Capítulo 196: The Wailing Caverns
5/30 evening
The first time Gina, Varian, and Anduin met one another was shortly before the assault on the Wailing Caverns. It was awkward, because while Gina at least thought she was familiar with both of them, they had been briefed about her as a failed clone of Varian, who had been given a new identity for her own sanity. Both sides were way too stiff, but hopefully that wouldn't extend to when the fighting started. I was kinda glad I wasn't planning on using them for the same attack squad, though.
I looked over the plans, and felt pretty good about them overall. The idea we were running with was that the primary assault force would grind its way into the caverns in waves. Meanwhile, I'd be following the instructions given by Scarletleaf to try to get to Naralex and get him out, dropping him off in my apartment. With blink and shadowmeld, I was hoping I'd be able to infiltrate efficiently. In the worst case scenario, I'd call for an evac. If I was feeling sassy at that point, I'd do another deep dive and try to assassinate lord Serpentis for the regional mission.
Our starting point was Magglish's alcove; we didn't want to risk antagonizing the Centaur by moving a small army directly under their noses. We had quite enough to deal with tonight, thanks. So, right as we received the news that the sentinels were starting their march, a team consisting of Gina, Broll, Thargas, Noboru, and Scarlet Arcanist Doan backed by 20 amulet equipped dragonspawn guards teleported to Magglish and started going to town. They had been chosen for their ability to act as elite shock troops, opening up space for the rest of my retinue to flood in behind them. In the tight tunnels, more than 25 people would be nothing but a liability, and frequently there would only be space for a front line of around 5 people.
Broll had been easy to recruit when I explained what the mission was; he knew Naralex personally, though they weren't exactly close friends. His agreement was more than enough for Thargas to go along with it, especially since he was mostly captured already. The revelation that I was a green dragon currently coordinating an assault against the emerald nightmare between the Sentinels and Ysera herself was enough of a shock to Broll's system to knock off the last ten hours to capture.
The second group to go in was the elite backline. Sylvanas, Nathanos, Dremuus, Abby, Lillibeth, and High Priestess Laurena. They would provide supporting fire, reanimate the beasts that we managed to kill, and provide shields and healing for the front line. Lillibeth would, naturally, silence any Druids that dared to show their faces.
The third group to come in were my more martially inclined Worgen, not all wearing amulets, who would flood in and clear out the side passages, preventing the main team from being flanked. If any died, they could be resurrected by Sally later. Other less powerful teams, such as the Classics and a team of Furbolgs, also joined in the sweep, slaughtering beasts and sending them back to the grove, where Eliza animated them en masse.
After about twenty minutes had passed, a new elite team was sent in consisting of Varian, Marshal Windsor, Noboru, Sadie, Vanessa, Doris, and the three ghostly druidesses, backed by another 20 dragonspawn guards. They moved into position behind Sylvanas's group, and waited for their signal. It came soon enough.
Arcanist Doan, the finest mage in the Scarlet Monastery, was a powerful addition to the party, partly because he had a fun trick that was optimized to destroy mindless undead. He took a small step back from the rest of the team and encased himself in a nearly impenetrable bubble of force. As he did, the other 24 people in his unit were teleported out by a team of elven craftsmen wearing amulets, right as the timers on their amulets beeped for the 20 minute mark. The frenzied beasts crowded around him, about half attempting to break his shield while the rest struggled to move past him, trying to get to the archers and necromancers. Within his shield, Doan was completing a powerful and delicate fire spell, known as Detonation. Impractical for most to cast in the middle of combat, but in his bubble Doan could complete the spell in record time.
The snakes and raptors foolishly trying to kill the venerable evoker were consumed in a wave of fire, clearing out the passage and allowing Varian's team to sweep in and gain momentum from the charge, even as Doan was teleported out. In the confusion, Vanessa, Doris, and the Druids slipped past the enemy, seeking out the Druids of the Fang and either knocking them out or killing them. Unconsciousness and capture was preferable of course, but this was war and Tara could bring them back either way.
Back at the grove, the evacuated first assault team was receiving medical care from swarms of newly trained healers, led by Anduin and a very flustered Calia Menethil. While they were healed, they handed off their amulets to an assault team of 24 of Sylvanas's deathguards, led by Stitches and accompanied by a newly heroic Darcell.
They moved into position to tag in; in 20 minutes Sadie and Noboru would hold the line for a few moments with their own nigh invulnerable shields, allowing Noboru to take his Drake form in the narrow passage while Sadie summoned a great nightmare beast, only to be whisked away for healing and refreshments after ten brutal seconds.
They in turn would pass their amulets to Gina's team, who would return to the caverns mostly refreshed after twenty minutes to recover, with another twenty minutes on standby. The retreat of the Deathguards would be covered by a suicidal charge of dozens of zombie animals provided by Eliza.
And so it went, with my army pounding wave after wave of warriors against the Nightmare's forces. Their superior numbers didn't mean much in the tightly packed tunnels, and in the bigger caverns Sylvanas and Nathanos alone could probably outgun the Druids of the Fang in a fair shootout, and Lillibeth would just make it unfair.
••••••••••
While all that was happening, I had my own mission: get Naralex the hell out of there. Poor bastard was too valuable to leave high and dry, and I had a map to his location. He hadn't been moved, and I think I know why: the cavern he was in felt heavy with magic. Naralex, knowingly or not, was channeling the Nightmare into the waters here. It was too far along for removing him to solve the whole problem, but as long as he was sleeping on that slab, the corruption could spread at an accelerated rate.
He was, however, tied down with thick, thorny vines. I couldn't just grab him, and the moment I arrived I could already hear the squelching noise of thick black slime monsters crawling out of the waters all around me.
"Gimmie the demons!" I shouted into my necklace, then unleashed a fan of knives at the oozes. It was not near as effective as I might have hoped; unsurprisingly, giant amoebas were not overwhelmingly bothered by stabbing. I could splatter one with an Archaeus strike, but those took a bit to rev up.
My satyrs, trickling in one or two at a time, were relying on their newly learned fireball spells and illusory decoys; I quietly thanked Nozara for her quick work teaching them the basics. The imps knew their fire a little bit better, and after the full demon goon squad had arrived things had cleared up enough to let me step away and hack through the vines. Even the three newest members, a pair of rabbits and a velociraptor transformed into felsteeds after eating mushrooms, proved surprisingly effective using their instinctive fighting style of kicking the crap out of the enemy with their front hooves.
I didn't have much time to do an assessment though, as I was trying to get the fuck out of there in record time. This event, in game, consisted of several waves of generic trash enemies followed by a giant monstrous murloc boss fight. I wasn't sure exactly how powerful Mutanus the Devourer would be, but I made it a policy to avoid dueling anyone who had the faintest chance of seriously harming me. I was getting Naralex and I was getting out.
As it turned out, Mutanus was a big meaty boy, a hulking fish man who could grab and bite down on a Satyr every few moments. I would run out of demons pretty soon, but lucky me I didn't actually need to kill this fucker, or to worry about the caverns at all once I had my prize. I ripped the emaciated druid free from the vines as my demons threw themselves into the line of fire for me. As I made my way out through the portal, I heard the loud musical tone of full powered smites behind me; Lividia had been silently summoned when I needed her to cover my escape. I might have been able to go back and fight the big beast, it would have probably been an epic battle… but seriously, why would I bother? He's probably going to be obliterated in a holy blast.
••••••••••
After the first hour we were out of surprises, but we had the enemy firmly on the back foot by then. Doan wasn't going to incinerate another huge swathe of enemies, but the fact that they knew to fear him when he made a bubble was valuable too. At some point Xavius clearly wrote the whole caverns off and commanded a suicidal death charge of everything present in the caverns, trying to take as many of my people with them as possible.
The Druids were moderately dangerous, and their leaders particularly so, but the real monster was a giant mass of vines and soil that swept into my team's formation, breaking bones and sending people flying with every swipe of his giant arms. That was the only time Sylvanas needed to call an early evac and send in the next team early, just to recover from his titanic blows.
Xavius definitely killed several of my people by the end of the day, but with High Inquisitor Sally Whitemane back home, it barely even mattered as long as I could retrieve the bodies. Once Serpentis's death was confirmed, we shifted to a more defensive stance. Even with the swap out procedures, my people were starting to feel some fatigue, whereas the deviant creatures here seemed endless. Wholesale slaughter was the plan, but I needed to move at a measured rate and slowly grind them into dust.
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