章 154: Order Must Be Restored
5/23 Evening
One of Nathanos's sentry traps was triggered. Ah. He had company. The Blightcaller stood up from his table, tossed some meat to his hounds, gathered up his bow and axes, and strolled out to meet them.
He didn't approach openly, of course. That would come later. A ranger lord did not simply fling himself into the fray haphazardly, no matter what impression he wished to give. Instead he stalked them, keeping his hounds back, as they could not compete with him in the art of stealth.
13 people. From Stormwind. Seven in armor, four not dressed for combat. In Nathanos's experience, wearing evening wear in a place like this meant they were both dangerous and quite arrogant. He marked them out for his first volley.
The two most dominant men were both armed with shield and blade. The one with short hair was a Paladin, judging by his shield. A healer; his hounds would keep that one busy. The other six were elite; royal guard, judging by their crests. What the hell did Wrynn want with this region? He'd lost his chance to do anything useful during the Third War. Nathanos faded back to the area immediately around his cabin and seeded it with traps. He then sat in his chair on the edge of his porch, reading a book he'd stolen off of one of the Scarlets in one hand; something he didn't care about damaging. He kept his other arm positioned to haul himself over the railing and out of line of sight.
They were intruders on his land. He wasn't picking a fight, he wasn't ambushing them, even if it would be more tactically advantageous to do so. They could leave at any time before they saw him. If they saw him, however, they would have to die. He didn't like uninvited guests, and had little doubt that anyone from Stormwind deliberately coming to his home had intentions he didn't approve of.
His sentry traps continued to be silently triggered, sounding subtly different chimes on his front porch that corresponded to different locations and directions. Ah well, they had chosen death. He shifted in his chair so he would see them immediately when they entered the cleared area around his home. The moment that they arrived, he was watching them. Once he had a clear shot on the unarmored ladies, he grabbed his bow and snapped off several shots at center mass.
Had they been exactly what they seemed, suddenly sprouting arrows from their torsos would have badly injured them, fatally with any luck. Nathanos was disappointed but not surprised that their response was more appropriate to being suddenly slapped than a fatal injury. He continued to lay down fire, mixing normal arrows with arcane bolts and shots laced with searing venom.
The night elf with the twin braids seemed relatively delicate, so he focused on her until she went down. Of course the meat heads were charging him, bar the Paladin who was being dutifully harassed by hounds, but they were approaching him in a roughly straight line; poor strategy against a ranger lord, at least if you realized he was expecting you. The curly haired lady was running with them; apparently that hammer wasn't just for show. He'd definitely have some interrogation to do after all this.
He narrowly dodged a jet of fire. Ah. There's the magic. The human woman with the straight hair was a fire mage, then. She was rapid enough that it at first seemed like a continuous stream, but he noticed a pattern fairly quickly. First flame, second flame, pause. Only for a second, but that was enough time to stop dodging and properly aim a shot at whoever was most threatening. She and the long haired elf, a druid apparently, obviously weren't used to fighting together. If they were, he'd need to dodge roots during the pause instead of them trying to grab him while he was diving out of the way of fire anyway.
The soldiers hit his line of explosive traps, and he was quite disappointed to find that they didn't seem overly affected. Fire resistance? Perhaps the Paladin was focusing on that for… some reason. These clowns certainly hadn't researched his defenses enough to actually know to be prepared for his traps, as demonstrated by half of them being frozen up to their waists by his second round of traps, and the other half being attacked by conjured snakes. The curly haired girl, when frozen, suddenly transformed into a small black dragon to get out.
"Ahhh. Isn't that interesting." It explained the near immunity to fire, at least. No time to ponder why he was being assaulted by black dragons disguised as royal Stormwind guards. Nathanos continued to keep his distance, firing a dazing shot at the little whelp that dared to swoop after him. Watching her land face first was quite satisfying, he had to admit.
One of the warriors had pulled ahead of the rest, powering through his traps and recovering from his dazing shots with annoying speed. Nathanos was pressed enough that he decided it would be best to use his black arrow; a gift from Sylvanas, it was tipped with a poison that would kill or disable almost any creature. A similar arrow had once disabled the Lich King himself for several minutes. It felt like a waste to use it on an unusually persistent soldier, even one that was probably a dragon, but the man was fast, and made it difficult for Nathanos to properly maintain his ranged battle with the spellcasters.
The arrow… did nothing. At least nothing that a normal arrow wouldn't. It lodged itself into the man's chest, and he continued his charge. The man was a bigger threat than Nathanos had thought, it seemed. He still needed to slow the knight down; if magic wouldn't do it and poison wouldn't do it, he'd just have to dart in and strike the leg. If he was hobbled, he'd be far easier to handle. Once he was no longer pressed, the unending stamina of the dead would allow Nathanos to slowly wear his enemies down. They'd show signs of fatigue after a few minutes at most, and he'd still be fresh hours from now.
The Blightcaller started to move in; as his home broke line of sight between himself and the casters, he received a nasty surprise. As Nathanos stowed his bow and moved in with his axes for what was planned to be a quick exchange, the warrior put on an incredible burst of speed, seeming to glide along the ground. Literally; he didn't seem to actually be running, just sliding rapidly at the ranger lord, shield first.
The shield bash threw Nathanos off balance, and alarmingly the black arrow popped out of the man; he was being healed by something. They fought on largely even footing for a few moments, but a fair duel was absolutely not to the Blightcaller's advantage. He swept the leg as planned, and started to disengage. Then he stopped as he heard the man shout "face me."
Nathanos could not explain the bout of madness that overtook him, but he stayed and fought the man. He didn't even take his attention off the big warrior when the small dragon jumped on his back and started ripping into him. He assumed he'd been entrapped by some manner of magic and he could tell he wasn't going to get out of this engagement, so he had only one trick left.
The next time that the warrior slammed the ranger with his shield, he rolled with the blow while throwing himself to the ground. He dimmed his luminous eyes and stopped all vital signs. He even suppressed his life force enough to be undetectable to magic. By any measurable metric, he was dead. Combined with a small spell, similar to stealth, to push people to dismiss him, it worked much more often than you might think.
••••••••••
I finished fighting off the two giant mutant dogs only to find out that the battle was over. I rushed to heal Ysondre; she was bleeding badly, and might have actually died without me getting to her. Note to self: dragons don't usually fight in their visages because they are seriously weaker, subdermal scales or no. At least that's the case when they are old enough that their natural armor could take a tank shell. Lividia and I could probably still use the extra mass.
Once I was sure that Ysondre was conscious and on the mend, I went to go check the Blightcaller's body. He definitely looked dead at first glance, and for a moment I panicked, but then I remembered a bit of obscure lore. Nathanos had been a quest target in Classic. Canonically a group of Alliance adventurers had gone out and tried to kill him. When he came back, it was because undead hunters needed a trainer, and he moved to Undercity to fill that mechanical niche. If asked about his untimely demise, he would cite the hunter ability, feign death. A bit of a joke, explaining a retcon.
I inspected his corpse, acting as if I were looking for something. When I "didn't find it" I quickly threw a necklace around his neck. "Well this was a waste of time. This should at least keep the Scourge from waking him up again, at least." I confirmed that he was in the profile section, and quietly forbid him from thinking about the necklace on pain of momentary memory loss. "Now I just need to sanctify a bit of ground. Maybe inside the house?" Varian and I dragged the "corpse" inside and I blasted him with the strongest charm I could, attempting to make him like me enough to keep this secret from Sylvanas.
••••••••••
I passed out, waking up an hour later back at the Duskwood Camp, so I'm almost certain it didn't entirely work. It did knock his ETE down from the absolute maximum of 168 to 153. He was now stripped naked and wearing my shiny new thorium shackles in a locked apartment closet. Good call on Onyxia's part; him going silent wasn't ideal, but it seemed less likely to backfire than him potentially letting something slip while only partly charmed. I'd post my ogres-turned-demons to guard him, just in case.
I wasn't leaving my apartment again today. I felt like shit, and from the look of things Varian's team wasn't getting to Blackrock tonight; they'd stopped in the campsite known as Morgan's vigil to rest. They'd strike tomorrow, probably. I let Valeera know about that, including how to use the map to track the Skitterer's location. She'd be able to meet up with them tomorrow morning, or tonight. Her choice, as long as she didn't let anyone look at her new necklace too closely.
I let her know that if we lost contact, I could be contacted through Lady Katrana Prestor of Stormwind or the Rampant Lions mercenary band in Lakeshire. Hopefully that would plant the idea that they could gather allies before making any kind of move on Stormwind, delaying them and putting them more firmly into my clutches.
Xylinnia confirmed that Tyrande still hadn't arrived, but she was expected to tomorrow morning. I couldn't quite get back to sleep yet, so I settled in for some planning and troop deployment. It would be a big day tomorrow, and a lot might change.
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