Chapter 114: Sorrow's Embrace
"More shrimp!" Zojja called from the table currently hosting the council of women with baby swollen bellies that I care about with Jack, Wanda, and Medusa while I am busy grilling the dog sized Thundershrimp.
Crustaceans are super good for pregnant women as they can often have trouble with blood sugar spikes and those sea cockroaches can be feasted on without worry as they provide very little in the way of blood sugar activity while also not having that bothersome mercury content that makes fish such a bad choice.
Plus these Thundershrimp aren't afraid to throw down, so they are a good time all around.
I had shark steaks on a second grill, as where there is water deeper than a man's knees in Tyria, there are sharks.
With the cows fed I finally got to sit down and eat myself, and as I put a fork into my stack of shark meat prepared to go Saiyan on it, Zojja got my attention.
"I called some of my ex-friends for a little get together." She said as she sipped a big glass of milk, "I have tracked some signals that lead me to believe that the Dredge in Sorrow's Embrace are experimenting using Snaff's research, and after Destiny's Edge got Snaff killed it's the least they can do to keep his research out of the hands of evil."
"I am glad you were able to keep your head on straight after finding that out." Jack said to the small woman.
"A big part of me wanted to rush out and crush those stupid dredge myself, but being halfway through my pregnancy threw a wet blanket on that." Zojja admitted, the shorter Asura pregnancy meant that she was only six weeks out from popping similar to the other three "And with the advances Grax and I have made in the last weeks I can totally take on the Moletariate, but I might need someone to bend over and pick things up and we all know that isn't happening in that metal monstrosity Grax has been building for combat."
"Don't make fun of my power armor." I told them seriously.
After building the nanomachines I had them assemble a new do gooder set of armor that combined as much tech and magic as I could muster. It was red and gold and Sanguinius himself would be proud to reenter the setting for the chance to wear it. I also flexed my god powers to force the Sunset Greatsword and Hammer of Might to take on more angelic appearances and learned the Dragonhunter Specialization to gain some fairly awesome holy light magic allowing me to spawn a set of golden glowing angel wings from my back and with a little effort maintain a spiked golden halo behind my head. (Look up Soul of Sanguinius by Kim Chan)
It was a lot of effort for a very heretical cosplay, but if I do end up in 40K I'll probably have to fight the Space Marine's anyway so why not jack their dead Primarch's swag.
I followed this up by making my very own golem using Asuran means. Needless to say, if you were terrified of Fisto from New Vegas before just imagine him huge and gold with a pile bunker instead of a fist and a quad barreled chain gun on the same arm with big old, and a you ain't getting through this shield on the other arm. Not to mention the over the shoulder plasma cannon and missile hive.
Please assume the position and let the nightmares begin.
"I will admit," I chuckled, "I may have designed things with total annihilation of my enemies in mind rather than convenience."
"You don't say?" Wanda laughed.
"One would think the master is compensating for something, but for what I can't imagine." Medusa added.
"Adding on to your capabilities to stylishly deal out death and destruction is never a bad thing." I told them.
"Anyway." Zojja segwayed, "We'll be meeting up with Kaithe and Eir deep in the Shiverpeaks tomorrow, and they are bringing their protégé's with them. You remember Scythe?"
"That dude kicked ass." I nodded.
"Apparently Eir has been mentoring a warrior that's supposed to be on that level." Zojja added.
"Sounds like the Moletariat is in for a bad time." I grinned.
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I grinned at the massive form of Asgeir Stormbringer, a huge Norn in their cultural Stag Armor with a big arctodus skin hung over his shoulders and a shield and warhammer in his grip. He was apparently using a variant of my last man standing build while flaunting his badassery by swapping out the mace for a hammer, likely being able to utilize the abilities of both, with shouts that both heal and condi cleans for some chill team support EZPZ dungeon carries.
Between Nightstalker and Stormbringer you had nearly eighty percent of my GW2 playtime, and getting to run a dungeon with the both of them felt like a big ol hand job from the guy authoring my adventures, no homo.
And for that I thank him, be he Jesus, Khorne, or a guy at a keyboard.
"Grax?" Scythe called over, "Is that you?"
"Yeah." I waved to the plant man.
"You look much improved." the Sylvari came over and shook my hand, "You looked quite a bit like a villain the last time we met."
Kaithe, a female Sylvari firstborn snorted, "Scythe, my dear, you are the scariest looking Sylvari anyone has ever seen."
"Me?" he sounded surprised, "I always thought I looked rather dashing and mysterious."
"Don't take it too harshly." Asgeir slapped the Sylvari on the back a little too hard, causing a meaty thwack on the plant man's wooden armor, "I think you look good, little buddy."
"I happen to be a very tall and broadly built Sylvari, Asgeir." Scythe smirked, "But that is just the way the Pale Tree made me. Who did you have to eat to get to be such a huge Norn."
"I am wounded." Asgeir chuckled, "I have never knowingly consumed man meat, but if I drunkenly ate a Tengu or two… I blame them for looking like chickens."
We all laughed.
"So we have a huge Norn, a huge Sylvari, and a huge Human here." I grinned, "I say we form the Swole Bro's Alliance and take the fight to the enemy with some jolly cooperation."
"The SBA," Scythe smirked, "I like it."
"Sounds like the kind of team up we will need to retake Claw Island from the forces of Zhaitan." Asgeir stated somberly, "Our mentor, Warmaster Forgal died fighting a rearguard action against the Risen forces led by Blightghast the Plaguebringer."
"We will get our retribution soon enough." Scythe looked the biggest man in the eyes.
"Sounds like the kind of fight I need to be there for." I nodded my head, "And where I go, so does Fisto the Annihilator!"
"Statement: Ready to terminate." the ten foot tall robot sounded.
"I quite like the way that golem looks like he can carry the adventure all by himself." Scythe grinned at the robot.
"Confirmation: The Moletariate stands no chance against Fisto." the robot replied.
"Don't take too much of the slaughter." Asgeir laughed, "Some of us came here to fight."
"If you boys are done rubbing each other off," Eir interrupted our bro down, "We came to stop the Dredge from using Snaff's tech."
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We fought our way into the fortified entrance to the underground empire of the Dredge and found the source of the leaks to Snaff's technology.
"Of course it's the Inquest." Zojja growled as an Inquest agent ran off leaving the dredge to face us alone, "Tell Kudu I am going to kick his teeth down his throat! I know where he fucking lives and I will turn that mother fucking facility to slag around him!"
The dredge in front of us threw their weapons down and put their hands in the air.
"Please don't hurt us." One begged.
"Are you sure you don't want to fight us?" I chuckled, "I have a few new moves I'd like to try out."
"Pass." The mole men said at the same time.
We encountered very few dredge willing to face us and murdered any Inquest Forces on our way to the Dredge Square, a carved out section of the iron and stone industrial city, where the Dredge had marshaled their forces for a pep rally where War Minister Shukov revealed that the Dredge along side the Inquest would invade the surface world and conquer all the 'lesser races'.
It was all going really well for them until a glowing golden angel flew over their little soirée and started raining down javelins made of burning hot light magic down upon them and his giant robot pal rocket jumped down among them for an explosive dynamic entry.
We were soon joined by the other Swole Bro's and the four of us destroyed the assembled dredge before Zojja and her pals made it down to the bottom of the Square.
"That's what you get for standing against the SBA!" Asgeir laughed as his warhammer crushed the cockpit of a dredge mecha mining suite.
"If it weren't for that speech revealing the evil plans for the Dredge, I would object terribly to walking into a city and killing its citizens indiscriminately." Kaithe said as she stepped over the leftovers from our rampage.
"Sounds like they would have been a problem even if Kudu wasn't here stirring up shit." Zojja brushed off any moral dilemma like a pro.
"Arise, my minions!" Scythe cackled while pulling the corpses together with his magic to make elephant sized multi armed flesh golems.
"Ah, Scythe." Asgeir sighed, "Always with the undead abominations. They don't count towards your score."
"Envious of my capacity to flood the battlefield with my power." Scythe teased the big Norn.
"You won't like me when I am angry, Side Salad." the Norn countered.
"Boys!" Eir reigned them in, "Let's just run the Inquest out of here then you are all free to play whatever murder games you want."
We took a tunnel into the lab set up by the Inquest and saw Kudu standing by an Asura Gate. I chucked a spear of light at him and he leapt out of its way landing on his belly where he had to roll to avoid the next spear.
"Stop!" He shrieked, "Stop, I say! Don't you savages participate in pre-fight banter!"
"I usually skip it!" I shouted.
"Barbarian!" Kuku yelled then leapt through the Asura Gate where a trio of golems emerged before it shut down.
We smacked the shit out of them and the remaining golems on our way to the heart of Sorrow's Embrace and the massive golem Kudu built to run off of Dragon Energy.
"We need to study this." I told Zojja, "It doesn't matter that Snaff said working with Dragon Energy is dangerous. The people of Tyria face extinction from the Elder Dragons and from their defeat."
"What are you saying?" Zojja asked.
"The Elder Dragons are each linchpins in the Eternal Alchemy. Whatever cruel being made this world imposed a balance of magic on it, too much magic and the world will break free of its place in the sea of stars and all life will die, too little and all life will wither away and die. The Elder Dragons are a part of the balance, so you are all trapped in a damned if you do and damned if you don't scenario. Unless you find a way to create machines like this that can replace the dragons in the cycle."
"You think this… thing can become an integral part of the Eternal Alchemy?" Zojja scoffed.
"No, but we can build something even better." I told her, "And in the meantime we fight the dragons, one by one, each being empowered by the deaths of the others until our great machines are ready."
"That sounds terrible." Scythe sighed.
"It is terrible." I chuckled, "Welcome to Tyria, Scythe. It's a beautiful world worth fighting for, but a lot of things suck here."
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
JManM
JManM So, now we know the game plan to defeat the Elder Dragons without upsetting the Eternal Alchemy or the All and making it flip the board like a sore loser.
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