Wind whispers across the desolate plains of Hellfire Peninsula, seemingly the only noise in existence for a short eternity as the Horde come to grips with what just happened. Gul'Dan had brought them together. He had spoken of a grand working that would bring them a promised land full of food, water and favorable elements. After two decades of constant war and one atrocity after another, the green skinned monsters had begun to go mad, losing hope and giving into the base savagery that clawed at the edges of their minds. Food had been on ration for months and Blackhand's means of maintaining discipline were nearly as brutal as their retribution against the Draenai.
But then... a miracle. The elements had bypassed the harsh preparations Gul'Dan had demanded of them and shown the warlocks their favor. A great spirit, for what else could command such power, had come to them in their time of need and fulfilled their leaders wildest promises in one blessed moment.
That moment of tense wonder broke as the cloaked foreigner on the other side of the portal vanished in an explosion of green smoke and ravens.
But as the Horde suddenly turn from docile to a charging mob of roaring barbarians, my focus is on something else entirely.
Gul'Dan didn't sacrifice the little Draenai girl.
Durotan didn't publicly oppose him.
The Draenai prisoners still live.
The Frostwolf clan has not been banished in disgrace.
Fuck me, this is going to cause some massive butterflies. Well, waste not, want not. It seems I have some work to do!
As the clans of the Horde rush the gates of the new world, they conveniently forget all about the caged Draenai they had been painstakingly collected as sacrifices for the portals creation. Carefully, I craft my own scrying lens in case K'ure drops the one it's using, and begin marking the captives. The Purple runescript creeps its way across the left breast of men, women and children one after another, and the blue goats helpfully cover the luminous spellwork with their hands while I work. The work is a delicate balance between skill, patience and power, as I'm required to overpower the fel curses on the bars not only without breaking said spells, but also without attracting attention.
Once I have all of the Draenai's presences firmly transmitting in my mind, I move on to rescuing them. A group teleport is out of the question. The spell would fill the area with arcane power, easily revealing my efforts and very possibly inviting retribution from the Elite Warlocks of the Shadow Council. Simply teleporting them out one after another would be more stealthy, but with the time I'll need to grab them all one by one, it's doubtless that someone will notice the slowly emptying cages. To that end, I use the [Mirror Image] spell, leaving illusionary copies of the Eradar Exiles behind even as I teleport them out.
As I work, a headache slowly growing with every spell in the chain, Samaara comes to my rescue. As each new prisoner collapses to my deck in relief and bewilderment, the Rangari Sunbow draws them off to the side and explains the situation to them. On no less than a dozen occasions one of the women rushes me, crying hysterically about her child, brother, father or husband who I need to drop everything and save NOW, threatening my fraying concentration and dooming us all. Twice there have been men like that, but so far I've been lucky, and the ones who approached and interrupted me instead took on some aspect of my spellcasting, easing the burden by taking it upon themselves and giving me more time to save their friends. This is all the more impressive given the emaciated condition of many of those giving their minds and mana to my cause.
Like all good things though, it does not last.
While I've been distracted extracting the Draenai, Gul'Dan had come back through the portal with a small army of Peons. Moving the cage disturbs my spell and the mirror image vanishes before the warlocks startled face. I don't even notice. The master warlock moves to the next cage and grabs it's occupant by the neck. Unleashing a spell of pain, he snarls grimly as the 'frightened' illusion pops under the corrosive force of the emerald flame.
THAT is when I notice something is wrong. The feedback of the mirror image being popped by fel magic gives me a stabbing migraine in the middle of a teleport and the Draenai I'm transporting explodes in a shower of gore and twisted space.
Thankfully for me, the Draenai who are helping me feel the events as well, as part of the spell and don't attack me while I'm down.
Unfortunately for me, Gul'Dan has figured out exactly what is going on, and has seized another of the mirror images, furiously tracing my magic back to the source.
"You base incompetents!" The warlock roars. A disk of smokey emerald flame explodes out of him, bowling over hundreds of orcs who are still ascending the 'Stair of Destiny' to reach the new world. The wave continues through the ranks of caged space-goats and I frantically dismiss as many of the mirror images as I can before the spell breaks them. I'm not entirely successful, but the greatly reduced load on my mind allows me to weather the feedback from the spells that do end painfully. "Secure the rest of the sacrifices! GO!"
When the race between us ends, there are still 37 Draenai in cages and one mirror image in Gul'Dan's grip. The spell is now under the warlocks control and resisting my efforts to cut the connection. Emerald improbability washes across the fold in space time, following my spell from telepresence to origin. And just like that, the spell breaks, leaving a green lantern projection of the stooped orc on my deck.
The Draenai surrounding me shrink back in fear, some cowering, others running off into the swarm of Ravens on deck, and even a few who are brave (or stupid) enough to jump over the rail, willing to risk falling to their deaths rather than suffer the orcs attentions once more.
"So... You're the one who would kidnap what I have rightfully stolen." the warlock croaked. "I think you shall find this most unwise..."
I push myself up from my knees and tower over the projection. "You weren't using them." I return, forcing calm. "I figured, it's better to beg forgiveness than ask permission. But you wouldn't know about that, what with Kil'jaden being your master. Mercy isn't in his vocabulary."
The images eyes widened, and then his scowl split into a wide grin. "Another agent of the Legion." He replied, voice suddenly oil smooth. "I have you to thank for the power to open the portal."
I force myself not to blink at that leap in logic. It's...not entirely untrue, I suppose. "Yes." I reply simply. "Me and the evil spirit of Shadowmoon."
Confusion and suspicion enter the warlocks expression. "The dark star? Cho'Gall will pay for plundering the armory."
I chuckle and shake my head. "No, chief warlock." I tell him. "I used your own working to provide the power. The so called 'Hand of Gul'Dan'. It controlled the land once, so I used it to drain the land of power and send it to you."
Let him think this was a plan by Cho'Gal. I'm happy to let that stand. The warlock nods to that thoughtfully, the hand not on his cane rubbing his chin. "Beg forgiveness, hmm... I think I understand. I shall speak with Cho'Gall about your insubordination. In the mean time... a gift."
The hand on the warlocks chin flashes out and goes through several strange gestures in a blur before a beam of neon power lances out from the spell towards my heart.
My life flashes before my eyes as the beam of impending doom or corruption speeds toward me... but as it's about to connect, a blue grey form interposes itself between me and Gul'Dan, absorbing the lance. I watch in fascination as the emaciated Draenai catches my doom in his open mouth. Rather than causing the man to explode or die horribly, he swallows the pillar of raw fel and I get to watch in fascination as his starved and beaten blue black body begins to fill out with muscle. Though the beam connects to his head with streamers splitting off to pour into his eyes nose and ears, the change begins in his bloated stomach, which quickly flattens. The starvation rot that's forcing him to eat his own organs reverses and forms a crimson skinned six-pack abs before rippling out wards. Muscle groups quickly bulge into being across his ribs and hips before spreading to his legs and arms. As the goat-man rapidly reforms from an Auschwitz escapee into a competitor for the Mr Universe Pageant, the discoloration of his skin from shale blue to fire engine red keeps pace, swiftly reaching from the top of his head down to his hooves.
The transformation completed, the newly christened Eradar collapses to the deck and I'm left looking into the shocked visage of Gul'Dan.
I try not to chuckle weakly as I preempt his reaction. "I guess that's one reason to keep your slaves in cages." I tell him. "I appreciate the gift, warchief, but as you see, I have some work before me, yet."
At that moment, K'ure comes to my rescue, flashing purple and black and shattering the spell allowing my own personal terror to speak to me.
I turn to the Naaru, relief flooding my body, making my body limp and loose so I have to fight not to collapse. "Thanks. Truly. Think you can handle this guy" I jerk a thumb at the Eradar, who is even now rising from his prone position "while I grab the rest of the prisoners? Our cover is blown, and it's do or die now."
The Naaru hums, projecting amusement. "I shall finish your work. You shall deal with what it has wrought." K'ure counters, forming a barrier dome that pushes out the rest of the recently freed Draenai and leaving me trapped with the one who'd given his soul to save mine. "This shall be... instructive."
Black and gold stars twinkle in the translucent violet dome and I know instinctively that I won't be able to escape this. [Guided by Arcane] tells me as much. Portals, teleportation, physical movement and my own personal magical might will all be insufficient. And this time, I don't have the Grond Stone with which to cheat. Hell, I don't even have the Imperator's staff of office, as it was knocked outside the circle by the leaping draenai.
All I have, [Guided by Arcane] tells me, is my enchanted hide armor, my purchased skills... and the shadow wrought arconite crystal Mennu asked me to cleanse.
I look into the blazing emerald stare of the newly minted Man'ari and search for a sign of sanity. "So..." I cast out, calmly as I can force myself to be. "I don't suppose you're one of the rare special ones capable of remaining sane after tainting?" I ask him. "I would love to have my very own Illidan Stormrage! Still, as much as I'd hate to kill one who saved my life, I refused to play frog and scorpion."
"You..." the man gave a hacking cough and neon fire spurted out from his mouth "talk... too much."
Well, that's promising. One side of my mouth pulls up in a grin. "Is that a yes?"
The Eradar massages his throat and bends himself back and forth, pops and cracks following his movements. "What makes you think I did it to save you, Ogre?" the red goat-man spat a blob of forest green... blood? Flem? On my poor deck where it started a fire and continued. "Maybe, I was just tired of suffering the weakness of my people these last 15 millennia and sought to improve myself at your expense?"
I quickly weave an arcane blast and cast it on the blob, snuffing out the chaos and revealing it to be a piece of meat. Possibly even a part of the former Draenai's lung. "Well, in that case, I'd kick you off my ship like an unemployable stowaway." I reply nonchalant. "Even if it was an accident, you still saved me from a horrible fate. That deserves a chance at life, rather than a certainty of death; but not the open arms of an ally."
The fel draenai chuckles darkly and moves from his loose state to a ready fighting stance. "I have a counter offer." His hooves flash neon green and he rushes towards me with a roar and a flaming trail behind him.
Battle spells take about as long to cast as for a pitcher to throw a baseball.The lesson reverberates through my mind as a purple white shield springs up around my fist. I barely have the time to move my arm to intercept him before our two spells detonate against each other. It doesn't stop the mans momentum, but deflects him away from me to crash into the greater shield K'ure trapped us in. As he roars at the pain of a broken nose, I reach for my side, where four rough grooves dig themselves into my flesh. They burn, as though tainted by acid and I fight the urge to scream.
Apparently, the Eradar has claws. And he undoubtedly coated them with fel fire during his charge. Three gestures bandage the wound in a layer of arcane force, stopping the bleeding and neutralizing the fel curse.
This isn't the smartest of moves, as it gives my opponent time to recover as well. Time I should really have spent blasting him to kingdom come. My hands claw themselves into the appropriate shapes and I push outward, releasing a burst of magic as bone chilling mist. My Frost Nova turns the entire arena into a impromptu snow globe, freezing him into place as I build the focus to blink away. The ice shatters and he covers himself in an aura of flame. As he steps out of the ice, he throws a hay-maker. He's much too far away for the blow to connect, but as his fist moves through the air, a crescent of fel power leaps out at me.
I blink out of the way of the attack and begin peppering him bolts of fire, spears of ice and blasts if arcane force as fast as I can gather the modicum of power needed into my fists. He dodges several of them, only receiving glancing blows and raises a fist to the heavens. A streamer of holy light briefly glimmers from above, but it's weak and would never have penetrated the barrier, even if it had only been a single element thick. Nonetheless, a egg shaped shield of neon power encapsulates him, absorbing my hits without scoring further wounds. His raised fist moves as if he's trying to pull down on a weight machine before ending, fingers splayed out, palm down, and his power leaps across the distance to attempt to flatten me with a hammer of chaos.
I leap and roll out of the way as it caves in a section of my poor ships deck. The son of a bitch is a former paladin!
What does that make him exactly? He can't be a death-knight, right? Those were Void corpses first and Blood/Undeath/Frost corpses later. Fallen paladin? Fel paladin? Fallen Knight? I'm distracted from my musings, by the urgent need to shield as a missile of raw chaos splashes across my vision.
I blink again, avoiding the incoming charge by luck as much as paranoia. This time, he rebounds off K'ure's shield, having expected me not to be there and charges again. Not wanting him to gain the upper hand, I dual cast. One arm shoots up into the air above me and a rippling wave of force explodes out from my body in a globe, while the other I point towards my opponent. As he meets my arcane explosion face first and the two spells cancel each other out, my left hand goes through six gestures before making as though I'm gripping something and crushing it.
The fel Draenai screams as my spell-breakers charge twists his own mana against him. Fel power is naturally difficult to control, requiring a strong will and agile mind to avoid self detonation, never mind to use it effectively in combat. While the results of any arcane spell that got through his mana toughened hide would normally just result in a wound as the two powers canceled each other out violently, the twisting nature of the spell-breakers charge instead worked with the fel's chaotic nature, turning a normally debilitating spell into a cascade collapse he had to fight to control.
I couldn't give him the time to do that.
Space bend around the fel knight and disks of purple light flashed as hemispheres of space tried to rotate separately of reality. Great rents appeared across his body, one after another leaking blazing green blood, until finally he simply exploded like a frog in a microwave.
The sheer power of the explosion filled K'ure's arena and my hastily erected shields shattered one after another.
Then everything went black.
~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+
I floated alone in an infinite night. Sounds were absorbed, sensation was muted, and though I could see stars, I knew, instinctively, they were not lights. They were creatures. Unfathomable, curious, resentful, hungry...patient. I was not supposed to be here, and for that, they were going to devour me. But eternity is long, and they could afford to take their time doing so. I wasn't going anywhere.
The warp is calm...
It's strange where you mind goes in sensory deprivation. This place is, essentially, a funhouse mirror of warhammer, after all. The warp is the source of souls. The void only has them because of foolish mortal meddling. Daemons are a reflection of the pain and misery of sentience. The Void walkers are souls twisted by the maddening emptiness of the void. How do you perceive pure nothingness? It's a niggling impossibility that the mind seeks to fill with answers, but where none exist, terror steps up to fill the gap with madness. Patterns formed from the unknowable. Except... that the void IS pattern. Where the warp is chaos, the Void is inevitability.
Shaking my head, I force those thoughts away. The are unimportant. What is, is how I got here, why, and what I was doing before that.
I examine myself, and find that I'm back in my human body...sort of. I'm a hell of a lot better muscled than I was before. A flickering orange light pops out of nowhere and I look up to see my Ogre body, Thurm, but he looks different too. His jaw no longer distends and his face is more aquiline.
You're not imagining it, the image of Thurm tell me. The voice is the one I've become used to hearing when I speak. Sit.
I look at where he's gesturing and a block of wood appears on the other side of the fire. How did we get here? I ask, taking the offered seat.
The Ogre looks at me, mildly surprised. Straight to business. Not even shock, wondering how this is possible? You are different than your memories suggest of your people.
I shrug. I'm probably different than I was when I first took your body too. [Murderhobo] probably wasn't one of my better ideas.
Thurm guffawed. No one likes a pussy. It was a plus, and you know it. He poked the imaginary fire with the butt of the Imperator's staff of office. Had you not, we would both have died before our first encounter with Cho'Gal. His face screwed up in a scowl just one more statistic in the fall of my home.
The man had a point. In the middle of a warzone, the luxury of being traumatized by your first kill would almost certainly get you killed in turn. Never mind hesitating to kill an enemy when it be necessary.
So. Why here? Why now?
The ogre shrugged. He had been getting smaller as we talked. Or maybe I was getting bigger. In either case, our mental images were the same size now.
The veiled arconite crystal. When you failed to protect us from Naja'fien's final blow, it absorbed the fel energy, sucking it in like a ravenous bloodmaw. Lacking any material with which to grow, the crystal turned the power into a rift field, weakening reality and bringing us partially into the void. Now... It seeks to consume both our souls as it did the power of that fool Draenai.
Thurm spat on the ground. He will NOT be resurrected in the Nether. Justice served, in my opinion.
I hum and nod, not entirely sure how we're talking when for the brief eternity before Thurm had shown himself all noises I made had been silent even to my own ears. I don't quite agree with him, this Naja'fien saved my life. Whether he did it to repay me for saving his, or truly only meant to steal Gul'Dan's "favor" from me, that doesn't deserve having your soul consumed by the void.
I suppose I'll have to figure a way out of here then I muse.
Thurm laughed darkly. HOW? he spat, gesturing around us. If you haven't figured it out, we're out of our depth.
It was my turn to smirk at him. Arcane power formed in the void, my friend. Here or in reality, a mage is never bereft of aid. And according to you? We stand on the edge, a space... in-between.
Casting around for the part of my mind where [Friend to Elements] has ceaselessly aided me, I begin to form mnemonics with my hands as words of power tear themselves from my abused silent vocal cords. I'm more than 80% of the way through a greater portal spell when another figure joins us in the darkness.
That is quite unnecessary, K'ure admonished me. Teleporting blind to your own location would cause feedback that may crash the ship.
I squinted at the Naaru. You're sure it's not you trying to avoid a tele-frag?
K'ure declined to answer, instead lighting up the void with it's mismatched eyes. The starry night split like an egg and pulled itself into the void eye like a kid sucking in spaghetti.
~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+~! #$%^&*()_+
The world came back to me abruptly. Golden stars twinkled in my vision and my body felt like it was melting into a hot tub after the worst hell workout of my life. Focusing my eyes, I found Samaara kneeling above me, light radiating from her chest and cocooning me in healing energy.
"How long was I out?" I ask. Startled, Samaara looses her concentration and collapses on top of me. In lieu of answering, she kisses me full on the mouth; her face wet with tears, her lips hot and insistent.
I respond and after what seems like a minute, she collapses to lay on the deck beside me. "You sacrifice too much for me, Thurm. Saving my people again and again, only to nearly die each time. Do you truly do all this for my favor?"
I shrug, still basking in the comfortable glow of the faded Light. "That and impulse. I'm always on the lookout for loot, and it seemed a good idea at the time."
The hornless hoof-less Draenai jabbed her elbow into my kidney sharply and I grunted. "Hey, don't harm the patient! I just got better!"
"If you truly wish my favor, you have it," she replied after a pause. "But you must stop doing this. Every time you save a life, you add to those who depend on you. For you to die doing something needlessly risky would betray that trust."
I snort. "You'd love me less if I stopped."
She was silent for a while. "Maybe, but I don't think so." She heaves a deep sigh and sits up. "You were 'gone', as you put it, for little more than an ten minutes. K'ure saved another 33 of my people before Gul'dan simply consumed the souls of the rest. The Naaru would have pulled you out earlier, it said, but it needed to convince the survivors not to kill your pet orcs. It said you would be irrational if it allowed that. Do you really care that much about Gorka?"
I rolled over and propped my head up on one hand. "Nobody touches my things." I tell her seriously. "And it's not just Gorka. That grouchy old bastard Gortag and the pocket sized Garrosh are just as important. ...Mennu too."
"And me?" She asked.
I didn't answer for several minutes, Samara's face goes through several expressions, but I speak before she does. "If the five of you, if you wanted to leave I'd try hardest to turn you around and miss you if I failed. More than that, I genuinely don't know. Like most men I'm little good with emotions. At least the complex ones."
"And this isn't just because you want to sleep with me?"
I laugh aloud and roll back onto my back. "I wanna sleep with every girl who doesn't treat me like shit or look like a Zangar swamp monster. Gorka's accusations aside. No, these things are barely related."
She nods slowly. "We have things to do. You had a plan?"
Lifting my legs and rolling back, I kick myself up to my feet and offer her a hand up. She takes it and I nod. "Yeah. Before I grabbed these schlubs," I jerk a thumb towards the Draenai refugees "I was going to show Tel'Redor what we've done to shadowmoon and offer to help them cleanse Karabor."
As we walk, I continue to explain. Along the way, we hand out food and hide blankets, summoned from my stores, and break up fights among the refugees. It quickly becomes apparent that managing the lot of them is far more complicated than I want to be responsible for long term. If all it were was my feeding them, I could probably do that. But they don't want to listen to me. If I'm on their side, I'm the savior, if I'm telling them to calm down, I'm the Ogre slaver. Or for the one I told to sit down and shut up or I'd catapult him off my ship, I'm the Legion Sympathizer. For the most part, they look first to Samaara before properly conceding to follow my orders.
Or at least... that what it looks like to me.
Finally, I get done with tending to all 439 of them, the healthiest of whom are the children, and retreat to the wheelhouse. A few minutes later Samaara and Gorka have directed all of the Dire ravens to perch on the rails so I can bring all of the former captives up on deck and properly display them. That done, I put in a call to Velen.
"Thurm," the grizzled grey goat intones as my scrying clears. "I have been expecting you." He looks off to the side as if checking something. "And you are late."
I facepalm. "God damn it, old man. Can't I surprise you once in a while?"
"You have surprised me often since we met, child, and it has been a very short relationship." I grinned and he continued. "It is time to cleanse the Temple then?"
I chuckle and nod. "And here I was thinking I was going to have to work for it." I told him. "I even came prepared with gifts!" I turn the scrying spell around so that he can see the crowd of starved forms and walk myself back into the picture. "I was going to bargain them away, dragging out concessions and promices, because I know it hurts you every time you loose one to the Legion" yeah, right, if he'd cared so much he would have cut loose and turned them all crispy with his holy god laser powers and spanked the Naaru who disagreed, "but if you're just going to give in, then please, for the love of the Light, take them off my hands."
The Prophet raises an eyebrow at me. "You do not care for these people? You saved them from the pits of sacrifice and great personal risk, did you not?"
"But they're sooo annoying!" I reply, just short of whining. "I mean, sure, my motives were far from altruistic, but a little gratitude would have been nice!"
The rumple headed alien shakes his head sadly at me. "You will figure this out soon, son, but my people are sensitive to sincerity. It is a byproduct of long generations in the presence of the Naaru. If you are not sincere, you will not receive their respect. And you cannot fake it with the bluster you are so fond of either."
"Way to be a buzz kill." I tell him, shaking my head. "Do you know the plan then?"
"You have corrupted the Naaru K'ure from Light, into Arcane. K'ure shall provide my warriors with a powerful invisibility through which they may gain the upper hand in retaking the city. What I don't think you have considered however, is how we are going to hold it. The Horde may be happily occupied with exploring the Black Morass, but as soon as they learn of this defeat, they will return to seek vengeance."
I shake my head. "You're letting the light cloud your judgement again." I counter. "Remember our work with Netherlight forging? I see two possibilities here. One, you allow K'ure to use your light, the Temples void taint and my prepared artifacts to form a shield around the city. I can almost guarantee you, it'll be strong enough to keep both Kil'Jaden AND Archimonde at bay without further defenses. The other possibility? How have you been doing on harvesting the Genedar?"
The leader of the Draenai narrows his eyes. "The work progresses, despite your disruptions. We have begun laying the foundation for several smaller ships."
I grin. "In the new worlds future, one of the great cities, Dalaran, will be attacked by an endless army made of the butchered and desecrated corpses of their neighbors citizens. It's going to be a crime worse than the Path of Glory. To stop it from happening again, the magi of Dalaran will cast a grand spell that lifts the entire metropolis into the sky and keeps it there indefinitely. And they don't even have the special void ship materials you now have... simply laying around." I finish, spreading my arms out suggestively. "If you were to turn them instead into making your holy temple unassailable... who am I to stop you?" I grin even wider. "You could even bring it to the new world later if you don't decide to follow Tempest Keep to Argus."
"You are quite adamant that the Tempest Keep will come." Velen countered. "You do not think you've changed the future too drastically?"
"Not yet," I reply darkly.
Velen is silent for several minutes, looking pensive. "There is someone important at the temple. Someone Gul'Dan left behind specifically." When I responded only with a grim smile, he nodded. "I understand. My people shall be on alert."
"Speaking of your people..." I began crafting a portal through the warped space of the scrying spell. "I think these belong to you."
The ancient nodded gravely and declined to destroy my casting. Or destroy me as the casting completed. I was quite thankful for that.
With a word and a gesture from their leader, the refugees on my ship began to cheer. In a bizarrely orderly fashion they surged forward and began to stream through the portal. One after another, they shuffled at an impressive speed, each pausing only briefly to touch the robes of their prophet before heading down the stairs behind him, many sobbing in relief at the familiar architecture and promise of safety it represented.
Hundreds passed through and I quickly lost count, but as the deck began to empty, an anomaly slowly became apparent. Some of the survivors weren't walking forward with the others. They were standing just where they had been during my dialogue with Velen, letting others pass them by while they stood at attention. I met ones eye and he started back at me, a strange light in his eye. There would be a confrontation of some sort, of that I was certain. Just what it represented though, I'm not entirely certain.
In the end, when the last of the Draenai who were going to move had stepped forward and entered the portal, the remainers stepped forward. Moving with an uncanny coordination the formed ranks in front of me. Forty men and thirty women stepped in time together and went to parade rest, then their right hands were raised to thump into their chests with a synchronized salute.
"We're with you!" one in the front shouted.
"For Karabor!" another added.
"Here's your gratitude, Ogre lord!" A woman called out.
Someone from the back rows guffawed and added "and choke on it!"
I got an odd prickly feeling in my chest and fought to decide whether I should groan or smile. Velen answered this for me. "You requested sailors during our last meeting, Runemaster. I present you the new Thurmite Order."
"Pheta thones gamera!" They roared in unison. Light, guide our path. Appropriate I suppose. I hold back a sigh. I suppose 70 is much more manageable than 450 some. At least these look as though they'll listen to me.
"Alright then." I say to the crowd as K'ure comes to float behind me. "Let's get started."
