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60. Diving into Problems
🕑 Added 2025-05-24 15:22:15 +0000 UTCIt had been half an hour since my first contact with Charlga Razorflank. And during that time, I got to know her beyond what my fellow Representative Magatha told me.
The Elder Crone had given a pretty accurate representation. After all, as I immediately noticed, they resembled each other, but not a little bit.
I mean, besides being powerful shamans, female and elderly. It said little about their character, but both were scheming, ruthless, and confident.
Even if I saw little of that since my entrance and healing show had slammed her with reality hard.
Unlike Magatha, she hadn't grasped what and who I was, even if she demanded that I come here. Well, until now, that is.
I wasn't a Wild God, but barring Malfurion, it didn't get much closer than that.
That she wanted me to come alone, where she had the upper hand, was a big part of why I had acted like this.
A daring little piggy, if anything, that now understood she had invited something far worse than a wolf into her house of thorns.
Metaphor aside, Shandris and I, with Chen as the mellowing third wheel, asked questions from the Razorfen tribe's leaders to better understand the situation.
I wouldn't call it an interrogation, but we were thorough. The Scourge was no laughing matter and was never to be underestimated, ever.
There was worse out there, but that didn't make the Lich King and his undead empire less of an existential threat.
Regardless, we were gathering information, and as time went on, it became obvious the old female quilboar was desperate.
Her strong facade was well crafted, but it quickly faltered.
What kind of despair? I was unsure if it was about personal power, love for her people, or something else. People like her were hard to understand.
What I knew was that the Scourge had suddenly arrived two months ago. Their leader was a lich named Ammenar the Coldbringer, demanding utter obedience or death.
Evidently, it was answered with extreme violence by the quilboars.
Around fifty of their number were killed in the first battle, and the quilboars thought they had won as the undead retreated.
The next day, the dead warriors were gone, hoof prints to tunnels as the only trace and sign they left in the move in the night. Somehow.
Three days later, the answer came.
The Scourge attacked again with the one they killed in tow, demanding obedience again. The same macabre dance was repeated, early retreat, but this time, the dead rose soon after.
This happened every three days, and the quilboars became worse for wear each time. They rapidly grew exhausted physically and emotionally.
In addition to the extermination the Horde was doing to them, it limited the potential for evacuation, as the two Razorfen burrows were used to gather the refugees.
The burying ground that was raided and dead ancestors desecrated made as many rages as those unable to sleep from dread.
They were slowly whittled down from all the above by a rising swarm of undeath, some of whom were not mindless but all too happy to slaughter their once kin.
Their tactics, which were based on using the death of one for the greater good of the whole, were such a thorn to the Horde and were utterly counterproductive against such a foe.
They progressively lost ground on the Razorfen Downs, water and food rapidly grew scarce; injuries piled up, and disease spread.
The capital had lost half its population already, and a third of the survivors weren't far from following.
Even with reinforcement from Razorfen Kraul and other tribes, they were losing badly.
Despair settled. It was strong enough that Charlga was considering the offer from the infestation head parasite. The Crone didn't word it like this, but it was evident enough.
This invasion would have gone unnoticed without the closeness to the Wild-controlled territories in the Thousand Needles.
It was far too discreet for comfort. Our spies were good, but nothing close to perfection and limited to where we assigned them. We weren't omniscient.
Terror wouldn't begin to describe what I felt about the potential outcome. Even worse, it probably wasn't the only foothold the Scourge was building, just the one we spotted.
We needed to be more active.
"I can accept I was harsh, given the many trials you endured. One must be mighty and wise to survive in such cruel times." I rumbled to the elder quilboar. It seemed that what I said utterly baffled and shocked her.
Her second-in-command's reaction wasn't significantly different.
It was amusing, like they couldn't fathom someone like me would utter those words in that order. It was fair, I suppose.
Chagura showed relief, though she was sharper than she let it appear.
"Still… I don't demand that you bow or obey, but blind stubbornness and rabid aggression aren't a strength. This mission will not see foolishness as its downfall; we will work together. No nonsense, or more than the undead will meet my claws." I finished, bladed fingers clinking as a demonstration.
My words offended Charlga Razorflank, even if she tried not to show it. Ramtusk wasn't so calm, but there was little he could do, or dared to.
"Is that a threat, furbolg?" he barked, trying and failing to be intimidating. Our guards weren't moved beyond tensing up from a readiness to defend us.
The quilboars behind replicating the display quills puffing out, and nostrils flaring, didn't garner any stronger reaction.
But their rapid booming drum in their ribcage and smell was distinctively laced with fear.
The Razorfen Overlord wasn't a weak creature or even less so unskilled by any stretch of the words. His movements were trained, precise, and those of a predator well-versed in war.
He was a mighty warrior, and his scars showed the numerous battles he had won. If I were to denigrate him, I would aim elsewhere.
He would hold his ground against a ursa totemic if he stayed away until he grew exhausted, tried to block, or was more than grazed.
But by the Twin Bears, he was out of his league. Charlga would equalize the scale, but that was only delaying what was, at best, a brutal death.
Shandris answered in my stead for this feeble attempt, voice measured, "Worded threats are for ones that cannot act. Your people are on the brink and, by your admittance, delusional enough to bow to that perfidious lich."
"An unpleasant truth, but irrelevant with your arrival. Razorfen Downs will not fall with your help. For that, I'm grateful." The Crone finally gathered herself up and stared right back at Feathermoon's eyes, "For that… I would lend every bit of manpower at my disposal."
"Great! I was getting bored," Chen chimed in with a grin, and a strategy was drawn in record time.
It wasn't complex by any means; there was no need to. Any trap based on deceit would be seen through, and Ammenar was viewed as already aware of our presence and why we came.
Truth be told, we didn't manage to finish our planning before we were attacked. We didn't even get a tenth of the way through.
The lich moved fast. At first, it was the angry rumbling and shaking of the earth, and the possibility of an earthquake was short-lived. Not that the shamans present didn't point this out immediately.
The stench of decay grew overbearing in an instant, and a temperature drop made the source of the trembling self-evident.
Then came the rattling of bones, squelches of rotting flesh, and screeches echoing far and wide in the tunnels. From that alone, I estimated a force in the thousands and rising.
With the unholy orchestra of the Scourge came the sound of battle orders and screams, blades, arrows, a variety of weapons, and magic. All were exchanged without restraint among the cacophony.
I didn't wait any further than the first hint of decay in my nose before rushing out.
What I saw was chaos. My blood boiled, and rage welled up in my heart. Hundreds were dead from the initial surprise of the attack.
The ground was caved in many places, entire tunnels were ripped open, and the undead were climbing out in droves like pulsating wounds infected with flesh-eating maggots.
Abominations, ghouls, nerubians, quilboars, trolls, and much more were among them, with more variety than I had seen in the last war. Only the dragons were missing.
Their rotted carcasses held by pestilential magics shifted together as one entity as if they were a colony of ants building a bridge out of themselves.
Any quilboars or Wild soldiers in those areas who couldn't fly immediately were torn apart into bloody chunks. Their death was more of an agonizing execution where they were devoured alive.
I heard their screams and felt their life force be extinguished. I was powerless to stop it, and anger bloomed, fiery yet cold. Outside of those pitfalls, the battle raged on, and terrains were our strengths, and it was used entirely.
The thorns of the Razorfen were dangerous, but plants of that shape weren't absent from Ashenvale. Our force danced among them, even furbolgs and taurens, though among the first of the latter, all had form capable of flight.
My eyes caught one of mine and Malfurion's most promising students–it depended on who had the time to teach–Hamuul Runetotem.
With a long enchanted spear in hand, he fought with the quilboars using skill, magic, and brute force in perfect synergy.
His treant companion was coiling around his body like armor, letting him weather the tide and fight better.
Hega, to his left, made sure he wasn't caught off guard. She was an ursa totemic trying to walk in my step and came flying with me here.
This was but one fraction of a whole, and none of my immediate concern as a thunderous bellow left my lungs, my throat aching from the effort put into it.
My voice carried across the battlefield and beyond, so strong it was.
"Fight! Endure! Adapt! For the Wild!"
"FOR THE WILD!" And it was repeated, loud and clear, with some of the quilboars joining in.
My arrival was an added layer of morale that only thickened as the millions of healing spores from my exoskeleton wafted in the air in transparent crimson and green, misty clouds.
Like a drizzle, they rained down.
The living were healed and energized while the dead screamed in agony, they shouldn't be capable of feeling. To them, it might as well be boiling acid.
I lunged into the fray, paws and vines with Life and Nature energy coiling within. Through its antithesis, I became a maelstrom of death, carving a path forward and healing everyone in range.
I became a beacon to follow.
Silvery arrows bathed in divine starlight soon came down on the other side, giving way to our force and the quilboars.
The Razorfen was slowly moving with them, the figure of Chagura in the back with more quilboars and their hands glowing green high in the air. Thornweavers.
Opposite to that, three ethereal ursine shapes unmade Scourge filth with surgical precision and graceful haste. Chen wasn't alone in this endeavor beyond that of kaldorei, kobolds, taurens, furbolg, and quilboars.
Covering them was a concentrated beam of fire that slammed down from a fiery crystal above, while a green one rhythmically pulsed wind blasts, sending ghouls flying right below where a brown crystal glowed, and stone spikes impaled them.
The work of Charlga.
We were caught off guard and paid the price with lives I couldn't save.
But the tide shifted fast, and the surprise wore off.
The quilboars were used to the Scourge tactics, and we were also extensively prepared and far better equipped.
We had healers, priests, paladins, druids, and shamans keeping the frontline alive where I couldn't.
I continually emitted the spore infused with my mana, and they wafted in the air as both offense and defense.
They wouldn't heal much by themselves, but fatigue was kept at bay, and smaller injuries didn't accumulate as quickly. The closer to me, the greater the healing, and everyone in my vicinity was forbidden from dying outside of straight-up fatal injuries.
And if those weren't brain-related or complex, they were walking again soon after, raised again by my will to fight.
Still, the Scourge wasn't weakening.
My claws deflected the axe of a quilboar death knight, his blue empty sockets for eyes brightening in shock from the force.
Half of his torso was ripped out and flung away from the sheer momentum, and where my bladed claws passed, he was cut apart and became dust.
My ears swiveled on instinct as I felt the ground shake; something immense was approaching, climbing down from below. With it, a stench of death like nothing I had ever sensed came in rolling waves.
That lapse in my focus proved to be a mistake. And paid the price immediately.
I felt the telltale of teleportation from Arcane coalescing to my left, and five ice spikes flew at high speed from this side point-blank.
I couldn't dodge or react, merely widening my eyes as the first skewered my left one, breaking the outside armor and destroying the organ. The frigid temperature ensured the little remaining died.
The four others impacted the rest of my face, ripping out an ear and cutting my nose open. Burning pain bloomed from there, and the spike in my face.
The last two planted themselves in my armored neck and throat, the first doing nothing, and the second grazing my throat from the articulation it went through.
This attack would have killed me if not for preemptive organic armor around my vitals, like my brain–it was thicker behind my eyes–stopping the projectile dead in its tracks.
Every fucking time, it was always my face with the eyes as favorites. Ancestors only knew how it pissed me off.
Vines and barks ripped the water crystals out, leaving frostbite in their wake that immediately healed. Or so, for the most part, my eye would need a bit more time given its complex structure.
I roared, and my one good eye glowered at the culprit. It was a tall skeleton floating in a robe and holding a staff, faintly shining from the spell cast.
He stood further away, having teleported right after his failed assassination. I recognized who this was instantly.
"A fellow master of death! How intriguing. Based on what I read, your physicality seems to have undergone a drastic transformation. Fascinating. Is that a symbiosis of plant and animal cells? I cannot wait to dissect you-" I was already on Ammenar, for it couldn't be anyone else.
From my shoulders, dozens upon dozens of sharp seeds and thorns exploded outward; alas, none touched the lich. A wall of ice was raised, shielding his delicate form.
No matter, the seeds settled in the ground to germinate. Their roots were to take.
I shattered the Arcane-made structure, my claws a deep ruby and emerald hue, cleaving a third of that monster's face mid-teleportation.
The Coldbringer reappeared ten meters away, deep in his undead horde, screaming in sweet agony.
A bony hand was over his mutated skull to hide his hanging jaws, and cracked bone barely held together by threads of necrotic magic.
There was fury in his flaming eyes, but I didn't care. I was moving again, seeds and thorns leaving my bio-armor as I beat down the tide of undeath to destroy my target.
"Enough! Tartek!" Ammenar screeched as ice shaped into existence from the butt of his staff, enough for me only to cleave his ribs open just before he teleported again.
My irritation grew. I despised fighting mages, even if they had only been liches till now. Ammenar the Coldbringer was only the last offender.
I growled, my head snapping when he reappeared beside one of the caves. Then a gargantuan hand of stitched-together corpses grabbed the edge, cracking it as a second hand came with a blade fitting such size.
It was a hunk of metal bigger than I was.
Together, they hoisted up an abomination that made them feel small, and from the depths of my heart, I felt revolted with visceral disgust.
It was a towering, bulbous body easily three times my height and many more than my weight. A patch works from thousands of corpses and souls sewn together with the tethering care of horrid rituals.
There was no hanging gut from an open stomach or any of the imperfections that an abomination always had.
It had armor, a helmet, pauldrons, and a chest plate with chainmail hugging its bulging abdomen, none of which were crap or badly taken care of.
Yet the proportions were wrong, a morbidly obese body with legs too small and arms too thin yet muscular. It was a mockery of the living with pale, fetid, translucent skin turning from sickly green to dark brown.
It was what the lich called, Tartek. It made the battlefield pause by its sheer size and presence. It was mightier than any undead I had ever seen and not inferior to the entire undead army combined.
The too-emotive face was pale, dark, and sickly green in a visage of profound rage as those beady eyes full of childlike malice locked on me.
It moved and did so at a speed it shouldn't be capable of; its weapon was raised high and slammed down on me, leaving only my claws as defense. There was a loud clanging and sparks, the lump of metal centimeters away from clubbing my skull.
I felt the impact deep in my bones, but I held on, my arms straining and trembling from the sheer power of the hit. My paws dug into the soil, roots stopping any further movement with great difficulty.
I wouldn't be able to hold for long; this thing was strong, stronger than me, to my brief shock.
It was an unpleasant reminder; Chen didn't make me a monk, he couldn't, but I grew in strength through a better understanding of life force and its flow.
This abomination was still mightier. Not by much, but it was.
Ammenar didn't stay idle; he moved his mana, preparing to cast a powerful spell. It was likely going to be a repeat of what he tried first.
"Good! My dearest creation, hold this beast down for me, would you? I would make you a pet." But I didn't stay put either.
Vines infused with my mana whipped those offending hands holding that sword-shaped mace.
"Ow! Bad puppy! No hurty me fingees!" The titan of an abomination cried the voice of a young child distorted by the deepened tone such a body gave with the suffering of a village in one body.
Claws wide open with the muscle in my vines taut, I used the abomination's hand as leverage to launch myself forward.
Magic flowed through me, letting me imitate some of what Chi permitted to enhance them—breaking limit at the cost of some muscle tears. Overkill perhaps, but there was nothing better.
And I wasn't far from my goal.
In the blink of an eye, I was on the undead patchwork, with thorns and bones anchoring me in the blubbery elastic flesh. It screamed again, meaty hands struggling to grab me.
The chainmail was nothing against me if not wet paper, the metal ripping, popping, and bending with the most minimal of effort.
My blades slashed, and its now exposed round belly open where my claws were already damaged in my initial assault.
The thick, flabby skin and cold, hardened fat relented to my wrath.
There was no blood, only filthy ichor as vibrant purple guts spilled out like a fountain of black-whitish pus and piss-yellow and green rot from the fleshy ribbons of a gaping wound. A vertical slice followed, and a diagonal from my back paws as I let raw violence flow.
Tartek cried in shock and pain; this time, it was even louder, and it grew an octave higher as I dove headfirst into the hole I made.
