I do not own Warcraft or its sequels. Blizzard does.
Thanks to tmd126 for editing.
Chapter published 4/5/16.
Sara
When she returned to Ironforge, Sara first went back to the armory and stored her borrowed gear. Then she spent some time talking with the guild leader alongside the others about what had transpired on her expedition. Then she left to find Leira; she still had the glyph and it felt like it was burning up her pocket. So before she went back to her room, before she did anything else, she was going to find the damn draenei and graft the piece of paper onto her soul.
In the week or so that she'd spent as part of the Chimes of A'dal, she had completely memorized the layout of the guild hall. She searched high and low, greeting the occasional passerby, but Leira was nowhere to be found. Not training, not in her room, nothing. Either she was out running, or she wasn't back from her expedition yet.
"Guess I'll just have to wait," Sara muttered to herself.
The memory of Southpoint Gate, crushed and immolated, was still prominent in her mind. It wasn't hard to guess what had happened. While they had been out on mission to smash the portals, the Legion launched their infernals. Maybe even after they did their work. After all, they'd been destroying portals instead of infernal meteors. And if the air bombardment had somehow failed...
"Damn it," she whispered, walking around the Military Ward. She made her way over to a mailbox and opened its flap, checking inside. She rifled through a few letters addressed to others before finding one actually addressed to her. A small part of her couldn't help but think 'About time' but she knew that wasn't fair. Even magical mail could take time to arrive.
With her letter in hand, she walked back into the guild hall and locked herself in her tiny little room. Sara sat by the desk, pulling out sheets of paper and a pencil, but before she went to work she opened the letter with a slice of her magic and read it.
Sara,
We are overjoyed to hear this news. We knew you were stationed in Nethergarde, and when we heard that it fell we had feared the worst. But the important thing is that you are alright. As for your father and I, we are both safe so you need not worry. The demons are getting along to Duskwood now, so we've been evacuated to Stormwind and from there, we're going to Darnassus with the night elves. Do not worry about us; we fully intend to stay well ahead of the Burning Legion. Meanwhile you stay safe yourself, you hear? Do not misunderstand, we are both proud of you for taking a stand the way you are, but do make sure you come home safe and sound. I don't think your father could handle hearing the news a second time.
I dearly wish we could come visit you and hug you and give you those little abominable yeti cookies you love so much -
"I was five years old," she muttered to herself as blood rushed to her head. Still, that did disprove the unlikely situation of the military fabricating a letter.
- and see for myself you really are alive, I suppose this letter will have to do given the circumstances. Still, earliest opportunity you are to come meet us right away, you hear? Your father and I are eager to see you.
Sincerely,
Mom
P.S. Don't listen to your mother, Sara. We all know it was the Greatfather Winter candy you liked.
"Dad!" she hissed. A moment later though, she smiled and clutched the letter to herself, something warm blossoming in her chest. Her parents were okay. They knew she was okay. They were in Darnassus. They'd get through this and she'd see them again, and she could forget all about being Yogg-Saron reborn. Everything was going to be fine once they beat back the Legion.
Speaking of which...
Their efforts weren't working. They were going out and striking the demons, but they were striking back harder. She didn't know what the situation was like in Kalimdor or Northrend, but in the Eastern Kingdoms they were losing ground and fast. Silvermoon and Gilneas were gone. Undercity was stranded far behind enemy lines and as good as gone. Nethergarde was swallowed and it'd only be a matter of time before the demons were knocking on Stormwind's doorstep. Ironforge and Gnomeregan were going to be sandwiched and there was nothing she could do!
She'd dispensed with the idea of transforming back into a proper Old God a while ago, it was too risky. But barring that, Sara couldn't hope to stop the invasion all on her own. There was just too many of them in too many places she couldn't get to.
But she could do more.
She had to do more.
It was time to start really ramping up the Old God-ness of what she was doing, to really enjoy her power and take pride in her heritage. And she was going to start by giving herself some of her own glyphs. Nothing major, just some minor glyphs to make things easier. Luckily, she still had her pot of Old God blood.
Sara worked. And she worked and she worked and she worked, occasionally stopping to get food and such necessities. She burned away the time and her candles whittled themselves to nubs. But in that time, she'd devised some simple glyphs for her own use, with the blood of her past self used for ink. Sara grabbed the first one and brought it to her chest, then sent a shock of magic into it and began grafting it onto her magic. Sara closed her eyes and hummed to herself, her left index finger tracing the eldritch symbols she had made on the parchment. There was nothing, there was nothing...
Zap!
Then it was done. The sensation of electricity coursing through her veins faded a moment later. The paper was gone. Sara let out a breath and felt her stomach. She felt warm, oddly enough. Secure. Like something had just been made right. She repeated the process with the other two glyphs, and then tried to test out the first.
First, she summoned her shadow magic. Orbs of darkness swirled around both her hands, which she moved in a figure-eight. The first of the glyphs was simply something to contain her magic, to make it more cohesive. And sure enough, it worked. Her magic left behind none of the shadowy fog that it had for years past. Not a very useful glyph sure, but it wouldn't do for demons - or some other foe of hers - to track her with the smoke she left behind.
Next, Sara wove her magic into a barrier around herself. Like always a green sphere formed around her... but this time, it was rather easy for her to see through it. The shifting, pearlescent colors were, thanks to her second glyph, invisible on the inside and would do nothing to cloud her vision.
To test the final glyph, Sara simply stuck her hand into the pot of liquid saronite.
Like it always did, the saronite was warm and almost gooey. It wrapped around her hand, pulsed to the tune of her heartbeat and soothed the stress in her head. But this time, there was something... more. It felt like the saronite was connecting with something in her. Resonating with it. It wasn't much, but Sara's breaths came just a little easier, her mana pool was just a little deeper... yes, that would do.
She pulled her hand out of the saronite and nodded. Now she just needed some saronite gear to wear. It wasn't like it could corrupt her after all.
Sitting back down, she pulled out some sheets of paper and began scrawling all over them with spells and formulae. Keeping it all in her head and trying to memorize it would get her nowhere. She was going to write down Yogg-Saron's spells and study them from there. After all, making some minor glyphs specifically tailored to her was simple. But if she wanted to do something major, if she wanted to wield the sort of prowess Yogg-Saron did in its battle against the Kingslayers, she was going to have to try harder.
Time ticked past and Sara hardly left her room. Her writing instrument scritched and scratched. Charts. Diagrams. Spell lines and circles filled her vision, and exhaustion tugged at her eyelids but who cared? Her first mission had, despite it all, ended in colossal failure. That couldn't happen again. Everyone, including herself, needed to do their part. She could -
Knock knock knock!
Sara considered shooing whoever it was away, but it might be Leira and she could finally give the warrior her glyph. "It's open!" she called.
The door creaked open and let the light from the torches outside pour in. The light streamed around a shadow and Sara turned to face the figure. Then she froze.
"Hey there cutie, mind if we talk?" asked a succubus, striding in and kicking the door closed with a hoof. She shifted her weight onto one leg, showing off her half-naked body. "Relax, I'm not here to do anything like seduce or torture or anything." Suddenly her expression went grim. "Not that I'd mind the latter," she growled. Then she beamed again. "I'm here on behalf of my superior. He wants to extend an offer to you, honey."
Sara blinked. There was a succubus. Inside the Military Ward. How? Had she used invisibility? Probably. Should she warn the rest of the guild? Yes, she should! A demoness had gotten inside here! Who knew where else she could have gone! Where else she had already gone!
Then the succubus's words registered. It wanted to make her a deal.
Instantly, she extended her left hand at the succubus. "Not interested!" Her magic roiled and burst forth in a colossal emerald blast. The succubus's glowing eyes went wide with horror, and then the death blast swallowed her whole. When it faded, she had already returned to the nether.
Sara reclined in her seat, balled her hands into fists, and rubbed her eyes with them. "I am not paid nearly enough for this," she muttered, regretting the fact that she hadn't taken the time to permanently kill the succubus. Then she left to go raise the alarm.
It wasn't hard to convince some of the older members of the guild of what had just happened. Her magic blast had been loud. So it hadn't taken long, and much to her relief she had actually met up with Leira in the process. She'd recently come back from her mission in the Arathi Highlands, and had already stored away her gear and been debriefed. At the moment, she and the taller woman were walking back to their rooms.
"So before I forget," Sara said. "I invented a new glyph that I want to give you."
"Sara, I already have all my glyphs in place," she said, amused.
"No, I mean I invented an entirely new glyph. Using my you know what powers," she hinted, nudging the draenei in her side.
Leira stiffened. "Oh. Oh. Is it any good? Like, what's it do? Am I gonna grow any tentacles if I use it? I mean no offense!" she said suddenly, holding up her hands with a wry smile on her face. "I'm certain having extra limbs is nothing but an advantage, but I'd prefer to keep what I know."
"No tentacles," she assured. "All it does is sort of toughen you up the angrier you are. Physical resistance, spell resistance, all that stuff."
As they turned towards Sara's room, Leira tapped her chin. "Hmm, that does sound useful. Some extra life insurance is always handy. Oh, we're here."
"Huh?" she asked, before paying attention to how far they'd gone. Sure enough, they'd arrived. "Right." She opened the door and walked in, with Leira following her. Sara strode to her table and grabbed the glyph, showing it to Leira.
"Eugh, that's it huh?" she asked, placing a hand over her forehead as if the glyph were some painfully bright lamp. "You're sure there'll be no tentacles or anything? I hear Old God magic has a mind of its own."
"Sort of. It's not really sapient, but its will is that of the Old God that commands it. So if a mortal were to use C'Thun's magic, then C'Thun can tell its magic to corrupt the mortal from the inside. But it's my magic, I'm the one telling it what to do, so you'll be fine. Trust me, Leira," she pleaded.
She nodded. "Alright alright, you're the expert. I have a glyph of Bull Rush, I think that'd be good to replace."
Sara activated her magic, taking note of how Leira shivered whenever she did. "Bull Rush glyph, got it." Her powers pushed into Leira, and the draenei dry-heaved. It must have felt like what nature magic did to Sara, so she resolved not to linger. She searched, and in a moment she found her glyphs, arranged in a wheel with six spokes around her stomach. She reached over each one and rubbed her magic along it to see what it was, and on the fourth try she found a signature that matched a Bull Rush glyph. With a few snips of magic, she gutted the glyph and it vanished. Then she placed her new glyph against Leira's shirt and began to activate it.
Nothing.
Nothing.
Zap!
Leira doubled over and retched, so Sara ran over to support her. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she wheezed. After a moment Leira straightened up. "Ugh, thanks for the help." The draenei shivered. "Yeesh, that stuff feels awful."
Sara sat down in her chair and rubbed the back of her head nervously. "Heh, I guess it would. You'll have to let me know how effective it is later. Well, I have to get back to work," she explained, picking up a quill. "See you around."
"Wait, have you been in here the entire time since you got back?" Leira asked, looking around the dimly lit, sparsely decorated room.
"Given how poorly my mission went? I need to do better next time," she mumbled, already busying herself with mapping out the formulae of the brain link spell.
"Right, I heard about that. Southpoint Gate right?" Leira clip-clopped her way over to Sara's bed and sat on it. "Oh by the Light, you're beating yourself up over that? Sara listen, there was nothing you could do."
"That's the problem!" she shouted, slamming her hands on the table. "There are so many spells floating around in my head that could have done something about it and I don't know how to cast a single one of them!"
"Hey hey, relax. I get it alright? But you can't just sit in here and work yourself to death."
"I'll resurrect myself," she said blandly.
Her friend smirked, but then stopped. "Wait. Is that, like, a thing you can do?"
She kept her eyes on her work. "I dunno, never tried it. Yogg-Saron could revive itself, at its full power. Takes a lot of magic to do that though, far more than just resurrecting someone else. Probably don't have enough."
Leira shook her head, her black hair flying. "That's not the point." She came over and forcefully turned her sheets of paper face down. "So our missions didn't go entirely as planned. Sara, you could stand to take a break. With that in mind... " She trailed off, and her glowing eyes seemed to narrow in wicked glee. "... me and some friends are going to Stonefire Tavern for some chatter. Wanna come with? Getting out will do you some good."
Sara paused. On the one hand she'd be going to an inn to socialize with others, and put off working to improve herself. Definitely not a good scenario. On the other hand, she was trying to curb her Old-God tendencies and maybe going out to this inn would help with that. Besides, it was a new experience and she didn't know what to expect. It might as well be random and wasn't that enticing? "Fine." But I won't like it, she refrained from saying. "Let me just get dressed and I'll meet you there. The Commons, right?"
"I'll hold you to it," Leira mock-threatened, walking over to the door. "See you soon!" she sang. The draenei left and closed the door behind her.
Sara sighed. Part of her was really tempted to just stay here and work on her magic, but no. She was going, even if she had to drag herself there.
The stipend she got was enough to let her afford a change of clothes, rather than just constantly washing the ones she'd brought with her when she escaped to Dalaran. The small room had enough space to let her fit in a wardrobe, which she flung open and began deliberating what to wear. And by deliberating, she meant closing her eyes and picked at random because who knew what she'd end up with?
In the end Sara found herself in a pale red blouse and a grass-green short skirt. She wore her hair down, like always, and wore some regular, brown leather shoes on her feet. After a moment's consideration, she tucked away a small pouch of gold and a waterskin into her bags and slung it over her back. With that done, she rubbed her eyes one last time and stepped out of her room.
Leaving the guild hall only took her a moment, and then she was walking through the Military Ward to the Commons.
She'd started to get used to the idea of being underground, even if looking at the vaunting ceiling did make her feel queasy. The Commons didn't do much to alleviate the feeling, even with the occasional gryphon flying in from above and twisting through the tunnels to deliver its passenger. Hordes of people crowded around each other, pushing and shoving in deliciously inscrutable patterns. The majority of the crowd was clustered around either the bank or the auction house, hoping to snag a good deal. In the middle of the Commons was a series of rectangular gaps in the ground, which went all the way to the molten rock flowing beneath Ironforge. Above it, however, was a metal mesh and in recent times, due to safety concerns, a second mesh had been added near the top to prevent people from falling down. Of course both could still be retracted to create trenches in case of invaders.
Sara stopped by one of those trenches and stared down into it. Magma stared back, churning slowly and angrily, and Sara wanted so badly to reach out and give it a way to vent that anger, to tell the liquid stone to rise through the mesh and do what it wished while she sat back and watched with a smile, watch it eat stone like melting ice. Then she shook her head and moved on. "Gotta stop that," she whispered to herself.
Stonefire Tavern was on the far end of the Commons, on the 'outer edge' of the wheel. She had to go past the auctioneer and the gates, which forced her to deal with being pushed and shoved. She gave as good as she got but still. Couldn't they watch where they were going?
She pushed her way into the inn. Sara hadn't been in a dwarven inn before, and while it was just as toasty warm as it was outside, the sudden switch from yellow, gnomish electric light to erratic orange torches was jarring. The din of thousands of people going about their business was replaced with lively chatter between patrons, along with the sharp stench of beer and mead. Square shaped tables were set out with four chairs at each. There were fully occupied tables that had stolen chairs from others to seat more than four, empty tables, and everything in between. Half a second after she walked in there was a burst of boisterous laughter from the far back corner.
Sara scanned the tavern with her eyes for a moment before she spotted Leira sitting at a table to the right with two others, a dwarven woman and night elf man. The former had fiery red hair in a bun, and the latter had hair the color of grass that went down to the small of his back.
Leira spotted her as she was walking over and waved her over to the one remaining seat. "Glad you could make it," she said with a wink. "Anra and Hammon just got here too."
"Glad to be here," she lied, sitting and throwing her bag under her chair. "Never met you two."
"Never met ya either," the dwarf said. "Saw you at the meeting though. How'd yer mission go?"
Sara hid a wince. "Poorly. We smashed the portals like we were supposed to, but by the time we got back to Southpoint Gate it'd been destroyed by infernals."
Anra frowned. "So not that well huh? Welcome to the club. Hammon and I were in Silverpine Forest. Tried to assassinate a dreadlord, even had some of these 'Apexis Crystals' to make sure he couldn't come back. Couldn't get close to him though! Slippery devil got away through a gateway and we barely escaped with our lives."
"Yeah," Leira said. "Mine didn't go so well either." Suddenly she looked behind Sara. Twisting around, she saw the barmaid had come to their table. "I'll have a flask of Stormwind Tawny to start and two turkey legs," Leira ordered, holding up two fingers.
"Moonberry Juice, caribou, and a Lagrave Stout," the night elf requested.
Anra slammed a fist on the table, startling everyone except Sara and the barmaid. "Five strips of jerky, a bowl of mutton stew, and let's go with three Foote Triples!" she demanded.
Sara blinked, but gave the menu on the wall a quick glance. After a moment she shrugged. "I'll just have a bowl of mutton stew," she said in a 'friendly' voice.
"Alrighty then," the barmaid said with a wink. "I'll get that for ya right away."
As she walked away, the rest of them focused back on Leira. "So as I was saying, my mission in Arathi didn't work out as I hoped. Legion had gotten to some of the elemental rings and was corrupting them and such, so obviously we were to go there and stop that. Went to the water ring, brought with us some shaman and all sorts of jugs of pure, clean water. We get there, and fucking eredar teleport in the fuck out of nowhere. And while we're fighting, they take our water and make it all demonic, then splash that into the ring. After that we had to call it quits. Got this from them too," she said, lifting her shift somewhat to expose a wide, rectangular patch of skin that was lighter blue than the skin around it.
They winced in sympathy at the sight of the healed burn, and Leira put her shirt back down. "Yeah, not good. Pretty sure Calven will be sending us out on another mission soon enough."
"After the Arathi Highlands they get to the Wetlands, right?" Sara asked. "But they have to go across the bridge to get there."
"That they do," Hammon said. "I think Menethil Harbor is going to bomb it to pieces," he said in a whisper. She supposed it was sensitive, classified information but honestly who was going to hear them? The tavern was loud enough as it was. "Then they can stage a defense at the choke point and buy us some time to go put the hurt on them."
They talked idly about their various missions until the barmaid returned with a platter filled with food precariously balanced on both arms. She set it down on the middle of the table. "Alright, there we go. Stormwind Tawny and two turk' legs for you, moonberry juice, caribou and a Lagrave Stout for you, mutton stew for you," she said with a gesture to Sara. "And three Foote Triples, five strips of jerky, and another mutton stew for you. Ha, enjoy!" she said before turning away.
Sara spooned up a bit of her stew and ate it. "There was a fel reaver at the Forge Camp I went to. Anything like that with you three?"
"Not with me," Leira said. "A lot of machines, but no reavers."
"We actually did see a few," Anra said. "Big mean ol' things. Weren't active though, but I'm guessin' they will be soon, eh?"
"So the invasion has gotten to that point," Hammon mused. "We'll have to deal with the Legion's technological side."
"Well good luck to them," Leira said, taking a swig of her flask. "Fel reavers can't get over a broken bridge."
They continued talking a little about the invasion as the others slowly made themselves drunk. Sara stuck with her seasoned stew, occasionally washing it down with some water from her bags. She didn't drink, after all. Their cheeks reddened - or in Leira's case, turned dark blue - though Anra didn't seem affected at all.
"... I'm just hopin' that, you know. I get into a fight soon," Leira said. "Got a new glyph today and I really want to test it out soon." She hiccuped a little, then bit another strip off her second turkey leg.
"Really las?" Anra asked, finishing off her fourth foamy jug. "What kinda glyph?"
"I dunno. Sara, what were you calling it?"
Two pairs of eyes locked on her, and she blanked. "Uh, I wasn't calling it anything. I guess... call it whatever you want?"
Leira nodded. "Right, right."
"What precisely do you mean ya don't know?" Anra asked. "Thought all them glyphs had names to them already."
Well, distributing more of them is one way to help the war effort, she thought. "I invented a new one. It feeds off emotions, makes her tougher the angrier she gets." She considered it. "If you want, I could invent new ones for you two, if you give me an idea of what you want."
Hammon was drunk to the point of near unconsciousness, so he didn't respond. On the other hand, Anra acted as though she was still entirely sober. "Sure, I'll think of it. Usually I'm big in the assassination thing, and Hammon's one of them priests of the Cult of Forgotten Shadows." A shadow priest? Now that was something she'd like to see.
"I'll see what I can do," she promised.
"So, so." Leira turned to Anra. "It's half past 'I'm done with my food'," she said, finishing off the last of it. "I think it's about time we head back or something. Got to do stuff tomorrow, you know?"
Anra nodded. "Right. I'll help Hammon back. Sara, you mind helping Leira?"
"Sure," she said.
They paid for their meal and Anra was the first out. Watching the tiny dwarf practically carry the nearly comatose elf was comical enough, and then Sara found herself in the position of grabbing Leira's wrist and tugging her through the Commons.
"You are not going to have fun tomorrow," she mused. "This is why I don't drink, you know."
Leira scoffed. "Sara, seriously." She stumbled a moment. "Old God magic aside, you are the most boring person I've ever met." Sara's heart momentarily stopped, but looking around revealed that nobody had noticed what Leira said about her magic. "You don't drink, until you came here you barely exercised, you pretty much just stay in your room all day and... what? Hell you don't even date."
"That's because I hate everyone, Leira."
"Excuses excuses. Hey, I'm thinking of going with Hammon and - "
" - aaand this conversation's over," she said sharply. "Is the new glyph settling alright?"
"Hmm? Yeah, if you hadn't told me what it's made of I'd have barely noticed. Gonna punch Huan tomorrow, get into a fight with him and test it out."
"I'll be sure to revive you in that case," she said with a cheeky grin. By then they'd arrived back in the Military Ward.
"Pfft, yeah right. You saw me beat the shit out of that obsidian destroyer. I'll whoop his ass with this new glyph you gave me. I mean, like, it's Old God magic. That's seriously strong stuff if you're not gonna cause any drawbacks."
"No, I'm not," she explained. Sara brought the drunken draenei into the guild hall and helped her towards her room. She even gave Leira what was left of her water skin for when the hangover struck her, and then retired to her own room.
Over all, the tavern outing hadn't been nearly as unbearable as she'd thought. She'd been able to squeeze Anra and Hammon for some valuable information after all, and they gave her targets to make glyphs for. Of course, she also needed to start thinking of enchantments as well, but it was a start.
Time passed.
Sara didn't go on any mission despite there being several calls to battle. Leira was not exactly a senior member but she'd been in the guild for twelve years so she went out. Sara's trial period had only just ended, rendering her a fully fledged member of the guild, but still a new one. All things considered it was better for her to stay in Ironforge, honing her skills and bestowing gifts upon her 'allies'.
Old God blessings were known for the enormous power they granted, but the power always came at a price. The price of your soul, the price of your sanity, the price of your allegiance, the list went on. The price was always steep so only the really far gone, like the Twilight's Hammer, ever even considered Old God power. But Sara wasn't a mortal asking an Old God for power, she was the one they asked and damn proud of it. So in her past life - and maybe her current one - she'd have asked for lots in return, but this was to stop the Legion from destroying her world. At least for the time being she could give out her glyphs and enchantments without asking for people's souls in return. After all, they had the Old God of Death mostly on their side, she was going to make sure they got their money's worth.
She kept exercising. Sometimes she got into friendly duels, and more often than not she blew her opponents away with her colossal power. Once or twice, though she ended up silenced, counterspelled, or just generally outmaneuvered and defeated. She practiced Yogg-Saron's spells and dreamed of long-gone days as an Old God, where she'd wake up feeling compressed and stiff, wishing to stretch tentacles she didn't have up to the sky.
The day started like any other. She got up, ate breakfast, and went over the most recent spell she was practicing, the brain link. She made a few glyphs for paladins and warlocks and gave them out to those that had requested them, then gave a soul-eating enchantment for a rogue to ensure any demons he killed stayed dead. Then she went for her daily jog around Ironforge.
She went north first, going through Tinker Town. She had to be careful to make sure she didn't trample anyone, because what a shame that would be. After that it was the wide and shining Hall of Explorers, and then into the refreshingly dark but achingly small Forlorn Cavern. But then she got to the Mystic Ward, where Ironforge's Light-wielders and spellcasters tended to gather, and she had to come to a stop.
Normally, Ironforge was very racially diverse. Dwarves and gnomes were, of course, a majority, but there were plenty of humans, worgen, night elves, draenei, and pandaren. But the absolute last thing she expected to see was hordes - no pun intended - of blood elves and forsaken in the Mystic Ward, pouring out of the portal room and making rings around the pool of water in the middle of the room. She paused her jogging and, panting lightly, approached the nearest guard. The guard in question, even under his helmet, was eyeing the Horde members warily.
"Sir, do you know why, um, they're here?" she asked as respectfully as she could bear.
"Yeah, I do," he explained. "So after Silvermoon fell most of the blood elves evacuated to Kalimdor places, but a fair amount also went to the Undercity cause it's, you know, close. Just recently Undercity's been captured, so now a good number are here as refugees. That Sylvanas lady is speakin' with the Council right now actually, dunno why. We should just shunt them through the portals to Orgrimmar. They're with theirs, not with ours, everyone's happy. Least nobody's givin' 'em trouble."
"So the blood elf and forsaken army is in Ironforge?" she deadpanned.
"Oh no, not the armies. These are the civilians."
Hmm. Sara had an idea. She could even knock out her 'good deed of the day' that she so detested forcing herself to do. She reached into her memories and started organizing the spell. Over long minutes she pieced together the spell, and when she was sure she had a good framework to work on, she strode confidentially towards the sin'dorei and undead.
Sara had learned Orcish in school. She hadn't forgotten any of it despite her lack of use, but she also hadn't learned much to begin with. The Horde members near her were starting to take note of her. The forsaken were all in regular clothes and despite the rot and exposed bones looked as scared as any human would be in the reverse scenario. With the blood elves, it was much easier to see the worry. There were even some kids huddled around their caretakers' knees. Some played with toys, some talked in rapid-fire Thalassian. But as she grew closer, the chatter of Orcish, Thalassian, and Gutterspeak died down.
She picked out the closest one, a blood elf man about a head taller than her with spiked blonde hair and freakishly long ears even for his kind. "Hello," she said in Orcish, trying to remember how it went. "I can magic," she forced out. "Speak bad, but magic good. Can teach Common with magic my," she explained.
There was some shuffling, and then a forsaken woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd. Like all of them, her eyes were a blank sulfurous glow, but aside from the ashen skin and exposed bones along her elbows, she could have passed for a living person in hideously contrasting blue and orange. "I can speak Common," she said in a painfully scratchy voice. "From the looks of it, better than your Orcish."
Sara relaxed. "Oh good, that makes this easier. I can cast a spell that will teach Common permanently. It's not water or shelter, but it'll reduce the need for you to go back and forth as translator." She wiggled her fingers, letting dark purple magic drip from them for emphasis.
The undead smiled, briefly showing off rotten yellow teeth. Sara didn't flinch. "That would be very useful indeed." She turned back to the gathering crowd and spoke in Orcish far too fast for Sara to understand, then turned back. The blood elf Sara'd first approached raised his hand. "Alright, we have your first volunteer. Do your best, human."
Grinning wryly, she approached the man and extended her magic into his head. Like always, a dense forest of interlinking purple lines, with bright magenta pulses flashing along them almost too fast for her eyes to track, and she got to work.
A few months ago, something like imparting the knowledge of an entire language into someone's long term memory would have been beyond her. But she was getting better at this. It took a few minutes to get past the personal variances and then a few minutes longer to truly cement the knowledge in, but then she stepped back and turned off her magic.
"Alright, does this work?"
The man felt his head, then blinked hard. "I... yes," he said with a heavy accent. "This is remarkable. You actually did it." He broke into a grin and gave a short bow. "Thank you, miss."
"Yeah yeah. Alright, who's next?"
Sara worked. And she worked and she worked, casting the spell over and over again. Her mind buzzed as she worked through the slight differences in each person's mind. She got faster, and she got more efficient in terms of mana, but something she hadn't accounted for soon came into play. There were just so many people. The crowds around her didn't seem to diminish even after an hour. People in the Mystic Ward apparently heard of her efforts and came to her with mana potions and water, and her own mana pool was very deep, but there were just so many people. Thousands of them. Each with different mind links. About half and half were undead; not many blood elves had gone to Undercity, but not many forsaken were civilians either.
First she developed a tickle in her throat that grew to full-blown thirst before long. Then her head swam and her knees shook, forcing her to do the casting while sitting down with her target. Then she got hungrier, she got dizzier, with an increasing burst of spots flickering in her vision whenever she cast, and Sara had to call it quits after having only helped a few hundred people. She rested a bit, and helped a dozen more after she could, but then she simply had to give up and leave the rest of them disappointed.
Well, that's my good deed for the day, she thought. Sara finished up her jog and went about the rest of her day in the sort of agonizing repetitiveness she'd come to tolerate. Noon came, and with it lunch. Then she worked on the mind malady spell. Then came dinner, and she stayed up long into the night working on making another soul-eater enchantment.
Scritch, scratch went her pencil.
Abyss crystals, spirit dust, and sha crystals flowed together, forming the soul-eater enchantment. After a little more preparation, it was ready to be added to a weapon.
Knock knock knock!
"Oh now what?!" she muttered, standing from her desk and sliding to the door. She opened it and...
Another succubus. Probably the same one too, but her choker glowed purple this time.
"Not this again," she growled, preparing her soul destruction spell. How had she even gotten through the invisibility wards?!
Then the demon sucked in a panicked breath and, closing the door with her tail, tackled Sara.
Of all the possible things the demon could have done, that was absolutely the last thing she'd expected. Sara went down on the ground, and her magic flickered out. The demon was laid against her, scrambling for purchase, but before she could slice her throat or anything similar Sara cast her shadowy barrier. It wasn't total immunity yet but it did protect her from non-projectile spells like seduction magic.
She rose to her feet and turned her head to the succubus, who was still on the ground, pushed into a corner. The position bent her bat wings at an odd angle, and she looked at Sara breathlessly. "Wait wait, just hear me out!" she pleaded.
"Oh I think I will," she intoned ominously. Her magic glowed bright purple and she forced it into the succubus's mind...
... nothing happened.
She tried to start mind controlling the demon again. Nothing happened, and Sara stared at her glowing hand in confusion.
Meanwhile, the succubus fingered the band around her throat in shock. "Wow, I can't believe that worked," she whispered.
"Oh, so you've got mind control protection." If that was the case, then not only was this the same succubus she'd killed a while ago, but it was also the same one she had mind controlled in Nethergarde. This was interesting, and the demon was scared to death and powerless to stop her, so what was the harm? "Alright, spit it out." The demon made to rise but Sara held her right hand at her along with a pulse of death magic. "Stay there."
"Alright gorgeous, fine. So I'm guessing you remember me huh?" She growled. "I certainly remember you back in Nethergarde. Shame you slipped out when we smashed the keep, but that's beside the point. My lord retrieved me and had a dreadlord fix me. It took a long time sweetie, but I'm right as rain now. But what my lord found very interesting is that you." She pointed a clawed finger at Sara. "You used Old God magic." Her eyes widened, and she instantly started casting the soul destruction spell, causing the green light of her magic and the pain of over channeling to flare up. "Wait wait wait!" the succubus begged.
A demon, begging. That was good and right. Sara relaxed. "Go on."
"Okay listen. You're in this guild. You've been fighting us, so you know how well it's going. Your Kingslayers are useless. Your dragons are occupied. And this little continent? Oh ho, things are going swimmingly for us. Lady, you've got to have figured it out, right?" Sara frowned. "Oh yes, I see that look on your face, hot stuff. You know we're going to win."
"You haven't before," she said, but Sara couldn't force confidence in her voice despite the fact that swirling violet magic still held the succubus against the ground. "Every Legion invasion before has gone poorly at first before we won."
"Oh darling, you know as well as I do how flawed that is. I mean, it's like saying 'nothing has killed you yet, so therefor you're immortal'. We only need to win once, you know. And when we do, you're gonna die, darling. No skin off my back, but my commanding lord thinks you can do better than an early, painful grave. And hey, even if we don't somehow win, then you're only mortal right? Sooner or later you're gonna die anyway no matter how much magic you beg the Old Gods for."
So they knew about her magic, but they were dead wrong about its origin. Not that she could blame them, how could they possibly know? She certainly hadn't suspected. "Get to the point," she snarled.
"Okay look. Whatever you wanted to get from Old God magic, we can give you more. Like, those old creeps are done for! Titans came by and roasted them, and if they haven't taken back Azeroth in sixty thousand years, pfft! What makes you think they ever will? So, my lord has a good offer for you. Like, come join us and all. Sure sure, Azeroth's been a real stumbling block for us, but we've got it figured out now. We've learned from our past mistakes, we can leverage our strengths and cover our weaknesses. After that we'll just do what we've always done: move on to the next world. And the next, and the next. And you could be part of that!"
"Really now?" she said calmly.
The demon nodded. "Oh you better believe it," she said flirtatiously. "You could really put that power of yours to the test. You could use it to turn mortals inside out and make them scream in agony, or mind control them and make them do whatever the hell you want! Oh, or raze villages to the ground, or mind-magic your way into a city and slice their leaders. That's always a favorite of mine, you know."
Sara blinked hard, trying to pretend she hadn't liked what she'd just heard. In the back of her mind she thought about the images of the Old Gods' rule. Of rivers of blood drying up under the heat of volcanoes. Screams, torture, all sorts of horrible things that could be done that sent a tingle down her spine and butterflies into her stomach.
"And it wouldn't be just like a sixty year deal or something. You could do it with us forever."
She was immortal anyway but... that really put it into perspective didn't it? A hundred years. A million. A billion. Ravaging and pillaging worlds, growing stronger and stronger until she matched her past life's power, on and on as much as she wanted. Sara began swaying from side to side, but caught herself. "My friend," she protested. I should have just killed this succubus again, she thought. "My family."
The demon flicked a wrist and rolled her eyes. "Pfft, you've got Old God magic and you're worried about that?" Sara's magic pulsed. "Okay okay! Easy there. I'm sure you could make a deal with my lord. Your allegiance to the Legion in exchange for the lives of your friends and family. Find a little unintelligent garden world out of the way for them to live on, give you visiting rights and everything to make sure we've kept our end of the bargain." Sara's gut clenched. Suddenly she was so tired and compressed. She wanted to let loose her magic and let it flow like a river, return to Ulduar and remake this world in her image as it should have been. And with the Legion's resources it'd be so easy. Her body ached and tingled. Damn it, she wanted it so badly.
"And in return you get everything! Power, prestige, the popularity of being the only wielder of Old God magic in the entire millions-strong Burning Legion. You could even have some fun with my kind, you know. Or the incubi we keep locked up on our home world if that's your thing. All you need to do is - "
Sara shook herself out of it. Forget it. Forget it! Even if she did want any of that she wasn't about to trust demons to do it. They could fabricate some trick to make her think her family was alive. "Forget it. Not interested." Her magic grew brighter and brighter, and the succubus gulped. But before Sara could erase her soul, the demoness actually brought her hands above her forehead, winced, and drove her claws deep. She collapsed limply and both her body and blood blew away as demonic mist moments before Sara's spell was powered up enough.
"Damn it," she said. Sara moved to her bed and sat on it, resting her head in her hands. "Damn it damn it damn it."
So now she had demons trying to corrupt her into joining them. It wouldn't even be that bad of an idea, for her sake. She could, if she really tried, guarantee Leira and Mom and Dad's safety. She could even make it so they weren't aware of what was going on in the real world, and then she could travel from world to world, destroying and dominating unrestrained, until eventually her magic grew greater than Kil'jaeden's, greater than Sargeras's, and she took command of the Burning Legion. But...
She had to sleep on it. Sara flopped onto her bed, buried her face into her pillow, and screamed, trying to put the delicious images out of her head.
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