Karp
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Chapter 135
🕑 Added 2024-12-26 19:12:02 +0000 UTCOnce the portals to Oblivion had been shut, the only thing that was currently drawing Varrus's ire were two stupid Orcs bashing into one another.
“You abandoned me!” The large red Orc, Garrosh roared.
“To secure our future!” Grom roared back.
“All lies, you are no Hero, no true Orc!” Garrosh kept up his tempo, his axe slammed down with enough force to crack the earth asunder.
Both warriors were breathing, and gasping great bellowing breaths. Yet for all their exhaustion, Varrus felt as if he were watching one of those legendary bullshit week long duels.
At this rate, getting them low enough for his mind control idea would take much longer than he would have liked.
‘Seriously, I did not sign up for family counseling! I have enough shit to deal with between Faedra and Nightsong…speaking of Faedra, I'll have to ask that afk twat what exactly she was doing during the siege on the Sunwell!’ Varrus internally raged.
After watching the two idiots clash again and again for another 5 minutes, Varrus had seen enough.
“Syra, you take the big green one, and I'll take the big red one. Wait for me to strike first, I have something devious in mind.” Varrus said with a mischievous wink, then cast Shroudwalk on himself.
Syra replied with a mad grin of her own, then entered a state of invisibility.
While he was still a mage at heart, when it came to stealth kills, his bonuses added up most when using a dagger or a bow.
The dagger, for example, had a 15x modifier on damage due to his Sneak tree, and this didn't even begin to detail the bonuses One-Handed and Illusion spells had on his dps output.
Sneaking up to Garrosh, Varrus had a dagger drawn. Once he got within a foot of the furiously battling warrior, he felt the bound item he had gifted to Syra, and knew she was invisibly behind Grom.
Their window of time was narrow as the two warriors typically clashed with one another all over the place, like two shounen anime rivals duking it out.
Varrus was feeling a little cheeky, and also wasn't 100% sure he would be able to land a killing blow with this dagger strike.
So he developed a quick one two punch of a plan.
First, he went with the two spells, Magicka Void, and Curse of the Silent.
Magicka Void: Reduces the Health percentage of all targets to match their Magicka percentage.
Curse of the Silent: Drains 8 points of Magicka per second for 30 seconds or until the target successfully casts a spell.
As the pair of Orcs were warriors, even if they were Heroes, the amount of mana within them shouldn't be all that much.
Besides that, the effects of his Sunwell Sage trait boosted all magic by 300%, significantly increasing the drain.
While they were distracted, he shot out two ethereal-almost invisible, completely silent orbs.
Varrus watched on with baited breath as Curse of the Silent landed seemingly unnoticed by the duo.
For his second strike, Varrus resorted to his activatables.
Among his many perks, he had abilities that said “activate this ability for xyz effect upon the enemy.”
In practice, Varrus discovered he had to be close enough to touch the enemy for it to work. Typically, as a mage, and modern man, he preferred to kill his enemies from a distance, not up close and personal.
But in this case, he decided to use Blind Guardian.
Blind Guardian - Activate any non-hostile creature or humanoid in combat to summon an illusion of the target. The illusion fights for the target for 60 seconds and the target won't flee for its duration. This effect has a 300 second cooldown.
At the same time that he did this to Garrosh, the perk, Wraithwalker took effect, which boosted the strength and duration of all Illusion spells by 50%.
At the same time, he activated Nemesis on Grom, which summoned an illusory clone of him. This clone was fifty percent stronger than the exact copy.
Both apparitions struck at the pair of Orcs at the same time.
“Elven tricks! Where is your honor?” Grom growled as he clashed with the illusion of himself.
“When I have the chance, I'll wring the neck of every smug little shit I can get my hands on!” Garrosh snarled.
As they were distracted, and exerting themselves, Varrus had been looking at them with his Mana Sight.
The more energy they exerted in fighting, the faster their mana diminished.
Ever so slowly, the amount of mana in their bodies ticked down to less than half.
Right when the illusory clones were about to be broken by the pair of Heroic warriors, Varrus hit them both with the Magicka Void.
Almost instantly, the father and son fell to the ground as they vomited copious amounts of blood, and had many of their bones loudly snap and crack.
Grom's entire right arm burst into a puddle, and Garrosh fell down as his left leg snapped off.
They had been reduced to around 50% of their health.
The sight was truly monstrous, and the effects of the Illusion skill tree showcased the power of percentages.
Varrus almost lost himself in the moment, and it was only when the pair of Orcs were angrily howling that he snapped himself out of it.
Still invisible and stealthed, Varrus moved forward, and firmly stabbed his dagger into Garrosh’s eye socket.
As the blade pierced deeply, and searched out the red Orc's brain, the powerful warrior reached up both hands, and gripped Varrus's wrist with one, whilst the other covered his face.
The mighty warrior's hand was like a vice grip, and threatened to snap Varrus's thin Elf twig-like wrist into dust. Meanwhile, he threatened to turn Varrus's head into a crushed watermelon. The sound of his Ebony Flesh, and protection enchantments grinding resounded in Varrus's ears.
However, for all of Garrosh's strength, he had fallen prey to another one of Varrus's perks.
The One Handed perk, Coiling Python paralyzed anyone struck by a dagger's power attack for 30 seconds, and increased critical damage dealt by 9x.
Garrosh grunted as he tried to move his body. Red energy swelled around him in an incredible rage, and Varrus felt that if Garrosh were in peak physical health, he would surely shrug off this paralysis.
However, it was for this very reason that Varrus had stacked the deck, and didn't just stab the Orc warchief in the back.
Withdrawing another dagger from his inventory, Varrus went to town, and hacked and hacked and hacked at the Orc.
By the time he was done, he was covered in blood, and had a wild look in his eye.
He wanted to wretch at the stench, or feel some kind of way at the near death experience, but all he felt was triumph.
Cutting through Garrosh's neck, he held the massive thing up by sticking a sword under it, and waved it in the air.
Looking to the side, he saw Syra smiling at him in both worry and awe.
Smiling back, Varrus heard the ping of two Soul Gems being pocketed, and couldn't be happier.
Ears twitching at the sound of boots crunching on gravel, Varrus turned to see Rho'dan approaching with a bound prisoner.
Kicking the somewhat familiar looking Human to the ground, Rho'dan saluted.
“Highlord, we have captured an enemy Hero for you.”
“Well done, Rho'dan. Syra, if you would?” Varrus said, and glanced over his shoulder.
The Human was gagged, and spitefully glared at them, but his hatred meant nothing to Varrus as he was about to gain yet another Grand Soul Gem.
Syra didn't need to be told twice, and dashed forward, claiming the man's head.
Once the paladin died, Varrus heard another collection ding, and was quite pleased with himself.
Between Greymane, and Alpha Prime a month ago, he had 5 to his name.
He was giddy with the thought of the power these enchantments would bring him.
Varrus was already considering what to do. Spell Power would be the focus as always, yet for his secondary enchantment, he wondered if he should focus on speed like Syra, strength so he could match warriors, or perhaps he stuck with protection so he could keep his ass alive? Or perhaps he should do a mix of sorts?
It was all a lot to take in.
“Ahem, Highlord, I hate to interrupt your…business, but I have something to report.” Rho'dan coughed into his hand.
Varrus blinked his eyes as he was broken out of his internal monologue.
He noticed Syra had a somewhat sour expression on her face, and he squeezed her hand in comfort.
‘She must have been enjoying my silent company. I'll have to find more time to spend with her after this. Although that will be difficult, what with planning the invasion of Lordaeron.’’ Varrus noted to himself.
Shaking his head, Varrus gave Rho'dan his full attention.
“Alright Rho'dan, what's the situation?”
“Sir, the renegade Orc from the future, Thrall has escaped the encirclement! His Majesty is searching for him, but results have proved inconclusive” Rho'dan saluted.
Varrus frowned as he was met with the bad news. If he recalled, the majority of the Convocation were holding the north, the strongest of them being Lor'Themar.
Was the shaman so powerful that he could persist against that many Heroes?
At the end of the day, Lor'Themar was only a ranger. Perhaps only Syra, Nightsong, Kael, or himself could give the former warchief a go at it.
One day when he had time, Varrus would have to track Thrall down and end the threat, but with the imminent invasion of Lordaeron, now was a suboptimal time to go on an adventure.
“This is extremely vexing.” Varrus rubbed his eyebrows. “Well, keep an eye out for him. How are our casualties?”
“We lost 8,301 golems, 12/32 of the levitating combat platforms were destroyed, 16 more are moderately to severely damaged, and only one Tower of Jenga survived. 1,236 Elves are listed as dead, and a further 5,829 are awaiting medical treatment.” Rho'dan spoke as he read the numbers off his scrying orb.
“That's what the golems are made for, but over a thousand losses? We don't have many numbers to spare.” Varrus shook his head, and tsked.
“The restoration of the Sunwell saved many lives, you are a legendary figure in our society.” Rho'dan comforted.
“Yeah, yeah, still doesn't take away from the sting of loss. Tell me some good news.” Varrus waved off Rho'dan's attempts at cheering him up.
“Councillor Telonicus has been inspired by the Dwarven vehicles, and is studying them in a frenzy. Perhaps the blueprints to a new golem variant will emerge in the coming year.” Rho'dan shrugged his shoulders.
“That is good news.” Varrus responded with a nod.
He had experimented with semi-autonomous flying towers, and golems this battle. If he could add tanks and planes to his toolkit, Varrus would be quite pleased.
“Yes, but there is more. I do not know if this is good or bad, however, I have received a report that Night Elves had been spotted in Lordaeron. My spies have confirmed that they’ve been here for at least a week now.”
Varrus quirked an eyebrow.
“That certainly is interesting.” Varrus said trailingly as he began to think over what the implications of this were.
With the recent invasion of the Burning Legion, Illidan Stormrage had been set free from prison to combat the Demons. As a practitioner of the Fel, he had garnered distrust amongst the Night Elves, and was exiled after driving off Archimonde.
Sailing across the ocean, he gathered a powerful artifact known as the ‘Eye of Sargeras’ which was a body part taken from the puppet avatar that the Titan God used to enforce his will on Azeroth.
With that eye, he had the power, but not the means to focus it into a spell. Travelling to the ruins of Dalaran, he would find the book of the Guardian, Medivh, and cast a spell to destroy the Lich King.
In Warcraft 3, Maiev Shadowsong and Tyrande Whisperwind chased after him, and stopped him before he could magically nuke Ice Crown, the home of the Lich King.
As Varrus was stroking his chin, and going over what he knew of the event, he suddenly felt the ground shake, as if he were experiencing an earthquake.
“I have you.” Syra said, and caught Varrus from falling over.
“This must be the work of Illidan.” Varrus hissed to himself.
However, a moment later, the shaking picked up in intensity.
Rapidly blinking his eyes, Varrus realized one ‘minor’ detail about the hunt for Illidan.
Maiev only caught up to, and stopped Illidan because Kael was there to guide her to him.
With Kael at the Sunwell, there was no one to halt Illidan's spell!
‘Shit! Does this mean all of Northrend is getting sunk into the ocean, or is only Ice Crown getting torn apart?!’ Varrus worried.
Whichever the case, a geological disaster was sure to visit the rest of Azeroth, and there wasn't anything he could do to stop it!
Pulling out his scrying orb, he sent a priority message to the best mages that he knew.
//Kael, Telonicus, Tae'thelon, Alistair, return to the Sunwell immediately. We must prepare a spell to protect Quel'Thalas from a flood!\\
~~~~~~~~~
AN: The butterfly effect works both ways. Varrus changes Kael to become King, but he isn't there to lead Malfurion/Maiev to stop Illidan. Likewise killing the Bronze Dragons was great for the Highborn now, but what else will happen due to their absence? Let the chaos begin!
Comments
Michael DiVelbiss
Grom explained it himself at the conclusion of the Mak'gora. Only an orc can claim another orc to their service. Syra didn't dispute this. It'd just be conflicting for Varrus to reject both of their decisions, and he himself rejected the idea of mind controlling him with a spell because of how many times he'd broken free of mind control and other defining challenges. He was a warrior out of time. There'd be no place for him in Varrus' Covenant
LumbeeJB
I’m really confused by the decision to kill an ally sworn to his house through losing to his wife in Mok’gora. Among the few laws of the orcs, mok’gora is something held in the highest regards. The results are indisputable so long as it was upheld honorably. Even had he ordered him to kill the Garrosh, Grom would have to do it and could only plead the case for him to be spared. Killing off Grom makes no sense to me at all.
Karp
;^) good inspectors cap you got on
santhinal
Ummmm stopping illidean would still happen. You forget malfurion had a vision about all this now, malf and maive might Fail to stop him In time without Kael but they would still make the attempt
Conor McGroarty
Well damn. Would have been most ideal if Illidan could have been interrupted so the damage was minimized. Don’t even want to think what will happen if Illidan’s ritual frees Yogg-Saron too.
