Tormeron's events: the Stories

[Gergel]

After having watched the big demon burn to a crisp in the Blackrock lava and enjoying the wonderful smells of burning fat, Adrenus and company pondered what to do next. "Let's go up!" "Let's go down!" "Let's go to the pub!" were a few of the options presented, but since pub-goers were a clear minority, it was decided to proceed. A few imps tossed almost-harmless fireballs at them and then ran away. It was an obvious trap and an attempt to lure the adventurers to their doom. So they did what any self-respecting adventurer would do and followed the imps in order to spring the trap.

Their trek down one of the massive chains that hold up the island of Forgewright's Tomb in the middle of the cavern was wrought with peril and fireballs. Admittedly, quite small fireballs that didn't even particularly inconvenience Thelarwen, who was at the front. And the group of imps that tossed these fireballs was promptly dispatched by a rain of fire mixed with a shower of ice cast by Chepi and Haldren respectively.

Once at the relative safety of the rock platform, the group reassessed their plans: whether to go deeper into the caverns, or back up the chain and out of the mountain. Their pondering was interrupted by a strange dwarf who attempted to climb up the rocky wall of their platform.

A true son of Ironforge, he appeared to pay no mind to the danger, heat or strangers, and promptly requested their help with hauling up his "treasure": a huge metal casket. It took all of the strength of several people, but finally the coffin was up and the dwarf spent no time in attempting to open it. Glowing runes all over it were a clear warning to everyone, except the dwarf. As Adrenus and his company carefully stepped back, the dwarf tossed all caution into the wind and broke the locks and fire-warding runes.

Then there was quite a big explosion and a gust of smoke which briefly hid the dwarf, the casket and whatever was emerging from it.

When the smoke cleared, the dwarf was lying on the chain quite far from where he had been standing. He had burn marks on his clothing, and he was concussed and unconscious, but alive. The occupant of the container was out and standing before it.

A statue or a golem, twice the size of a man, glowing orange and clearly looking at the group expectantly.

"Identify." it stated. Haldren the mage quickly attempted to take control of the situation, and the golem, by instructing it to "Obey." This did not go over so well with the golem, who calmly stated that it had no intention of obeying the human, only its creators. The good news was that it didn't immediately attack. That was actually somewhat unexpected (considering the behaviour of most creatures Adrenus' adventuring parties usually encountered).

Its creators, apparently, had been Dark Iron dwarves in a fairly recent history. Its original purpose: the destruction of Ironforge. But something had changed. It was no longer in contact with the creators. The orders were no longer valid. And apparently it was expecting new orders and a new purpose.

"Your new purpose... is to hunt demons with us!" Clara suggested.

The golem pondered, but its decision was made for it by a lone imp who just then decided to pop up from where it had been hiding and throw a fireball at the golem. The golem being a superheated construct of stone, the fireball did no damage whatsoever, but it did switch on a self-defence program of some type. It fired a single beam of green energy which struck the imp down instantly.

Thelarwen switched to a simple command language: "Designation: demon. Classification: target."

The golem did not appear to disagree, so the death knight continued: "Targets: additional demons. Mission objective: search and destroy."

"Objective... acceptable." responded the golem and took off in the direction of the northern entrance. The group followed with considerable excitement. The golem could prove quite useful.

As it turned out, the golem did not prove particularly useful at all. A large huge-headed one-eyed black-scaly-skinned demon landed in front of the group in Searing Gorge just outside the mountain. The golem's reaction was to merely say "Interesting specimen", and "Computing how to destroy specimen; impervious to beam attack".

That merely meant that it was time for the adventurers to do what they usually do in such situations: which is to say, smash, slash, shoot fire and ice, and perform other similar dangerous moves directed at the demon.

The demon in turn did its best to distract everyone. It was not a good fighter, in fact it was not much of a fighter at all. It barely defended itself and its attacks consisted of various attempts at mind control. Thelarwen saw imaginary butterflies and birds flying all around and through her. Poor Clara was once again mind-controlled to attack the group, but in this case (probably because the squishy Serendipity was unavailable) she unwisely decided to target Thelarwen and Aroona, who shrugged her attacks off (and eventually Aroona simply sat on top of Clara to keep her from moving around). Chepi had a strange sensation of growing really big then shrinking really small. Adrenus was blinded.

But these distractions failed to save the demon. Aroona, Haldren and Thelarwen proceeded to pummel it with physical and magical attacks. The demon fell, but was not yet out for the count -- instead intensifying its mind-control attacks.

At that point the golem returned to action. It pointed its arm at the thrashing demon, fired a blue beam of frost, and maintained the attack until the demon seemed to implode upon itself and was nothing more than a ball of frozen scales floating above the ground, which Haldren ripped apart with an ice lance.

The golem, having exhausted all of its power, managed to say a final confirmation: "Threat... neutralized."

Then it shut down completely.

No one seemed to care or particularly even notice. Except Thelarwen, who surprisingly had developed a kind of a rapport with it over the past few hours.

Had the one-eyed demon been the lord they had been hunting? The question was quickly answered by a hollering cry of pure joy from several gnolls that were dancing on the rocks nearby. Thelarwen quickly turned into the target of a gnoll group-hug, which she did not even seem to mind so much. The Big Bad had been defeated, and the gnolls had better uphold their end of the bargain and stop attacking Lakeshire, or they would have to deal with Thelarwen the Great Smasher.

Presumably any and all mind control the demon had been maintaining (over Jarec, the old woman, Stormwind soldiers and whoever else) had also dissipated.

---

No one was concerned with the fate of the disabled golem.

Later that night, once the group had split up after having a victory drink, Thelarwen made her way back to the mountain. The inert form of the golem was still standing where it had shut down. It took considerable effort but the death knight was relentless. She dragged it all the way back through the mountain, across the giant iron chains and to the lowest levels just above the lava. Thelarwen ignored the withering heat and compensated with her own frost magic.

"Rest well," she said quietly to the lifeless statue. Then lowered it into the depths of the lava.

As funeral pyres go, a volcano makes quite a magnificent one.