Gamble for Azeroth 15 (Patreon)

After he departed the smuggler’s cove, stopped thinking Flynn and his band of not-pirates. He might be a touch more forceful if the job was something like blacksmith that would keep them under observation, but considering their job would naturally bring them away, it would be counterproductive.

The same went for their arrival. Halford was more than capable of keeping them under control if they decide to take a trip. If not, he still had the abandoned two ships that could be used. He didn’t immediately arrange a team to recover them.

He wanted to wait until he had a better way of dealing with the flyers. The best case was getting lucky and pulling an ability that would allow him to deal with them. He technically had Call Lightning which he was yet to test, but from the way his other abilities worked, he could surmise that it wouldn’t work against necrotic dragons.

Maybe if he was in Quel’Thalas with all that free mana ready to be used, he would be confident in using a mana-based ability as an offensive tool, but that abundance, it would be hopeless.

Maybe he could convince Sylvanas to lend him a few rangers temporarily.

He continued west. First, he hugged the coastline to see what was going on, Momentum allowing him to travel with unmatched speed, Bloom allowing him to move confidently without getting caught by the undead. However, after running forty miles, he found himself facing multiple problems.

Well, technically, one problem, but impacting him in multiple ways.

The undead presence was getting far stronger. Patrols made of dozens of ghouls were gone, replaced by actual armies. Thousands of ghouls, multiple abominations, siege weapons, and necromancers, moving together in lockstep. Even against one of them, he could do nothing but run away.

That led to the second problem. There were too many armies, making bypassing them not only challenging, but potentially deadly. If he ever alerted them, things would go badly.

It led to the third problem. The total absence of plant life. Every undead was a vector for the blight which devastated the land, which, combined with their necrotic presence, demolished the plant life in a way not even a forest fire would, turning the land into a lifeless husk.

With that, his biggest strategic advantage was gone.

His mana pulse trick was a poor replacement. Not only did it have a much shorter range, but Allerton was able to detect it with ease, meaning others would be able to as well. Useful for avoiding ambushes, not as useful as setting his own.

He stopped his attempt to push deeper into the land, but he also didn’t return using the same path. Instead, he drifted south, avoiding the larger armies and the dead land. Only when he drifted far south, and the undead density had been lowered, did he start being more active.

Most of his kills were ghouls, but more than once, he came across acolytes traveling. Killing them had been easy, and burning them was even easier considering they were escorting timber.

He passed near a depressing number of villages and towns. Unfortunately, they were either empty or occupied by wandering ghouls and zombies, showing the utter failure of the Lordaeron army to defend the land.

He hoped that at least some of them managed to escape, especially if they were lucky enough to move toward the borders rather than the capital, as their initial instinct might have suggested.

He decided to cut deeper south, toward Darrowmere Lake. It was sufficiently far away from the chaos that the refugees could gather toward it, he thought. But, as he approached the huge lake, he met with another unwelcome realization.

The lake was completely dead, without a hint of vegatation, meaning the undead presence was far stronger than he expected. Since he couldn’t detect a huge army around the lake, it suggested an undead base might exist somewhere in the lake.

“Barovs,” Arvis growled with a sudden realization. The Barov family and the Godwyn family were not close, but as minor nobles, they still interacted. However, Arvis also remembered that House Barov had pulled back seriously after their attempts to establish themselves as a major player had been rebuffed.

Back then, he had been surprised by the ease House Barov accepted their failure despite their famous arrogance, but maybe they did not.

“They are the kind of idiots who would think joining an undead cult is a good idea,” he admitted. Trying to go and take a look at exactly what was hiding on the island at the center was tempting, but instead, he continued further east, though drifting toward the mountainous border region.

A border between humans and trolls.

Under more ordinary circumstances, he would have avoided the border, as trolls were a persistent threat with their incredible physical strength and regeneration. But, compared to the endless Scourge, their presence would be welcome.

However, he also knew that expecting trolls and undead to start fighting was an empty hope. Trolls might not be famous for their intelligence, but they were not stupid either. If they had, they wouldn’t have timed their invasion during the Second War perfectly. The same went for the undead; their moves at the elven border showed their strategic depth.

If they had antagonized the elves before finishing dealing with Lordaeron, things would have changed.

“Well, probably,” he muttered to himself as he continued. The elven army was supposed to be a legendary force, but Arvis couldn’t help but wonder how much of their competence relied on the incredible mana density of their land.

Farstrider rangers were legendary, but as he interacted with Sylvanas, he was starting to realize that they were smaller than he had first thought, which was absurd considering they were responsible for defending Quel’Thalas except the capital.

However, as he drifted further east, tracking the troll border, his thoughts were once again pulled to the present when he felt a large gathering of undead. He would have walked around them, but from the same direction, he could hear the sound of explosions.

A battle.

He pressed on. He didn’t need to check a map to know the closest town to that direction was Darrowshire, which, in general standards, counted as a small town. However, in this context, small meant a population of around twenty thousand.

It was nothing compared to Lordaeron’s original population, over ten million, but it was still quadruple of all he had saved.

Intervening was risky, but he couldn’t abandon all those people to their death without at least checking what was going on.

However, to be on the safe side, he decided to approach from the troll side. The mountains were sparsely populated at the best of times, and with a war against the undead ongoing, trolls would stay away.

Whether that avoidance would continue once the war was over was another thing.

The mountainous border region was supposed to be very difficult to traverse, filled with ambush spots, which was one of the reasons Lordaeron didn’t try to dislodge them, but that didn’t create any trouble for someone with his skills.

It helped that the mana density was higher than in the lowlands. Not a huge gap like Quel’Thalas, but still richer than usual.

He detected a few living presences at the mountain, but just as he suspected, as long as he stayed near the border rather than bursting inside, trolls were happy to let the living and the dead fight.

Soon, he was at a ridge, looking down at the town of Darrowshire, surrounded by an undead army. A proper one. A brief glance confirmed that their numbers were around a hundred thousand.

A hundred thousand ghouls alone would have represented a threat to a town like Darrowshire, as a town of that size was lucky to have two thousand soldiers, and only because it was a border town dealing with constant troll raids.

Worse, he could see that the army wasn’t the weak patrols he had been dealing with around the elven border. He could see huge siege engines alternating between raining rocks and corpses, hulking abominations waiting for a breach to attack, necromancers raising the dead and casting curses.

And, at the center of everything, he could see an armored figure, moving with a shocking smoothness that could be mistaken for being alive if it wasn’t for his rotting eyes and eyes glowing blue.

The runeblade in his hand revealed his identity.

A death knight.

Arvis crouched down, relying on his eyes to see what was going on. With the current concentration of the undead, there was no chance to distinguish anything by using Bloom, but from the state of the plant life, he could sense that the siege had been going on for about a day.

He would be shocked if the town could last another day.

He paused, trying to come to a decision. His rationality told him that he couldn’t save the town. Not alone, not without a monumental burst of power. Breaking a siege of this magnitude required an army. A proper one, not like the misplaced little squad he had, almost two hundred miles away.

The smart thing was to leave them to their fate … but he found himself unable to retreat. “Maybe I missed my calling as a paladin,” he mocked himself, but that was a passing thought.

Because the plan that was coming together in his mind was not something a paladin would find acceptable, not even against the undead.

He could see that the undead had a similar assessment about the trolls, meaning they paid no attention to the border. No scouts, no patrols. They even placed their siege weapons there, giving him the perfect vector to approach.

It was daring, but a combination of Natural Restoration and Momentum meant it was merely dangerous rather than suicidal. Former meant that he could potentially deal with the curses necromancers might cast, and the latter meant retreat was always an option.

He didn’t have much of a strategy. He just planned to hit the siege engines, see how many of them he could break with his enhanced strength, and decide what to do next based on the follow-up reaction.

He moved. However, while it was tempting, he didn’t use Momentum to its full capacity, barely raising his speed by thirty percent. The siege engines were exposed enough to make moving faster unnecessary.

If he displayed his full speed, he couldn’t bait the undead army to follow him during his retreat.

His slow speed meant that the army noticed his approach, even sending an abomination and a large force of ghouls to cut his path. With Flowing Dance, he dodged the abomination’s attack, and Waterwheel was perfect to deal with crowding ghouls.

With that, he was among the siege engines, the monstrous entities that were covered with necrotic energies, filled with corpses for the foul necromancy rituals.

They were too strong to be damaged by ordinary attacks, but even his casual attacks could no longer be called ordinary. Even without utilizing mana, he was able to demolish all fifteen siege engines; dodging abominations and slaying ghouls at the same time.

Then, he dodged another attack from the closest abomination while examining the army, and noticed the approach of a distinct figure, armored and carrying a runeblade.

The death knight.

Arvis dodged another attack from the abomination, trying to decide what to do. The death knight was still some distance away, meaning he should be able to deal with a hundred or so ghouls, maybe even an abomination if he was lucky.

In an army of a hundred thousand, the loss of a hundred ghouls or an abomination wouldn’t matter.

A potential loss of a death knight, on the other hand… The only problem, he couldn’t deal with a death knight at the heart of his army. He didn’t know whether he was the leader, or just a high-ranking officer; or whether such concepts had any meaning for the undead army in the first place.

He just knew that, while the death knight might be charging alone, he wouldn’t hesitate to throw the cannon fodder into battle to save himself. Meaning, it wouldn’t matter whether he could defeat the death knight in a fair fight.

Arvis took a deep breath, filling his body to recover from his recent burst, then he started running away, his speed slightly slower than his arrival.

It was a simple bait, but a believable one, since his main aim had been to destroy the siege weapons. A warrior reckless enough to deplete his stamina for such a critical task was believable.

Especially for an arrogant death knight. Admittedly, that was merely a guess, but considering the man in question was reckless enough to leave his army to chase him, he felt it was a good bet.

He ran, and the death knight followed, the distance dwindling. Arvis timed it so that the death knight would just fail to catch up with him at the troll border. He wanted to do that, because he wanted to see what kind of spells the death knight would use.

He was hoping for frost magic, clued from the obvious glow of his sword. That way, he would have a chance to measure how effective his Winterman trait was against the frost attacks.

“Stop running, you coward,” the death knight finally shouted. “You’re a disgrace to all paladins.”

To his surprise, however, the death knight didn’t even slow down, following him into the troll lands. His eyes widened. It was interesting … and potentially very useful. Dealing with the commander was one thing, but potentially triggering a conflict between the trolls and the undead…

It was risky, but the rewards were worth it.

His earlier observation meant that he knew exactly where trolls had been gathered, and he deliberately drew the death knight toward them. When the distance between them and the trolls dropped to three hundred yards, he let the death knight catch up by ‘cornering him’ against a cliff.

One that he could climb very easily, not to mention the ground was filled with the thick roots of a nearby tree that he could use as a way to delay the death knight if needed. Adding the fact that the death knight’s rune blade was radiating frost energy, one element he had actual resistance toward, he couldn’t imagine a more favorable opportunity to test himself.

“Finally, I caught you, you disgrace of a paladin,” he said.

Arvis tightened his grip on his blade, ready to rush forward or dodge as needed. However, he decided to speak rather than attacking immediately, curious why the undead was taunting him. He was under the impression that the undead were mindless and under the control of a mysterious entity.

“You seem to be concerned about the pride of paladins, Mr. Corpse,” he responded. “Don’t tell me you were a paladin before you decided to become a dog of the Cult of the Damned.”

That seemed to anger the death knight. “How dare you insult me, Marduk the Black!” he declared, which surprised him. He didn’t expect the undead to show any emotion, but clearly, his assumption that they were under the direct control of others was wrong … or at least, incomplete.

Ultimately, the reason was academic. The thing that mattered most was having a reckless enemy commander under his control. One that he could leverage for his benefit.

Marduk charged forward. Arvis could have dodged it, but he decided to parry the attack. A risk, but it was the best chance to get a measure of the physical might of a death knight.

Their blades clashed, and Arvis prepared himself to be launched back, only Marduk’s blade bounced back.

That wasn’t to say that the death knight was weak. No, that would be a lie. The death knight was strong enough that, without his epic strength trait, he would have been launched back like a toy.

It was difficult to truly measure, but Arvis guessed that, without Water Breathing added to the mix to improve his baseline, his epic strength trait would have put him on the same baseline as the death knight, making it a fair fight.

Marduk roared in anger, and he raised his blade, a burst of necrotic energy targeting him. He managed to dodge it, as Bloom warned him even as the necrotic energies gathered. Marduk attacked again. He parried again, but this time he delivered a counterattack, his holy sword biting through Marduk’s skin.

Marduk was surprisingly expressive even as an undead, his earlier confidence quick to evaporate. Arvis could see that he wanted to retreat, but he had no intention of allowing that.

He used Water Surface Slash, destroying the skeletal horse the death knight had been riding in one devastating blow.

The death knight collapsed. “It’s your turn to run, you disgrace of a death knight,” Arvis declared as he raised his sword, letting mana dance on the surface, acting arrogant. Marduk ran away, showing that his independence included at least some self-preservation.

Arvis chased him, but he positioned himself so that Marduk couldn’t run back to his army. Instead, he drove him toward the troll scouts that were not too far away, constantly attacking in a way that kept him busy. However, even as the troll scouts got closer, his focus was on the main army.

Only when he noticed a significant portion of the undead army splitting from the main group and started moving toward them did he relax. He focused deliberately, pushing Marduk deeper into the troll territory.

Then, when Marduk gave an opening, he finally used the Water Surface Slash mana attack, which was intense enough to bisect the death knight.

However, rather than finishing him off, he deliberately brought down several rocks on top of him, acting as if it were an accident.

Then, he used Bloom on the troll scouts, pinning them in place, and with a rush, he killed them. Then, he dug into their pouches, and found some kind of magical item. With his budding magical ability, he was able to roughly sense that it was a communication tool, sending a signal when broken.

Perfect, he thought as he broke them, leaving the bisected death knight buried without killing. Instead, he hunted a few more troll scout groups. Every single one of them, he used frost spells to leave distinct marks, as if they were killed by the undead. He might not be able to use the spells offensively, but planting some fake evidence was easy enough.

He suspected border patrol was not exactly a prime job, as the trolls he dealt was very weak.

Once that was done, he went back to where Marduk was and deliberately triggered a real landslide, burying him under a thick layer of rock, making it very difficult for him to escape without assistance.

Then, he focused on the first army Marduk had summoned. Almost a thousand ghouls and ten abominations. In an open field, it would have been an impressive threat. However, in rough terrain, he had too many tricks.

A few strategic cuts on thick cliff faces were all that was needed, and the forced corridors made the movement of the undead far worse. Combined, it didn’t take long for him to destroy the thousand-strong undead force.

In the process, two things happened. One, he was merely halfway finishing the undead force when a far larger undead force split from the army, easily over ten thousand; confirming not only that the death knight was able to exert force, but also the way he gathered information was at least partially magical. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have known about the death of his support force.

The second surprise was the presence of a rapid response force from the trolls. Bloom wasn’t enough to sense their presence as strongly, but it didn’t matter.

Trolls were already casting spells on the undead.

[Feat Achieved! Trigger a border conflict between two hostile factions

+1x Gold Advantage Random Gacha ticket]

Marvelous.