They've gotten this far -- it would be a total waste to give away their presence to anyone connected to the enemy, or to anyone, for that matter, with something as simple as a dry twig.
Rikimaru cursed at the situation. He was heir to the satyr kingdom, but he spurned that chance for an opportunity to live his own life, and not the life of a whole race. Now the consequences of this choice seem to be crashing straight down at him. He wouldn't even be alive had he not been late in arriving at the guild's rendezvous point. Arthas and his acolytes somehow got wind of the meeting and finished almost all of the guild's members.
The only remaining other one, as far as he knows, was a hazy green blur about a hundred feet to his left, scouting the surroundings for anything unusual, and walking as carefully as he was.
Mortred, an elven warden-assassin, had a bad reputation of having friends that ended up dead with daggers in their backs. That these daggers were admittedly hers made everyone in the guild wary of even trusting her. But Rikimaru had no choice now but to trust her. He had spied her prowling around the massacre site, tears of anger flowing from her dark blue eyes.
"So, even one such as you can manage tears in times like these, eh?" he asked as they walked away.
"This only happens when I plan to kill not for money, but for my own sense of equilibrium," she whispered.
----
News of a Burning Legion has filtered throughout the land, filling the people with fear of their new king, and what sort of allegiances he had made when he was out there in the northern lands.
Rikimaru and Mortred had readily decided that they were not going to live under such circumstances, and promised themselves to help whomever tries to stand against Arthas.
But if they did decide to fight, they would have to overcome the blight and rot that came with Arthas's newfound troops. Something, anything, any way at all that will not compromise their invisibility and stealth, while giving them enough energy to use their deadly skills on these undead scum.
Fact was, the blight affected even those who were invisible. And even though they can't be seen, the blight sapped away at their energy, making them ineffective fighters. That was how the guild got massacred.
They won't allow that to happen again.
There was a story, legend or fact they knew not, of a relic made by the Ogre Magi, that infused the bearers with an unusual energy upon use. The relic was called "the Mekansm", four pieces of seemingly ill-shaped Kalimdor magus stones that once brought together and fitted with each other, brought to its master an uncanny boost in vitality and energy.
Rikimaru thought of this as an astute way of countering the blight, and so he convinced Mortred of searching for it -- the last known location would logically be where the last Ogre Magi had been known to live, deep in the forests of Frostvale.
----
They were drawing near to it, somehow the satyr in him felt it. And he was thankful that Mortred was silent about her impatience. She wasn't convinced of the relic's existence. Maybe she just had to get away and do something, that's why she came with him. It didn't matter, he thought. Once we got the relic, what a useful weapon it would be.
After 6 days and 5 nights of walking, they finally came to the Frozen Falls -- the last known bastion of the Ogre Magi before they were almost wiped out by the Orcs in the War of the Magi. Some survived, though he knew not where they were now.
The cave should be right here, he thought. To the left, was that what the legend said?
"Psst." He heard Mortred call to him. She was motioning for him to come.
There it was, to the left of the falls, under a withered oak, the cave entrance. He ought to feel nice about himself, confirming at least that part of the story to be true... if not for the gigantic arachnid that lay asleep covering the entrance.
"Ok. Big-ass spider. Your move?" Mortred had a hint of a smile as she whispered this.
"Yeah." The legend spoke of a guardian of the cave, so this must be it.
Rikimaru motioned for Mortred to approach the hulking spider. She prods him with a gesture of her head... "You go first."
Finding no support from her, he approached the slumbering arachnid. He hardly made his third step toward it when...
"WHO DARES APPROACH Anub'Haran?", the spider's voice echoed through the forest and shook the leaves of the ancient oaks.
"It is I, rightful heir and king of the satyr kingdom. I seek something within the cave." He was grasping at straws here, looking for some sort of authority for himself. Who knew this monster could even speak?
"A king, you say?" The voice was an echoing guttural sound that froze the tips of Mortred's hair. It sounded very ancient.
"I was a queen as well, of the old lands of Nerubia. I owe the my life to the elder magus of the tribe that once claimed ownership of these woods. My task is to make sure no one enters."
Then Anub'Haran rose up to her full height, her full figure now dwarfing the two assassins. "If you must ask, 'tis true that wondrous treasures lie inside. But you MUST come through me," she said with heavy breathing. Then the ancient spider lets out a growl that might have been a laugh.
"I have not tasted flesh for centuries now. You are a most welcome diversion," she ended.
"If we must...", Rikimaru started to shout. Then Mortred grabbed him aside.
"Do you really believe it is here?" she asked, her blue eyes flashing.
Rikimaru stammered... "Y-y-y-ees..."
"You better believe yourself while you say that satyr, because I am not facing a hungry giant spider on a hunch of yours!"
"It's here."
"Then let's go," she said.
Rikimaru then faced Anub'Haran and said, "If we must, arach, then we will go through you. One way or another, your blood will be spilled here."
As he was saying that, a throng of Nerubian offspring came out from just inside the cave, eyes glowing in the semi-darkness.
"Come my children," the Broodmother laughed,"...tonight you shall feast on flesh!"
Mortred flicked out her round edge warden-blade, while Rikimaru gripped the handle of Rashak, the curved royal satyr blade handed down to him and the only memory of his lineage that he held on to.
This was going to be interesting.
----
The battle was that, both interesting and intense to behold. The two assassins flitting in and out of view, striking the nerubian offspring at their weak points -- the leg joints -- 'til dark green blood gushed out from their severed limbs. Mortred's vaunted poisoned daggers were flying everywhere, and everything was blurred by the smokescreen which the satyr invoked out of nowhere.
"Watch out for the mother's web, sister!" Rikimaru shouted as he went in to stab one offspring in the back, going for the joint between the abdomen and the head, instantly killing it.
The mother was agitated now, as evidenced by the growls she made when she heard her offspring scream and die. She shot out her poisoned web at the assassins, hoping to catch them, but to no avail. Only 3 of her offspring were alive and fighting now, but they were the ones getting caught in their mother's web.
In frustration, she raised her forelegs and crashed them down on the clearing that served as their battlefield. Surprised, Rikimaru turned around; he didn't see the big hairy leg swipe at him. He was thrown back, his head spinning from the blow.
Never in his life had he been as much as touched by an opponent, and this obviously piqued the satyr heir.
"Now you bleed," he whispered under his breath as he got up.
Willing his body to speed up movement and hence be invisible to the naked eye, he positioned himself behind the arachnid and launched himself onto the spider's bulging abdomen. His strikes came at an amazing speed that it only took a minute for the queen to go down.
Mortred had also gotten rid of her 3 pursuers, albeit in a much easier fashion, Rikimaru saw.
"Let's go in and get your relic," she said.
----
Minutes into the cave, they heard the loudest roar they have ever heard in their lives. The cave walls even trembled at the sound. They could hardly believe what they saw -- the queen was still alive, and from her abdomen flowed out literally hundreds of young -- a virtual wave of spiders flowing into the cave.
"Run!" was all Mortred could say.
How the heck could he do this now? Here was a million little arachs pursuing them, and they had a whole cave to search.
Then he saw it, off to the side of the path, and elevated altar of sorts.
Mortred shouted "Go and get it, I'll distract the horde!" Then she rushed off to the opposite direction, willing herself to be visible. It worked. The horde saw her and followed her.
Rikimaru stepped onto the platform. What he saw was almost... underwhelming. There were three pieces of light colored stone, shaped weirdly.
Ok, remember the legend, he thought. This was supposed to be some sort of puzzle. Put the pieces together. The cave was trembling again. Was this an earthquake? Nice freaking timing, he thought.
Then he felt Mortred enter the chamber.
"They're coming. It's a small cave. They'll figure out I'm not there in another minute. Finish that. You're supposed to be good with those," she panted.
He had to do this. He could feel the horde screaming and shouting toward their chamber now. There! the three pieces were together. Now what? No burst of energy. Nothing magical about this.
Then he noticed the chamber slowly filling up with spiders. And the Queen was right behind them.
"No place to run now, unseen ones! My children shall get you, one way or another!" Then he saw it. There was a space in the middle of the relic. It wasn't complete. There were supposed to be 4 pieces!
"This is lacking, there's supposed to be another piece!" he shouted.
"You sure picked a nice time to forget your legends, satyr!" Mortred shouted. She was already fending off the first wave of offspring, and her invisibility could do nothing here now.
Rikimaru looked back - nothing on the altar. On the ground, there was a black rock, oddly-shaped. That had to be it.
He picked it up and placed it into the relic. Perfect fit. Now what?
After a moment, from the relic burst a bluish light enveloping him and Mortred. It was almost immediate. His mind seemed sharpened like elven steel, and his movement seemed amplified by an unknown force. The energy was unbelievable, and they finished off the whole horde in a minute. But the queen was still there at the chamber entrance, a good 25 meters away, and she was about to swipe at the pillars of the chamber. A good move, since invisibility couldn't do anything under a pile of earth.
Mortred gave him a look. It was time.
Rikimaru closed his eyes, and willed his body forward in a speed that only his mind can imagine. He had to get to the queen, and only his mind could fathom the impossibility and the distance. He willed the thought into existence, moving his body forward at the speed of thought. As he opened his eyes, he brought down his blade -- Rashak -- on where he knew the queen would be, in front of him.
The blade struck the queen's head, severing it from the abdomen. Mortred had done the Blink strike too, and she struck strategically, at the limb which was about to hit the pillar. The leg lay severed on the chamber floor now. The Broodmother - ancient nerubian Queen Anub'Haran - was dead.
----
The Mekansm glowed a blue light from Mortred's belt as they moved out of the cave. He trusted her that much now.
Now they could walk toward Ashenvale, Mortred's hometown, where they could start thinking about their next moves. Now, the guild of the [unseen], or what's left of it, could start thinking of fighting against Arthas. Now that the power of Mekansm was theirs.
They still treaded lightly, no noise at all.
Old habits die hard.
----
To the north, dark clouds gathered. It was raining. But the rain was made up of sulphuric rocks burning with a green flame.
The Burning Legion had come.
