NOVEL NEXT The Culling Part 1
6/13 evening
Gadgetzan never slept. Sure, it’s a cliche, but you know the kind of town I’m talking about now, don’t you? It was a city full of money, ruled by rich men from abroad and run by anyone with enough balls to seek power and few enough morals to never stop. You could go out at any time, day or night, and someone would want to make a quick buck out of you. It was beautiful in its own way, and there were tons of people who knew it well and wouldn’t have changed it for the world. Sorry for interrupting the story, I guess I just felt like it deserved a eulogy. Things were about to get messy.
As the sun vanished from the sky and hordes of centaur winked into existence out in the deserts of Tanaris, Kabal HQ was the obvious first place to target. It would be the most polarizing location, making my intentions incredibly clear to anyone who was looking. We poured out of a basement four blocks away, where one of Sergeant Sally’s informants lent us his basement to use as a staging ground. The poor guy’s nerves were shot, so once we made sure he wasn’t subverted we evacuated him to Kharazan to be captured and passed on to somewhere he could live a happy and productive life.
Team Darnassus, consisting of a rather substantial number of druids, Green Dragons, and Sentinels led by Malfurion, Tyrande, Illidan (shipped in from Zin-Azshari), and Ysera were leading the charge against the old office block where Kazakus lived and worked. They were one of the least innately upsetting factions I had on hand, were already experienced with working together, and contained some of my heaviest hitters.
The heavy hitters, me included, were pretty important as it turned out. When they realized they were under attack they started releasing the big guns. The first guards were a group of ogres and orcs who downed potions and hulked out, but they were only there to buy time. Once we were engaged, golems started pouring out of the building and mages started poking out of the windows with powerful artifacts and the intention of leveling the playing field. Giant explosive fireballs from thick iron rods, books that unleashed waves of dark energy, potions that scorched the entire street with felfire; my footsoldiers died like flies, leading me to pull them out and replace them with my corps of fairy dragons.
Tyrande covered the retreat along with the dragons, staying back long enough to snipe any son of a bitch that tried to poke his head out while she popped her shadowstalk ability. It was a little premature to use it right now, but it would allow everyone in the retinue to heal up and reposition. I wasn’t upset with her, especially since I was busy blinking in and chopping heads off with my newly electrified moonblade. As such I wasn’t actually there when a thin purple beam of light from a staff of Disintegration reduced Tyrande to fine ash, but I sure as hell heard the reaction.
Two voices cried out “Tyrande!” in stereo, with Malfurion following it up with a bellowed “Pathetic wretches! You shall pay for this!” I blinked out of the building; my timing was quite fortuitous, as Elune had decided to express her displeasure nonverbally with a shower of blue-white stars which reduced the building to rubble as huge vines rose up to keep anyone from escaping and the whole building was consumed with green fire rolling off of Illidan in waves. They were not pacing themselves in the slightest; the Stormrage brothers would be exhausted after a few minutes of effort like this, but the Kabal’s primary stockpile of powerful artifacts and treasure was no longer a factor in this battle.
••••••••••
Across town, Nia and the Medivas summoned a portal to the guest rooms of Kharazan, where everyone who had come to see their show at the Doscotheque would be given the opportunity to enjoy the retinue’s hospitality. The audience was thrilled at the opportunity to flee, especially when the rain of exploding stars began. Xal’atath would use her overseer's body to pick out anyone with an active lantern and the servants would escort them away to be killed quietly. Anyone who resisted too vigorously would be punished by the laws of the tower.
Two companies of scarlet crusaders, led by Taelan Fordring and Renault Mograine, stormed out of the Discotheque and started evacuating people through the portal. The fact that they unflinchingly (and without explanation) killed anyone pointed out by one of the Overlords embedded among them, directed by the overseer hidden in the back room, did not endear them to the locals. They still had moderate success, and as a general rule the Medivas or Doan’s students could turn anyone who resisted into far more accommodating bimbos.
The police came to interfere, which further slowed down the evacuation. Elite Gadgetzan bruisers went toe to toe with crusader’s and despite everything happening recently the majority of locals trusted the authorities more than the intercontinental religious zealots trying to save them. The fact that the two groups started shedding blood more or less the moment they made eye contact brought the evacuation to a standstill. Once they realized the optics war was lost, the Medivas cut loose and bathed the enemy in a light show of swirling blue frost, crackling orange flames, and shining purple arcane streamers.
If the bruisers moved, the friction would be magnified and they would ignite; for most, that would result in further motion and further immolation. If they stayed still, they would slowly freeze solid if they weren’t cut down or pierced with magic missiles first. It was a rather insidious layering of spells that only a team of mages as talented as Medihv would be able to pull off, and only a group of archmages operating at less than ten percent of their true power would bother with.
••••••••••
Sergeant Sally was leading her own troops, supported by Dommes of both the large and titanic sizes, against the Grimy Goons. Alas, the Goons didn’t bother with fancy magic items that were powerful but inconsistent. Oh no. My Dommes were charging into the teeth of machine gun nests, and even if your skin is made of iron or bronze a hail of gunfire will still fuck you up.
My forces were winning for the most part, but paid for every inch of ground they took. That mattered much less for me than for a mortal army, but it still seemed like something I should take an active hand in addressing. The Don, Han’Cho, was being particularly problematic. Han’Cho was an unusually large two headed ogre with a maxim machine gun that he was holding and using like a Tommy gun. It gave him a lot of mobility and let him fall back any time my guys started making progress on a new position.
I started teleporting from rooftop to rooftop, summoning demons and mirror images and firing at him from above. Most of the roofs already had at least a few Goons occupying them, but a few goons can’t really compete with me. Blink is truly the best thing since stress defense. My demons, being bound to me, could follow when I blinked and so when I arrived in the middle of a fortified location they weren’t just facing me. They were facing me, Pryzhum the blademaster, Kerrigan who was more than powerful enough to destroy them even without her regional upgrades, Gerd who was a perfectly respectable huntress, and Queen Mezzo who kept us all healthy for the few seconds it took to clear the sniper nest.
Han’Cho was dangerous enough that I couldn’t safely dive him, but any moment he was unloading a hail of lead at me or Pryzhum’s mirror images was a moment when my Dommes could rush his position. Kerrigan, on the other hand, was just killing everyone. The self styled queen bitch of the universe leapt from person to person, ripping people’s souls (and throats) out and using the spiritual energy to invigorate and protect herself. If a group was too densely packed, she would summon a crackling sphere of energy in their midst before leaping away. At that point, the goons had two options. They could dive away from the sparking red orb and out of formation, or they could be standing next to it when it exploded. She had to pull back and let Mezzo patch her up frequently, but the goons she killed along the way probably wouldn't be very relieved to hear that the gunshot wounds they managed to inflict actually did slow her down somewhat.
All the while, stars fell from the sky, fires burned, screams echoed, and the infernal buzzing of Nefarian’s crystals just kept playing in the background.
••••••••••
The black dragonspawn were being driven away from town hall. Nanna had been told relatively little about the situation in this warzone, but she didn’t particularly care. She knew nothing of her targets, but they were not titanforged. She had no reason to believe anything was amiss. If prime designate Eros declared them to be corrupted and in need of cleansing, she would obey without question.
She had been held in reserve to reinforce an area facing heavy resistance, so she knew she would be in a dangerous environment from the moment she appeared. She was feeling unusually aggressive as she grasped the Hammer of Grief and charged into the fray. The tiny goblin warriors were guarding a group of night elven magi, which was problematic but manageable.
Compared to Brox’s instincts, the maiden thought far more about how she did battle. She constructed a profile of each individual’s capabilities and the threat they posed, and executed a strategy to take them down. She was used to approaching combat in a relatively slow and methodical manner. The influence of Brox’s rage intermingled with her mind to create a more perfect style. She put less conscious thought into the process, as the two warring parts of her mind hashed out a plan for the next few seconds, the next few minutes, and the rest of the conflict all at the same time. Priority was given to the immediate future, of course, but she was far more able to precisely time her movements and employ strategies slightly more complex than overwhelming the enemy with unrelenting force, even occasionally shifting her grip to wield her hammer one handed so as to weave in magic.
Despair, fear, shame, doubt; vital emotions for any sentient being’s survival and growth, but dangerous to one’s mental stability and physical wellbeing in a battle such as this. Nanna, like many titanic warriors, had given extensive study to a specific emotion. Given her unfortunate circumstances, she had been all but forced to focus upon grief. Grief, and by extension all other variants of sadness. Shame, hopelessness, anguish, heartbreak. The very inversion of willpower, the soul’s way of training aversion. She had felt it, studied it, embraced it, and could inflict it.
As she charged the enemy, she called forth a cloud of negativity to envelop the magi. It would disrupt their mana at best, and at worst it would impede their vision. Nanna cracked a few skulls, cursed a few gunmen with regrets, and kept moving. The mages struck her with bolts of fire and frost, when they stopped long enough to aim anyway. They attempted to blink away, but their short range teleport only bought them distance equal to a few strides from the towering bronze woman. Their bodies were shielded with magic, which necessitated a few extra blows. Enough to crack shields and crush fragile mortal skulls.
Her skin degraded as it was exposed to alternating extreme temperatures. Cracks opened up in her flesh, revealing the internal arcane core, which leaked energy into the air. She assessed her chances and forbade her handler from pulling her out until she was done. “Victory assured. Additional personnel unnecessary.” She spoke calmly as she channeled a wave of remorse that would place her foes into a state of dazed reverie. The footsoldiers eliminated, she turned and charged the last of the four Shen’dralar magi who had been sent to assist the formal ruler of Gadgetzan. He managed a few more fireballs before his head was removed cleanly from his shoulders. “Targets neutralized. I am ready for extraction.” There had been no healers available to come to her, but she was aware that her body was in critical condition. She needed repairs.
She was in the midst of being pulled out when a potion was launched at her feet, exploding with enough force to remove a leg. The purple skinned troll who threw it laughed. “All right. Shame you can’t be saved, but Nefarian wants ya dead.” The next bottle removed an arm, as Nanna attempted to block it with her hammer. She vanished from sight, and Kazakus crossed his arms with disappointment.
“Ah. Well, maybe I shouldn’t have talked so much.” He spoke into a crystal tied to his belt, “Oi, Nefarian. He’s attacking Gadgetzan. What’s the plan?”