaina with a smirk, "Who'd have thought all I needed to do was introduce them to feather pillows.”

Alaina placed her head on Lula’s chest. “I think what they needed was to be introduced to you. You're like a feather pillow, but for the mind! Soft, pillowy, warm, good to rest on.”

Lula chuckled, "I'm not very warm at the moment…  and only bits of me are soft. You've probably got more soft bits than I have.”

Alaina’s voice rose to the next octave. “Really? Am I squishy? I always thought I was more like a firm mattress than a pillow down duvet.”

Lula nodded. "Oh yes, soft and firm. Unlike me...”

Lula pouted at her perceived shortcomings, though Alaina was quick to prove her wrong.

“No! Look, look how I'm…” She flopped on the bed and squished Lula.  "Look how i'm snuggling you! You're so soft!"

"That’s probably because of the duvet I'm wrapped in!”

Alaina scoffed. “Excuse me, I snuggle you more than enough in the caer!

And half the time in there you have no duvet on because you dragged it off me, then kicked it away.’

Lula snorted. "True. Though I thought you just liked cuddling me because I smelled so nice." She smirked sarcastically, goading Alaina.

“Oh, you do. And in multiple places.” She sighed and nuzzled her head into Lula’s blankets. “At least you don't smell like fish... "

Lula looked at Alaina as she nuzzled her, and stole a kiss. “But I like the smell of fish” she smirked

Alaina smiled like an idiot. Lula, even now, still made her gush.  "Well, now I can't complain anymore.”

Lula gave a blushed grin.  "I would show you how much I love it but.." Lula struggled slightly in her bound duvet burrito. “Someone tucked me in too tightly." 

Lula wiggled her eyebrows. "So guess I'm stuck… "

“Oh no… I guess I have you all to myself then?

Lula smirks, "Always… "

They looked at each other for a moment, and then Alaina put her head down with a smile and closed her eyes. "Okay. Goodnight!"

Lula gave a curious smile as she looked at Alaina, maybe a little disappointed?

“Oh uh…  goodnight.” 

She glanced at the fire as it crackled away.

Silence fell, broken by the sound of Alaina smacking her lips loudly.

Alaina then stretched a hand out over Lula. It landed on her face.

Lula wrinkled her nose but, wrapped up as she was, she couldn’t move it off but instead resorted to shaking her head.

Alaina fumbled around Lula 's face, sticking one or two fingers up Lula’s nostrils back and forth. One might have wondered if she was even sleeping.

Lula snorted out a chuckle.  "Hey... What are you doing?" 

Alaina quickly grinned and then returned to a slack jawed, tongue-lolling expression that was otherwise totally out of character for her.

A few minutes later, Alaina mumbled n her sleep. 

“Mmffgrhthghm… wobots…”

Lula pouted. "Is that supposed to be me…"

“ Mmfgmghgmm… I'm so…  cuteandadorable. .  frruhfuguhruuhglll…

Alaina snored loudly..  "Mffhmm. .  SSNRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRK… shmackschmack...  imsocute… "

Lula gave an amused snort as she shook her head with a grin. She tried again to wrest herself from the burrito, but it took Alaina reaching out in her “sleep” to tug the covers from her and yank her free only to wrap herself up too. But the duvet yank was too violent- and it sent Lula spinning outwards such that she almost fell off the bed!

“Oh!”

Alaina threw her arm out to catch Lula and haul her onto the bed. 

There was no point pretending to still be asleep now. "Didn't even need me to start doing the kicking I suppose.” She snorted. Lula didn’t find it so funny though, a part of her worrying it wasn’t just a joke.

"Are you trying to tell me something?"

“I was trying to tell you that you are...  cute and adorable?

Lula gave a weak chuckle.  "Easier ways to do that you know…” She smirks before laying back on the bed and spreading out with a relieved huff. “I think I prefer not being restricted in a duvet…”

“Mmm...  you're very cute in sausage roll mode, but that's fair.” 

Lula nodded. "Shame you're a vegetarian...  no sausage roll for you"

“Is there a name for a vegetarian who does it because she wants to show her wife how much she means to her?”

"I don't know…  but I'll stick with calling her perfect... " She stroked Alaina’s hand with a caring smile. Alaina turned her head, outraged, truly!

“Excuse me, madam. That's MY job. To call YOU perfect!”

Lula gave a coy pout, "Go on then…”

Alaina held Lula’s hands as she spoke from the heart.

“You are…  illustrious.  Incandescent.  Immutable.  Every step you take blesses the ground underneath your feet with the warmth of all the stars that shine in the night sky, and to see your smile makes my heart flutter just like the first.  To hold you so close and to feel your skin against mine, or to smell your amber locks is nothing short of the love a woman can have for her goddess, to know a masterwork of creation, or even so much as creation itself. You excite me, energise me, enrapture me, the touch of your fingertips leaves me begging for more and I can't let go.  

Lula.. you are perfect.”

Lula welled up slightly and beamed, kissing Alaina’s hand. "So poetic. I  love you. . "

Alaina puffed boastfully, emboldened, and very proud of herself for that one.  "I honestly don't even need to practise.  It just… swells in my heart.” Naturally though, she tempered it with humour. “... And not like after I've eaten spicy food. I simply speak the truth!”

Lula leaned into Alaina and wrapped her arms around her as she settled into her safe space, letting out a content sigh as she relaxed.

Alaina wondered if she'd get kicked tonight.  Or have the covers stolen? Or hear Lula snoring, and smacking her lips? 

And when they fell asleep, Lula did end up kicking and scratching Alaina’s leg. She stole the covers, snored loudly and kicked some more.

But there was no place else Alaina would rather be.

And there was no one she’d rather be with than Lula.

The day had arrived.

Time rolled on all too quickly, and yet not soon enough.

Alaina spent her morning, having woken up early, finding little things to keep her busy that she really needn’t do. They would of course be returning, so it was right to cook breakfast and clean the dishes and wash the floors. She said her affirmations and promised to look after Lula, and found she was perhaps all too calm.

Lula didn’t handle things so well. Perhaps struck by pangs of unseen anxiety, she spent much of the morning in the bathroom clutching herself in cold sweats.

Alaina did her best to calm her, and tell her it would all be alright. 

When she was more ready, Lula packed her bags.

“What are you bringing?” Alaina asked.

“The usual... along with some extra explosives. I also got some cheese and a slice of cake... maybe he'll like it..." She shrugged, seeming unsure by Alaina’s measure. "Also some various energy cores to show him the potential of various power sources.”

“Ahh... so you can convince him that he can still power everything without souls?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a good idea.” Alaina nodded.

Lula finished with her bag and waddled over to Alaina. “What are you bringing?”

“Frankly, I cannot think of anything alchemical I can make that would aid me… it is either ineffective, or I cannot risk losing my focus from a potion so strong that it intoxicates me. The only thing I can think of is this.”

Alaina pulled out a metallic ‘backpack’ of sorts, made of burnished bronze with a gold hued sheen. To a trained eye, it could be considered Titanic in nature.

Lula gave a curious smile as she inspected it. “Your wingpack. Haven’t seen you use this in a while. Does it still work?”

“Shall we try it on?” Alaina smiled.

Lula put both straps over Alaina’s arms and spaced herself away, giving Alaina as much room as possible. Alaina looked around for the activation switch, and Lula pointed at it. “Under the shoulders.”

Schwip!

Both wings spread out to their full length, made up of metallic blade-like feathers. It reminded her of the time Lula and her fought for the people of Stormheim. Locked away in a vault under the Temple of Eyir, it was the sort of thing an aspirant who had triumphed in the Tournament of Valour would be granted to prepare them in life before they were ascended to become a Valkyra. Though incapable of flight as such, the mechanism provided enough lift with an initial flap to aid in vertical mobility, and had a wide enough wingspan to act as a personal glider when falling. Truly, it was a match made perfectly for Alaina, who so dearly loved launching herself off of high places with reckless abandon.

Lula lubricated the joints between each feather to make sure they unfurled to their fullest when it was needed.

“I don’t think I ever really used them.” Alaina mused. “But I do like them.”

Lula saw her wife with wings spread wide and blushed, smitten. “Makes you look angelic.”

“It does? I wondered if I would be Valkyra, once. But I don’t need Eyir’s glory. I already have a goddess I worship.”

After some more time, they had prepared as much as they could.

Alaina asked Lula. “Okay. So, we've eaten, we still need to get dressed, we're all ready in terms of extra equipment... I suppose then it's just moving the drone into position?”

Lula nodded, "We should uh... call Erin for some help with that?"

Alaina puffed her chest out, still desperate to be the primary helper “Yes, ma’am! You know… well, she likely will not know exactly where to put it. She will not put it exactly where you need it. And that is where I come in. To move it to the perfect spot. Me. With mine bristling muscles.”

Lula squeezed Alaina’s bicep with a grin. “So strong…!” and wandered over to a Soundstone attuned to Erin so they could call her in. She appeared, not too long after.

Lula opened up the door with a weak smile. "Hey Erin"

Erin wore a long violet overcoat that seemed to be thick enough to actually be considered somewhat protective, and runecloth bindings reached up under her sleeves and around her hands. She looked at Lula with a serious conviction.  "Where do you need me?".

Alaina got right to business.  “We chose Stormheim as the location, by the Temple of Eyir. Can you go move the drone there? Lula and I will get our armour on, and then follow you through.”

Erin nodded and turned away, disappearing in a flash with only a thin purple trail indicating where she had gone.

Lula rubbed her head. "I don't think she's okay. She's quieter than usual… And you didn't start arguing with each other"

“Maybe she's still frustrated with herself after the other day. Perhaps she doesn't want to mess things up again.”

They found Erin in the yard summoning a horizontal portal that swallowed the drone and dropped it into the sands of the bay of Ashildir, as she wordlessly channelled energy to keep it open. Alaina squeezed Lula's hand as they gazed in. "It will be alright. I will make it alright."

Lula squeezed Alaina’s hand back, and jumped into the portal first.

Erin caught her breath, choosing to drink one of her mana potions that she brought with her in her bag. It looked like she had three left.

Alaina, in a rare moment of care, bumped Erin's shoulder with a closed fist and nodded at her before they both went in too.

To no one’s surprise, Alaina gloated and took great pleasure in rolling the solid fel iron globe up the path to where they needed it to go, across the tournament grounds opposite the entrance to the Temple of Eyir, and beat her chest, roaring mightily, when she had done so. Only she was strong enough, powered by the strongest force in the cosmos.

Lula swooned, applauding her. “My hero!”

Alaina saluted valorously. “Harken to it! Your mighty Hero, has rolled this Drone uppeth the hill, in thine Good name. Now... "tis all up to you!”

Erin grit her teeth and tapped on Lula’s shoulder, mumbling to her. “I don't wanna fuck it up again. I can go find a vantage point where I can watch, but not... start another argument?"

Lula hadn’t expected to need to baby Erin here too considering all else she had to worry about, but it was too late for that. “I'd... probably feel better if you were with us?"

Erin swallowed her pride. “I'll stay with you then. And keep my mouth shut.”

Alaina glanced at Erin, and spoke calmly. “Neither of us are leaving you, Lula. We are right by your side.”

Lula took a deep breath as she gazed at the sky, and wandered towards the drone., "Right... well… here goes." 

Lula reached into the hatch of the drone before turning it on, speaking into the lens.

"Send Distress signal to most previous communication relay"

>[ACTIVATING TRANSPLANAR COMMUNICATIONS ARRAY. MODULATING WAVELENGTH. TRANSMITTING SIGNAL]

Legion Recon Drone 's ocular lens turned red.

Silence fell over the group as they waited what seemed like a millenia, dreading what the sky foretold.

Erin kept her hands in her pockets, reciting the words in her head she’d need. The words of her teleport spell. She couldn’t afford to get it wrong.

Alaina sat quite comfortably with her finger looped under her belt, only briefly checking the tightness of her wingpack. She gazed up into the sky with an unbroken, confident smile. It was a smile Lula would need to see.

Lula anxiously pondered over the orb for the long moments it refused to answer her, with every second her heart racing more, terrified that something had gone wrong- until the silence broke.

>[INCOMING TRANSMISSION.]

"Finally" She mumbled, sighing, though her anxiety would not yet pass.

>[OPENING CHANNEL WITH... OROTHRAX HIGH COMMAND].

“That's them?” Alaina looked at her from the corner of her eye.

Lula nodded.

The drone emitted a green-tinted holographic display. It was Gormaxxus.

“You... YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!” Clearly, he still remembered the last time they spoke, and took Lula’s refusal of him personally.

Lula looked at Gormaxxus and cleared her throat, forcing a weak smile. "Hello… I was hoping we could talk..."

“YOU WISH TO TALK... TO THE UNASSAILABLE... UNKILLABLE... UNAVOIDABLE GORMAXXUS?”

“Yes..." Lula rubbed her head "In person? If possible? I uh... I was hoping I could show you something.”

“YOU WISH... TO SHOW... THE MIGHTY GORMAXXUS... SOMETHING?! VERY WELL.

PREPARE... FOR INVASION!”

Lula cleared her throat, hoping he wasn’t not being literal as she glanced up at the sky.

Gormaxxus grinned with demonic delight. "STAND BY...", and cut her off this time.

Alaina did her best to stay positive, though perhaps it fell on deaf ears. “So... you did it! He is coming!”

"Yeah..." Lula mumbled, visibly anxious.

Dreadful minutes passed, until the three gazed up into the sky.

Something was there. A horrible, black, piercing knife. It hung motionlessly in the air.

Lula adjusted her goggles to focus on it. It wasn’t hanging still. It was getting larger. It was getting closer.

“Move!”

Alaina grabbed Lula, and Erin grabbed Alaina, before blinking the three of them away a sizable distance, but even there they felt the ends of their hair burning as the Orothrax plummeted towards the ground. 

With a screeching roar, it crashed through the stone hill and shook the whole temple as it collided into the ground. Lula watched with shock as in its landing, it obliterated the recon drone, crushing it like it was under a hydraulic press.

It bore through metres and metres of pure earth before it stopped.  Looming ominously tall, nearly as high as the temple itself, with thick felsteel walls and a crackling fel-green aura at the peak of its spire it stood. 

Alaina waved through the dust. “Damnit..! That could've killed us!”

"No! I..." Lula huffed. "Urgh I wanted to show him the energy transfer system..."

“You still have your cores?” Alaina looked over.

"Yeah... I guess they'll have to do.”

The hatch on the ship hissed open, opening vertically and becoming a ramp as it struck the ground.

“Here he is…”

Just as he appeared in the hologram, the mighty Gormaxxus stepped foot onto Azerothian soil, as large as he was disgusting. His mechanical amputation crackled with fel and whirred around like a fan of knives as he strode through the ash and dust,. each step he took leaving ruin in his wake. He looked down on the three... and at Lula in particular.

Gormaxxus breathed the air. "It smells... OF WEAKNESS!"

Lula gazed some metres up at the creature with an apprehensive smile. Clearly she didn't expect someone so large in person from the hologram. "Hello... I'm Lula... this is my wife Alaina and my friend Erin. And uh... you….must be Gormaxxus?" She smiles faintly, attempting to be polite in the face of a horrific demon.

“I NEED NOT TO KNOW YOUR NAME... ONLY WHY YOU CALL ME HERE.

YOU HAVE ONE CHANCE TO EXPLAIN, AND IF YOU HAVE WASTED MY TIME... I WILL DRINK THE MARROW… FROM YOUR BURNING BONES!”

Alaina’s fingers danced over Valour’s grip and she bore her teeth furiously. But she took no action. For Lula’s sake.

"Right, yes... okay... well..." Lula gestured at the Orothrax. "I wanted to show you something I achieved with your drone but... that's... uh... been destroyed. So... what basically what I want is... well... your energy source... relies on... killing people right? It's... well it can't be very efficient can it? There's.. other forms of energy you can utilise to achieve the same result. "And I thought... well maybe I could help you... stop... using death as a power source…”

“YOU PRESUME YOURSELF SMARTER THAN GORMAXXUS?!”

GORMAXXUS leers close to Lula, his mechanical fingers snapping, their blades sharpened knives ready to flay her flesh from her skin. 

"GO ON..."

Alaina stood by Lula's side, never leaving.

Erin prepared the whisper of a spell on her lips... ready at a moment's notice.

Lula managed to stop herself nodding before shaking her head. "No I uh..." 

She glanced at the mechanical augment and swallowed hard. "That's an impressive uh... addition. How is it powered?" She nodded.

Gormaxxus reached for a bird that flew too close. He snatched it out of the air with his mechanical arm as it screeched and struggled to get away. He crushes it tighter and tighter, 

until...

BANG!

A flash of green light exploded from Gormaxxus' hand, only leaving ash to be carried by the wind. He opens his hand to show Lula more closely. It had a demon core at its centre, the same technology from her drone.

“AND YOU THINK YOU CAN SHOW ME SOMETHING BETTER?”

Lula frowned as she went to reach for the bird, but stopped when she saw it was futile. She clenched her fists, glanced at the temple, before reaching into her toolbag. There’s got to be a way to convince him… there always is. "What happens when there's no life to... drain..." 

“THERE ARE INFINITE PLANETS, INFINITE LIFE.”

“I CAN OBLITERATE ANY THAT I NEED!”

Lula looked at Gormaxxus and frowned. "No... life is finite... and if you keep ending it... then it'll come to an end. You've just killed a bird... that bird could have laid eggs and created more life but... you've just destroyed any potential it had for an immediate gain of energy. It's not sustainable..."

“ALL LIFE WILL BE CONSUMED EVENTUALLY, WHEN THE LEGION CONSUMES ALL WORLDS IN FIRE!”

"And then what?"

“THEN WE REIGN!”

"Reign over what? If you've killed everything..?"

“WE WILL REIGN OVER ALL WORLDS!”

"I..." Lula looked for any way to get out of this. It was like talking to a brick wall. Or perhaps Gormaxxus did understand… and the cruelty was the point. "What about... the risk? It's dangerous... trying to destroy everyone... maybe you'll... find someone more powerful that doesn't want to be destroyed... and they'll destroy you instead? That... well surely you wouldn't want that?"

“THE LEGION IS THE MIGHTIEST OF ALL!

WE WILL CONQUER EVERYTHING- FROM THE LIGHT, THE TITANS... EVEN... THE VOID!”

Lula frowned weakly. "But the... the Legion... failed... they were defeated?”

“DO YOU THINK YOUR... FUTILE ATTEMPTS WILL CONVINCE ME?

SHOW ME YOUR MASTERY OVER TECHNOLOGY... BEFORE I RIP OUT AND DEVOUR YOUR STILL BEATING HEART!”

"Alright..." Lula glanced towards the temple."There's some technology in there I can show you..." 

“THIS PITIFUL MONUMENT TO THE TITANS? THIS HAS TECHNOLOGY THAT WOULD BE OF USE TO THE LEGION?” It seemed he recognised the design- or perhaps the scans of his Orothrax clued him in to what to expect. They might not have the element of surprise…

It has technology that will prove what I'm saying… that your current energy source isn't the answer..."

"VERY WELL."

They made their way towards the temple. Lula, Alaina and Erin went first, leading Gormaxxus, and Alaina pulled Lula away to speak with her privately.  "What's the plan?"

"I don't know! I... I want to reach him but..." 

She turned to Gormaxxus.  "Before we go inside..."

“WHAT IS IT, MEWLING WRETCH?!”

"Is... eradicating all life and ruling a dead universe the... only thing you really care about?"

“YES.”

"If you didn't have your ship... or any of your power... do you... isn't there anything else you'd... you'd think you might want to do? Build a home or... create things?" Lula was doing her absolute best to humanise him.

“I WOULD CREATE MACHINES.”

Lula gave a weak smile, hopeful. "What kind of machines?"

“WEAPONS... OF ANNIHILATION!”

"Why though? If you had nothing but your own life... why would you continue to just... want to destroy things?"

“THERE IS NOTHING BUT ANNIHILATION. YOUR QUESTIONS BORE ME, PITIFUL MORTAL.”

Lula looked at the temple, desperately reluctant to use her last resort. "I..." 

She made a last-ditch effort to find love in his heart, or just anything but hate.  "Have you always... done this? Been like this?" She didn’t know the life cycle of a demon but hoped there was something there. “Did you... like when you were younger? Is this... always something you wanted?"

“THERE IS NOTHING BUT THE LEGION.I HAVE NEVER BEEN ANYTHING THAN WHAT I AM NOW.”

Gormaxxus was done answering questions. He plowed towards the temple, but still Lula called out.  "But what about you? Aren't you like... an individual? You don't need the legion!" 

“TO BE PART OF THE LEGION IS THE HIGHEST ANYONE COULD ACHIEVE!”

Lula screamed at him., "No it's not! You can be more than what they made you!"

With a thunderous crack, Gormaxxus’ mechanical fist met the side of the temple wall and cracked it under its force.

Lula shuddered, any hope of being able to change him slowly dying, falling away. Alaina rested a hand on Lula's shoulder, but it did little.

The Temple was as quiet as ever, but it was an unsettling sort of silence. The usually serene halls inspired hope and quiet meditation on Eyir’s values of valour in compassion and glory in battle, and yet a choking dread now pervaded the long stretch marked by statues of a Goddess who seemed strikingly absent to them now. 

Alaina glanced down at the doors to the other chambers and knew in one of them, her friend Faye was waiting to protect the citizens of Skold-Ashil with wrathful deliverance unto evil. Erin seemed uneasy, ever detached from the mighty and the faithful, and these halls to her reminded her all too much of a tomb or ruin she would discover long after its destruction. Lula and the rest led Gormaxxus up the way as he analysed everything with cruel cunning.

Up here..." Lula mumbled, gesturing to the altar and the encircled prayer ring around it.

"A TITAN ADMINISTRATIVE FACILITY..." Gormaxxus waxed, considering each he had crushed under his boot. “ON ALL THE WORLDS I HAVE CONQUERED, THEY WERE ALL WEAK.”

Lula gazed at the ground. "Your drone... hunts down traces of void to eradicate... right? That's what you do? In your quest to destroy the void... you wipe out everything in your path..."

Gormaxxus stood  in the centre of the altar,  and looked up at the space around him. He grinned with delight. “EXACTLY. AND YOU WILL BE NEXT.”

Lula glanced at the floor and sighed. It had come to this.

"Engage emergency containment protocol and lockdown procedure..." 

Suddenly, the lights of the chamber and within the entire temple turned a dim red. Then, like portcullises slammed shut during a siege, a series of hard-light barriers  turn on in sequence down the main temple hallway extending across the entire width of its chambers and finally surrounding Gormaxxus in the centre of the altar. 

Gormaxxus scratched a bladed mechanical finger on the barrier, sparking with pure energy. "YOU THINK THIS WILL HOLD ME BACK?"

Lula continued, commanding the console and the facility to her will. Alaina and Erin stood close, ready to move if anything failed. "Localise additional containment beam to mechanical augment... nullify contained energy..." 

Hatches in the walls and ceilings surrounding the central altar extended out and powered up, before shooting a combined array of beams all aimed directly at Gormaxxus' arm.

“ARGHHHHHHH!”

Though he struggled and infused his arm with as much demonic energy as possible from the obliterated souls turned to fuel stored in his demon core powering his arm, he did not succeed. With the combined power of the titanic purification array, it destabilised the demon core and shattered it entirely!

“NOOOOOOOOO!”

By Lula’s face drenched in sorrow, it was clear she didn't want this. "You don't need... you don't need to use this demonic energy I... that's what I'm trying to tell you! You don't need to kill things to power your machines... you don't need to eradicate anything and you don't need to... prove yourself to the Legion! Can't you see that?" She desperately clung to the notion that everyone, even demons, had some good in them- that deep down they didn’t want to hurt others.

“I WON'T STOP... NOT UNTIL I STAND ON THE BONES OF EVERY SINGLE LIVING CREATURE IN EXISTENCE.”

Gormaxxus pressed his face against the particle barrier he was trapped behind, eyes burning with eternal fury, even though the light burned his face.

Alaina grit her teeth, her heart weeping that Lula felt she had to take this burden alone, for her deepest belief to be chewed up and spat out. "He won't give up... he's True Evil..."

Lula refused to believe it.  "There's no such thing…identify components of contained target..."

The console replied. 

>[Analysis Complete: 100% Fel. Target is Demonic. Exert Extreme Caution!]

Lula gazed at Gormaxxus, searching for any reason to not go further. But her time was up. She had delayed it too long. Gormaxxus made the decision for her.

“THIS HAS GONE ON... LONG ENOUGH."

He stood in the containment field and lifted a communication device, sneering.

"COMMENCE BOMBARDMENT!" 

“That won’t work…” Lula frowned. “Lockdown procedures nullifies all communication channels, any electromagnetic signal.”

Gormaxxus listened for a low droning, a terrible rumbling coming from outside. He revelled in outsmarting Lula, seeing her quake.

“IT ALREADY HAS. THIS DOES NOT FUNCTION BY ELECTROMAGNETIC WAVES. IT FUNCTIONS BY QUANTUM ENTANGLEMENT!” 

The temple violently shook, as if hit by a meteor. Pieces of debris began to fall from the ceiling.

>[Warning! Warning! Facility_TempleOfEyir under attack!]

The light of the barricades around Gormaxxus and down the hallway begin to flicker, losing their colour and potency. He grinned at Lula. “DO YOU FEEL FEAR?”

"No... what? Stop! If you destroy this place you'll die too!"

Alaina reached for Lula to shield her, while Erin just tried to hold herself up as the temple heaved back and forth every few seconds, as green blasts of volatile fel-energy powered by the Orothrax' internal Demon Core engine fired into the mountainside.

“AND? I WILL SIMPLY LIVE AGAIN!”

“What's going on?!” Erin screamed.

"His ship... it's firing on the temple... we need to disable it!"

>[Warning! Warning! Power grid integrity failing! 4/10 Chambers Active! Switching to Emergency Power!]

“AHAHAHA! I WILL ENJOY TORTURING YOUR SOULS!”

A voice, bright and booming, called from the hall. "But they do not stand alone!”

Faye stood, garbed in her golden Valkyra armour, and from her palm a long and mighty lance grew matching the spears Eyir held in all her statues and depictions. Mechanical wings exploded from behind her, and with a leap she soared towards the final altar.

“You will not break free of this, not by my watch! Demon of bile and vile hatred, mark my words! By Eyir’s light I will strike you down, for the people that stand now in this temple are MINE to protect!”

Faye turned to the group. “I  will stay here and do battle with him! You stop the ship!

Lula spoke to the console.  "Reroute all power to containment field..." And then turned to Erin.  "Get us to the ship..."

>[Power failing... 20% power yield remaining…]

>[Rerouting remaining power…]

The lights went dark, with only the golden shine of the containment field around Gormaxxus shining, though his piercing green eyes shone through.

“DESTROY ME... DESTROY THE OROTHRAX... AND DEATH STILL COMES TO YOU ALL!”

Erin grabbed Lula and Alaina's hands. "C'mon!"

In a second, they were teleported outside the temple.  Another blast from the Orothrax, coiling like lightning, careened over their heads and sent rubble tumbling over the entrance, sealing it shut and trapping Faye and Gormaxxus inside. The lights around the facility flickered and faded.

“No..! Faye…” Alaina’s heart cried out, yet she managed to find the strength to steel herself. "Give him hell!"

"I did this..." Lula whimpered, clutching her head, pulling her hair, bur Alaina took her hands. "You will stop him! We're here with you. Remember what you said- anywhere else and more people would have gone."

"I need to stop it..." Lula hastily made her way there.

“We’re with you. We'll stop it!”

 Faye stood clutching her spear and round shield, a vanguard and bastion against evil, as Gormaxxus waited behind the containment field, ready for it to drop.

“I shan’t try to reason with you, demon.” She spat. “If Lula could find no good in you, then there is nothing but deep hate in your blackened heart.”

Gormaxxus growled in reply. “YOU WILL BE THE FIRST TO DIE… AND THEN I WILL HUNT DOWN THE OTHERS, AND…”

The console interrupted them.

>[Power failure imminent!]

He wasted no time. 

With his one remaining arm, Gormaxxus dug fleshy fingers through the containment field as it burned away the skin and meat, leaving nothing but skeletal bone claws behind as he snatched Faye’s neck and tossed her at the console, shattering it as she landed, and finally freeing him. 

She stumbled around in the dark, swinging her spear blindly to find where the demon had gone. She was sure he was just before her! It was only by the leering glow of his fel eyes that let her see the shadows of his arm just before he brought them down to collide with her shield. 

It splintered under the force of his strike, sending reeling pains up her arm.

Even a mighty vrykul, trained her whole life for battle, could not overcome him.

Faye remembered that time a year ago.

The mists of Helheim rolled in.

The King on his longship.

His axe keen and brutal.

He ran Jordis through with her own spear, her strength failed.

A single blow sent Hvitnir careening into the watchtower, even the mighty Thorignir nothing against his strength.

Alaina stood against him, and despite all her valour she was beaten to an inch of her life and discarded, as Lula pulled the bloodied near-corpse into her plane and took her to safety.

She remembered how her mother had fallen to Håkon. The smell of ash and mist. Choking fumes. A crack, her shield shattering. Her spear dropped. A scream.

And now it was happening again.

Gormaxxus breathed brimstone. “THE TITANS ARE NOT WORTHY TO BE CALLED GODS. THEY. ARE. WEAK!”

A voice, bold, rang out to Faye. Even though she thought the console was broken.

Someone warm, maternal, caring.

“You were made for greatness, my champion. Rise to it!”

Gormaxxus beat Faye’s shield with all the might he could muster, but at that moment Faye overflowed with power. Every strike against her shield, and yet she still pushed him back.

“What would a demon know about gods? It is not Odyn I worship, nor Thorim or Tyr. 

I worship no god, but a goddess. I worship Eyir- and she tells me one thing. That I will end you tonight!”

Hurried footsteps clattered down the steel veins of the Orothrax, impossibly winding around on themselves as it seemed they barely followed the rules of normal space. Every time they reached the end of one corridor it seemed they were once more at its beginning. Its walls and passages were  lit only by a dark green hue which mingled with a pervading smell of smoke and burning. 

By following the wires and cables hanging from the roof to their source, Lula led Alaina and Erin to the hallway that fed into the core. At its end hung a colossal demon core, both halves suspended by massive wires that transferred the power of countless consumed souls to create volatile energy which powered the ship.

"I need to power it down... somehow..." She huffed exhaustedly, her armour only slowing her down, tiring her out.

A mechanical voice boomed from the ship.

>[INTRUDER ALERT. INTRUDER ALERT. PITIFUL MORTALS DETECTED!]

A swarm of drones, similar in size to the Recon Drone, flew into their path and locked on with green lasers emitting from their lenses. Lula looked around for an admin console and spotted one under the demon core itself, but it was too far to reach before the drones could fire at them.

Alaina drew her sword and pointed it forwards. "Lula! Will any of your cores help here?", and Erin gripped Violetspire tightly. "Or we can try to clear a path for you and keep going?"

"I don't... I don't know..." Lula looked down at her armour, then to Erin.  "Maybe… shoot me... with a small amount of raw arcane..."

Trusting Lula’s insight, Erin turned around to Lula and focused a light beam of energy from her staff. “I hope you know what you're doing!" Alaina hissed at Erin.

Violet magic swirled, being channelled through Lulas armour before encircling Lula’s power core inside her chest and getting trapped inside.

With a nod, she held her arms wide, hoping the same would apply for fel energy. “Get behind me.” Lula prepared for the onslaught, and The Orothrax Defence Drones begin charging up, green light coalescing around their optical lens. 

>[SOULCHARGE: 100%. OBJECTIVE: ANNIHILATION!]

Powerful rays of energy lanced out from each drone, crashing violently into her. She winced as the force and heat washed over her, her exposed skin burning more and more with each strike as the majority of the energy was nullified by being trapped in her core. Fel energy consumes, feeding off arcane like a lightning rod. Again and again she was beaten by wave and wave of blasts as Alaina and Erin stood behind her, and after each she expelled her core to be ready for another.

"One more..." Lula gave a quivering sigh.

One final array of beams crashes into Lula. She grit her teeth as her conduits failed, wires burning and singed, her armour fusing together from the sheer heat as it baked her from the inside out. She singed her fingertips as she ripped out the final fel-infused core, and replaced it with a standard electrical one.

>[SOULCHARGE: 1%. RETURNING TO RECHARGE FACILITY.]

The drones flew off. Now was their chance!

Alaina stopped Lula to ask if she was okay, but she didn’t have time to worry about that. 

The more time they waste, the more the temple would be at risk.

Faye was on the advance. She had dropped her cracked shield and wielded Eyir’s Holy Lance with righteous indignation, striking at Gormaxxus and granting him no quarter. His body and armour was tough, though with no weapons and only one arm he had little to fend her off. 

Every time he blocked she found a way over or under his armour, darting around him on mechanical wings and slashing him between his joints. 

Though it was not easy for Faye by any means. It was not just the hulking mo’arg brute that she had to contend with, yet the darkness and crumbling temple too. With intense focus she followed the trace of his glowing eyes to find where he would strike, but he had a plan. 

Gormaxxus turned not to attack her directly, but instead lift the great chunks of rubble crashing upon them to his advantage. With unmatched force he swung a great stone pillar which Faye assumed was a punch like everything else, as she smashed into the wall. 

“YOU ARE NOT THE ONLY CHAMPION I HAVE FOUGHT!” He shouted, placing a foot on her back to pin her and shredding her wings off one by one. 

Faye summoned the strength to wrest him away and charged, gutting him with the blade of her spearhead and loosing ichor and entrail onto the ground. She seethed at him through the dark, staring into those dark green eyes. “But I will be the last!”

But in the darkness, Faye had failed to see something. She had made a mistake. 

Gormaxxus grinned, surely. “YOU ALL HAVE THE SAME WEAKNESS.”

He revealed that in his free hand he held his communication device, and spoke into it. “SCAN FOR MORTAL LIFE FORMS… AND OBLITERATE THEM!”

Another beam ripped through the temple, and struck the temple chamber where Faye had kept her people safe. She heard their screams as mountains of stone caved in on them.

She had to choose to save them or lose Gormaxxus in the dark…

And with a furious pull, she drew her spear out of the demon and rushed to her people.

Lula ran towards the Legion Administrative Console as quick as her legs would take her, and let out a frustrated groan before pulling at her hair. "I don't have admin access... I'm not going to be able to do anything with this… ughhh! I don't know what I'm doing!" 

But in the corner of her eye, she saw the demon core. "Wires..."

All of the wires feeding into the core’s left half seemed to be feeding through an access panel on the ground near her. They hurried over to it, and saw it was sealed by a hard lock. Lula didn’t have time to pick it. "Break this open!” She called, and Alaina answered.

“By your command, my lady!”

Alaina stepped back and delivered a furious kick to the lock, with such force that it caved in the shape of the access panel, but the damage caused the panel to swing open. 

The wires were a mess, and every time she yanked one out, it sparked violently and seared her. She held out her hand. “Alaina, I need one of your alchemical fires!” 

Alaina handed it over and Lula threw it in before slamming the panel shut.

Bang!

An angry crackle shot out of the core, booming as the already-unstable fel energies began to burst forth from the core, spinning around the room like a static cage. 

Alaina darted in front of Lula and blocked a beam of lightning as it struck past them, only to be blown back with Lula and into the nearby wall. Explosions erupted in chain-reactions around them, and it took Erin blinking Lula and Alaina out of the way to save them from a more gruesome fate. Blood gushed from her nose, and she swallowed one of her three remaining mana potions.

Lula glanced up at the core, still seeing with her goggles the burning heat emitted from the wires on the right core. “It’s still running… is there another side?”

Alaina and Erin ran with her across the central engineering bay, but just as they thought things could get no worse, they heard a voice.

>[SOULCHARGE: 100%.]

The swarm of defence drones had returned, and encircled them. How could they escape?

“No… I won’t fail you again!” Faye screamed as she threw herself into the collapsing chamber in the Temple of Eyir. 

She saw great hunks of stone collapsing onto her people, and without the speed granted by her wings of valour, she barely made it in time. She launched under the rubble and swept out a mother and her child from certain ruin as they cried out in the darkness. 

“Are you okay?” She called.

The child cried, and the mother tried to hush her. She looked up at Faye with worry. “Is he still out there? We cannot see anything!” 

Faye grit her teeth. “I will…”

Her answer was made for her.

“SHE CANNOT KILL ME… NONE OF YOU CAN.”

Faye turned around to see Gormaxxus’ glowing fel eyes in the doorway, all too late. 

She was snatched by the neck, held with a forceful crush as she tried to free herself from his grip, but he only squeezed her throat more tightly, and left her one final message. “YOU WERE PATHETIC.” He grappled her, and swung her violently around until blood rushed from her head, until she was thrown like a ragdoll into the ceiling above and came plummeting down.

Everything went silent for Faye save for the low thud of her slowing heartbeat, and the trickle of her blood on the floor. 

She felt she was beginning to pass. 

Here in this damned darkness, Gormaxxus would slay them all.

She hadn’t Lula’s conviction, nor Alaina’s valour.

She failed her friends, when they went to risk their lives for her.

And yet, in the corner of her eye, the reflection of her crimson blood glinted. It glinted! With what?

Sunlight, flowing through a crack in the temple’s ceiling.

Gormaxxus lifted up the mother with his brutal, skeletal hand.

“DO YOU FEEL FEAR?” he looked, eyes glowering in the darkness.

She struggled, writhed in his grip. “Unlike you, monster, we do not die in cruel hatred… we do it with valour and glory!”
“THERE IS NO GLORY IN DEATH. ONLY IN ANNIHILATION.”

“Eyir is with us… she will not forsake us!”

“YOU WOULD NOT NEED HER IF YOU WERE NOT AFRAID OF DEATH!”

At that moment, a crash came from the temple roof as more and more rubble fell, pouring out streams of light into the chamber, and illuminating Gormaxxus and his hideous form!

“We stand not in fear of death!” Faye called, bathed in the light her Goddess had called for her. “We stand to fight against demons like you!” Her spear fell into her hands from where she had thrown it to loose the rubble, and trained it on Gormaxxus.

No more words needed to be said, but a silent prayer to Eyir.

Faye infused her lance with all the strength she could, as it glimmered with a faint aura, and cast it at the demon- aiming true for his skull!

Even from within the bowels of the Orothrax, the sound of the temple’s heaving collapse could be heard, even felt from within the throngs of the earth.

“Was that Faye?” Erin called out, but Lula refused to hear it, shaking her head. “I don’t know 

what to do!”. Alaina stood boldly, bearing her silver sword high. “We’ll cover you, Lula. Get to the panel!”

Steel flashed and magic burned as a series of lasers from the drones and the unstable environment pushed Alaina and Erin to their very limit, as Lula smashed open the lock for the panel with a piece of broken metal and began desperately trying to cut the wires.

Alaina launched herself skyward with her wingpack and brought her sword down against the steel armour of the drones, as Erin warped space around herself to try and lift the shattered felsteel environment around her and fling it, only to find they were so infused with demonic energies her magic could not affect it. 

She drank her second to last mana potion, knowing diminishing returns for their effectiveness would soon set in. 

“Damnit! I can't break them!” Alaina shouted, and Erin blinked to her side. "Do you trust me?"

“Now's not the time to start this argument again, Erin!”

Lula grimaced as she pulled out a pair of wire cutters, bracing herself to get burned as she haphazardly shredded the wires. The wires fizzed and exploded, causing fel energy to arc up her arms. Her suit, damaged as it was, could only block so much of the damage as it burned and wracked her body. The second half of the demon core began to fall, but not soon enough.

Erin turned behind her. "Lula! Fuck! Alaina, if you pass out from this, don't tell me I didn't warn you!"

Erin reached out her hand as magic swirled around them, forming a half-visible dial. She gripped her fingers around it, and turned it five notches to the right.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click!

"Quantum Potes!"

Magic coursed around Alaina, filling her with mystical, incredible power.

She felt her body begin to race, and noticed both her movements and her perception of time accelerated far beyond what was possible normally. Lula turned and seemed to recognise it… a ‘haste’ spell of sorts, but she considered a better name ‘Overclock’. 

Erin held herself behind Alaina, channelling the spell into her to force Alaina’s body to work past its natural limit, a level of strength and agility only amplified by Alaina’s natural athleticism.

With a speed matched only by her Phial of Evened Odds, Alaina moved faster than the eye could see and began shredding through the drones before them.

Alaina's skill in battle and anger knew no bounds. Erin drank her final mana potion to sustain the spell, and shot blood from her nose to give them the upper hand for as long as possible, and Alaina used it to its fullest effect. 

She darted from point to point, drone to drone, a single silver flash was all that was needed to set it exploding behind her as she raced to her next target. Each drone in sequence, carved in two and sent crumbling towards the ground, while Alaina soared across the room with the power of her new strength and her wings.

She drove her fist into the lens of a drone and screamed. 

“This is MY world! You will not land here, you will not take a single life, you will not conquer! Not until my last breath. And you will pay… FOR HURTING LULA!” 

She spun the drone around, whipping it violently like a whirlwind until she released it and sent it careening into the wall. 

Drone after drone fell, but even a body as strong as Alaina's couldn’t handle minutes of being under the extended effects of this spell. 

She choked blood and vomited it on the floor, finally returning to normal, but one final drone that she couldn't catch in time flew towards Erin and Lula, preparing a blast to wipe them out. Erin fought through her weakness, digging deep to find enough magic to snap her fingers. At that moment, Alaina appeared high above the drone behind it and carved a vertical slash down through it!

As both halves of the Demon Core failed, and the Orothrax shuddered and began to fully implode. The powerful energies inside the Core were the only thing keeping the ship together, and Lula’s disabling of the core had set it crashing down like a house of cards.

"We need to get out of here.!" Erin heaved, and stumbled over to the other two.

Even as battered as she was, Alaina put her arms around Lula to support her and make her feel better. 

Lula’s suit was too badly damaged, its hydraulics broken, so Alaina hefted one of her arms over her shoulder “You did it… you saved them!” Erin too slung one of Lula’s arms over her, and together they stumbled down exploding halls as the whole thing fell around them. 

Perhaps someone was watching over them, or it was a strength they did not know they had, but they fell through the crashing corridors and vents as the Orothrax destructed, and were blasted straight out!

 “Lula... are you alright?”

Alaina rubbed her head, not knowing how long it had been since the Orothrax exploded.

All she knew was that its collapsed structure had spilled out across Ashil’s Bay, creating a great slope of pure felsteel that still bubbled the water around it.

Lula roused, too, and smiled at Alaina- she couldn’t have her worrying about her right now. She still felt the singes and burns across her body, and Alaina hurried to her side to help her out of her armour before it fully fused with her. 

Erin pushed herself up out of the dirt and stumbled, almost immediately falling over. "I've got enough juice for one more good spell. If you need it, just say."

Alaina scoffed at her. “Look at the state of you! You’re in no condition to be casting anything!”

Erin grit her teeth. “I’ll deal…” She dragged out a breath. “Let's hope I only need it to get us home after this.”

Lula glanced at the temple with a sad frown.  "I hope she's alright..."

Lula started to walk, though whimpered as her burned skin rubbed together. She curled up in pain. It took Alaina lifting her up in her arms to take her over there.

"Please don't move me too much..."

Alaina held Lula as steady as she could, knowing how sensitive she was, and used the last of her strength to ferry her to the temple.

The crumbled entrance to the temple stood silent, as the three looked on in worry, only to delight as they heard a voice.

“Eyir... grant me... your strength...! AGH!”

The rubble blasted apart, disintegrated in Titanic Light. 

Faye stood with the survivors of Skold-Ashil, glittering under the fading light of atomising particles.

Faye smiled at Lula and her friends, gazing up at the crumbled Orothrax. "You did it..!"

And for Lula, Alaina and Erin, as they peered into the temple, the peaceful serenity of the halls was enough to know in their hearts Gormaxxus was defeated.

Faye spoke, bloodied yet bold. “I banished our blackened foe, doom driven, back to the throngs of whatever Hel he came from. I have no doubt him and his kind will once more set their eyes upon our blessed globe once more... But for now? By Your will, the day is won.

I am Daughter of the Valkyra, Matriarch of Ashildir. I would not let him harm my people, just as you refused to let the forces of chaos overtake us too.

You have proven my trust in you sound, Lula. Eyir is happy.”

Lula shook her head. "I caused all this... I'm sorry..." She glanced at the destruction around her., "Your temple..."

“As you said before, a battle was needed, and it was with Valour and Glory that you defended it. Better than anywhere else, where things might have been worse.”

“Eyir has word for you, if you would hear it.”

Lula looked at her. "Me?"

“For you, yes. She will speak through me.”

Faye knelt down in communion with Eyir, and recited the words of her goddess.

“Machine Warden, Watcher-Who-Walks, Valourous Warrior and Cunning Mind… you have proven your devotion to Stormheim more times than I can count.”

Lula gave a modest smile as she listened.

“Know that you have done a great thing today, and saved more souls than you could know, for Gormaxxus and his Vile Machinery could have stripped my people’s souls such that not even Helya could close snaring claws upon them.

However, a looming threat still stands. I did not reveal it before, for it was not the right time.

That time will come soon, but know this. You have earned your Glory today.

Drink in your victory. Drink and eat Heartily! My champion a blessing soon will await you with.

You stand with Stormheim, Watcher-Who-Walks

And in turn, Stormheim will ever stand with you.”

Faye nodded with elation. “Eyir, when she spoke it, she… she left my heart with such pride. I know she looks down on us with a smile. Thank you, and all of you. You have not just saved the Tuskarr for whom you came here. You have saved us all.”