The morning after the party had chased down the runaways from the Shadewind Spire, they continued their way toward the mysterious source of power down below -- guided there by the one initiate they chose to take with them there. They laid out their actions quickly and decisively, agreeing that it was most likely they would have to eliminate most of the cultists and their co-conspirators once they found them.
Better to deal a decisive blow to the Twilight's Hammer than to try and convince them not to destroy the world, presumably?
The journey took them a few hours with their mounts, before they reached a ravine that held a maze-like entrance with an ominous feel all around. Gan Jedi was quick to notice sets of footprints in the dirt, some of which were new and some of which were old. Some of them moved as though they were in shackles, suggesting the Twilight's Hammer had been taking prisoners.
The party cut heir own prisoner loose here and headed down into the ravine, through its winding, rocky paths as best as it was possible to follow the footsteps down there. At one point, the party came across a twist in the underground caverns that featured a corpse down a small slope, which Jung-Won Oxhide quickly made a tumbling slide down to rummage through the corpse's possessions. A reasonable little slump of valuables could be found within, suggesting the dead person might have been an adventurer.
Further on still, and the party reached a fork in their path. Thanks to Yuma Stonehoof's deep conenction to the earth, he managed to determine which route would lead them on, though at another fork later on still was not so easy to lure it out of the stonework itself which way the party should continue. The stone had been worked, hewn out into a large chamber with brick-laid floor and passages ahead, each of which had an ironwrought door with ominous runes inscribed into the metal.
Zachariah Hallowhold quickly recognised the characters as Shath'yar, both form his own knowledge of the language and from an old book he had, several months earlier, acquired from the old Fletcher Manor. The runes engraved by one of the doors meant 'bastion, or 'save haven' as far as Zachariah could see -- surely a sign that it had to be the right waay.
And true enough, as the path continued to wind itself downward, Gan scouted ahead to find another large cavern room with another pair of doors blocking the party's path. This one too had runes scrawled out over its surfaces, and Zachariah translated their meaning.
"You stand before a bastion of the Dark Empire."
As the forsaken read it, the doors began to open up. Someone on the other side must have heard the party's approach. In the opening stood a couple of tauren, whose grim appearance and red war-paint made it easy to assume they had to of the Grimtotem Tribe. A genius idea sprung to mind; perhaps the party could convince these tauren -- and the quilboars that were in their company as well -- that they were there to join the Twilight's Hammer?
The party gave it a try, and with quite some gusto as well. Unfortunately, the two tauren did not buy the ruse, as the sheer presence of Orida Darkcloud among them was enough to rise suspicion and set them off. As a result, the party drew weapons and a fight broke out.
In the middle of the battle, a pair of the Twilight's Hammer cultists joined into the fray. The party could tell these were a fair bit stronger than any members of the cult that they had encountered so far. Worse yet, as these new opponents fell in battle, what-ever magic granted them their elemental powers became unstable and suddenly detonated around their corpses in a roaring ball of fire! The first time, this took the party all by surprise. The second time, Jung-Won decided to act quickly and sent the cultist toppling down a flight of stairs before the others in the party could delive the finishing blow.
Just before he died, the cultists barked out the phrase "Ragnaros, defend us!". In response, the passage on ahead erupted in a blaze of fire around a set of columns. Everyone could feel the heat radiating off of them, and how it rendered the way onward near impassable.
Rather than try to force their way through, though, the party decided to stop and think. Surely there had to be some way to deactivate the roaring fire and allow for them to escape? They tested a few phrases, what-ever came to mind, and eventually boldly announcing "Ragnaros, we are safe." saw the burning pillars die down.
With a moment now to stop and rest, the party took in the eldritch nature of the archicture all around them. It was beginning to dawn that this place had to have once belonged to an Old God, if it had ties to the Black Empire. And judging by the carvings on the walls, depicting sprawling vistas of grand armies, the Old God in question was C'thun, the god of madness and chaos.