The Tormented Earth

The sun set over the rocky hillside marking the northernmost peninsula of Azshara. A gentle breeze picked up and rustled the amber grass and a discoloured fern making it sound like Mother Nature was shuffling a particularly large sheaf of papers.
On top of one of the more grassy knolls a gentle glow could be seen, dim but noticeable in the growing twilight. The outline of a small, slight figure wearing a ridiculous hat could be made out, he appeared to be clicking his fingers rapidly and swearing at a smaller, stockier figure next to him.
“The buggering magic’s on the blink again…” the Elf (for the ridiculously behatted one was indeed an Elf) muttered, “I can’t get a decent fire going, it keeps going out and then flaring up.”
The smaller figure next to him smirked and waved a green finger in his face, “Maybe you should’ve stuck to pure magic instead of going back to battlemagics boss, there’s something to be said for utility.”
The Elf narrowed his eyes and focused on the fire, which glowed with an unnatural shade of yellow and gold, obviously artificial and given that the heat it evoked certainly felt real, definitely Arcane.
The Orc sighed irritably, “nothing’s happening boss, we’ve been here for a week and seen nothing, I’m tired of this, we’re pissing in the wind…there’s nothing here.”
The Elf turned slowly to face the Orc and raised a skinny finger, “patience my young apprentice, I promised young Ursala I’d do some research and that’s what we’re doing. Besides, what else would you be doing with the Lich King gone?”
The Orc shrugged and spat on the ground, “I dunno, practicing with you some more? Learning that secret technique that you promised me, you know the one that makes your pen-“
“We don’t talk of the secret technique! “, the Elf interjected, probably for the best.
“Anyway”, the Orc sighed, “we could be doing something more profitable than sitting on our arses watching bloody grass grow…”
“Where did you learn that sort of language, you fecking twat?” the Elf smirked.
The Orc rolled his eyes and rested his chin on his hands, “that joke was funny the first”, the Orc looked up doing a quick calculation in his head, “one hundred and five times.”
The Elf shrugged, “Practice making fire then…”
The Orc nodded and raised a well defined hand, pointing at the fire he muttered an incantation in Thalassian and the flames leapt up with a golden flare.
The Elf took off his smouldering hat and tossed it aside, “very good…” he muttered.
Further east, along the creeping, rocky peninsula, beyond the ancient ruins of an arrogant race, something stirred. The cliff walls creaked and rock splintered. The grass around the furthest point of the peninsula withered and cracked and an earthquake shook the area.
“What was that?” the Orc spat, jumping up and weaving an arcane enchantment on his axe.
“Sounded like a minor localized tectonic disturbance”, the Elf said, tapping his chin, “perhaps some form of local geographical phenomenon?”
“Don’t be so bloody stupid! For all your book smarts you don’t know much about the actual physical area do you?” the Orc sneered.
The Elf sighed and stood up, brushing off his patched up trousers, summoning a long, straight blade to his hand and weaving a fiery enchantment on it.
“Fine, let’s go and see what it is, I think it’s nothing more than a localized version of the tremors we may or may not be experiencing depending on whether or not experience is a valid guide to reality.”
“Rimeshade, please…just…just shut up and let’s actually DO something!” the Orc wailed, gripping his axe with enthusiasm.
The Elf smirked, “Lead on Mac-, Wee Grem…”
An hour or so later
“Oh yes! It’s probably nothing!” Wee Grem yelled, dodging a huge earthen fist.
“In my defence I was merely exercising healthy scepticism!” the Elf addressed as Rimeshade shouted back, parrying a swing from a smaller Elemental.
“Reth, rofus maligag tureth kali kali kali, Nelth!”, the Elementals yelled in thick, dry, hoarse voices each one yelling at different times, seemingly apropos of nothing, simply yelling, as if in confusion or fear.
Wee Grem leapt onto the shoulder of the large Earth Elemental, bracing himself against the creature he tensed his short legs and sprung from it in a perfectly calculated arc, travelling down towards the smaller elemental with his axe held high, blazing with a vivid purple light. Shouting a strange mix of Thalassian and Orcish he cleft the Elemental in twain with a single downward swipe, leaving a cloud of dust crackling with arcane energy in his wake.
“Thanks for that, I could have handled it myself though…” the Elf grinned.
“Of course you could have boss but I presume I’m being marked for my performance in the field, no?”
Battlemage Brian Rimeshade nodded to himself; he’d only been teaching the Orc theory and practising on the old dummies in Silvermoon. He’d been waiting for an opportunity like this to test his apprentice’s practical application of the knowledge he’d been imparted. So far he’d been applying it with brutal efficiency.
The Elf smirked and tossed a blast of golden arcane fire at an Elemental that had reared up behind his apprentice, the elemental’s arm cracked off and it recoiled in pain, another couple of blasts and it collapsed in a heap of earth.
“Never let your guard down, arrogance led to my people’s fall, don’t let it lead to yours.”
The Orc scowled and nodded, “sorry…”
The Elf nodded and readied his blade, holding it in front of him just under arms length, in both hands, with elbows bent slightly and his legs a good distance apart.
“Now, we both deal with this larger one. Remember, we need samples from it, don’t get reckless.”
The titanic Elemental slammed an earthen fist into the ground again, this time seemingly randomly. It spun around slowly but with the gradual progress of a glacier slamming its fists into the ground over and over again, each time hitting a different spot, as if it was playing some shamanistic version of whack-a-gnome. It turned and stared at the two Battlemagi.
“Reth, greag…Nelth….Nelth! Fargeth, reth! Reth!”
“Here it comes…” the Elf nodded to his apprentice.
But the Elemental simply stood. Still. Deliberate. It reached both hands into the ground and clenched its fists, pulling out huge wads of earth and tossing them at the feet of the Battlemagi.
“Krageth! Krageth! Gerth, reth! Nelth! Reth! Faerthog!”
Rimeshade knelt down slowly, keeping his haze firmly fixed on the Elemental as his scooped up a handful of the earth and sniffed it, he recoiled and dropped the clod of dirt, covering his nose, his eyes streaming.
“What? What is it? Brian!” the Orc stammered, visibly shaken.
The Elf waved a skinny hand at the Orc, he knew he was panicked; he only ever addressed him by his Dalaran-given name when he was really worried. “It’s nothing…it’s just, it stinks…there’s something wrong, some sort of vile magical residue that…not arcane or fel…”
The Elemental remained still; it slowly raised a fist and then suddenly brought it down onto its chest with enough force to flatten Stormwind’s Park. The Elf and Orc winced in tandem as the Elemental reached into the gaping hole in its chest and removed a dimly glowing core which it tossed to the figures.
The Elemental slowly sunk to the ground, supporting itself with a quivering arm, “Rethyur, faerothg….Nelth….gra-keth….feth…” it stammered as it fell, slowly, like a capsizing ship onto the withered ground.
Rimeshade stood up slowly and gingerly picked up the core, it felt warm but nothing else unusual. He handed it to his apprentice and walked carefully around the various fallen Elementals, picking up whatever he and his apprentice could discern as being useful or abnormal.
“That’s it boss,” the Orc shouted over, “nothing else here, just rocks and stones.”
The Elf nodded and walked over to his apprentice, taking the samples he had collected from him. “Let’s go then. The more time I spend here the more uneasy I feel. We’ve had invasions before but…but…it just, killed itself, it just…”
“I know boss, but we’re not Shamans or even Druids, how can we hope to understand the workings of the elements?”
Rimeshade gave a short, sharp, bitter laugh, “who knows what darkness lurks within the hearts of Elementals…” he muttered, seemingly to himself.
“Boss?”
“Nothing, nothing…just something…I…don’t know…seemed like the fitting thing to say…”
The Orc nodded, Miss Kal’es had warned him of his “boss’” tendency to drift, a result of too many magical experiments and alchemical concoctions.
The pair clambered onto Rimeshade’s large, permanently inebriated Kodo which staggered off in the vague direction of Orgrimmar. In the distance, a small piece of quartz tumbled slowly towards the eastern-most cliff face and rolled laconically down it, like a solidified, black tear.
Category:Story