"I'm going to kill something," I growled, my voice a rumble muffled by the endless sound of stone falling and the quake of the earth.
I didn't know where I was, only that I fell for around half a minute. This meant a fuck huge distance. I was deep, probably one kilometer at least, to three if not more, from where I was.
I wasn't a physicist, but my estimate seemed accurate and wasn't hard to calculate.
To put it mildly, it was a problem. The landing hadn't been any better; I couldn't stop my fall without stones breaking or crumbling.
That was without the fact that my limbs would have shattered, so I let gravity take me.
It would have killed me, though; I would have exploded in a pile of gore. But flying wasn't an option as I would be pelted to death.
Yet I didn't need to fly, only stop going splat when my speed reached zero.
A quick transformation to break my fall left my shoulder blade piercing my back, along with several minor injuries.
Better than the alternative, though.
And I wasn't alone, maybe in pitch darkness, but my sense of smell was as good as ever. These were infested tunnels, only the remnants of this collapse kept the bugs away.
For now.
And this was a horrid place.
And it was incredibly hot, unbearably so, and the air was surprisingly humid, for lack of a better term, dense and suffocating. Nothing that was of immediate concern, however.
Even if it were threatening, I would survive; still, this was bad on top of worse. Yet the entire place was thick with something that made my skin crawl, root curl, and heart boom.
I was far closer to the Old God's prison. Where I had been was close to the Scarab Wall.
As such, I made a drastic decision.
I had liquor in my backpack, water couldn't be conserved, and was null in calories. The same for food, but my reserves wouldn't cut it.
I never went out without provisions, even if in truth it was to snack half of the time. The point was, I was prepared.
A moot point in this unique scenario, simply put, I diverted resources from non-vital organs.
Adipose tissues and reserves of all kinds inspired by flora and fauna adapted to various climates were put to use.
Ambient humidity wouldn't keep me quenched, and I wouldn't feed on qiraji and silithids' remains. That was a ticket to many eyes and tentacle-dom, well, the eldritch version.
I could survive for months if I remained at a slow activity level, years and decades, even if I pushed to the limit. Of course, it was unacceptable. I wouldn't stay here for even a hundredth of that time.
Still, I couldn't do much right now, but I simmered in my rage and worry.
The event that led to the present…
It could be bad luck, a trap, or betrayal. Perhaps some of the three combined. I was leaning toward the second, but that didn't mean I was right.
The Horde's honor had, by definition, it was wholly fluid but solely dependent on the moment's convenience. I met Varok barely a day ago; what I knew about him was flimsy at best.
It wouldn't be the first time I was disappointed by an orc. And since I had some idea of what he did, such as what he partook in on Draenor, I had every right to have my doubts.
The Lich King had lesser sins, well, the Arthas part.
And the goblins did use a substantial amount of explosives, though if they were used to cause this cave-in, I couldn't be sure. It was very irrational and stupid to put the blame right away on the Horde.
The tunnel was deemed safe enough by kobolds, but that was only in theory.
We couldn't be certain about how the elemental spirits were here. And I was leaning on Ahn'Qiraj as the culprit, even if that was an odd plan given the sheer scale of the damage done.
If Ahn'Qiraj caused this, they gutted their defenses; whether it was a desperate or calculated move, didn't matter.
Both were deeply troubling. We had been digging, but that was this and that.
Regardless, this was asinine rambling. There was no time for blaming games. Whoever or whatever caused this was secondary to the chaos that must be going on above.
"Tur…" I frowned, dodging a stone that would have crushed my left foot paw.
I barely had time to save him, spotting him by pure luck immediately. And it was a literal blessing of the ancestors that I managed to avoid his death.
I trusted my students to care for him, given that the situation was stable.
But he received a nasty hit to the head, and the crushed body parts were inconsequential by comparison.
There were plenty of floral wombs for him to be placed and healed.
Without that, he wouldn't have died either. No vital organs that weren't in more than one example were touched. But he would be out of commission until then.
And his brain… the damage could range from a mean headache to paralysis to personality shift, both their own flavor of the Twisting Nether. A concussion was like gambling, only significantly worse.
By the Twin Bears, I hope he and everyone were okay. More or less, I didn't have enough time to do what I wished for properly.
Fury was nearly consuming me. I was aware that this was a risk when I tested the vitae crystals in person.
A necessity, perhaps, but a risk I took; it was my fault.
But to know and live through was incomparable. And I never expected this catastrophe to be on such a large scale.
This was the worst cave-in since the Second War of the Shifting Sands.
It wasn't a mere ceiling collapse; the entire tunnel, walls, and surrounding ground fell on itself as if this was the epicenter of a massive earthquake.
Little could have been done to prevent that. But much could be done to climb back up.
Yet that was pretty much impossible right now; flying was very evidently out, as was climbing, and the same was true for digging.
Not here and now, the world was still shaking, and I preferred not to be buried alive, given it would be a very slow and painful death depending on the severity.
So I waited, but I wasn't idle. I extended nerves and primitive senses of taste, touch, hearing, smell, and sight through roots and mycelium filaments to map my surroundings.
And half the time, they were cut off or crushed by falling debris.
My ears widened, my vocal cords shifted, and I emitted clicks to further this, the echoes painting my mental map of where I found myself.
It was a game of patience that lasted nearly an hour until the world stopped shaking, and I was thoroughly lacking in it at the moment.
My punch that followed nearly destroyed my little alcove above the abyss that continued below for kilometers. That was a wake-up call, so I remained still while continuing my investigation.
At some point, the world stabilized, and I could move again without being force-fed rock.
I didn't fly or climb; everything above was blocked, and making an opening was far too risky.
And other openings involved kicking the anthill, no matter that the ants were already swarming, very intent on finding something. Or someone.
That someone was very probably my furry ass or anyone who miraculously survived the descent. There were a lot of crushed body parts.
One insect was no problem, a dozen was the same, but a hundred? A thousand?
Add that I was alone, lost, and without knowing what awaited.
Most of what the Kingdom of Ahn'Qiraj had was incapable of doing any meaningful lasting damage to my outer bark, but I wasn't invincible. And silithids were only a small part.
The Twin Emperors could kill me as things were. History didn't downplay their powers in the least.
This entire thing pushed the hypothesis that this was a trap to get me to the forefront. A trap I wasn't going to stay in for the pleasure of my want-to-be executioners.
'Enough rambling.'
With the ground stabilized, it was time to dig, not as I was. I was too bulky and far from built to dig in such conditions.
Problems rectified by my body shifting to a longer, more flexible, slender form of an ottuk.
It was a subspecies of otter, only with spikes growing on their back, while being far larger and accompanied by a nasty temperament, closer to some land mustelids.
It was a transformation I used far too little for lack of opportunity, as its primary purpose was for aquatic situations. The joke of it all wasn't lost on me.
The same was for others; I did have more than a bloodwing bat and ottuk, but fundamentally, they didn't bring enough to warrant the time to train in them. Jalgars weren't the apex predator of apex for no reason.
Ottuks were also excellent diggers, creating burrows out of rock-hard cliffs. Slight modifications to the paws and head, and with my strength, steel claws, and plant side leading the way.
I was swimming, a slow swim but one nonetheless.
Breathing was no problem with my roots acting as breathing tubes, and in the same breath, they gave me direction. Where to dig and where not to.
However, reaching the surface wasn't my immediate concern; contacting it was. For this, I needed a safe space to enter a deep sleep.
Far too long had passed already without words, and I was alive. Less than ten minutes was all it took to build a temporary den that was both structurally sound and heavily fortified with traps, alarms, and several emergency exits.
Once this was done, came the funnily enough hardest step, if I let it happen naturally—sleep.
So I didn't, and with a flex of my magic, I collapsed like a headless stag, and everything went black instantly. My eyes reopened to a sight that brought genuine dread to my heart.
The Emerald Dream and Azeroth were parallel in many ways. I was deep underground, which hadn't been my concern; the Dream didn't operate on the strict rule of a three-dimensional plane.
It wasn't called the Emerald Dream to be poetic; it felt like one even to the eyes of an expert. There was no sky or ground, no limit that could be walked to as long as it wasn't beyond the planet.
It wasn't absolute chaos, closer to a realm with layers and bridges connecting them. As such, I wasn't buried. And what I saw put a pause to my plan.
"The Nightmare shouldn't be here…" I growled, voice echoing in the deathly silent wind.
My wide open eyes scanning the twisted form of flora and fauna frozen in place, the verdant greens with all colors and iridescence were gone.
In their place was a pale imitation of Life, dark flesh too smooth, eyes filled with madness, and gaping maws with haphazard, monstrous teeth. Hills and mountains of them by the thousands polluted the sight.
Their thousands of slitted eyes were locked on me, pulsating as I turned to glare at them.
I hated them all. They were repugnant. A mockery of all I was and stood for, but also a danger, a threat to my mind, body, and soul.
Yet I didn't roar in defiance like my instincts demanded. I didn't wait for an attack to come. And I didn't fight knowing this was no battle to win.
The very essence of this place was making me profoundly sick, the barrages of howls and voices, of untold whispers and half-truths.
I fled.
I forced myself to wake up.
Yet I was still here, only I was weeping blood from my eyes, nose, and ears. I tried again, a sense of urgency and wrongness forcing itself into my frayed psyche.
I tried again. And again. Guiding my mana directly to my brain to manually yank my spirit back to the anchor that was my body.
It would hurt badly, more than pain, it would wound me, but corruption was a fate infinitely worse. It would heal.
But as I was going to enact this, a haughty, warped voice echoed from every direction at once.
"I recommend you stop, Shaper of Flesh. It wouldn't do for your demise to be now. I'm to speak for my unspeakable masters and wish no harm."
And he appeared. A satyr, only taller, smaller than me, yes, but more imposing than any I ever had the displeasure to gaze upon.
There was no feature beyond the shadowy shape outside the burning eyes. Then was the mirage of a towering gnarly tree behind him, immediately pointing to the fact that this abomination wasn't actually here.
This was a manifestation, a spell drawing from the environment's corruption to its detriment. But it wasn't fast enough to wait it out; however, it put into perspective the oddity of the now.
This wasn't the heart of Emerald Nightmare; it wasn't false, not entirely, and much was a masquerade. It wasn't a direct extension of it, but was born directly from an Old God.
Not yet, at least. And preferably never.
The Green Dragonflight would have known and told the Wild. The Old God here wasn't touching the Emerald Dream; its prison was failing, but it wasn't broken.
It did little to calm me, though, and what he said… and I began to grasp who that might be to my rising anger and fear.
He was Xavius, the First Satyr and the future Nightmare Lord, if he wasn't already.
Unable to escape, my power thrummed, and I didn't rush like a mindless beast as much as I wanted.
"And what of it, satyr? Your masters want a body to parasitize, a mind to twist, and a vessel for your little vendetta." I enunciated sharply, Life and Nature barely holding the Nightmare at bay.
The voices were growing stronger, and I was seeing that they weren't there.
He chuckled. Because, of course, he would.
"Their dark wisdom proves true as always … you have impossible knowledge. You know of me, then it shall facilitate my mission toward their grand plan." Xavius said smoothly, his tone viscous.
"To corrupt me? To plant the seed? To convince me? Your tune is monotonous." I spat, mana below my feet veering toward Life. I pushed harder, and the ever-present connection I always felt burned.
It was desperate, potent, volatile, and impossible to grasp fully—life in its purest form, potential, and evolution itself. There wasn't the balance I was accustomed to.
The world was morphing into a chimera of all living from my paws, merging with the ground as one grotesque organism. This was me, an ironic mirror to the horror frozen around, devouring the devourer.
"Nothing so crude, Shaper of Flesh, in time, you will learn who your friends and foes are. You will learn whom to tremble in terror before. Your eyes will open as mine did." He paused, savoring something I couldn't see but feel flowing in the air.
"You are intelligent, far more than a creature of your station had the right to. But your enlightenment has yet to come, as is your time. For now, however… You may wake."
And I did with an agonizing wet gasp of blood, my head pounding, heart hammering, and magic flowing out of control. Stones had become flesh with veins of sap and organs of bones from my body.
I stared blankly, slowly, easing my mana down as I guided it to heal me.
Then, amidst the chorus of my booming heartbeat and loud labored breathing, I heard skittering.
"Fuck!"
*
Chapters in advance there: patreon.com/thebipboop2003