"Remember, men, women, you are not allowed to die," Anduin told his gathered forces. His talk to the military personal was much more professional than the throwing of insults, inside jokes and innuendos over at the adventurer's side. A slight bit of jealousy rushed through the High King as he saw Aclysia smile at the apparent leader of their group. It seemed purely platonic, so he shoves that aside and dealt with his own speech again.
"I will not be returning with slutless masters, studless mistresses, guideless slaves or make widows of any variety. Even though we face one of Azeroth's most ancient dangers today, I need all of you to understand that order: you are not allowed to die!"
""Yes, your majesty!"" the soldier's roared in unity, their slaves saluting. It had been a while since Anduin had seen a sentinel formation in full gear. Even though their leather equipment was more sexually teasing than one would expecting of military garb, their weapons, large three-bladed glaives, always returning to the one who threw them, made the sentinel formation nothing to laugh at. Next to them stood the elite of Stormwind guards, in full plate, armed with a longsword and large shields painted in blue, with the head of the lion at the centre in gold.
Next to them the adventurers came to an end of their own speech. "And if one of you maggots keeps standing in the fire, don't expect Jimmy to heal you!"
"Yeah, I need my mana to save people with an ounce of common sense!" A clearly annoyed shaman agreed. The adventurers had one last laugh. Then began the attack on Uldir.
It was truly a place rotting with danger. The first step was easy enough, as they broke through the village surrounding the large titan facility. The golden pyramid was humming with some technology not even gnomes could hope to understand yet. Usually, they were gleaming in a steady state of meticulous cleanliness. The fact that this one only looked dulled despite the deeply disgusting biome it was placed in said a lot.
Rather than run over the large bridge that connected the blood troll village with the flat top of the pyramid, they quickly slid and jumped down a relatively steep piece of earth that lead to one of the three corners of the facility. A rouge had scouted out the area in advance and was now leading them to what he had found to be the best route inside.
At the very least he was right in the sense that it was much better inside than it was outside. Although compromised, many of the facilities systems were still operating, including the air circulation. The vile white and red mushrooms Anduin had spied rotting underneath the facility were not spreading too much inside there. Although it was only a question of time until the freed Old God would change that.
Their first challenges were two corrupted titan constructs. One guided a large elevator that lead them into the facility proper, hidden underground. Glowing with the red of the so called blood god, it was clear that this unit was unsalvageable, and so the adventurer's disposed of it. It wasn't a particularly gruelling fight, although the infected liquids it spluttered from its malfunctioning form made it hard to navigate through the rooms the fight took them, starting at the top elevator room, continuing on a lengthy ride downwards (that involved laserbeams for some reason that only the titan creators knew about) and ending at the room at the bottom.
Next was a unit that self-designated as MOTHER. The fight with her was much trickier, as she fled from one containment chamber to the next and forced the group to follow her, causing damaging energies to rush over them and creating additional enemies every time. They had to go through three chambers before MOTHER suddenly declared them all sanitized. From that point onward, she was no longer their enemy but their guide.
According to her, they had to defeat three enemies that were blockading access to the central chamber from opening.
Up first was a putrid abomination that was akin to a hydra, but only in appearance. While large and disgusting, especially since they had to fight it in the garbage heap that birthed it, it was defeated without a hitch. Next was a similarly abhorrent being birthed from infected blood, a creature that the facility itself had birthed on accident, according to MOTHER, and whose seals had been broken along with G'huuns.
Who, as MOTHER opened up to them, was also not a true Old God, but rather an accidentally created one. Anduin was relieved to hear this. Although the information that the titans, the acclaimed good and wise gods of the universe, had accidentally created a monstrosity was unnerving, knowing that they weren't facing a proper Old God in all their cunning and all their power was easing on the nerves.
The last enemy on the triumvirate was a herald of N'zoth, a mixture of bug, crab and faceless called Zek'voz. A powerful minion of the mysterious fourth Old God, the most of which Anduin knew about was the fact that he rested somewhere under the waves, he assaulted them with visions and minions of not only his own master but C'thun and Yogg'saron as well.
It was the hardest fight up to that point by far. The pair of Anduin and Xal'atath proved invaluable against the herald, as the High King provided not only massive blessings to his party but could also differentiate between the true enemies and mere fiction. Even as the arena they fought in began to shrink from the dark energies that pooled everywhere, nobody lost hope thanks to the golden bubble of light the royal cast over them. The voidborne creature finally submitted its life, but not without whispering. 'Soon... boy king...' as if something greatly amused it, 'you will find your seat... or be forced in it...'
'What a petty little creature,' Xal'atath sounded just as amused, 'telling one last lie before he perishes.'
'You were of great help there,' Anduin told the blade mentally as the group took a break. Those who weren't hurt had to thank the healers in the group, who really needed to take a breather and refill their mana reserves. Without the blade working with him, identifying the illusions would have been much harder. She also shared with him a spell that let him dispel those false enemies for everyone else as well. Without her, that fight would have claimed at least a few lives. Instead, their group was still unharmed. 'Thank you.'
'Don't thank me yet, your majesty,' the sweet tone of the Blade of the Black Empire whispered in his mind, gently caressing it. 'This adventure isn't over yet.'
She was right, once they were done here he could thank her all they wanted. For now, they needed to survive.
The central hall was now open to them and gave rise to a surprising target amidst a disturbing blood storm, the prophet Zul of Zandalar. His presence here, in a clearly undead state no less, put the burning of Stormwind at his hands in perspective. 'At least one sin I don't have to lay directly at Sylvanas' feet,' Anduin thought. It was still partly her fault, since it were her orders that broke that man out of prison.
Even his odd state of undeath, brought about not by necromancy but by forceful clinging to life through means of blood and void, was extremely susceptible to the cleansing power of the light. With a paladin of Anduin's calibre around, he was thus quickly reduced to ash, crying every step of the way that he had seen himself life forever, not end like this.
