Shattering the Sunset

This story is about a fight between a group of Dagger and Totem and a group of Twilight cultists, the latter of whose aim is to re-capture Ursala.
The Dagger and Totem group consist of Watrus, Gulgrim and Ursala.
The Twilight group consist of a female human warrior (arms), a female dwarf shaman (enhancement), a male gnome priest (shadow), a male orc shaman (restoration), and a male night-elf hunter (marksman).
It is split into parts for ease of reading, because it's actually quite long.
==Part 1: The Ambush==
It happened all at once. The warrior burst out of the Terrokar tree line first – round-shield with the Twilight emblem raised high, and Human voice with the Twilight warcry raised higher. Following her closely was a stockier Dwarven female - brandishing her hammer menacingly, the flames imbued within it turning tricks around its bulk.
Their teammates remained in the bushes, but were nonetheless very present indeed. Calling for boons from their Old Gods, their Gnomish parson; calling his totems to his side, their Orcish shamanic healer; and, shooting an arrow in front of the three ambushees, their Elven marksman. The Totems were surrounded.
The arrow was fletched with violent purple feathers, whistling to a thud on the path. Watrus barely had time to shout “Ge’ down!” before it exploded with a blinding flash. Thankfully, the charge was intended to blind, not injure; but it gave the Twilights time to pass judgement.
“Take the short one out first,” shouted the female human, raising her sword towards Gulgrim; then, pointing to a cursing Ursala, “cripple the runt; she’s our target!”
Her team responded rapidly. The woman’s Dwarven counterpart surged forwards like a pyroclastic flow towards Gulgrim. He barely had time to clear his eyes of the flash powder, let alone draw his weapons. He only just managed to parry her forceful strike.
In the tree line, beginning their deluge of magic were the Twilight party’s spellcasters. The Gnomish parson began chanting his dark incantations to the Old Gods, sigils and symbols on his face pulsing with the precarious eldritch magic. The party’s healer, evidently unfazed by the heterodoxy going on feet away from him, began channelling through his totems – putting his thoughts in order with those of the Elements around him; calling to them, inciting them, calling on their fury to his ends.
Rapidly climbing a tree was their marksman. He was a relatively thickset Kal’dorei man. Despite his stature, he was atop the tree in moments, watching the melée unfold before him. He took a target just as quickly with his longbow – his aim was true, and the violet-fletched arrow lodged itself in the runt orc’s leg. She yipped like an injured pup. She wasn’t going to be running anywhere any time soon.
He hadn’t been paying attention to the third member of the ambushed group of Totems, though. Watrus, the Troll hunter, already had her gun in her hands. She had him in his sights, placing his location with the single shot that the Kal’dorei man had fired. His cyan hair stuck out like a sore thumb in the drab Terokkar foliage. She took careful aim.
The Human leader of the Twilight attackers went to flank Gulgrim. The orc was showing his combat tendencies already, flurrying blow after frenzied blow against the Twilight shaman with his twin axes. A good number of them were blocked by the dwarf. Those that she missed with her shield were being parried with her weapon, or glancing off her well maintained chain armour. She began a dance with her Human friend - Gulgrim in the centre of it. Their attacks were routine and predictable, but they circled him together, pushing gradually inwards. Realising what was happening, he roared in frustration, ploughing his axe with a sudden new strength into the enemy shaman’s shoulder.
The marksman, meanwhile, was still unaware of his new predicament. He was reloading casually, not worrying for having been noticed – by far not noticing the gun aimed squarely at him. He had made the mistake of giving Watrus long enough to concentrate on a virtuoso shot. He gave a satisfying yelp of surprise as he found his bow shot out of his hand. She laughed shortly as he nearly lost his balance.
==Part 2: The Curse==
Ursala was focussing on her own job: healing. Admittedly, at the moment, not Gulgrim. She was not a good combat healer, but she called to Water nonetheless, bringing it around herself. It flowed through her readily, soothing the sharp aches and twinges in her leg where she was shot. Whilst Water did its work, she tugged something from her belt: a single relic, which she threw to the ground. The world shifted a little, and then there were totems – they dropped with four loud thuds into the ground, each now pulsing with their own potent light.
In the bushes, the Twilight healer was making his own calls to Water. The shoulder wound on his Dwarven companion disappeared; as did the bruises and dents and cuts on her body and that of the female warrior. His name was Tukrar, and he was the best combat healer available for this mission. He knew the runt orc’s skill-set. Despite the fact that she was the best first-aider he had ever seen, he could out-heal her in an active combat situation any day of the week. He found confidence in this, and it showed in his assertive spellcasting.
His Gnomish cohort was still muttering. He finished his incantation with a final few words, intoned in the way one might spit venomous swearwords – there was a flash of pure dark and tendrils seemed to come from the gnome’s hand and leap towards the battlefield, before fading. Their effects were unseen, but there was a dark grin on the gnome’s rune-etched face.
In the mean time, the Twilight warrior was deliberately agitating Gulgrim. He roared and spun around to hit her squarely in the head – he succeeded, but in doing so, opened himself up in a large way to an attack. The dwarf now violently disarmed him of his left-hand weapon. Gulgrim’s off-hand axe clattered to the ground: but something else came with it.
Gulgrim took one glance at the stump where his finger once was. He snarled ferally before howling like an incensed wolf, entering a blood rage. Unexpectedly to the warrior and the shaman, it seemed as though he was still fighting with two weapons. They were hit by blow after blow from that vicious axe edge, each strike unpredictable and of varying strength in itself. They were taking the strikes steadily, regardless – Tukrar was backing them up, streams of healing arcing with aqueous determination between their growing wounds.
Meanwhile, Ursala cast a hasty spell, calling a sanguine riptide to pull Gulgrim’s blood back into his wounds, sealing the stump with a scab. She scowled as Water spoke with her – something wasn’t quite right. Closing her eyelids, she looked at him again. What she saw made her recoil: purple tendrils of an eldritch and eerily familiar nature, attached to something in the ground, were snaking their way around her mate’s form and, most notably, his left hand.
In a hurry, she reached forwards with both astral hands and took hold of the very spiritually tangible link between the tentacles and their source. It burnt her spirit-hands – she could hear screams, but they weren’t hers – but she needed to grab and pull and grasp and claw. After some effort, the connection broke. There was a sense of great relief, and the spectral tendrils shrivelled and died, leaving only the smallest residue on Gulgrim’s spirit. Despite that, she returned to her body, using the ankh bound around its neck as a signpost. If she left it vacant any longer, it would pass out.
==Part 3: Dirty Tactics==
Watrus had noticed the curse, too, but in a different way. It had distracted her from her games with the Kal’dorei marksman as she’d noticed its source. The small Gnomish priest wasn’t conspicuous, but she had him in her sights now, and that was all that mattered. She couldn’t afford to take too long aiming this time – her shot was hasty, but a rasping breath from the target indicated that she’d hit him in the lungs where she’d intended. With a punctured lung, he wouldn’t be casting any more nasty incantations. She immediately reloaded, going for the kill this time.
Tukrar had noticed his friend fall. Swearing in Kalimag (or as close to swearing as one could get in such a primal language), he frantically began making desperate calls, trying to seal the hole in the gnome’s breathing apparatus. But no luck – by the time the wave of raw healing had answered the restorer’s call, Watrus had made her second shot. Tukrar knew his limits. There was no amount of shamanic healing that was going to restore the gnome’s brains to his skull; not now that they were spattered on the forest floor.
Ursala was casting her own frantic spells now, Riptide after Healing Wave after Riptide, ignoring the arrow protruding from her leg. Gulgrim was getting careless, especially since his weapon had taken on the Wind’s fury. It was gliding towards its targets with all the strength and anger and imprecision and carelessness of a hurricane. His body was more open to attacks this way, and the two Twilights double-teaming him were taking advantage of that in as many ways as they could.
The dwarf was even making her own Elemental calls. Lava spouted forth in a torrent from her hammer, spilling out over the mass of the weapon like a volcano erupting. She struck at Gulgrim’s entirely unguarded chest. The hot flowing fire made his breastplate shimmer as it burnt into his flesh, the trails of magma whipping back against him even after the weapon had passed. The air was thick with the smell. The human, meanwhile, kept Gulgrim’s single remaining axe engaged. She was almost making the Wind dance and chase after her fine sword. It was obvious she’d trained against shamans before.
That angered Ursala. This wasn’t fair, none of it was – and it was a mortal’s duty to be fair. To claim otherwise was to be arrogant. The tempered vehemence she found aided her in her telluric calls. What appeared to be a bright white wooden vine thrust from her palm, leaves and all, and leapt for Gulgrim. It grew into his wounds and through his body, consuming the vigour that Water had placed there to seal all that was broken, jumping out of one cut and bounding straight into another. It caused him no discomfort; he hardly seemed to notice it.
Having reloaded since shooting the gnome, Watrus was aiming back at the elf. She’d just shot him out of the tree, hitting him on the shoulder to make him lose his balance, and was about to assume him down for the count – unarmed as he was – when he heard another yip to her side. Glancing at Ursala, she saw that the young orc had been hit again. In the arm this time, with a tiny little crossbow bolt. It had snapped the Chain Heal she was casting, the ghostly foliage dropping and seeming to die on the ground before fading. Watrus did a double-take. She hadn’t expected the elf to be carrying a second weapon. That was almost clever.
“Dirty tactics, ya? Canno’ win on ya own?”
She squinted into the bushes where the elf had fallen. Luckily, his ridiculous cyan hair gave him away once again. It occurred to Watrus that perhaps he ought to have dyed it as she shot him in the side of the head.
==Part 4: Greed and Pride==
Ursala grunted loudly, the impact of the little crossbow bolt having knocked her off-balance - both physically and in terms of spellcasting, despite its size. She realised that it was probably laden with some manner of vivacious poison. The thought barely occurred to her before she lost her sense of balance. Before she knew it, she was on her knees, struggling to keep herself conscious.
Gulgrim heard the thud behind him and knew that it was Ursala. It distracted him for long enough to let the Dwarven shaman call Earth to knock him off his balance. Not expecting it, he fell to his knees. She hit him squarely on the side of the head with her hammer. The resulting injury very quickly began to swell, the bruise obscuring Gulgrim’s vision on that side. Finding himself unable to stand, and hearing the warrior’s sword whistle on its way to him, he performed his last resort.
They didn’t materialise quickly, but it didn’t take long, either. It was almost as though time slowed around them as they entered the field of battle. They had names, but that didn’t matter as much today. What mattered was the teeth. The teeth came first, followed by the muzzles and the fierce, smug, hungry eyes. The rest of the bodies followed, but they were second – second to the teeth and the claws and the fight. And then came the names.
Greed and Pride leapt into the skirmish.
They tried to eat. They were hungry, and they wanted food. What they found was flesh and blood and metal, and so they went to eat it. Greed was greedy, and pounced bodily on the Dwarven shaman, trying to take her all at once; Pride was picker, and was trying to chew her hand off.
She realised very quickly that she was their target. With a powerful Thunderstorm and a lot of flailing, she managed to get the spirit wolves off her, giving Tukrar just long enough to call a powerful request. By the time Greed and Pride had surged forwards once more, they found themselves eating Earth, called to shield the shaman by the medic in the bushes. Even so - they knew, and he knew, that it would not hold out for long.
Gulgrim was back on his feet. With murder in his eyes, he did something entirely unexpected – he whipped his head back and leapt forwards, both feet off the ground. His head connected squarely with the Human warrior’s. His was built from tougher stuff, and came through the better for it. The human was left disorientated and stumbling by the powerful headbutt.
Greed and Pride had bitten their way through the Earth Shield now. Such things were meat to them as much as muscle. They were beginning to make progress on the Dwarven shaman’s armour. She didn’t have long, and she knew it. So did Tukrar, who was slowly realising that his party was now very much in trouble; he was frenetically calling spell after spell to his hands and then the dwarf’s body, all to no avail. In time, what Greed and Pride were chewing on was just a ragdoll that was once a dwarf. With no interest in things of an unspiritual nature, both of them began to sniff insistently for something very specific on her person. Greed found it first – the ankh. They almost began to fight over it, but Pride snatched it quickly and swallowed it.
The dwarf was gone. And then, just as they had come, so were Greed and Pride.
==Part 5: Event Horizon==
Whilst she was aware that Ursala was down, Watrus knew that there was very little she could do to help her. With this knowledge, she instead turned to aim at the human that Gulgrim was now sparring with. Despite Tukrar’s aid, she was losing her energy. It was only a matter of time before the orc overpowered her - assuming that he could stay upright for that long. Carefully, Watrus lined up the shot. If she missed, she would hit Gulgrim. Possibly in the head. Definitely somewhere vital.
She pulled the trigger.
The human fell over.
Tukrar, suddenly realising exactly what manner of trouble he was in, began to run. Ursala was drowsy, but Water was refreshing her mind and beginning to cleanse her blood. She looked up and saw his face.
“No!” she cried, to the others. “Not him! Don’t kill him!”
Tukrar shouted back, still running, sheer panic in his tone. “Dursa, get away from me!”
It was Gulgrim’s turn to resemble a pyroclastic flow. With all his injuries and crippling, he swelled forwards towards the slower, heavier Tukrar.
“Gulgrim, stop!” Ursala’s tone was weak, but loud. “Don’t kill him! I know him!”
Gulgrim didn’t respond. With no words, he called furious Frost to freeze the other orc’s legs into place.
“Gulgrim, are you even listening to me?! Don’t kill him!”
With no words, he grabbed Tukrar’s shoulder with his three-fingered fist and pushed him roughly onto the forest floor. Tukrar landed with a grunt and tried to scramble away, but the Frost wouldn’t allow it.
“Gulgrim, don’t you dare!
“Ya heard 'er ya twat! Jus' stop it!”
With no words, Gulgrim brought his hands down onto the back of Tukrar’s neck. He put his full weight on the other man and pressed down, hard. Tukrar’s gasps of terror were met with a snarl of pure fury from Gulgrim – and then the terror faded with the breath, and there was nothing.
Tukrar’s eyes went dull.
“GULGRIM!”
Gulgrim searched the dead healer roughly. There was no respect. Not for this manner of filth. He found what he was looking for.
He held it in his hands for a few moments. It was long enough for his mate, Ursala, and his fellow Sergeant, Watrus, to catch up. Watrus was supporting Ursala on the side where she had been shot in the leg. The arrow was still there, obtruding rudely. Gulgrim stared at the thing in his hand, then looked at them.
Ursala looked at the ankh, then at Gulgrim
“Don’t you dare, Gulgrim. That ankh you’re holding has a name. Don’t you dare.
Ursala had recovered her fire since it was doused by the Elven poison, then. It was in her trembling face and her uneven tone, even if she still needed Watrus’ support physically. She looked at the ankh again.
“Pass it here.”
And, with four words, he let the Fire eat the ankh in his palm
“Not for a Twilight.”