Crumbling Depths - Deepholm, Elemental Plane of Earth

  “Thrall…that Demon is still alive, down here.” Stormcaller Mylra of the Wildhammer Clan called as she scouted ahead.

  The tunnels of Deepholm were as deadly as advertised. Rogue elementals, stone Troggs, and whatever had carved the large, circular tunnels through these caverns constantly assailed them, though thankfully, the earth-eater didn’t seem to be around. Yet.

  With situations like this, such things were usually, inevitably, drawn towards the source of all the chaos that was about to unfold…and an elementally charged weapon like the Doomhammer would probably seem quite tasty.

  “All the more reason to reach the Doomhammer first…” They trudged quietly, before Thrall spoke again. “The Doomhammer…it felt like dead weight in my hands. The Elements were silent. It has been this way since I used it to slay Garrosh.”

  The shaman who would soon become Farseer of the Earthen Ring stayed quiet beneath their hood, as Thrall overshared. Their Wildhammer companion, Stormcaller Mylra, seemed as quietly uncomfortable as the shaman was. Thrall was clearly going through some things and losing the Doomhammer after going one on one with a demon called Geth’xun had cut him deep. Given what the shaman knew of Thrall’s personal ties to Orgrim Doomhammer’s famous weapon, it had to hurt, to be ignored by both it, and the elements.

  As Thrall trudged on, Mylra fell back to the adventurer’s side and spoke quietly. “Keep an eye on him. He’s wounded. He’s likely to kill himself down here. And I don’t want to be the one who has to tell his wife…”

  Not long after that, the earth rumbled and the creature responsible for making these tunnels finally appeared. “Watch it!” Mylra shouted, dodging away. “It’s infused with Fel! Kill it!”

  Thunder, flame, and ice struck the worm, as it roared Fel-coated crystalline shards back at them. The shaman wielded the most obvious choice of element in Deepholm, and they were well rewarded for it. The earth responded to their commands instantly, a clear sign of the Stonemother’s favor, after all the help they’d given her earlier while searching for the Doomhammer.

  As the battle raged, Thrall decided this was the perfect time for exposition.

  He recounted the ignoble death of Orgrim Doomhammer, lanced from behind while freeing his people from one of the human’s largest internment camps.

  Shields of earth kept the weaponless orc from being impaled by a hail of Fel crystal, but Thrall barely even seemed to notice the fight. “As he bled out onto the fields of Arathi…he bestowed the Doomhammer to me.” Thrall stood, his sharp blue eyes narrowing, as he finally noticed the threat that was only now reaching about half its stamina. “The Doomhammer is not merely a weapon. It is a symbol…a symbol of hope, of power… Proof that one individual can change the world.”

  Thrall raised a fist, and with enough effort to make beads of sweat form, an earthen fist fell from the ceiling, mostly formed, and crushed the worm’s crystalline core. Mostly because the fist fell apart before it ever came close to the worm. The shaman furrowed their brow. The Earthen Ring was in dire straits if this was the most the vaunted World Shaman could do.

  “We need to keep moving.” Thrall said, limping ahead. “Geth’xun is close.”

  They heard the demon, before they saw him. “Bah! Foul primitive sorcery…I will claim this weapon for my Masters!” Geth’xun raised his greataxe, and Mylra started babbling.

  “Shaman, we can’t let that weapon fall into the wrong hands! I’ll distract him. You grab the Doomhammer. No time to argue! Go!” With that, Mylra ran out into the cavern, loud and brash as a dwarven stereotype. “‘Ey! YOU there! Me bird craps scarier Demons than you!”

  “Insolent worrrrm…” Geth’xun hissed, pausing mid-swing to glower at Mylra.

  The Wildhammer sold the performance beautifully. She turned, bent over, and waggled her plump dwarven posterior. “Oh, Aye, COME GET SOME!” With another quick turn, lightning lanced out from her palm to strike Geth’xun’s face…and then the dwarf woman’s face fell, as she saw it left barely a scorch mark.

  With an infernal yell worthy of the stone demonic siege constructs, Geth’xun struck at her, raising Fel-covered pillars of stone in a line. They hammered her hard, but the dwarf wasn’t down yet.

  The shaman, meanwhile, had not been idle. Slowly, the power of elemental plasma whittled the stone protecting the Doomhammer away, and the shaman didn’t hesitate to reach for it.

  Up until that moment their hand clasped the legendary weapon, they’d fully intended to return it to Thrall, but as they grasped it, they knew…the Doomhammer, like much of the Horde, had given up on the former World Shaman. The shaman understood in an instant. The shame of his dishonor in facing, and killing Garrosh had imbalanced the proud orc’s spirit. That, more than anything else, kept him from his true power, and right now, the world needed a shaman who could still wield this elementally charged Artifact.

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  “You got i- OOF!” Mylra shouted, distracted by the shaman’s success, she’d turned her focus unwisely away from the enraged demon. His axe split her diagonally across her body in a spray of blood and Fel.

  Thrall watched from the entrance to the cavern, motionless. Mylra, fighting bravely and now gravely wounded, the shaman, one of the many Heroes who had faced Deathwing and worse, focusing to reclaim the Doomhammer. Thrall looked down at the ground, guilt and shame weighing him down. Some World Shaman he was. In the Plane of Earth itself, and he couldn’t even form a Stone Fist.

  His wound from earlier, hastily treated before they’d leapt into Deepholm, still burned as it had when Geth’xun had given it to him. He clenched the wounded arm in frustration. It had, in every way, been an amateur mistake. One his former gladiator self silently mocked, piling on to the emotional turmoil. The demon had easily broken his guard, and struck his main weapon hand, the one with the greater hold on the Doomhammer. Geth’xun’s dramatic flair had managed to toss it into Deepholm, and now, once again, the Horde’s Champion was cleaning up his mess.

  Thrall blinked, as he felt Air reach out to him, and guide his eyes upward. Fire and Earth surrounded the shaman, who now held the Doomhammer in their right hand, and a burning clone of it, in their left. Yet their hand’s flesh was not seared. A shield of earth orbited the shaman, their weapons were empowered with the fury of the wind, and a Frost Shock smashed into the demon as they joined the fray. Thrall felt his spirit sink, as it became clear with only a glance: the Doomhammer had found its proper wielder. Seeing them leap into the fight against Geth’xun, Thrall knew he needed to do something.

  “Spirit of Air…please…do not let me be useless…”

  With a gust of pity, Thrall felt the spirit respond, but it was weak. Had he been in a better mindset, he might’ve realized the blockage was on his end of things, not the Spirit’s. The Air Elementals of Azeroth did not care about duels in alternate timelines on other worlds. Indeed, how could they even know such things had occurred? Thrall’s spiritual issues were his, and he would need to resolve them if he ever wished to be a shaman again.

  As Geth’xun littered the field with Fel-tainted pillars that seemed quite damaging to the Hero, Thrall struck. A small, almost pitiful burst of lighting responded, breaking several of the pillars, and the shaman strategically backed into the cleared space, as Thrall readied another blast. It was pathetic, compared to what he should’ve been capable of, but it was what the Hero needed, and sure enough, once again, a seemingly unstoppable foe was brought low by one of this generation’s truly mighty adventurers.

  Their control was perfect, the element’s response to them not even remotely in question. They wielded Water, Earth, Fire, and Air with ease, and more impressively, all at once. Even their mastery of Spirit was controlled, perfected, and responsible for keeping them alive through strikes that would’ve killed lesser warriors. With a shaman like this leading the Earthen Ring, Thrall knew the demons would have no chance.

  What was clear now though, was that he would be of almost no help to Azeroth this time. At most he was a warrior, and a warrior without a weapon, was nothing. That thought further fractured Thrall’s spirit as he finally accepted what, in his mind, was a simple undeniable truth: he was no longer a Shaman.

  Thrall fell to one knee as Air left him in the wake of that realization, now fully cut off by Thrall’s turmoil. Geth’xun, battered and burned, roared in frustration. Like most Legion leaders, he’d been shouting about their inevitable death throughout the fight. The shaman readied the power of the storm, as the demon charged up. “I will corrupt this sorry world from within! I WILL BRING DOWN THIS WHOLE CAVERN! ”

  Seeing their lack of movement as hesitation, instead of the waiting on cooldowns that it was, Thrall started speaking again. From what the shaman could sense, for some reason, that was all he was capable of, now. The elements had left him completely.

  “The whole of Azeroth will rise against the Legion! Flame, Earth, and Sky will lash out at your damned Crusade!”

  In complete agreement with the former Warchief, the shaman mirrored the demon, raising the Doomhammers high, and then combining them into one burning elemental weapon. They leapt with the fury of a storm, and their two-handed blows created a maelstrom of all the elements that pummeled Geth’xun while their hammer was between swings. Thrall just watched, in awe. Their rotation through their various skills was flawless.

  The final strike was a rising pillar of sharp earth that impaled the demon, and grew, lifting even its massive form off the ground. “There are…others…” Geth’xun smiled that same smile that far too many other demons had, in their final moments. Amused by a truth the heroes of Azeroth had only just begun to understand. “We…are…Legion…”

  Sheathing the Doomhammer, the shaman rushed over to Mylra, who was on the edge of death. “It's the end of the tunnel fer me, Shaman…”

  “The Fel it is.” The shaman rumbled, their voice now sounding…almost deeper, somehow. The focused healing powers of Spirit surged through Mylra, and her eyes widened as not just her body, but her spirit, was cleansed in a focused burst. The already winded adventurer fell to a knee, panting, but grinning. Everyone was alive. The Doomhammer was theirs. The demon was dead. Therazane was on side. This…was a victory pulled from the jaws of defeat.

  The grin faded from the shaman’s cowled face as their eyes met Thrall’s. All it had cost them…was a legend. Being a part of the Horde, it hurt to see their Warchief like this. Thrall may have made poor choices, but he was, by every measure, better than that corpse from Quel’thalas. When the inevitable rebellion against her honorless, amoral tactics eventually began, the shaman intended to be at its forefront.

  Thrall interrupted their thoughts, a sad smile on his green face. “The Doomhammer has chosen you, Shaman. Already…you wield it with a power that I…never tapped into. I must go my own way…I’m not of use to anyone, like this…and I have a great deal of thinking to do. Aggra will be at the Maelstrom soon. Heed her words…they are worth listening to.”

  He put a thick green hand on the shaman’s massive, sparking, wolf-headed pauldron ringed in the symbol of the Horde. “Bring the Earthen Ring together. Turn their might against the Legion. The Archmage, Khadgar, will be waiting to hear from you, once you gather more Artifacts for the Earthen Ring. This…is Your time. Farseer.”

  Thrall and Mylra bowed, and the Farseer of the Earthen Ring just looked at the Doomhammer. Hoping it would be enough.