The next IC report from Verzan Skywise covering the second main event in our Desolace campaign!
Battle Report - Cultist Fort and the Half demon
We Scouted late into the night and flew back to camp at Dawn. Knowing the lay of the land was important. Every hill in Desolace looks like the last grey hill for the most part, I’d been cursing their existence since we got here but on this night, we would use the grey hills to our advantage.
We were heading to the abandoned Thunderaxe Fortress. The old ruin was made to last, its walls sturdy against the winds across Desolace and though aged clearly, they were still strong and the Fortress itself quite the imposing feature cleaving its place into the surrounding landscape. Can’t say the thought of trying to fight it sounded very appealing after the incidents in Stonetalon.The only good to add to this was that at least the Cult present within the Fort was not huge, they didn’t have the numbers to man every watch tower, only those by the front gate and they did not occupy the whole Fortress. It made scouting easier but more importantly it would make getting in a little cleaner.
I was given the honour of being Alpha for the attack by Varog’Gor Razaron Madeye.
We had a number of passing orcs who, much like the Mercenaries, lent their strength to our clans efforts tonight. Ussa Tideseeker and Grakaz Wildfang. It left our clan mustering one of the larger war parties it has in some months, even with many of our number still held captive.
The Druids of the Cenarion circle had also been attacked on the road by the warlocks and their nefarious kin, much like the caravan riders we were attempting to rescue. This meant we had some aerial support from their Hippogryph riders, though they were less than clear about what shape that help would be until we got to the fort.
I’d like to say - I had a plan.
We rode out of the camp and headed north in the direction of Thunderaxe Fortress. Had to get into the shadow of one particularly well placed hill. Well placed for us, poorly placed for the Cult.
It was something of a mad dash to the shadow of the hill with Rykana Skywise on her wyvern in the skies above but we seemed not to be spotted though there was a guard of four cultists and the main gate itself was closed.
The Cenarion circle riders circled the Fort and from their saddles they began to hurl ‘packets’ that struck the cultists and scattered into rapidly growing seeds that spawned dozens of tangling vines wrapping their ankles and binding them in place.The distraction was more than helpful as Thronk with his shield and Zasa Riverscale were sent forward. Zasa called upon her powers of the earth to bring down their gate with a tremendous crash, the cultists could do very little but watch slack jawed as two great earth like hands tore the aging timbers to splinters right before them.
We sounded the charge and a dozen orcs and their mounts charged up the hill.
Four Cultists were not enough to stop us as they were very quickly cut down where the roots held them and we raced past into the Fortress through the shattered gate.
‘Bloodmoon, tell me you know what that is’ I can remember saying to Gashuk Bloodmoon, the clan’s expert on such things. Yet even he wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking at when we entered and beheld a sight of demonic summoning.
[14:25]
Before us a darkly runed fighting pit. Cultists with murder knives and sacrifical offerings stood cackling within it. While a team worked together to our right flank summoning a terrible demonic hound.
The sight that captured my gaze was neither of these things but the grim sight of the huge half demon corpse sprawled half in and half out of the twisting portal. It was larger than a garn but dead? I didn’t understand. We didn’t stick around waiting for it to tell us the flavor of doom that awaited either.Ordok Axebite, Gul’rok Ragehowl, Gorgrak Stormhowl and Grakaz Wildfang. Engaged with the summoners and their hound, fighting hard to force their way into the building they defended. This would be the building that held the captives and for what I saw it was taken by those orcs who charged it.
For the rest of us battle lay elsewhere across the pit of death, charging the summoners casting there. Guided by Meri Soulwalkers insight we could navigate the trap laid out before us, smashing the magic bound into the runes and racing upto the foot of the portal gateway.
The voice of the slain warlock from several nights ago rang out clear as if he had been standing before us, his spirit twisted by the Nether was still lurking just beyond the threshold. This, he announced, was still all part of his plan for us. I attempted to punt the large demon corpse back through the portal - it was too big.
A gem rested embedded into the monstrous body’s throat and though we chopped at it, when our strikes came close a hot rush of boiling air drove us back away from it.Veins and flesh under the skin of the demonic corpse rippled in grotesque ways when, in a flash of light, the gem became occupied. The corpse possessed with the Warlock spirit as it snapped its jaws and bathed the ground in fiery spew.
All many of us could do was chop at it or rescue our allies from its fiery breath. It was Bloodmoon who tore down the portal runes, smashing the last of whatever magic kept the gateway open. When the last rune cracked and breathed the last of its shadows into the world, the portal without warning slipped shut, like the sharp blade of a knife it cleaved the demon in half–
This did not have the desired effect of murdering the monster. Instead half the creature lurched forwards onto its palms and wrenched itself forward into a charge, hurling orcs into the nearby ruins and smashing others to ground.It was during this time that Gorgrak Stormhowl raced over to join us, speaking of how the prisoners were being lifted to safety by the Cenarion riders but how Gul’rok Ragehowl had suffered a terrible wound at the jaws of the Fel hound. His message was stifled by the fight against the half-demon as he too was caught up in the brawl.
None of our physical strikes could halt it, as it slithered and flailed after us. Feats of daring bravery were countless as orcs hauled their allies away from claws or leapt in front of them with shields. Blows that would have killed Alliance soldiers seemed to do little to its hide.It was at this point it became clear that the void magic Meri Soulwalker had been casting was actually causing the spirit of the Warlock the most injury, she announced loudly that it didn’t like the taste of its own magic.
Then in that same moment. Bloodmoon pulled from his pocket of tricks something equally as terrible as the demon itself. The sorcerer’s shape began to twist and change into something I am told is powerful blood magic. A Dire orc. He was no longer the ‘small’ former fel caster but now something hulking and monstrous.
He grappled the demon and halted its charging around while I cleaved at its elbow. While this happened many of the fighting orcs called out what our target should be.
The gem stone still embedded at the creature’s throat.In a sharp burst of nimble energy Eliff Watersong rolled under the creature, plucking the gem from its neck in a spray of blood and guts and stuff. Hurling it into the air high above the fighting where Bloodmoon’s hulking form leapt up, grasping it tightly to crush it in his meaty hand.
With the gem destroyed, the demon corpse fell, defeated.
Our shaman burned it until little remained of it but ashes and failure.In victory we had earned our nights rest. The captured caravan travellers had been couriered out of danger by the Cenarion riders and we found them at the Glade when our travels brought us back there. Though we could rest, it was an uneasy choice to make. Many of the clan are still held captive and so our attention turns to preparing for attack on Shadowprey village.
We have to prepare - It is our belief right now the villagers are mind controlled in some way, we need to make ready to fight and take their camp through non-lethal means.
–Verzan Skywise–
