AN: I'm not particularly happy with the last scene of this chapter, but after rewriting it seven times and still wanting it to be there and disliking how it turned out I left it as is. As with Every chapter I welcome your thoughts.

Disclaimer: If you recognize it somebody else owns it, if you don't recognize it, somebody else still likely owns it... Me? I've just got the McGuffin and all of it's ripples. So, enjoy! Copy-write litigation says it's free!

~! #$%^&*()_+

The party which lasted most several days had, it seemed, been a rousing success. It had proven to be both distracting for all of the varied populations, taking their minds off the current crisis, building morale and positive public relations and getting them acquainted with the people they would be allied with for the next several months at minimum. Even after ten thousand years of being hippies 'attuning themselves to nature' wine and hunting were still big industries among the formerly advanced civilization. Their new cultural focus had actually helped in that area, giving them an in depth understanding of how to encourage the health of the land and thus the taste of it's proceeds.

That, and after all of the upheavals the semi-immortal race had suffered since the sundering they well understood the need for a good party...

The result of the festivities was that when all was said and done, nearly two fifths of the residents of Thoradin's Hope were quite happy to fight alongside the 'funny elves'. The reasons for this were as varied as the people who volunteered to serve the world abroad instead of remaining to defend and develop their new home.

Kael'thas and the elves in the know about how their races close ties with magic was killing them, now that it was no longer part of everything they did, were willing to assist as a means to searching out new sources. Upon consulting the three surviving elders of the time period before the high-elves had split from their night elf brethren they were aware of what the night elves had been before the cataclysm. As a world spanning empire almost entirely around the use of magic their ruins would be full of artifacts of varying levels of power, often near eternal in their construction forged as they had been from mages who had unlimited access to the well of eternity. Others would be looking into the mentions of druids and priestesses, both of whom served active deities, and druids and geomancers who took their power from the world itself, as a possible replacement source for their races addiction. Other mages, both human, gnomish and dwarven were interested in the druids and geomancers for more simple reasons. Either were interested in the new path to power as something to commit themselves too, or they they were obsessive magic users, from a city of magic users, who had stumbled upon a new and interesting form of magic which must therefor be studied to further one of any variety of ambitions.

The various fragmented companies of high elven rangers were willing to join because of a sense of camaraderie with their ancient cousins, most of whom seemed to be archers themselves, following the same snipe and disappear into the trees style as they did. The warriors collected from innumerable towns and cities chose either the city or serving abroad because, well... they were soldiers, and that was what they were trained for and were used to. Finally a fairly significant number of the volunteers offered themselves beyond the protection of the twin mage cities because the food was good and nearly the entire host before them was made of beautiful athletic exotic women... The group who followed this line of thought weren't limited to men either, though the core motivations for the women who made that particular choice varied.

There were other groups and reasons as well. Many of the Paladins simply believed that it was the right thing to do, and as the demons endgame (according to Tyrande) was to consume the night-elven font of magic, the world tree, taking the fight to the demons only made sense. The priests of the Holy light, chafing under unamused tolerance of the wizards and their blatant self promotion, saw a chance to once again be the useful centers of attention they had enjoyed recently with the breakdown of the old kingdoms. Added to that they saw a new was set of heathens ripe for conversion from their pagan goddess and her forest pantheon to the one true church, that of the holy light.

Even civilians offered their services. Feeling that their stake in this world and the need to resettle existed regardless of whether they stayed in the new city of Thoradin's Hope or went abroad, that meant that making themselves useful was the least many of them could do. Carpenters, smiths, farriers, stablemen, shop owners, farmers... they had left their homes in ruins and traveled to a new world where, for the moment at least, they simply weren't needed. Out of a job, possessing useful skills and a fear for their lives, many volunteered to aid their apparent allies wherever they might be useful, fetching wood for cooking fires, preparing meals, building fortifications (though they didn't yet know how sacred the living forest was to the Kel'dori) and even training to be fighters or support for those who would be defending them with their very lives. After all, it takes a city to support the knighthood that defends it and the knighthood can defend the city much better if they aren't constantly being required to do the little things needed to support themselves.

George on the other hand was being conscripted by Tyrande Whisperwind to be part of her personal guard 'as a show of Dalaran's support of the alliance'. George didn't quite know what to think about this, but their first stop would be the barrow dens atop the Stonetalon mountains where Sirius was, so he didn't complain. ...too much.

Right now the group of elves and humans were flying towards the mountains summit, nearly six hundred miles southeast of where the city of Dalaran still hung, continuing and completing the work on Thoradin's hope and the now dubbed 'Silvermoon Isle'. They were keeping the Azure Mist title for the name of the country as a nod to the Kel'dori and their alliance with the night elven ancestors, but the isles them selves were taking on new names, Silvermoon isle in the north, Ironforge Isle to the southeast, Arathor Isle at the center and Darnasus Isle to the southwest. The entire thing was to be surrounded by a sea wall dubbed by the construction crews as 'Alexstraza's Aegis'.

The red dragon queen had decided, after meeting Tyrande again and after a great deal of deliberation, to take the south western Darnassus Isle to be her flights new home and start Harry's adopt a wrym project from there. She had also provided Aniserem Runeweaver with a vastly altered and upgraded shield spell to inscribe and imbue into the wall that would sense those passing it, determine the type and level of corruption and release an attack or cleansing spell upon them based on their intent. Added to this was the aspects own blessing which would make the wall all but indestructible to anyone short of Deathwing himself and then only because of his Titan given connection to the earth. Unlike the blessing she had long ago given the night elves and their tree however the holy barrier would not support Runeweavers healing spell or help any of the nations inhabitants become immortal. Given that none of the new nations inhabitants knew of that detail of night-elf dragon relations however, nobody knew to question it or feel slighted.

Currently though, George flew south with Tyrande and her retinue. Among those who flew with them were Shandris Feathermoon and Danarius Ravencrest, the generals of the Kel'dori sentinels and army respectively. Also with them were a pair of high priestesses of Elune, Maieve Shadowsong head of the order of the Night Warrior and Yelain Stareye head of the order if the White Lady. When George had asked about seniority Tyrande had explained that each elven enclave had its own temple to the moon goddess and that each temple had a pair of high priestesses that oversaw the temples worship and training, one for each aspect of their goddess. Above that were the heads of the respective orders, the two elves flying with them, and finally there was Tyrande herself, who was THE high priestess and personally chosen voice of the goddess. Behind each of the five were an entire company of rather... er... nubile... um warriors. Though calling them warriors might not be entirely accurate as most of them were quasi-sorcerous priestess's as well and fought more with their enchanted bows and glaives than the twin swords each had strapped to the small of their backs.

That the youngest of them was nearly 1000 years old was something that shocked even Andrea who had insisted in being part of the alliance company that was traveling with George in a more direct manner.

George personally thought of them as his minders, but the ancient dragon Korilistraz had taken great care to explain to him that they were there to show Dalaran's support personally when they, the leaders themselves, couldn't be present, having other tasks, both in the city and ones they'd agreed to take on as part of the night elves defense against the soon to be encroaching Legion offensive. The first of them was, of course, Kael'Thas little spy Astromancer Andrea Solus. Also there however were Rhonin Redhair, leading a section of 15 upper level magisters representing the councils interests and his wife Vereesa Windrunner leading a platoon of her surviving subordinates and representing the high elven rangers. Flying behind them was Boris Wildhammer, a second or third nephew of the Thane of Aerie Peak representing the Dwarven refugees and Gabi Springsprocket representing the Lorderan Gnomes. Finally a dozen guardsmen including a random paladin whose name George couldn't recall, a trio of dwarven riflemen, five actual city guards (all captains of different cities guard forces) a pair of war-mages and one curious Steam-knight who'd somehow managed to worm his way into the group.

Everyone from the alliance contingent were flying on carpets George had insisted in re-enchanting himself while the Night-elves were riding on what they called hippagryphs, though they didn't look like any hippagryphs George had ever seen. Where all of the ones George had ever seen on his world were local horses with the front halves of some local bird of prey, usually an eagle of some sort, these were stags with raven heads where their necks should have been. It could possibly have been passed off as a local variant, except for the antlers growing out of their heads. From what George knew of the hippagryphs creation horses were specifically needed because of their nature as beast of burden which had been ridden for centuries, even millennia at that point. While the bird involved in the original transfiguration could fairly easily be swapped out, the ones used had also been chosen for their ability to and tradition of being trained. It was a distinction that had been important to their creation, though George wasn't entirely clear on the details of why. These creatures were apparently not only natural but combined a pair of creatures that had never been successfully domesticated and were completely different species and even genus or more away from the ones he was familiar with.

He shook his head. He really needed to stop obsession about things like this. If he wasn't careful he'd turn into Hermione...

Turning his attention back to Tyrande he listened to her explanation on the druid clans and how he and Harry had influenced their creation and structure. After all, it would probably be important to know later if he was going to survive being a part of a self supporting paradox.

"of the clans are essentially the same in that all of their spells are known to and used by the others, and any druid can learn to take on any of the other houses forms, but each order is organized around one of the surviving ancients. We're currently headed to the cult of the ancient Aviana, the Druids of the Talon, who roost in small caves up and down the Stonetalon mountain range. Most of the Druids, and the gong to rouse them and summon the ancient resides in the Grove at the top, protected by the keepers. The keepers are the children and descendants of Cenarius, another ancient and direct son of my goddess Elune and the ancient Malanore."

"Cenarius?" George asked, his tone curious and brow arched. "He wouldn't happen to be a centaur by any chance, with a name like that?"

Many of the elven ladies looked scandalized, but Tyrande just laughed. "I wouldn't tell him that anywhere I thought he might be able to hear it George. While Cenarius and his offspring do indeed resemble centaurs, they are not. The centaur are the corrupted, violent and evil children of one of Cenarius sons Zaetar and the earth giantess Theradras. They are servants of the old gods and brutality incarnate. Do not mistake them for your own worlds gentle though egotistical centaur herds. It could become the last mistake you ever make and I'd hate to loose such a close long term friend." she called back somberly. Then the moment passed and she laughed again "though that one time you showed up and insisted on taking us to try and ride a few of them to see if they could be domesticated was some of the best fun I've had in the last thousand years!"

George smirked at that, but remained silent as he processed that. Centaurs here are NOT the centaurs from home, check. Hell, if she considers the raging violent egotists that most centaurs are to be gentle... bloody hell. Domesticating them though... that could be funny, there would definitely be a market for it, considering how superior most pure-bloods feel to normal creatures... it wasn't really his cup of tea, but it'd be fun enough a prank to go out and ride one just to stick it to Bane and his little herd of zealots. "Riding centaurs?" George asked, his voice laughing "That sounds like the kind of Fun my brother and would have gotten up to back in our school days! Care to regale us?"

Tyrande's smile seemed to light up the distance between them. "I believe it was just after the deeping well incident around three hundred years ago. A clan of Furbolgs had dug too deep in one of their burrows and his an underground river system, flooding half of their warren. Not usually trouble for us to deal with, but these strange eel people I'd never seen before began to come out of the well and attacking first the bear-men and then my sentinels when we came to restore the peace." her head bowed a little at this point and her expression turned wistful, as if the memory held as much pain as grace. Her next words made it clear why. "We lost several sisters and one of my apprentices that week. Then you showed up like you tend to every twenty years or so with Sirius, Harry, Angelina and their spouses in tow. You saw me morning my friend and took it upon yourself to cheer me up." She looked over at Shandris and winked before speaking again. "We did our best to give my guards the slip, but Shandris found us, like she always does." Her smile turned secretive. "Or rather she found you."

"We'd just finally managed to figure out how to mount the savages without being thrown off when my little general appears out of the shadow of a tree and lays into you. The centaur to become enraged again by the sudden shouting and the two of you spend the next few hours chasing each other across the backs of a stampeding herd of centaur, you dodging arrows from her bow, and both of you dodging the weapons of the centaur!" She giggled at the memory. "She'd probably have turned you into a pincushion you too, if the centaur didn't keep trying to buck the pair of you off each time you moved to the next ones back. I'm fairly sure it's only by the blessing and amusement of Elune that neither of you died!"

George filed that away, caught between being amused and stunned. "Right, so you said something about a sleep schedule for the druids?"If he and Angie both had spouses then that meant that they'd probably broken up. If they were traveling through time together that probably meant they were still on good terms, but he hoped little Fred was alright...

She gave him the selfsame look Hermione usually did when it was clear that he hadn't been paying full attention but replied anyways. "Yes, you and Harry argued with Yesera when she proposed her blessing for Nordrasil. She wanted all of the druids to sleep with her flight and aid her in guarding against the influences of the old gods which had recently brought low the black and blue dragon flights and started the first war against the Legion. The pair of you convinced her to allow two clans to be active at any given time for a century each, changing over every 50 years. You were determined that it was unfair to our people to forcibly segregate the sexes like that and that if the druids must spend so much time away they should be scheduled for time with their families. You ended up organizing it by which of Elunes pantheon the druids followed and set it so that at least one group should always be awake to rouse the others should trouble arise in the mortal world."

"As it currently stands this is the century of the Shell, led by Tortolla, the tortoise ancient and his Druids of of the Shell. The change over happened 13 years when the druids of the Talon under the ancient Avianna went into hibernation atop Stonetalon Peak and the druids of the paw under Tol'vir the Panther awoke. There are six other orders of druids for each Gol'drin the Wolf, bear twins Ursoc and Ursol, Bri'tar the seal, Malanore the Stag and even Cenarius and Elune as odd as it may sound. The Druids of Elune become Owlbeasts' and wield her divine magics much like my priestesses alongside their druidic powers while the druids who work directly under Cenarius often become Treents, our ancients of war, lore, healing, protection and wonder. My husband, Malfurion is the arch druid over all of the orders but most often he is awake with Cenarius over the others. He's scheduled to awaken with the druids of the Claw, under Ursoc and Ursol next, but we'll be rousing him early this time. It's always more fun to rouse him when you're around anyways, he always looks so pained when he sees you!"

"There are also a few other ancients within Elune's pantheon though they haven't yet taken on any disciples. Gulo the wolverine, Ashtar the skyserpent and Ferengi the fox. There was another at one point, Agamagan the quillboar, whose blood enchants my warriors quivers, but he refused to listen to council during the first war with the Legion and died personally saving us and decimating one of the bloodiest battlefields of the war."

George stilled at the mention of blood enchants. Given the pervasive use of blood in his worlds history it could simply have been acknowledged here as well, but the talk of time travel and his senses pinging when one of the quivers was used suggested otherwise. Interesting...

"So, we're going to wake the Druids of the Talon then? And this Tortolla's druids are going to wake the others?"

Tyrande smiled secretively. "Among other things, yes. I also thought I might visit an old friend and see if he'd like to stretch his legs..."

She would say nothing more on the subject for the rest of the flight. On Georges carpets the trip should have taken three hours, tops, but with Tyrande's people favoring their Hippagryphs whose top speed was only 80 miles an hour and preferred fifty for endurance it would take closer to twelve. George tried to spend time with the other night elven ladies of the group and his... ah, 'fellow' alliance members, but got bored after the first few hours. Having still not taken down the engorgement charm he'd used to place his tent on the carpet two nights prior, he retreated into the canvas cavern and called Hermione and Andrea to him. He if this trip was going to take forever he might as well at least get something done.

The astromancer as it turned out was already in his lab, looking over the projects he had spread out over random tables. Right now she was messing with the one that held an empty book cover, that crawled with mobile runes small enough that it nearly looked as if it was covered in ants. "Ms. Solus? Mind giving me a hand here? I was wanting to go over the summoning ritual for the elemental lords again. Hermione's inner geek is itching and with the war approaching I still need some appreciable weapons."

The crimson haired girl looked up sharply as if startled. "Hmm? Oh! Yes... George?" she held up the book cover "What is this? Even with everything I've seen you do over the last four months this is new..."

"Well..." the ginger replied with a teasing grin "It's a book." She glared at him. "And I'm enchanting it..."

"Startlingly enough, I understood that much..." she replied dryly. "I was wondering why you were enchanting a book of all things and what in the world you hope to accomplish with... this, whatever the nether this even is."she clarified, gesturing to the rune-map

Walking over to her, Hermione's mirror in tow, the busty brunette, rubbing sleep out of her eyes. It was a Sunday morning for her, so no classes and she'd just had... time... with Ron the night before so she was still somewhat exhausted, if pleased. George shrugged. "Perhaps a bit of culture would go well with this explanation" he replied, smiling. "On my world we enchant all sorts of things, for all sorts of reasons. A lot like your Dalaran, except often for even more frivolous reasons and the enchantments tend towards delicate and intricate spell-work rather than brute-force masterwork wards and such. Most of what gets made on my world falls into two categories, utility and jokes." He smirked at this but continued. "It's a large part of how I managed to build a large multinational several hundred million galleon a year business on pranks and novelty enchantments. As such we've got charms to copy books, enchantments to stop books from being copied, enchanted quills to write things down as people speak, spells that can hold dozens of pages worth of information on a single sheet and shows different things depending on who's reading it and why, even books that scream bloody murder or cast spells when someone who doesn't meet random standards of worthiness opens them."

"Then of course there are the more amusing ones, like the invisible books of invisibility. It's a fairly small tome that holds everything wizards have found out about the art of concealing yourself by various magical methods over the last two or three thousand years. The enchantment on it however causes the book itself to become invisible if you stop paying attention to it or put it down and then look or walk away without a clear idea of where you left it. Rather annoying if you're the type of person who tends to daydream about the possibilities of what you could do while invisible, or are absent minded enough to forget where you placed it when you put it down, but hilarious for the creator. Enough people are idiots that they permanently loose their copies and have to buy replacements, which keeps the authors in business. All you'd have to do to retrieve it though is cast a wide area summoning charm for 'the invisible book'."

He smirked. "Other examples are the monster book of monsters which is enchanted to replicate the personalities and tactics of various creatures within its pages. You're forced to either struggle with the book or learn how to calm it, which is an incredibly helpful skill for dealing with most of the creatures you'll find within. Then there's books with more serious enchantments, like The Peoples Pyromancer, Playing with Fire for Pleasure and Profit' by Ignis Burns. As the title suggests it's got just about everything wizards have learned about flames and things that burn and explode, magical and mundane. The problem with the book and the lesson its enchantment tries to teach is that whenever the reader gets distracted or begins to daydream it's liable to catch on fire and burn both the holders hands and anything nearby. Pretty much any type of fire or flammable substance is dangerous, and if you don't pay attention you could easily set off a blaze that'll kill you. Better to get burned early and learn your lesson than to do so when its too late."

He snorted "And don't even get me started on some of the enchantments I found on the unspeakable's books for blood magic. Suffice so say they've got an appetite and leave it at that."

The half elf was nodding at most of this and by and large looked bemused. There were of course enchantments here on Azeroth to prevent theft of important books or prevent the unworthy from reading various tomes but again the wizarding world astounded her with their... proliferation... "So, what are you trying to do with this one? Something silly, or something more serious?"

George laughed quietly. "Oh, I've got plenty of both in my inventory. Some of the most common enchantments I and other book sellers see fly off the shelves are actually infinitely turning books, which can hold entire libraries worth of pages for the reader or writer without expanding the physical weight or volume and books whose covers are enchanted to cause the information to stick in the readers mind. A prank book that has a similar effect are those which are enchanted so that you can't put down them on your own until you've learned the lesson the book is about. This one I've been trying to enchant for... what, six years now?" He looked at Hermione who nodded.

"Six years sounds about right," the bushy haired witch offered. "That was about the time I first showed you Wikipedia on my lap-top. "

George shrugged. "I'd pretty much given up on the project before I found your books on arcane intelligences here on Azeroth" He looked at the mirror for a moment and then back to her. "This one was actually spawned by Hermione when she showed me the muggle contraption called 'the notebook computer'. Ever since seeing what those things could do I've been trying to reproduce an old legend, the Scholaria Arcana. It's a book that will eat other books, learn everything within them and then integrate the knowledge into its pages along with reformatting itself to play to the readers ability to learn."

"So far I've managed to mesh the rune scripts for memory retention, quick learning or comprehension charm, infinite pages, added a personality that can play a pretty intelligent teacher... well, I think... and another enchantment to allow it to consume and combine books placed between its covers. The problem is that while it will gather and consume the knowledge of the books, it won't organize or reformat the information like I'm wanting it too. I've made do with incorporating a referencing charm that will cause the book to turn to relevant pages if it has the information you're asking for, but as helpful as my little librarian is, it's not learning... and it being able to learn and edit the information was the entire point of the project. I want it to be able to eat a bunch of English to whatever language dictionaries and be able to pull of things like Spanish to Russian to Mermish, or be able to translate its knowledge wholesale into gobeldygook or runes, Norse, Egyptian, Greek and Crimean, take this entire library and cross-reference the books I feed it to remove redundancies and be able to learn with me whether one theory or another is more accurate. I'm about half way there, but even with the counterpoint theories your magics have given me it's still just a portable library with a quick referencing librarian you can put in your pocket."

The elven girl stared at him. "Y-you can't be s-serious? You've managed to do all of that, and you're disappointed?!" the elf cried. "I can personally name a thousand mages who would sell their souls for a book that did that! Hell, they'd give you half of their life and family fortunes just for you to give them a copy! You didn't work your anti-copy jinx into this yet have you?" George shook his head dumbly. "GOOD! By the twisting nether, George! Dalaran would straight up give you her complete libraries from the entire city if you could prove this worked and were willing to hand out copies. Demon spit, most of them would probably still be willing to hand you their personal libraries even if you charged an arm a leg and their first born child for a copy!" she finished, practically hyperventilating.

George stood there, looking at her blankly for several minutes before laughing uproariously. It took him several minutes to calm down. "I guess I probably shouldn't mention the linking charms I use to keep my workers inventory books updated with the latest inventions from this notebook?" he asked, pulling out the small leather bound book she'd seen him scribbling away in nearly every day shed observed the wizard.

Solusandra moaned and looked ready to have a mental breakdown. "Fuck me sideways and toss me in a dragons nest..." Sitting down heavily on a nearby table she shook her head. "Right... right, you said you wanted to work on the summoning circles." she said, trying to distract herself from her latest bit of culture shock. "Were you wanting me to help you draw and power them, or were you trying to do something stupid like convert it to your type of magic?"

George grinned easily. "The second could be cool, and I'll likely get to it eventually, but I was just looking for the first."

Andrea nodded. "OK then..." She went over to the table that had been lain out for the project a couple of days ago and began, almost mechanically explaining the procedure to her host, alongside getting the materials in order. "Since I'm not particularly familiar with fire or wind elementals we're going to be starting from the bottom up rather than summoning a known entity. It'll take more time, but ultimately will probably be safer." The procedure was in of itself a lot simpler than it first appeared to George when he'd arrived on Azeroth Originally thinking, like most wizards did, that wild magic was a chaotic and dangerous amalgamation of all types of magic either naturally occurring or left over from spells performed in the area the challenge of drawing upon it without burning out your core or polluting it with dangerous spell residue was a daunting one, thus why wizards were so easily turned to using just their cores for power with the advanced channeling techniques of wands for manipulation. Here on Azeroth however, they'd managed to study wild magic closely enough for long enough that they'd been able to determine how to separate the differing wavelengths of magic by type and instead of drawing upon the magic of the area and then trying to filter it out, they drew directly from a specific frequency like a crystal radio or a specifically attuned magnet.

The ritual they were drawing was one that, while it had been updated roughly once a century by one obsessive magical researcher or another, was over fifteen thousand years old. Probably even older as the elves had stolen most of their magics from the trolls before them. Once the circle's runes were tuned to fire magic, or the elemental plain of fire as it was usually referenced, all of the magic within the boundaries of the rune and crystal dust ring would begin converting to or being replaced by fire magic until certain conditions had been reached, causing the pervading consciousness of magic to coalesce into an elemental being or attract the attention of one that had been summoned before.

Elemental entities were classified by the amount of power used to create them, how often they were summoned and what bindings past or current magicians placed on their secondary rings when the creatures appeared. Since they were up in the air as opposed to a place particularly attuned to fire magic like the site of a volcano, recent forest fire or magic battle where the opposing casters had filled the space between them with plasma, they were far more likely to manifest a new elemental than attract an older, more developed one.

The second circle was by far the more important one however. When dealing with elemental creatures there were multiple bindings one could place on their summoning or creation. Many mages made them to act as disposable foot-soldiers and the binding would become a set of enslaving cuffs that had to be destroyed to end the elementals existence on the mortal plane. They usually had little to no intelligence, but rather vague understandings of the processes by which they acted in nature and would be called upon to manifest here. Others called them forth to act as magical amplifiers, like ready-made super powerful focusing lenses for specific types of spells they could cast. Further still made runewords that allowed for more developed intelligences that they might communicate with the magical spirits and gain a deeper understanding of what it was they were trying to cast and how the magics they were messing with behaved. The spell Astromancer Solus was helping George with however was of much more focused intent. Instead of binding the living magic to a form and bidding it to do something it would repeatedly shatter the summoned elementals as they manifested, before re-concentrating the building essences into more and more stable forms. Depending on how long the process went on and how much power was put into the process the shattered summons that were the finished product could be anything from an amorphous mist of super-concentrated magical energy that could be easily formed and imbued into objects, to a solid crystal of varying sizes that represented enough power to shake entire continents if mishandled.

Their goal in particular was to focus the summoned elementals into a crystalline form about the size of 3 to 4 karat gem, or one centimeter in diameter. It sounded small when said aloud, but even with something that little, the primal essence of fire would still be enough to amplify any fire-spell George cast by a factor of three hundred or more, making an incendio plenty potent enough to kill a demon and thus bringing him up to the level of the Dalarani mages. At least where fire was concerned.

That however wasn't actually the point of the exercise. Also in the shielded lower platform were two more similar setups for wind elementals. These were rather more tricky for the buxom halfling to draw and calculate than the fire elemental because she was going for two separate and very specific aspects of the element as opposed to the more generalized 'its fire it burns things' focus of the first. In these George, by proxy of Andrea, was going for a constant howling wind as the focus for the second elemental and lightning and thunder made in storms with the other.

While Andrea was busy with this, Hermione and George were busy with the construction of the artifact housing. Instead of a series of tubes of 'wand quality wood' with gold and silver lief arithmancy guiding the construction of the spell they were apparently outright stealing the design from Hermione's 'Star Wars Encyclopedia' on the subject.

The first crystal, the Eternal Fire as Andrea called it, would take the place of the sabers focusing crystal, which would be sent into a tube George had runed up and down to be impervious to heat and focus any flames that came out of the crystal into a thick stream of fire directed by the Swedish spell 'brennandi stoưin' meaning burning pillar which created a thin stream fire which moved in a straight line instead of billowing out in every direction like incendio or similar fire spells. The next piece of the artifact would be the wind stone which would be taking the place of the primary crystal. This one would be a rifled projection of air formed by the Estonian spell 'ketrus pilv' or spinning cloud, which created a spiraling blast of wind much like the battle mage spell cone of cold. Channels for it were transfigured into the casing allowing it to come out of the handle just past the flame projection focusing it further in a manner akin to the mixing valve on a blowtorch. Finally the end of the blade which usually held the blade emitter and magnetic stabilizing ring of a light saber would be replaced by the final storm crystal with the Latin spell Vir'fulgur, or lightning staff, a spell used by the doge's guards to subdue criminals in a similar manner to stun-batons by creating an area of electrically charged air that would provide minor electrocution to anyone foolish enough to resist the magistrates Aurors. In this case though, it would, in theory at least, energize the high powered jet of flame into true plasma with enough magic backing up blade to punch through even the toughest magical hides or armors.

Between transfiguration and charms the casing for the weapon was done well before the gems were complete, needing only a few hours and no specialized materials to produce. Topping it all off with an unbreakable charm and a rune-script to summons the device back to his hand should he ever lose it, because that was one of Harry's biggest complaints about his wand, the pair of them sat down to watch the Astromancer work. It was rather fascinating to watch actually, as the magic within the binding circles filled the area, glowing ever brighter before collapsing into the vague shape of a human torso arms and face before the second ruing would flash, causing the steadily enlarging creatures to shatter into a thousand pieces. Those pieces would then collect under the direction of the ritual and its half elf controller and the process would start over again, the essence of the spell-beasts becoming steadily more and more concentrated in their power.

The process actually took long enough that George had time to prepare diner for the pair of them and use the multiplying transfiguration to offer the various foodstuffs to their companions flying around them. By the time they had finished handing out their offerings to the three hundred or so people traveling with them Andrea had shattered her last three elementals, beings that looked to Georges eyes like a glowing ethereal snake, hawk and cat shortly before their deaths. This finishing was signified to Georges eyes by the sweaty fire-top reaching into the circles with a set of enchanted gloves she'd shown them earlier and scooping the shattered crystalline messes towards three specially prepared pouches.

The pair of them ate slowly, Solusandra taking bites of her fettuccine alfredo with one hand and a distracted look while sorting through the mess of completed crystals for one that was the right size for what George wanted. Eventually she found some and took after them with what looked like a scalpel and nutcracker, except that both were glowing with a faint purple light. When she finally handed George his three gems, each one glowing like little stars, she smiled tiredly. "It's been too long since I last did this." Her smile widened to a grin. "I should probably thank you, I've got enough high quality essence left over to make myself a set of focusing gems for casting and sell shards to lower level mages for a hefty bit of gold, books or influence."

George looked up from the brilliant cyan, gold-orange and white gems with a piece of chicken hanging from his mouth. Cocking his head to the side he stuffed the sauce smothered meat into his mouth and asked "how much are we talking?"

Andrea lent back and considered for a moment, a fork full of noodles waving back and forth between her fingers. "Just on a gold value, round about seven hundred pieces if I sold them straight. At auction, anywhere between 300 and 4000." She shrugged. "Not really my thing though, I usually trade them to other mages for rare books or materials gathered on their travels. Being an enchanter you need all sorts of things, but where you might expect that to take you all over the world on grand adventures or travels to gather these things, we don't actually get out of our towers all that much. I suppose it does help to make you more experienced in the business and politics side of things, battles are a good way to vent ones frustrations. I was often happy when Lord Sunstrider took me out of my tower and set me to sewing devastation across one battlefront or another. Counter intuitive, I know, but actually helps push away the stress and trouble of knowing the hearing about the personal costs of war to feel the world tremble and see the enemy scatter, knowing it was by your power that they do so. It's incredibly cathartic." She paused and stared at her fork, blushing. "I'm babbling aren't I?"

George just smiled and went back to coaxing the gems into their slots with his wand. Fitting the fire gem into its section of the handle he pointed it off towards the arena and channeled some of his power into it like he was casting a spell with his wand. It was lucky he had, because from the end of the device ushered a roar like a dragons breath or one of his early fireworks and a stream of orange and yellow fire lanced across the intervening distance, drastically raising the temperature in the room and turning the arena floor to molten glass.

"Whoa!" the redhead wizard breathed, cutting off the flow of magic. If that didn't hurt a demon, he wasn't sure what would.

Andrea smirked and rolled her eyes. "I told you to be careful with those when we started" she said with a roll of her eyes.

"Meh," he replied "who would I be if my brother and I hadn't taken it upon ourselves to mess with items and spells we didn't fully appreciate? Or thought others didn't?" Fitting the blue white wind gem into it's slot on the back third of the handle, he slotted it together with the middle piece and pressed them together till they clicked, the divide between the two chunks of wood disappearing. Casting cooling charms around the room, liberally and at random, he aimed device again and pointed. This time, instead of the rooms temperature raising there was a roar like a jet engine and the flame that issued from the grip was a uniform cone of brilliant blue white that almost immediately began turning the spell reinforcement stones of the arena to molten slag.

Grinning wickedly he fit the final gem into the forward third of his and Hermione's masterpiece and sealed it together with the rest of the blade. This time there was a crackling sound as the jet of plasma that shot out deepened from blinding white with blue accents to an almost solid sky blue hue and, while still sparking off with random jets of white light, shrank into the vague shape of a sword blade.

As Hermione squealed and danced on the other side of the mirror however, George frowned a little. There was something wrong. "It's too big" he half chuckled, half pouted. "We'd been going for a broadsword or katana like in your movies, Herms, why does it look like a trolls claymore?"

Hermione rolled her eyes while Andrea looked on in bemusement. To her it represented a fairly impressive bit of power. Certainly enough to put George in the annals for the legendary non-sorcerous heroes just for having it. "Morgana's tits George, you're becoming even worse of a perfectionist than me! We can edit it later, I'm just Happy you managed to make it! Can you imagine what would happen if I showed up with that thing to one of the conventions?!" She dissolved into giggles.

"It comes from his being a shop keeper I suspect." Came a voice from the tent flap. Everybody looked toward the door and Andrea immediately stood as Tyrande walked in, smiling. "For people to buy something from a crafter they have to present a consistent quality product and have something people want. If it's not what they promised the value changes, and not always for the better. Besides, I'd always wondered when you made that old thing. Have you thought of a name yet?"

George shrugged. "It's half Hermione's, she inspired the idea." He turned to the bushy brunette in the mirror, "do the Jedi even name their weapons?"

"No," Hermione shook her head "part of the whole limiting attachments things that plagued the order."

George frowned. "Right, I think I'll call it Reynart's Tail then."

"Reynart? After the Celtic story?" Hermione asked, receiving a nod from George.

Tyrande smiled. "May I see it?"

George looked up, slightly startled. With a shrug he handed over the weapon and he and Andrea followed the priestess out the door of the tent. Once outside the lavender skinned woman raised the handle up in both hands and began humming. The melody was haunting and beautiful as was her visage against the stars and moonlight, but far more startling was what began to happen as the tune continued. The night-elven woman, already beautiful before began to light up with an inner radiance, soft silver blue light welling as if from her core or an intense light placed directly against her skin. Against the radiance of the power she now exuded her skin seemed almost creamy white and her eyes as she opened them blazed like twin suns. The light wasn't just within her body though, it flowed outwards to form an aurora around her that, instead of inspiring fear or awe as often happened with casters, calmed everyone nearby and brought tears to the eyes of several.

George noticed something else as well however, the light from the priestesses aura seemed to be flowing upwards, wrapping around and sinking into the sword he had only just finished crafting for Hermione's inner geek and his own protection. He watched in fascination as the wood of the body took on a smooth, almost metallic sheen and the crystals and metal within seemed to shine straight through their coverings, presenting an almost holographic representation of the blade.

Then it was all over and George realized with a start that the entire scene had only taken a scant few seconds. When Tyrande returned the inventor his creation George looked at her curiously. "Not that I'm ungrateful, but what did you just do, and moreover, why?"

Tyrande smiled. "Right now, time is in flux, what with the past" she gestured to him, "and the future" she placed a hand on her breast "sharing the same point in time. Things are changing and will continue to change until you leave either this point in time and complete the loop or remove yourself from the presence of anyone you might have interacted with in the past. Given that there are many near immortals in this world, that would be no mean feat, believe me. As such, I currently have memories of many adventures where you, or more often Harry, use that blade to great effect. Even more, you often lost that blade to various of our enemies who sought to corrupt its power and claim it for their own purposes. I'd rather avoid some of the quests where we had to reclaim and purify it. There are enough artifacts in need of cleansing in this world without one that combines such power with ease of use joining their number." She smirked. "Also, with Elunes personal blessing upon it, you should likely find it easier to harm demons of any rank than when it was simply a question of your power versus their resistances."

George nodded and shared a look with Hermione. "Sith?" The Muggle Studies professor asked.

"Close enough..." the blue haired woman replied with a smile. "On a more important note however, we're here!"

Checking that no one had snuck into his tent while they were talking with Tyrande, George packed it away and looked at the weapon in his hands. He should probably put some sort of summoning or anti-theft charm on it as well, come to think about it. As they descended into the star-lit forest, George stuffed the light saber into his pocket. They had a war to start.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Thrall growled in frustration and some small despair as the Doom-hammer pulped the head of another orc. Their progress through the caverns had been slow as they descended into the humid depths. Upon entering the first chamber the plant life for which the area was famous had grown twisted and bloated, pulsing with malice and corruption. He had lost several of his warriors to the monstrosities before gnomish paladins had begun to produce their auras, causing the plants to writhe and shriek unnaturally before dying. Plants had done this, PLANTS! Five strong proud warriors, literally eaten by leafy fronds that curled around you and covered you in acid or trees with mouths and large bulbous trunks lit from inside so you could see their prey being actively digested! That wasn't even counting what some of the vines had been doing before the Paladins stepped in! Had she survived he suspected Ferra would never have been the same...

What was worse was how powerless he felt. The spirits of nature were dead here, or corrupt and requiring incredible force of will to dominate their compliance. Working with the spirits wasn't an option in this case, as they had tried to pull him off into the tunnels alone when he'd tried. Lo'Gosh at least had answered his prayers as always, allowing him to summon several Ghost Wolves to bite and rend the attacking foliage.

That was only the beginning of their troubles however. As the paladin brothers began consecrating the area as a means of quickly killing off the demonic ecology a greenish mist had begun to flow into the cavern, presenting a physical presence which billowed and pressed against the slowly growing Auras of the gnomes with them and their fellow paladins above. Some of the hunters in his party had tried to press on through the mist only to return mere minutes later, skin a patchy mix between fel green and raw blood red. Howling the orcs had charged straight toward their alliance escort and tried to kill them, forcing Thrall and Hellscream to choose between their alliance with the Human and their own people.

Thrall had thrown his war-hammer, which arced through the air under his will and disarmed two of the three orcs, but missing one. Grommash had simply cut the charging orcs head off and kicked the body as it fell. "Black tooth grin." sniffing the blood that coated Gore-howl "Never liked them anyway." he looked around, "Where's the other one?"

The final hunter had come out of the fog then, coughing, with bleeding wounds across his chest. "Don't venture into the mist, war-chief" he groaned out. "It burns something awful."

The pair of gnomes who for some reason were standing, one atop the other, came over from where they were examining the screaming, struggling orcs that had been held down by their fellows after Thrall had disarmed them. "Hey!" they squeaked. "You're alright!" the other looked at pair as if they were insane, given the gaping wounds on the hunters torso. "Why aren't you a leper orc like the other two? ...er, well three."

The orc who was staring at them, looked down as he felt and itch, and gaped in amazement as his wounds seemed to sparkle with small flashes of gold and slowly pull themselves together. "I...I don't k-know, shaman!" the orc breathed, taking a sip from his water skin to wet his suddenly very dry lips.

Thrall looked at the water skin and his eyes widened. "How long have you had that skin, hunter?"

The orc looked at his war-chief in confusion. "I made it shortly after we escaped the humans five and a half years ago, war-chief, but I last filled it several days ago. I should probably again soon."

"The other orcs, the corrupted ones, they drank from the oasis in the last two days, I'm sure of it" the green skinned leader cursed. At least in their madness they had gone for the paladins and ignored their friends... After that they were careful not to proceed past the area that was currently being consecrated by the Gnomes which greatly slowed their progress. Thrall didn't want to leave half of their force behind, but couldn't move forward without risking loosing them to the corrupting influence of Mannoroths presence. The noose was tightening too slowly for Grom however and Thrall had to constantly hold his friend back as the holy power of the light and the wind spirits, which were returning with the clearing of the corruption, pushed them slowly forward.

Thrall and the two other shaman in their group periodically sent out ghost wolf scouts to clear the path for them, determining where their fallen brethren were and saving them time by reporting dead end tunnels. Sometimes they would find their fellow orcs alone or in small enough groups that they could easily be subdued and cleansed by the combined efforts of the paladins and shaman, but more often the red fel-orcs, as they had begun to call them, traveled in packs of ten or more, often led by one of the dozen or so fallen shaman. Thrall cast another lightning bolt, one of the very few powers available to hims with the absence of most of the spirits and corruption of so many others.

Something was wrong this time though, the ghost wolves he had sent into the next cavern hadn't returned. It was much too long for them to have been busy tearing out throats, something which he hadn't even ordered them to do, being more concerned with information than strength of arms at this point. He summoned another pack of the shadowy bear-sized canines. "Keep hidden, and return at the slightest sign of something or someone out of place" he growled at them. "We're hunting demon lords, there's no lack for valor in regrouping, especially when your retreat brings vital information." Lo'Gosh and his children were known for their fierce bravery and unyielding strength, he wouldn't put it past these spirit the great wolf allowed he and his shaman to summon to be the same and die fighting the pit lord or some other lieutenant without even thinking about returning with the information.

Word came back swiftly. Demons. Several of them. "Gnomes, what do you make of this? My scouts report two powerful, demons, one who smells of dragons is the pit lord, there is another that smells like a bat."

The pair of pink haired paladins stared at him with an unnerving intensity. "Nathreziem..." one of them spat. "Nasty, nasty... hmm... strategists they are, leaders of the legion. Impossible to kill physically, but an axe can banish them. You should be's attacking him first! We'll have enough trouble keeping him from eating your brains, so cut him in half quickly!"

"Impossible to kill?" Grom asked. "HA! And what do you mean about eating brains?"

Gregor gave the tall orc a poisonous look. "Nathreziem aren't creatures you can simply kill by physical means orc, they're spirits!"

Frodo nodded, his head bobbing up and down like a doll. "Evil nasty specters older even than the legion and born of the darkest magic in the nether."

"To become threats on our world they have to possess the bodies of magic users," Gregor continued, their lecture bounding back between the two brothers.

"human,"

"orc,"

"elf, "

"troll,"

"mage,"

"priest,"

"shaman,"

"warlock,"

"it makes no difference."

"Once they're in you they eat your soul and twist your body to look like a giant orc with white skin, goat horns and bat wings."

"The voice within the light teaches that while races rise and fall with in the Legion and commanders come and go, the Nathreziem remain,"

"generals,"

"strategists,"

"tacticians, ever the power behind Sargeras throne"

"and the source of his fall to madness." The brothers stopped momentarily and offered Grom a pointed look and continued in sync. "They dominate the wills of the weak minded using them as puppets. There are only two ways to truly kill them. Grab and burn their souls with the power of the light as you strike down their bodies, or cut them down with weapons enchanted to rend the soul even as they cleave the body. Anything less and they will simply abandon their host to return home to await another weak minded fool who plays with forces they don't understand in lust for power." He gestured to the emerald fog "this vile mist is likely their doing."

They both smirked at the look of intense discomfort on the orcs face before Frodo continued alone. "My brother and I will pour our focus into a holy aura to protect the lot of you from his influence, but you'll be on your own after that. Nathreziem aren't the legions leadership without reason. Count yourself lucky their vessels are physically weak and they themselves are cowards!"

With that final, high pitched and childish voiced statement, the pair of them sat down on either side of the tunnel entrance to the cavern and began murmuring prayers. The light already playing off their skin began to intensify and the rate at which it pushed back the gray-green mist accelerated.

Then, suddenly there was a change. The green could was till there, hanging in the air and looking poisonous, but it was no longer an obscuring blanket that hid everything from sight. The cavern before them was huge and sloped down to a bubbling pool that would have looked nice if it hadn't been filled with neon green blood. Around it stood the three corrupted Shaman they had yet to encounter and the enormous leviathantine Pit Lord. In between the war party and him however stood the dread-lord Belsavis an uncountable swarm of fel imps.

"Well, well, well..." the massive demon said, grandly "Welcome my good friends! We're so pleased you could make it, Thrall! And our special guest Hellscream too! We were almost worried you'd be late for the party! However, before we renew your vows, my dear orcs, we absolutely must do something about that smell! Honestly, bringing a pair of the Naru's paladin dogs here with you!" The beast shook his horned head and clucked like a disappointed mother. "I can't even imagine what you must have been thinking... You'll need to drink deeply to remove their stink from your bodies, oh yes!"

The gnomes response was to offer a rude gesture and increase the intensity of the light shining off their forms and armor. The dread-lord turned his face away and hissed like a vampire in the sun. "Now, now, is that any way to treat someone who's just trying to help his servants?" the winged monstrosity asked, voice condescending. "After all, they were never yours to begin with..."

At this the orcs stiffened and the dread-lord smiled, almost pleasantly, save for the shark-like teeth that filled the expression. The Nathreziem were masters of malice and delighted as much in moral pain as they did in physical torment. It wasn't particularly hard to see the fear in the orcs minds, what working WITH the Alliance, their old enemies, might mean. The paladins aura then changed subtly, clearing away their doubts and offering them confidence, courage and purpose. The certainty that the Paladins were duty and honor bound to help them, while the demons before them would offer only death and pain.

One by one the orcs looked at each other and nodded, moving to form a wall between the Gnomes and the dread-lord. As they did so there came a feeling of strength and their sense sharpened. They could see the individual muscles twitch in their oppositions face as his welcoming smile turned to a frown. "Ryglyth, kill them."

With that the gremlins swarmed forward, cackling like deranged goblins. Many of the creatures immolated themselves and attempted to kill Thralls orcs by jumping on their faces, while others danced around and fired off an unending slew of randomly colored fire in balls, waves, streams and even manipulated as weapons of several varieties.

It mattered naught. Inspired by the aura of the paladins, and their own blood-lust the line of orcs moved with unnatural speed, cleaving, impaling and hacking away at the flood of miniature demons. Thrall and the few shaman he'd brought with him lashed out at those who stood at range with bolts of lightning and prayers to Lo'Gosh which summoned ghost-wolves to bolster their ranks.

Belsavis was not inactive during this time either, launching spell after spell at the defenders and the Paladins behind them. Lances and arcs of black and blood red fire lept forward, piercing the protective aura of light and striking fear, doubt and panic in the defenders. Other spells of jade and poisonous yellow lashed forward to cause bones to splinter, flesh to flay from muscle or rot. Blood boiled in their orcs veins or gushed disproportionally out of minor wounds. On occasion he would even let loose with a whip of finger bones that shone with a rusty red hue and caused pain intense enough to send even Thrall to his knees.

Still, the orcs did not fall under the onslaught, but were instead whittled away slowly. For every curse the demon warlock cast there was a blessing from Frodo. Each time one of the green skinned warriors suffered an injury, Gregor would match it with a radiant bolt of healing light.

But they were beginning to tire. Nearly eight hours of spelunking through fel infested caverns and fighting against a miasma of demonic power had drained the pair. Their, and the orcs, saving grace was that Belsavis too had been expending a great deal of energy and effort over the last few hours. In fact, he had been expending a great deal of effort the last few days, between keeping Mannoroth in check, psychically assaulting the remains of the orcish race, defending against the probes of the gathered 10,000 mages under the command of Sorcerer Queen Jaina Proudmoore of the Lorderan Refugees and finally enslaving the newly corrupted fel-orcs who had taken the blood of Mannoroth. The last had been necessary only because they had been unable to tempt a clan chief into corrupting himself and spreading the tainted waters to the rest of his tribe yet. They had to do this slow, or risk organizing the inevitable resistance. Now between this fight and holding off the advance of nearly a hundred light cursed mortals trying to infect his fortress with the taint of the Holy Light he was well and truly wasted.

As his imps were cut down to a mere thirty he decided to give the mission up as a bad job. Directing the remains of his forces to charge Hellscream in particular he began to craft a portal by which he could escape. Grom had other ideas however. Ignoring the tiny, wickedly sharp, claws and teeth of the imps he charged forward with his famous howl and brought his axe Gore-howl around in a great arc to aid his powerful muscles in a leap at his enemy. As the red eyed blade-master and chief came down out of his arc, the great axe followed his trajectory and slashed down to cleave the dread-lord in two. It would have worked too, had Belsavis kept trying to build his way out through Jaina's barrier. Instead he dodged, losing an arm to the orc and grabbing Hellscream around the throat with the other.

"Know pain!" he snarled, driving a lance of shadow magic through his eyes and into the orcs. As Hellscream began to twitch and sweat, snarling in defiance rather than screaming as he ought, the pair gnomes appeared on the dread-lords shoulders. Their swords clove the bat like wings from shoulders and they grabbed onto his horns. Swinging down in the face of the shocked Nathreziems their blades lashed out again to take the arm that held Grom in a scissoring motion.

"You like pain?" Squeaked Frodo.

"Try ours!" Added Gregor.

The books bound to their sides by chains began to glow with a blue-white light and they intoned together. "Your soul is stained with the blood of the innocent, feel their pain!" Divine retribution was not the strongest of their skills, far below their abilities to heal or inspire actually, but in the end it didn't matter. Being an immortal and a Nathreziem, a race whose greatest joy came at the pain of others, Belsavis had committed and clearly remembered enough pain, torture and death of innocent blood to kill even the strongest of souls. As Grom brought his axe around for another swing, cleaving the twelve foot tall demon general in two from crown to groin, the dread-lord's soul burned. He would not be escaping to the Nether this day.

As Belsavis died there came a series of thunderous booms and the sound of rocks scraping and tumbling over themselves. The orcs looked around, trying to find the source of the attack only for the entire party to notice the strangest thing. The massive demon, Mannoroth... was laughing... and clapping? Thrall looked to his shaman and Grom for answers, them being the only ones to have met the pit lord before. Each of the shrugged however, unsure what was going on, but wary of the monster and his warlocks tending the pool of blood behind him. "Wonderful!" the monster boomed out, his voice difficult to interpret as much as the words sounded like slabs of granite being ground together to form the approximate sounds in orcish. "Such blood-lust! Such power, even without my blood! Yes, you wretched creatures are indeed worthy of being my minions... "

"Shouldn't he be mad we killed his friend?" asked one of the warriors quietly.

"Now, enough creeping around in the dark!" The mammoth demon roared, twirling his pole-sword around. "Your race is mine, Hellscream, and our blood is war! Drink with me again, as you did before, and we shall charge forth to crush the elves!"

At this Thrall stepped forward. "I think not, pit lord."

The demon looked down upon the shaman and laughed. "Resistance is futile, boy! Hellscream is mine! My blood, my minion, my mightiest champion! Through him I have felled beings that stood against the might of the Legion for twenty five thousand years! You think he can be saved? That your race can turn away while my blood races through your veins? HA! Fel power is like a drug! As long as I live you shall never be free!"

"Then we'll just have to fix that!" Thrall growled. "MEN! Hamstring that brute, teams of ten for each leg! Avoid his tail and don't get stepped on! Move!" the war-chief bellowed, eyes lighting up with the fury of the one elemental force he still commanded. Letting loose with an arc of lightning which Mannoroth caught on his wing, Thrall tossed out further rapid fire orders to his men. "Shaman, you three deal with the warlocks! You, help me bind his wings and arms! Beat him all you can, but remember HELLSCREAM STRIKES THE FINAL BLOW! Paladins! I want him weak, Get on it!"

As all of this was going in however, the draconian devil was not idle. Spinning his glaive around in a whirling figure eight he gouged long furrows in the floor around him, laughing deep, wild and booming laughs, as if he was having the time of his life. Even as orcish blades began to better themselves against the flesh of his elephantine legs he whirling weapon struck down orc after orc, cleaving them in half of throwing them into the cave walls in a way not even the gnomish paladins could counter or heal. One by one they fell before him, as the seconds wore on. "Ah, yes, the paladins!" Mannoroth boomed, in amusement and disgust. "Perhaps it's time to take out the trash!"

With a surge bellying his bleeding legs the draconic centaur surged forward and rammed his pole-arm down like a spear, both hands clasped near the blade at the top.

"Gregor! No!" Frodo's childish scream of anguish came, almost unheard over the thundering displacement of the demon lords charge, but it was too late. Laughing jovially the monster flipped his double sided spear up to grin at the face of the creature whose life he had just cut short. Almost delicately he bit off the head and flourished his weapon to throw the rest of the body off to the side.

Grom Hellscream took advantage of the Pit lords distraction and Gore-howl bit deeply into the demons side, causing Mannoroth to bellow in pain. Lashing out with a wing the demon lord batted the blade-master aside and glanced between his foes, torn between humbling the orc who had just dared to harm him, the one who lead others to defy him and dealing the the second Paladin that had accompanied the group. Before he could decide however he was distracted by the return of the rest of the raiding party. He roared as the small creatures began hacking at his back legs and running up his tail and withers, that their blades might bight as his back. Whirling around he threw them off, trampling several.

He shrugged as he surveyed the chaos his action had caused. They were just orcs after all, there were always more he could bind to his will... Brushing aside several spells of lighting and wind from the gathered shaman he grunted as he saw the remaining Warlocks fall. That was when he first noticed something was wrong, but by then it was already too late.

Frodo, who had been howling in anguish at the death of his brother, had moved. Vision blurred and head pounding, Frodo's howls had turned from those of anguish to ones of absolute fury. As the pain of his brothers desecration overwhelmed him his connection to the light went from one of soothing healing and confidence to a roaring flame of retribution. Holy energy pulsed through him, throbbing like the thrum of a gong or bell sounding a raid alarm. Everything around him blurred and distorted as he moved, the power of the Naru lending his muscles speed an power no mortal was meant to wield. Abandoning his shield to wield both his and his brothers sword, the tiny gnome flew across the water worn ground of the cavern towards his antagonist.

With a battle cry worthy of any orc he launched himself up Mannoroths right foreleg, using the short swords like climbing hooks to pull himself stab by stab up the monsters side. Forgotten were the words of his queen Jaina and the war-chief Thrall, all that coursed through his mind was the burning need to avenge his brother. Mannoroth howled in agony as with each stab of the glowing Gnomes burning blades large patches of his hide blackened or blisters where the black and jade magics within his blood met the white and gold of the Naru's minion. Bucking and contorting wildly the Annihilan general shook the cave in his efforts to dislodge the brilliant burning little creatures from his form, lashing out with wing and arm in vain.

For Frodo would not be deterred.

Tiny body shaking around wildly he continued to climb. When the beasts arms threatened to slap him he would reply with a slash. Then the wing tried to block his path and throw him he cleaved it off at the joint. He was nearly to the beasts neck... He would cut it off, yes, a fitting end after what he giant had done to his brother. The power of the Holy Light would reduce that horrible leering grin to ash, just as its teeth had reduced his brothers to pulp. He heard the orcs howling, but paid them no heed. Reaching the shoulder he swung himself up onto the fleshy platform with a near acrobatic flip and roughly ripped out the blade he'd used as leverage, causing a cascade of ash to fall in his wake, accompanied by a bellow from the beast upon which he was perched.

For a brief moment blazing white eyes met fiery jade and the two champions judged each other. "For Gregor!" the tiny man snarled, slamming the sword not holding him in place into the beasts jowly neck.

He was about to flare his aura, pushing the power of the light into his blade and cooking the pit lords brain from the inside out when said extremity split open like a rotten fruit. Startled he didn't have time to catch himself as he and the one who had struck the blow were blown off by a massive gout of jade fire. Mannoroths death was explosive and literally filled the cavern with fire, most of which was directed upwards and into the ceiling by the placing of the blow. Heavily burned the Gnome did not resist as he was dragged out of the collapsing chamber along side the fleeing figures of just over a dozen orcs.

"WHAT IN THE DEPTHS OF THE TWISTING NETHER DID YOU THINK YOU WERE DOING, ALLIANCE?" Frodo looked up from his daze to see himself held in the fist of a clearly enraged Grommash Hellscream. "MANNOROTH WAS MINE TO KILL! YOU NEARLY RUINED EVERYTHING! HAVE YOU ANY IDEA WHAT IT WOULD HAVE COST MY PEOPLE FOR YOU TO FINISH THAT BLOW?" he roared, shaking the gnome to emphasize the point. "Thrall! Let me kill him! We can leave his corpse in the rocks, say he died in the collapse!"

Thrall was silent for several long moments, staring at the holy warrior Jaina had allowed him to recruit. Frodo just hung there, looking defeated, not barely even stirring as Grom shook him. "He killed my brother." Frodo said finally, breaking the silence. "What would you have done?"

Thrall nodded. "That he did. Grom, let him go."

The red glow that had been there for most of the battle had faded from Hellscream's eye, but there was still a glint of something unhealthy in that gaze as he stared back. "No harm was done in the end Grom. Be thankful for that at least. Would your kill have been so clean had he not interfered? Let it go. He's lost enough. As have we."

Hellscream snorted, and threw the Paladin down before stalking off towards the head of the group.

~! #$%^&*()_+

George absently waved his wand over the enormous gong Tyrande had used to awaken the Druids of the Talon It was quite the curious artifact, forged of a strange blue metal which still glowed faintly green like fresh grass which felt soothing instead of nauseating like demon fire. It was honestly surreal to him, having people bow and call him Fox all the time. As he continued running diagnostics on the magic woven into the hanging disk he felt a hand alight upon his shoulder. Turning he saw the smiling face of Tyrande.

"Don't worry about figuring it out, George, it's not one of yours..."

"Hmm?"

"Malfurion brought these from some place he visited with Yesera." Tyrande explained wistfully, "he never would tell me where they got them. The green flight's much like the bronze in that respect, secretive like." She shook her head. "Come, I wanted to introduce you to someone."

Shrugging George stowed his wand and followed her. They walked for several minutes in silence, passing out of the concealed shrine city and into the valley at large. Gone from the crowds of partying druids the red-haired human felt much more relaxed and threw occasional glances at his guide and friend of futures past. As they moved out of the trees and into a clearing Tyrande turned to him. "Do you remember the story of Pandora?" she asked completely out of nowhere.

George looked at her, slightly taken aback, but hid it quickly. Pandora was an earth history, that Tyrande knew it was somewhere between astonishing and somehow expected. "I told you about that huh? Yes, it's a story about the cruelty of the gods. Pandora was the daughter of Prometheus, the Titan who created humanity during the time of the Titans. She was favored by the gods, and blessed by each of them at one point or another in thanks for something Prometheus had done for them. After Prometheus gave us magic, the 'fire of the gods' they decided to punish him and his family."

He shook his head and laughed somewhat sadly."On Pandora's wedding to Epimethius they gave her a storage jar, a pithos, in which they had stored all of the dark curses and creatures they had captured when they drove the Titans from earth. She wasn't told what was in it, only that it was a great evil and she was being entrusted to guard it that it may never be opened. Being the box was cursed to follow her around, repeatedly tempting her, and Pandora was the goddess of curiosity so she eventually opened it, wondering just what was inside that was so horrible. In doing so she released all sorts of evils into the world, an event which traumatized her. When she finally came to and looked into the bottom of the jar she found one thing left, Elpis the winged spirit of hope."

Tyrande nodded. "When Elune heard the story she decided to do things a bit differently." She closed her eyes briefly and tilted her face back to face the full moon. As she did so her body glowed with an inner silvery radiance and the air before them seemed to distort and ripple, before clearing away to reveal what looked like a large, intricately engraved, silver coin on the ground. Or a manhole cover. The disk became wreathed in a series of iridescent moonbeams and lifted from the ground, revealing an ornate stair. "While your gods made their box to contain evil that it could be used to punish some poor girl, Elune and I made ours to cleanse a Hero and a friend. Both hold evil, but the way we go about it?" She snorted. "Starting during the original war of the Legion and continuing throughout history this temples sole resident has made it his mission to hunt down warlocks, demons and the forces of darkness, but has also made a rather unfortunate habit of becoming deeply corrupted by those he seeks to destroy. Malfurion and the dragon aspects insisted he be locked away, never to see the light of the moon again, but I could not do that to him, so he comes here. Every time his own corruption reaches a certain threshold the box summons him back that Elune might heal him once more."

Placing her hand Tyrande turned to George. "Reynart's Tail, if you would?" she said, indicating a depression in the door. George nodded, no longer surprised at how so many things were becoming backwards compatible around him. As he placed the weapon in the door the entire thing glowed briefly before spiraling out in a metallic iris. In the room beyond, held floating in a pillar or moonlight, floated a night elf man. His skin, instead of purple, was black as night and reminded George of the drow. Light silver blue tattoos swirled across his skin, rippling and contorting as they emphasized the wall of muscle this warrior had obviously become. From his back sprouted a pair of enormous black wings like those of a raven and finally, to complete the picture, a great pair of horns swept back across his skull. They were different from those held by the Druids however. Where theirs were antlers signifying their connection to nature and their patron god Cenarius the horns of this person looked as if they would have belonged better on a dragon.

Suddenly the being stirred and where its eyes should have been two blazing white suns peaked out of the ruined sockets. Opening his mouth to speak and revealing fangs the figure spoke. "Good morning, Master Fox, is it that time again?"

George looked to Tyrande in askance and she smiled at him. "Where I am the the voice of Elune and her gentle right hand, he is the avatar of the night warrior and her vengeful fist. George Weasley, I'd like to introduce to you Illidan Stormrage, my brother in law and our very dear friend."

"Oh," replied Illidan softly, descending from the pillar of light with a wide grin on his face "It's that adventure is it?"