Death Never Dies

by Milton Garby

  "Not on my watch!" Fardol roared, summoning more of the Holy Light. A chime filled the air as a winged crown appeared above Leira, shrouding her in a transparent gray orb as she kept attacking the construct's head. Its hands scrabbled at the holy barrier, but to no avail.

  By this point, everyone still standing aimed their spells at its legs, hoping to topple the construct. The scarabs had ceased to swarm without their qiraji masters to guide them, so Sara joined Fardol in the others in trying to topple the construct from the ground up while Leira began to accumulate damage on its head, her face the epitome of ferocity.

  The obsidian destroyer stopped what it was doing and lifted its left hand into the air. Arcane light glinted around its hand and Sara felt another effect grab hold of her soul. Unlike the magic suppressor, which was crushing, this one was pulling. Out of her body, and the bodies of everyone else casting spells and even Fardol, streams of pulsating blue-white energy drained out and swirled around the construct's hand, flowing into its body in a steady stream of mana.

  "No!" Fardol shouted. "Take it down, take it down now!" A bone-shattering punch from him finally snapped its left hind leg, but it continued to stand on three and channel the mana spell.

  Sara put her back into it, blasting it more and more even as she began to grow dizzy from blood loss. She wasn't sure, but she could've sworn she saw light beginning to glisten between the cracks of its stone skin and a deep hum resonated in the air. And then...

  Crack! Its other hind leg shattered in two and its lower body fell down. Surprised, the obsidian destroyer interrupted its own channel to inspect the damage, and in that time Leira drove the dagger into its left eye like a pickaxe. She hammered it in with one fist as the construct roared, flinging itself about, but then the dagger went deeper still and the obsidian destroyer froze.

  Slowly at first, it listed to the side and fell. Leira left the dagger where it was and leaped off once it crashed into the ground, motionless. The light inside of it faded and the humming went away, and Sara's magic's mist was already blowing away.

  All was quiet.

  "We... we did it," Sara whispered.

  The draenei ran over to her while Fardol collected everyone else and started healing them with the Light. She crouched over Sara and gasped. "Holy shit Sara, are you okay?"

  "Do I look okay?" she groused, glancing down at her broken legs and increasingly bloody pants. "Ah, shit..."

  "Hold still, I'll help." Leira held her hands over the wound and narrowed her eyes. The blue light seemed to grow intense, and an azure naaru sigil appeared over her forehead.

  "Wait, what are you - " Then she began to scream. At least she thought she did, because all she felt was her throat vibrating air and all she heard was her own frantic heartbeat. It was molten lead poured onto her body. It was a tanker of salt water dumped upon her wounds. It was needles stuck inside her flesh and thrust sideways. Sara thrashed and surely she was screaming because Leira was holding her down, her eyes wide and trying to speak something but she couldn't hear her, could barely see through all the red, couldn't feel anything besides the hands of Ragnaros the Firelord massaging her legs.

  Then it ended and Sara went limp, breathing heavily. The sigil over Leira's head was gone, but her jaw hung wide open. To the side, everyone else stared at her. "By the Light Sara, what was that?!"

  "I hate you," she wheezed. "I hate you so much. What did you do to me?" Sara demanded.

  "I healed you. Look at your legs. Think you can stand?"

  "Healed?" She glanced down. Sure enough, the shattered bones jutting from her thighs were gone and while the blood she'd lost remained, she felt none of the symptoms of blood loss and wasn't losing any more of the vital fluid. "Healed. Thanks I, I owe you one. Just help me up."

  "No problem, here." Leira reached out a hand and Sara accepted the help. She stumbled once, then found her balance and limped over to one of the corpses, phantom pain still lingering about her calves.

  "What are you doing?" Leira hissed.

  "Reviving him," she groaned. "We've still got a little journey ahead of us and this fight took up too much time as it is. Especially since half our people just vanished." It irked her that the Hammer had gotten away in the chaos of the qiraji attack. They'd even took their dead, so interrogating the fallen wasn't a possibility. They could've been preparing for a counter attack. Though then again... maybe not. Hopefully the qiraji would keep them busy.

  "You sure? I mean, we just got attacked by the qiraji and we're barely inside! Maybe you should call it quits."

  She snapped her head over to glare at Leira. "Not. An. Option," she ground out. "Please let me focus. Let me resurrect them and we can go from there."

  Looking over the body of the man, Sara nodded to herself. He was one of their warlocks, a tall and muscled man with blonde hair afflicted by male pattern baldness despite his youth. She let her faceless magic flow, reaching out and grasping his soul to begin dragging it back. It was just as difficult as it had been with the Twilight cultist in her bedroom over a month ago, but all the same the slash across his neck healed up and with a flash of green light, the warlock sputtered back to life. His eyes darted back and forth, confused. "What... where? How did I?"

  "Leira, can you explain it to him? I have to get to the other four." Leaving the draenei to explain to the man what had happened, Sara dragged herself to the other body. It was a little gnome woman, and she breathed out a sigh of relief. Gnomes. Gnomes were small, so she'd probably be easier to resurrect than the man had been.

  Maria walked next to her, a thin scar across her forehead. "Holy shit, you can actually do it?" she asked.

  "Yes," Sara grunted. It was easier to resurrect the gnome, but it still took some effort. After about ten seconds of casting she was done, and the woman sputtered back to life now that she no longer lacked a large chunk of her intestines. "Fardol!" she shouted. The paladin looked her way. "Is everyone healed up?"

  "Aye they are, Sara. Ya really bringin' them back to life?"

  "I am. Two down, three to go." She walked over to the next corpse, but someone else got in her way.

  She grabbed her shoulders and pulled herself far too close for comfort. "Please! It's Alendin, he's, he's dead! Please, you said you can revive him right? Please you have to hurry!"

  "But - " Sara tried to push forward but the teary eyed mage stayed in her way. "Fine! Is he that one?" she asked, pointing at a body slumped on the side of the stairs. The woman, a hair trigger away from sobbing, nodded mutely. "Fine. I'll do him next." Sara didn't even approach him, casting the resurrection spell from where she stood. Like it always did, emerald magic shone from her hands and scraped along her bones - especially her legs - and then he was alive again.

  "Thank you! Thank you thank you thank you!" The woman ran over to him and began fussing over the confused man, leaving Sara to resurrect the last two people in peace. Once the last woman was back, Sara slumped down onto the ground and breathed out heavily. Her head spun and her breaths came in ragged breaths. She still had quite a bit of mana left, but she'd never in her life spent so much magic in a single sitting, or over channeled for so long.

  While she rested, one of the people she'd revived - the gnome - approached her. "Sara, did you really - ?" Sara nodded. The gnome bowed her head, blue pigtails bouncing. "Thank you. Light bless you, Sara."

  Light bless her. Ha. Speaking of the Light, what had Leira done to her? Sure she had faceless magic, but that didn't mean holy healing spells would burn her. Did it?

  Eventually, everyone was gathered and Sara stood to face them and speak. "Alright, it appears that - "

  Fardol interrupted her. "They already know, Sara. I told 'em on the way here about what to expect. Though sure wasn't countin' on the qiraji attackin' us too."

  "Why not? We're in Ahn'Qiraj, it's always been a possibility." He'd told them. He'd told them?! She told him that she would handle it and he went around doing it anyway?! Never mind that she didn't actually handle it, bu
t he had the nerve to circumvent her authority?! "It doesn't matter. We're all healed up and now that those leeches are gone, we can make some progress. Sun's going down, so - "

  "Hang on!" a man shouted. "You can't be serious can you? We all almost died! We should head back while we still can!" Murmurs of agreement filled the air. "This was a fool's errand!"

  "A fool's errand?! We beat the shit out of them!" she challenged. "Even when they got the drop on us with that magic suppressor, where are we and where are they huh? They're being chased into a corner by the qiraji and here we are no worse for the wear! We even killed an obsidian destroyer! We spent so long coming here, so much money coming here, and you want to call it quits just because we got into a little fight? When you signed up KNOWING that was a possibility?!"

  "Fighting the Twilight's Hammer was never part of the agreement!" he challenged. "And where were you huh? Fardol told us all about how you weren't doing anything about them, and he had to do all the heavy lifting!" Sara's eyes widened, then narrowed in anger. She exhaled through her nose. "You clearly don't care about any of us! 'Oh, a doomsday cult is using us to get to C'Thun? Who cares?' Why should we stick around when - "

  Sara crossed her arms and rapidly uncrossed them, lashing at the sand and stairs with a miniature shadow nova. "SHUT UP!" she roared, then lowered her voice dangerously. "I don't know if any even remember why you're here. No, clearly you don't. We're here because sooner or later the Liberality Confederacy is going to find the last Old God and kill it!And guess what happens then? That's right, the entire planet gets destroyed! We absolutely have to identify their parasitic spell and have a counterspell up and running by the time that happens, but do you know who's working on it? US! Everyone else is going around saying 'Oh, we'll do it later. Oh, it's someone else's problem.' Well guess what? We're that 'someone else'! So unless you want to go and say that you'd rather have the entire damn planet get destroyed than roll up your sleeves and get a little dirty, we're continuing and that is FINAL!" she roared, heart hammering in her chest.

  "Any questions?" she growled. Nobody spoke. "Good. Pick up the shit they left behind and let's go. We're behind schedule as it is." Sara turned around and they all started picking their stuff back up. Luckily nothing had been damaged in the fight: the expedition could continue as planned, and without the dead weight.

  Sara was almost glad Higris had attacked. It was certainly the most exciting thing to happen on the trip and had caught her off guard. She'd been so certain she had him wrapped around her finger with the whole 'faceless magic' routine. If it hadn't caused her so much damn pain and almost ruined everything she had worked so hard to achieve and pitted everyone against her, she could've forgiven him. As it was he had broken her nose, trapped her magic, gotten her legs broken, and burned by the Holy Light. She was going to kill him. Slowly. Maybe she'd give him a Heart Murmur.

  Burned by the Holy Light...

  Pushing the thought from her head, she continued leading the trek into the Temple of Ahn'Qiraj. They stopped for food and water, and took a few more measurements in stark silence. The sun went beneath the horizon, but they reached the caverns before the cold could do much harm. The entrance was concealed behind a massive set of stairs, with crumbling stone pillars and an enormous replica of the Scarab Gong standing tall and proud between them. It was behind the structure that the majority of Ahn'Qiraj's subterranean structure was located, and it was there that they took shelter from the cold.

  The caves were enormous and silent. The sand gave way to moist, packed dirt, and rotting purple tissue clung to the walls. Dimly glowing sacks hung from the ceiling, providing a minuscule amount of light. Scattered around like trash were dozens of empty insect exoskeletons. They ranged from the size of a large dog to nearly twice the size of the obsidian destroyer.

  Sara led them through the tunnels, heading to the left and spiraling downwards into the lukewarm earth. The caverns were malformed in shape, like flowing water except for the places where they opened up into enormous caverns, with roofs arching high above, so high Sara wondered how they didn't poke through the surface. In each of the larger caverns they went through she had them stop and take more readings. In each of the caverns, they approached C'Thun and her nerves threatened to make her start jumping and squealing like a child on a sugar high.

  Her group finished up another set of readings in a chamber that housed the corpse of an enormous sand reaver, and continued to plummet. Sara's gaze wandered up to the ceiling, and her skin itched nervously. It wasn't enough that she'd been attacked by the cultists, an anti-magic constructs, and the qiraji, but now she had to be underground as well with so many tons of soil and stone ready to plummet upon her?

  ... actually, now that she thought of it neither the qiraji nor the silithid had attacked her. She was tempted to chalk that up to her faceless powers, but it was foolish of her to just suddenly write off everything unusual that happened as a result of her powers. There had to be something she was missing.

  I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to -

  But what?

  A hand suddenly grasped her left shoulder and she snapped her head over to glare at whoever had snuck up on her. "WHAT?!" Leira jerked away from her, eyes wide. Sara winced and relaxed. "Sorry," she muttered. "It's just, you know, everything that's happened. What do you need?"

  "Do you want to talk about what happened back there? You know, when I healed you?"

  A shiver gently crawled down her spine on spider legs. "Not really but... okay hang on." She flashed a bit of magic into Leira's mind, connecting the right strings to her own, and nodded.

  'Okay,' Sara sent. 'I guess I owe you this much. So um, you know how I have my powers.'

  'Duh. Anything new?'

  'Well, I'd gotten my Magister title. Two years ahead of schedule too, not exactly record breaking but pretty damn impressive if I do say so myself,' she said confidently. 'So I figured hey, why settled for that? Why not just go for broke and shoot for Archmage? Problem is I had no idea what to do my dissertation on. I needed something big, something unexplored, but also something within my abilities. And then I realized hey, my shadow magic's been pretty unusual all my life. Maybe I could use that. So... I did. I got my hands on my magic signature.' Leira didn't need to know how she'd mind controlled someone. Sara didn't want to hear how disappointed the warrior would be. 'It didn't look like... anything like a human's magic signature should be, Leira. I went to compare it to other magical signatures and the only one it resembled was... it was... '

  'Easy, take a deep breath. It can't be that bad.'

  She did. The air was warm and while not exactly humid, it wasn't as achingly dry as above ground. 'Alright. It resembled the magic signature of a faceless one. I have the same magic they do, Leira, so from there I got the idea to research the Old Gods and here we are.'

  The draenei's eyes went wide and she released a slow breath. 'Oh... wow. That really explains a lot actually.' Leira took a step away from Sara, drawing a wince from her. 'So... are you okay?'

  'I guess. I know the 'what' of my powers now, but I still need to know the how and why. And then you used the Light to heal my legs. Thanks for that by the way, it'd really suck if I couldn't walk.'

  '... and the Light didn't really agree with your magic. Sara could you please, um, break the link? I need to think a little.'

  'I... ' Sara looked away from her friend. 'I, sure.' A flicker of shadow magic and the telepathy was over. There, it was done. Leira knew the story now, and judging by how she was putting distance between the two of them she wasn't exactly keen on staying close to her. And why would she? The power of the faceless was all-corruptive, foul and wicked; it had to be quarantined didn't it?

  They took readings from two more chambers. One was a regular cave, but the other was made of dark bricks and shaped like a colossal triangle, with two podiums complete with stairs. Two incredibly large hunks of chitin resided at the top of each podium, most likely the deceased twin emperors of the qiraji. The ambie
nt magic was certainly changing so close to the body of C'Thun, but even the hum of power surging through the land and up into Sara couldn't overshadow her unease at being so precariously beneath the ground. How structurally sound were these caverns? How long had it been since anything came by to perform maintenance on them?

  After a quick stop for food and water they continued on, deeper and deeper, and then the soil and organic structures gave way again to stone, patterned in rectangles and strange interlocking puzzle-piece bricks. Light now came only from the oil lanterns they had brought, peeling away the pitch black with flickering orange light. Then they came to a sort of loop; the hallway split to the left and right, then conjoined on the far end. On the far end however was a single passage towards the inside of the 'loop', down a relatively puny flight of stairs. And down that flight of stairs was the final chamber. Sara led them to the stairwell, and all of them beheld the sight of their destination.

  It was absolutely enormous, maybe half the size of the Trade District in Stormwind but without buildings and stalls in the way. Its sheer scale was absolutely imposing even within the weak lantern light. The shape was as though someone had taken a circle, elongated it, and cut off the resulting oval at the halfway point. The entry stairs were at the edge of the rounded portion, and on the far side was a raised platform with two rusty gongs on them, each emblazoned with the image of a scarab. Pillars surrounded the edge of the rounded portions, with long dead torches affixed to the wall between each. The brick pattern of the floor was in complete disrepair, sometimes broken by a line of greenish squares snaking around the floor. Craters the size of Sara, craters the size of of a drake had been punched in the floor complete with rubble strewn about haphazardly. In the center of it all was the corpse of the terrible Old God, C'Thun.

  There was no creature on the planet Sara could've ever hoped to compare C'Thun with, but if she had to try her first choice would have been an octopus. The tentacles, and indeed the entire body, were pale tan as if made to camouflage in the desert. The tentacles were covered in armor plating with white spines the size of a tauren bull sticking off from them. The eight tentacles sank beneath the soil and trailed off to places unknown.