Diminutive green hands brought a slim martini glass to Arcanist Aranya Ver'Sarn's table, filled with an effervescent, red-colored liquid that caught the light in an unnatural way and made the glass gleam strangely.
The sind'dorei woman's whiskery black eyebrows drew down in confusion. "Uh, excuse me, I didn't order this," she told the goblin who had brought it to her.
The waiter simply nodded over to a darker, alcoved section of Talan's Bar. "He ordered it sent to you, with his regards," croaked the goblin.
Aranya turned to look over her shoulder to see the person whom the waiter had indicated, and her smoldering green eyes met with incandescent red ones. They were same color as the drink in her glass, peering at her from the dim room. The figure inclined his head in acknowledgement of her.
"Says he wants a word when you have the convenience," added the waiter.
"Thank you," mumbled Aranya. Her eyes flicked only for the briefest moment towards the goblin, but always kept the red-eyed figure within her sight. As the waiter got back to the other tables and patrons in the bar, the phoenix-mage stood from her chair, and - leaving her scintillating red drink untouched - crossed over to the dimly-lit vicinity of the one who had sent it to her.
As the blood elf approached, she became better and better able to make out the features of the red-eyed patron. He was a troll, pure Zandalari bloodline by the looks of his skin tone, and his dreadlocked hair was snow-white, with gold rings adorning it here and there. His tusks were twisted and angular, and his bare arms were decorated with tattoos that glowed as red as his eyes. Aranya could sense the arcane power they had. He sat in a relaxed pose, his fingers steepled in front of him, and a slight smile playing over his mouth. With the way that his eyes gleamed as the Thalassian woman neared, it could be argued that he was smirking.
"Arcanist Aranya Ver'Sarn," the troll purred, once she was next to his table. "It is a pleasure dat you come to my table." He gestured to the seat just across from him with one hand. "Please, sit," he urged.
With her chin held confidently level, Aranya did as he asked. "The pleasure is mine," she said smoothly. "To have the privilege of being noticed by none other than the leader of the Kabal, himself."
The troll grinned. She was not wrong in discerning who he was.
Kazakus, master alchemist, expert mixologist, and the sinister and mysterious leader of the Kabal. No one really knew his true origins, but no one really cared; what they did care about was the corrupted mana and potions that he and his disciples peddled. Rumors abounded throughout Gadgetzan that the powerful troll was secretly a dragon in disguise.
"To what do I owe such attention?" Aranya asked.
Kazakus nodded to someone behind her.
"Me," came an airy voice.
Aranya whirled around in her seat, and beheld an ethereal who had suddenly appeared behind her. This one was like no other she had ever seen before. Instead of the characteristic cloth wrappings of ethereals that bound the energy beings into form, this one was formed with chains!
"I believe you are familiar wit' Raza's kin," said Kazakus. "It was he who told me of you."
Raza…
That name.
A ferocious glare came over the blood elf's lovely face, and she suddenly blinked from her chair to pin the ethereal against the wall with her forearm, her burning green eyes quite literally ablaze. "Any connection to Nexus-prince Razaan, I wonder?" Aranya questioned, her voice a venomous hiss. "He and his lackeys were the ones who kept me for months in a stasis sphere, like a damned curio for sale to the highest bidder," she growled.
"But you escaped," interjected Kazakus in a patient tone. "To dis day, no ethereal has been able to determine how… And Raza answers to me," he pointed out, his tone going lower.
Aranya glanced over her slender shoulder at the troll behind her, still glowering.
Kazakus looked back at her sternly, lifting a brow at her as if to say 'do you mind.'
The sin'dorei pinned the chain ethereal one last time with a hard look, and then released him. Kazakus appeared to be mollified as she resumed her seat.
"I have been told many t'ings about you, Aranya Ver'Sarn," said the troll, in his rolling voice. "Much has been said of your exploits in Oultand." He gestured with his hands, emphasizing his words. "Of your considerable powah and tenacity…" He leaned in a little closer. "Of your hunger…"
Aranya ever-so-slightly tilted her darksome head to one side and regarded him. "The need for magic has not been a concern for me, nor for anyone. Not for years," she said. "It was rectified with the re-kindling of the Sunwell."
Kazakus chuckled heartily. "And yet, even afteh da gift of siphoning mana was banished from da laws of your people, dere were some among you who did not give up de hunt," he commented with a smile. "An' dey, likewise, became banished."
It was true. Even when tapping mana was no longer necessary to survive, even when the practice of it was reversed in the law from "necessary for all to know" to "forbidden," there were some elves - like Aranya - who had developed a taste for doing it. For the rush of the hunt. For the feeling of what it was to claim the essence of your prey and feel it singing in your veins, heightening everything.
Predators. Like her.
But there were the few - unlike her - who chose not to master those impulses, and never reined it in. They had only enough control to keep themselves from becoming Wretched, but they would always crave that edge that came with the satisfied thrill, and they would not give it up. They were no longer welcome in any Thalassian society, blood elf or high elf.
"We of the Kabal embrace those unwelcome elsewhere," explained Kazakus. "Outcasts, whose fellows lack… vision." There was a strange emphasis upon to how carefully he chose that word. "We of the Kabal embrace powah," said the troll. He placed one of his hands on the table between himself and the arcanist, and leaned forward. "No mattah da price."
Aranya's patience was starting to wane. "What does any of this have to do with me?" She asked. "What do you want from me?"
Kazakus locked his crimson gaze to her green embers. "The Kabal needs servants like you," he said. "Your potential is limitless."
Aranya planted both of her hands on the table and rose from her chair, staring the troll down. "You are wasting my time," she said caustically. "A head of the Eclipse Syndicate needs business, not your idea of power."
Kazakus mirrored her motions, putting his hands on the table and rising from his seat, meeting her stare for stare, but much less abruptly than she had. "Oh, but you do crave it, don't ya, girl?" His voice was a soft purr, his face had a knowing smile. "Somewhere beneath ya skin aches somethin.' Somethin' you long to let go of and let free, don't ya?"
This troll seemed to either know or intuit far more about Aranya than she was comfortable with, and she didn't want to stand around to hear more. She turned to go.
Kazakus halted her with his next words. "I have business for ya, arcanist," he said. Slight emphasis was put on the word 'have.' He had presence of mind enough to see that this fish would swim away if not offered proper bait. "And I am certain… that I can give you an arrangement which will be all you desire."
Aranya paused, just looking at the Zandalari. She was hesitant, skeptical, irritated, curious, intrigued. Ultimately, she silently sat back down in her chair across from the master alchemist. She would hear him out.
Kazakus also resumed his seat. "My informants wit'in dis city tell me dat you have resided in Dalaran before, and dat you reside some of da time dere now," he prefaced. The troll rested his elbows on the table, his hands coming up to steeple his fingers together. "Dey also say, dat da magical refuse of Dalaran invariably… trickles its way to de Underbelly," he continued. "Where you are said to tread wit' respect given to your name." He connected his luminescent gaze with hers. "Let us both be plain wit' each other, arcanist. I am prepared to pay you an' your syndicate handsomely," offered Kazakus. "If such substances, such discarded, unrealized powah, could be brought to Gadgetzan, for the alchemical use of da Kabal." His crimson eyes gleamed and a smile bloomed on his tusky mouth. He felt that he had found some acceptable ground to approach the Thalassian woman on.
They were acceptable terms, indeed. However…
"I am sensing that this is not all that you wish to negotiate," intuited Aranya aloud. Her fel-green eyes narrowed on the Zandalari.
The corners of Kazakus lips' twitched up a little more. "My business is your price," he murmured. "Your power is mine," he explained. "My price." The Kabal leader extended a hand to Aranya, palm up, offering it for her to lay her hand in his, which she tentatively did. "I can give you what no one else can," he promised. "I can give you what you have not felt since you last hunted." The troll's fingers closed gently around hers, the way that a gentleman holds the hand of a fair lady. "In return, I desire to call upon the inestimable powah of da Phoenix of Shattrath, when I have need of her."
Aranya remained cautious. "If you're proposing to have me become and addict on your red mana - this corrupted power you peddle - and become exactly what I spent years practicing self-mastery to not fall to, even when I did hunt…"
Kazakus held up his other hand. The sorceress let him speak.
"Only what you wish," he promised. "No more, no less." He thought for a moment before offering, "Members of da Kabal are directed to pay a visit to Inkmaster Solia, to receive one of her glorious, glowing crimson tattoos. A tattoo from her not only marks ya dedication to da Kabal, but as de ink is made wit' da red mana, it also serves as a great reservoir of powah," he explained. "If even dis is all you will accept, it is enough… For now. It is disheartening, to see you do not share such vision as my disciples." He sounded slightly mournful. "Yet, in time, I have faith dat you will see da true value of fully embracing da powah which you have."
Aranya remained silent, thoughtful, weighing the alchemist's promises and what each of them meant.
In the end, the blood elf shifted her hand in his grasp, to position it as one does when two leaders shake hands on a contract. The troll smiled, returning her grip, and laid his other hand gently overtop hers. He was pleased.
Kazakus looked up to address Raza. "Fetch Solia," he ordered. "Tell her to come wit' da red mana ink an' her needle guns. We induct dis remarkable woman here and now."
True to what was promised, Aranya was given only what she asked for: a single, tasteful armband design that flowed over her sunlight-fair skin, on the opposite arm from the black phoenix emblem that already lay inked under the skin of her wrist.
And, true to what was promised, it made Aranya Ver'Sarn feel as alive as if she were standing right in the energized path of the gusting netherwinds.