Adult-FanFiction.org : Games

A Long Road Through Hell	By : errihuseamonster Category: +S through Z > World of Warcraft Views: 7252 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own World of Warcraft or any of its canon characters, nor do I make any money from this fanfiction

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
I'm glad to see people are enjoying this. I enjoyed writing it. There are 2 more chapters left, and then I'll start posting something else. :)

Chapter 7
As the patrol turned its backs to them,
Laina readied for her charge, then went. Her armor clattered, alerting the
patrol, which turned towards her. Too
late� she thought, and reached the felhound. Everything seemed to move in
slow motion. She had chosen the two-handed sword for this engagement, and she
pulled the massive blade from her back, bringing it down on the creature with a
vicious over-head slash. She connected with its flank, and was rewarded by a
howl of rage and anguish as the creature turned to face her. Briefly, she noted
ice crusting the felguard, which turned its attention from her to Jerlis, who
had begun his own attack.
The felhound swiped at her with a massive
paw, and she turned her blade to parry. She then brought the blade up in a
diagonal slash, forcing the felhound backwards. Her follow-through, intended to
be another powerful downward smash, was disrupted as the creature suddenly
rushed her. With a grunt, she fell flat on her ass. She picked herself up
quickly, expecting a follow up attack. Instead, she managed to notice the flash
of shadow from the creature�s tentacles as it turned its attention to Jerlis.
That
is NOT good, she thought. At this juncture, every
second counted. She hoped her companion would be alright.
The black �glow� of shadow flickered into
existence again, but this time Laina was prepared. She closed the gap between
her and the felhound and delivered a powerful kick to its ugly, eyeless face,
stunning it from its spell. Before it could recover, she raised her sword high
and angled the point downward. She put all her strength into the blow, focusing
her concentration for this one, powerful attack. Bone crunched and black blood
spilled out as she forced her blade through its vertebrae until the blade stuck
in the black ground beneath them. She let go of the weapon and backed off,
drawing her two swords.
The felhound was pinned to the ground by
her blade. Its body thrashed in its death throes � it was dead, or near enough
to it, but it wasn�t quite convinced of the fact yet. She felt it was safe to
leave it there, but made sure to slice off the spell-casting tentacles before
she turned her attention to the felguard.
She turned just in time to see Jerlis flung
backward by his opponent, which was wreathed in a rather lovely and improbable
combination of frost and flame. The felguard started to rush the stunned mage,
an attack that was guaranteed to do significant damage, if Laina didn�t
intervene. She charged.
She was the faster one. She hit the
felguard with an audible impact, and heard it grunt as she knocked it to the
ground. Ahead of her, she could hear Jerlis gasping as he got back to his feet.
She paid no mind, instead focusing on a fast and furious attack on the
felguard. The demon rolled away from her, and then turned to face her. She had
done some damage while it was down, but as it turned towards her and started
parrying with its two-hander, fewer of her attacks made it through its guard.
It was fully occupied in fending her
attacks off, however. Jerlis took advantage of this, lobbing spell after
powerful spell. Finally, the demon took one hit too many, and fell to its
knees, and then flat on its face. Laina backed off as the dying demon was
engulfed in flame as Jerlis cast one final, devastating spell.
She was out of breath and sweating
profusely in her armor, but she didn�t care. Jerlis was also breathing hard,
and shaking. Laina saw him pull a blue flask from one of his pouches. With
shaking hands, he pulled the stopper and downed the potion. After a few
seconds, his shaking ceased. The battle must have been particularly draining.
Spending the night in the cave had been a good thing; the mage had commented
earlier that it had fully replenished his magical reserves. Enough for this
battle, but it must have been a near thing.
�We did it.� he gasped.
With effort, she retrieved her sword from
the corpse of the felguard, which had stopped moving. As they approached the
portal, she cleaned her weapons and put them back in their places. Together, she
and Jerlis climbed the stone ledge to stand on the threshold of the portal.
They gazed up at the massive edifice.
Jerlis started swearing, and Laina sighed. The portal they had struggled so
hard to reach was� empty.
�Now what? Can you reactivate it?� Laina asked
Jerlis gave one sharp, sarcastic laugh. �It
took the focused efforts of Gul�dan and all his warlocks, and Medivh to open
the original portal in our world. It took Kazzak using a relic to re-open it. I
am no Medivh, and certainly no Kazzak. If I had access to enough power I could maybe do it; trying it alone without
extra power would not only kill me, but fail anyway.� The old bitterness had
returned to the elf�s voice. To come so far only to fail� it was painful for
both of them.
Suddenly, Laina remembered the bags full of
enchanting supplies. As an enchanter, she knew such things were basically
magical energy concentrated into a solid form. Jerlis was a blood elf, able to
draw magic from other sources. Maybe he could use the dusts, essences and
crystals to draw energy from. It would take a lot� but she had a lot. She
pulled one of the bags from her belt and started emptying it on the ground.
�What are you doing�?� Jerlis exclaimed,
eyes widening at the ever-growing pile of stuff on the stone.
�This is basically magic, right? Can you
use it to open the gate?� she shook the last of the dust from the bag and
glanced at her companion. The elf had a thoughtful look. He paused for a
moment, considering the pile of stuff.
�I think I might be able to. Do you have
anymore?� he said after a moment. Laina nodded and began emptying out a second
bag. Soon there were two piles of dust. She tried not to think about how many
thousands of gold she was about to see vanish � no amount of riches would be
worth anything to her if she was not back in civilization to use it. Jerlis
concentrated on the pile. �Just a little bit more, I think.� he said.
�I have no more in my bags.� Laina said.
�I have none in mine � I�m an alchemist,
I�m afraid.� Jerlis sighed.
�Oh that�s no problem. I�m an enchanter.
That�s why I grabbed all this stuff.� she said. Jerlis gave her a thoughtful
look, and then started pulling robes out of his bags � the robes he had grabbed
when he wasn�t able to make up his mind, the robes that had made their bed in
the cave� Laina saw the lengths of cloth emerge from the bag and began
laughing. He handed her robe after robe, and as darkness surrounded them, the
only light was the sparkle of dusts, essences and crystals as they flashed into
existence in her hands.
Finally, the pile was substantial enough
that Jerlis deemed it safe to attempt. Laina watched as the mage stood at the
threshold of the gate and chanted. Pure arcane energy gathered around his
hands, visible as blue light which began to grow, to sheath his arms and chest,
until it enveloped his entire form in an incandescent glow. She watched as the
pile of enchanting supplies visibly diminished as dusts, essences and shards
flared brightly before evaporating into nothingness, the lower quality supplies
vanishing first. Soon there was nothing but void crystals scattered on the
ground, far more than she had ever seen together in her life.
Jerlis�s voice rose in pitch and volume as
the void crystals began to wink out, one by one. Within the portal tiny specks
of multicoloured light began to wheel and grow. As crystals flashed out of
existence, the specks became a rippling curtain which was slowly filling the
stone door. She saw the dwindling pile of crystals and realized he was not
going to make it. Frantically she dug through her pouches, looking for
something to disenchant. The jewelry! She pulled rings and trinkets from her
pouch and rapidly started focusing, adding to the vanishing pile as fast as she
could. In some cases, no sooner had she finished disenchanting than the
substance vanished from her hands.
The portal had nearly filled the doorway,
but it still flapped and fluctuated erratically. The last crystal vanished from
the ground. Jerlis cried out and gasped, as though his breath was being pulled
from his body. The light around him was sucked, visibly, into the portal. Her
hands now empty, Laina was able to catch the mage as he fell forward,
unconscious or dead � she could not yet tell. The portal shivered once and then
held steady, swirling and solid-looking like the one they had both come through
to reach the Outlands.
She wasted exactly one second to gape at
the portal, then scooped up the mage. Dully, she noted
that Jerlis felt too light � this had taken much more out of him than either
had expected. No time to think � she dashed through the portal. They were
engulfed in the swirling chaos�
For what seemed like eternity, there was
nothingness. Then in an instant, they had reappeared� somewhere. Laina tumbled
through, shielding the body of her companion with her own, and rolled to a
stop. As she gazed upwards, the curtain of energy that made up the portal
rippled, then vanished. Through the empty stone frame she saw the
star-spangled, energy twisted sky of the Outlands. A breeze ruffled her hair
and whistled through the stone door. They had made it.
Laina checked her companion. Jerlis still
breathed, but he seemed terribly drawn and pale. He was unconscious. She didn�t
want to chance a mana potion when he wasn�t able to swallow it properly, so she
dug through her packs for one last item to disenchant. There was still some
jewelry there� she found a piece that her enchanter�s instincts suggested might
yield a void crystal, and disenchanted it. Lucky! There were two. She placed on
in each of the unconscious blood elf�s hands.
After a short time, the first crystal
flashed out of existence, and then after a longer time, the second followed.
She continued to put enchanting supplies in his hands until finally, he held a
shard and it never vanished. It seemed he was truly sleeping, now, rather than
unconscious. She finally turned from her companion to survey her surroundings.
She stood up�
And sat down nerveless as she realized they
were floating on a grass-covered section of turf, high above western Nagrand.
So high, in fact, she could barely make out birds below her, and there was a
cloud drifting nearby� Laina suppressed her terror. She sat on the stone beside
Jerlis, trying not to think of the height, trying not to notice the gentle
rocking and slow rotation of the piece of terrain suspended high above the
land. Trying not to think of the impact of her body on the
ground far below. She curled up beside Jerlis, hugging herself.
Eventually his eyes fluttered open, and he
groaned, coming to awareness. He stirred, and sat up, leaning on her. She
didn�t mind, she felt a little more secure touching him.
�I feel like I�ve been hit by a bull
clefthoof at full tilt. What happened?� the elf asked, rubbing his forehead. He
looked around. �Where are we?�
�You got the portal open. We�re in west
Nagrand somewhere. Very high up.� she
replied.
He looked uncomprehending for a moment,
mouthing �portal�, then remembrance struck him. �By the Light, I�m alive. We
did it Laina!� He looked for a moment as though he was about to get up, then
seemed to think better of it. �I hurt everywhere.� he said.
�I think it nearly killed you. You looked
like a husk when we came out of the portal, and you were out cold. I put some
enchanting stuff in your hands and eventually they disappeared, and you were
sleeping more normally then.�
�Thank you.� he continued to massage his
forehead, eyes shut. He was leaning up closer to Laina, and she noticed he was
shaking slightly. It was a little cold up here, especially with the slight but
insistent wind, but she was afraid to move around too much.
�Um� Jerlis� How are we going to get down?
When I said we�re high up, I wasn�t kidding. What if we�re stuck up here?�
Laina�s repressed panic was starting to leak out at the end of her statement.
Jerlis fished around in his bags and pulled
out a handful of feathers. �No worries, Laina. I can get us down.�
�How?� she yelped.
The mage looked at her, and looked
surprised at the naked terror on her face. She truly did fear heights. It was at odds with her tough and fearless
demeanor, but then phobias were rarely rational.
He held up a feather. �Slow fall.� At that,
Laina fainted.
***
Cold water splashing on her face roused
her. She sputtered and sat up.
�Oh good. I got a little worried when you fell over.� Jerlis said. �I
conjured some water.� he held up the flask. Laina took it from him, and drained
it, then gasped for air.
�Please tell me you have another way down
than� that.� she said.
�Sorry. Unless you got a
gryphon or something hidden somewhere in your magic bags.�
She had to snort at that. Gryphon. She avoided flying if at all possible.
�No? Then it�ll have to be my way.� Jerlis
stood up, and walked off the stone and onto the grass, approaching the edge of
the chunk of flying ground. Laina tried to quell the fear that surged inside
her as her companion gazed over the edge. �I think I see Halaa. Too far away to
see what colours it�s flying today. We�re a few days away at any rate. We�ve
got a long walk ahead of us.� Jerlis rambled.
�Get away from the edge, please�� Laina
whimpered. Jerlis looked back at her, then wandered
over to the erstwhile portal.
�Are you ready to go?� he asked. �You
should probably put your plate in your magic bags. The less
weight, the better.� She shuddered.
�There isn�t any other way down, is there?�
she asked.
�Not unless you want to wait up here while
I go get help. Assuming I could get help. Our people are at war with each
other, after all.�
Laina realized that was probably not
viable. She�d starve up here, or dehydrate, without Jerlis�s magic food and
water. With a sigh, she began to strip off her armor, putting each piece in her
magic bag. Finally she was down to the padded clothes she wore under the armor.
�Good enough. Are you ready?� Jerlis asked.
�No, but let�s get this over with. If we
wait around here until I�m ready, we�ll both be dead of old age.� she said,
standing. Jerlis led her off the portal stone and near the edge. �What do I
do?� she asked.
�Hold me close.� Jerlis said, and then
glared at her when she chuckled. The green light from his eyes flickered as he
rolled them. �The magic will extend to you as long as you are in close contact
with me. Normally both this and invisibility are spells I can only cast on
myself. However it seems that is not the case with you.�
�You mean this might not even work on me?�
Laina blanched.
�That is not what I said!� Jerlis sighed.
�But you just said��
�You�ll have to trust me Laina. I know what
I�m doing. Let�s go.�
Gingerly, she took his hand. He pulled her
tight to him, and she put her arms around him. She realized that the top of her
head only came up to his chin. It was an absurd thing to notice, when she could
be plunging to her death in mere moments. He was warm and felt good to touch
through the silky fabric of his robes. Her mind was a jumble of disjointed
thoughts as she attempted to stave off panic. �Okay,� she said, �let�s do this
before I lose my nerve completely shall we?�
She felt Jerlis shift, hold something up,
and mutter a quick word, smoke billowing from their feet. Then he put his arms
around her. All of a sudden there was a strange sound, and they were not
standing on the ground. Laina yelped as she noted there was nothing under her
feet but air, and clutched tighter to the mage.
�Relax. We�re floating down. See? You can�t
even feel it. It�s just like standing.� Jerlis said.
She tried to calm her pounding heart and
rapid breath. She was very close to panic.
�Close your eyes.� Jerlis suggested. She
did so. In a few moments, the panic subsided. He was right, it felt just like
standing. If she kept her eyes closed, she could pretend� unlike the chasm,
this was one time where she would rather NOT be aware of the distance to the
ground. Unlike the chasm, this was nothing she could prevent by seeing it
coming.
Jerlis�s hands around her moved in a
caress, one sliding under her tunic and rubbing the small of her back. The
other wandered upwards to stroke her hair. She gripped him tighter, afraid to
return the caress, and felt her face burn as he chuckled. He kissed her hair.
She felt her stomach flip-flop � surely she was over such juvenile reactions to
a man�s touch? But wait, that wasn�t a reaction to his touch� Oh� shit� no�
�Jerliiiiiiis!� she hissed, eyes flying open.
Below she could see the terrain of Nagrand approaching much faster than she
desired. Absolute terror gripped her.
Jerlis fumbled with something. �Oops�� she
heard.
�Don�t say oops!� she squawked.
�Lost a feather � hold on a sec� here we
go.� The mage muttered a word and a puff of smoke surrounded them, and then
they were falling slower again.
�Please don�t do that again.�
�Relax, Laina. We�re still alive, aren�t
we?� the elf�s tone was full of dry amusement. She wanted to punch him, but was
afraid she might disrupt his spells. She squeezed her eyes shut again and
buried her face in his robes, while he caressed her hair. His touch was
soothing. Even if she did want to kick the living crap out of
him for putting her through this.
Laina hated feeling like such a scared
child. She hated having no control over whether she lived or died. It was hard
putting her faith in another person, in the face of her deepest fear. But she
had to trust that the mage with whom she had escaped the fel clutches of demons
on a devastated world, against all odds. Without each other, they would have
never made it this far � either one of them would have died or been recaptured
at some point or another.
Periodically, Jerlis would mutter his
spell. There were no more slips. After what seemed like an eternity, he told
her to open her eyes. Steeling herself, she did, and saw the ground just a few
feet away. She braced herself, but they drifted to a stop on the green grass of
Nagrand, gentle as a feather.
Shakily, Laina released her vice-grip on
Jerlis. She stumbled backwards and sat with a thud on the turf, then flopped
flat on her back, fingers twined tightly with the grass. Her eyes grew glassy
and her face twisted in a manic grin.
�Laina? Are you OK?� Jerlis leaned over her, red hair dangling in her face.
�Yeah,� she said, �never better.� She dug
her fingers in the dirt. Jerlis looked doubtful. �Just give me a few minutes.�
She said. His face disappeared from her view as he straightened up. She stared
upwards at the stars, focusing on the feel of the ground beneath her. Safe, safe back in the outlands. Demons and chasms and weird
green skies and portals that nearly kill Jerlis and falls that never end� were
all safely behind her now. She breathed deeply of the untainted air. It was good to be back.
- 6
- 7
- 8
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

A Long Road Through Hell