NationStates Jolt Archive

The crackling, coalescing energies of the portals tore through the fabric of the Nether; rent asunder the cool air of Draenor; the red world; as the powerful magickal energies seemed to form; to take shape; a rending void materialising in the midst of their world. Stone and rock surged upwards, yerning to form into new, arcane shapes; assembling into a peculiar sort of gateway. Any Orcish warriors nearby would feel teh dread cold; the chill air billowing from beyond that mysterious doorway.

Perhaps that was the vasty icy taste of the Twisting Nether; perhaps it was something far more nefarious. A familiar voice seemed to echo upon the wind; before the portal undulated; seethed; and something began to emerge.

It was tall; taller than any man or Orc; and it seemed to hover as robes and ice-bound chains drifted about it's body. It carried a great staff; crackling with frozen-energies; the crystal at the top seeming to pulse with inner light and fury. The Lich paused; glancing about it; already undead warriors were assembling at the other side of the gate; his elite bodyguards had already pushed through; hulking warriors; clad in metal and ice and armed with great Runeblades; they were Death Knights, not the kind he had known once, not those he had courted upon the surface of...

...Draenor? Was it possible, could this be? It seemed so familiar; as as he touched the air with deadened senses; alive with magickal power and knowledge; he sighed in a blast of deathly cold air. How could this be? Had they crossed space and time? Had they crossed reality itself; that Draenor stood, intact? Whole?

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I'm currently doing something with CoreWorlds, but I can probably devote a fleet or two to pound this little invasion into dust.

OOC: BUMP. Whoever said the Scourge was invading ;)

We can be your best friends; or your greatest enemies...Brother.

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Drak'qua fighters. These old, decaying starfighters were mostly used to patrol the vast tracks that were the Rodinan sector, but they still had their uses.

Like, say, finding a band of undead that had happened upon the Horde's homeworld.

"...ya mon, da Stone Guard be crazy. If he be t'inkin dat I be pullin a dubbahl shift, he got anuddah t'ing comin. I be 'avin da little 'uns ta care fah!" said Zul'kis, pilot of the twenty-third fighter in the Hellfire Penninsula garrison.

"I hear ya, HP-23. Still, with the rest of the fleet out fighting these 'sith' characters, I think we're all gonna have to start pullin our weight," said HP-24, an orc veteran that refused to leave his homeworld. "I say, what's that down there?"

"Dunno, mon. Exacise?"

"Doubt it. Best take a look."

And so the two triangular fighters dropped below the cloudline, and skimmed over the undead army.

"What in the name of the Lich King?" The Lich gazed skywards at the things that dove and whirled like great metal birds; from far away, words drifted into its mind, as other minds were consumed; as things were learned and spread amongst themselves

Star Fighters

The thing gestured; diamond hard ice forming itself into shards out it's fingers; as it gestured; and reached skyward; seeking to clip the wings of the fighters above with precise ease; it's psychic voice echoing in their minds as it spoke; demanding; cold and measured

Who are you? How is Draenor intact? Answer; in the name of Ner'zhul!?

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"I BE HIT!" screamed HP-23, banking his fighter to avoid more ice. "Aych-pee twenty-t'ree tah base, we be 'avin big problem ou' heyah, mons! Big voodoo mon be tossin de ice about!"

The twin fighters doubled back, skimming closer to the ground and strafing the undead ranks with burst laser fire.

the land about its feet seemed to weaken and blight, death spreading in sinister tendrils as it incanted, it's voice howling like the very winter winds of Northrend, before it lashed out; decay wrought upon the workings of the fighter, an immense cloud of fetid, stinking air seeming to form about them and plunge against their fighters.

Answer me! How does Draenor exist! Who are you? Do you not serve Ner'zhul? Fools and weaklings!

((In order to keep the technobobble geeks from going "ZOMG GODMOD", Draenor is still one whole planet...just no one in their right mind would want to live there. Outland is instead a group of asteroid belts and oort clouds a few lightyears from the system. The tauren and trolls originated on different worlds in different star systems. This is, after all, Future Tech and not Fantasy.))

The fighter's internal systems buckled and cracked, the old ship succumbing to its age and the forces of the lich. The troll's scream was the last thing heard of the fighter as it blossomed into a blood-red star. Shrapnel hit the orc's fighter in the thrusters, causing them to short out. It crash-landed half a kilometer from the undead legion.

Aboard, the orc pilot popped the hatch and grabbed his plasma rifle, taking position behind the downed craft and calling for reinforcements.

In high orbit, the patrol gunboat Miik'rat 87 broke formation and began a hard burn towards the surface, its captain ready to tan the hide of whoever sent off the "false" alarm.

The dead pushed onwards, forcing their way through the fabric of reality, moving in a drove towards the Orc; the Lich at their head. He gestured, the air darkening and chilling, a foul, icy touch against existence.

"Onwards my servants! Onwards! Onwards in the name of the Scourge! The Lich King shall consume this world as he has so many others! Onwards!"

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((I have ignored this thread most heinously, haven't I?))

The orc pilot shot off a few bursts from his rifle, litterally melting the undead that he hit. He tore the safety from a pulse grenade and hurled it over the debris of his crashed figther. The grenade skittered to a halt several meters in front of the advancing legion and detonated, sending a shockwave energized air flowing over the undead, powerful enough to send cracks into the earth. The orc squeezed off another volley of shots and readied a vibroaxe. Screaming an oath to avenge his family and wingman, he hurled the armor-shredding weapon straight for the skull of the lich.

Overhead, searchlights stabbed through the darkened sky as the Mii'krat approached the planet surface.

"Captain," said the tauren helmsman. "We are detecting odd energy readings on the surface, along with the wreckage of two older Drak'qua."

The orc, a young captain who'd yet to pass up into the command of a frigate or larger vessel, sighed.
"Order all weapons hot. Let's find out who is responsible for crashing their own damned fighter. Probably some geezer from the last war. Har!" The crew shared a hearty laugh just as the gunship descended below the cloudline.

A gesture and the vibroaxe deflected off of an icy shield that had formed about the undead form of the Lich; advancing, hovering, even as his compatriots fell to true death about him; he chuckled wryly. Readying intricate spellcraft with each chill breath, hissing and whispering. "[i]I could destroy you; son of Draenor. Or we can elect to follow the ways of eternal suffering. We are the Scourge; we who thwarted the Legion vast and ascended to glory. We who set in motion the machinations of fate. Now, I stand upon a deadened world...A World that should not exist in my reality, or estimations thereof...I can have you killed; and serve forever the will of NER'ZHUL; or....We can talk."

"Mirdauntas vras!" screamed the orc pilot, firing off another few rounds. "Peversion of spirit! Blight upon the earth! BURN!" The rifle switched to full auto, bolts of superheated plasma flaring out at the undead legion.

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"WHAT IN THE HELLS?!" cried the orc captain, looking at the viewer of the undead legion advancing on the wreckage of two fighters. "FIRE! FIRE! For the sake of the spirits, SOMEBODY FIRE!"

"Wretched, mindless RABBLE! Do the Legion still hold your pathetic minds to drive you to such idiotic assault!?" The Lich howled in rage as undead warriors were torn asunder to his left and right, focussing his psychic might; "FOOLS! HEAR ME! WE WISH TO SPEAK WITH YOU AND YOUR KIND! WE WISH PARLEY! CEASE!"

It snarled in carnal fury, teeth clenched; skull twisted in boundless rage, as it gestured for its legion to stop. "Now...Can we be civil?"

The volatile rain of plasma ceased, but the turrets were kept trained on the ground below. The very dirt burned as the remains of the fallen warriors crumpled. Amid the roaring of the gunship's null-grav hover drives kicking in, a voice speared down towards the lich.

"Speak your piece, demon, and be quick about it, lest we make another crater in these wastes."

"Demon? Oh how you mislabel us brother." The Lich began to chuckle. "I myself was once an orc of the Shadow Moon clan; taken with my glorious Master in service of the Legion; as an instrument of war as so many of us were. But then, my Master betrayed the legion; thwarted them. Fleeing; only to be trapped; transformed; made into the Lich King" He gestured to the undulating portal. "Now; he has broken free of their control; and seeks to stop them at any cost. We come here to enact our ancient pacts of brotherhood. You have become free; as have we.

Though our methods differ; would you forsake us?"

More fighters began flybys now, dispatched from the local garrison to investigate. Though their natural instincts told them to open fire, the gunship hovering told them otherwise. A call was put out to Durotar City by the gunship, informing them of the situation.

And so they sat there, plasma cannons focused on the lich and fingers hovering over the trigger. If what this abomination said was true, then it would mean a potential ally. It would also mean that one of the Shadow Council had escaped, and possibly more with him.

It waited. Waited and watched; abserving these orcs. They had progressed much, liberated themselves from much of the corruption of the Legion; gained new allies, new strength. It was pleasing; pleasing to see ones race advance.

Yet he must remember that they were not his race; no longer. Now he was deified; made glorious by Ner'zhuls power. The Legion would not stand against a union of both of their factions; but all that depended upon what was to come.

Diplomacy.