Disclaimer: Warcraft and World of Warcraft are the intellectual property of Blizzard Entertainment, Inc. and are being used in this fanfiction for fan purposes only. No infringement or disrespect of the copyright holders of Warcraft, World of Warcraft, or their derivative works is intended by this fanfiction.
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Purge, chapter 2
by silverr
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All in all, it was amazing how well it worked.
Not that he had known it was working at first. Unable to see through the fake bandages over his eyes, barely able to hear with his painfully compressed ears, all his senses brought him was the smell of smoke and sweat and Vamira's bruisingly firm grip on his arm. Now and again he could tell from her movements that she was swinging Jadaar's mace one-handed, but even that evidence of her strength wasn't enough to squelch his anxiety that the people rushing past would knock him away from her. From there, it was only a short step to imagining himself being unmasked and beaten to death, simply because suddenly he was the wrong type of elf.
Finally he thought he heard Vamira say, "Easy now, we're almost there," and then he tripped and fell upon what he hoped were the stairs to the Violet Gate room. More than one set of hands helped him up, and he stumbled into someone. An instant later he felt the familiarly unpleasant sensation of the teleport, then solid ground under his feet. There was watery, incomprehensible conversation, and then Vamira was pulling him through the Kirin Tor shield into the sharp cold air of Crystalsong.
He kept imagining that he could hear shouting behind him, shouting that was directed specifically at him. He knew that running would draw attention, would mark them as guilty or enemies or both, but even so the urge to run nearly choked him.
Vamira held his arm even tighter. Over smooth stones, down a ramp, and then on to lumpy ground that crunched underfoot. A dozen steps and his foot sank into water so cold that it burned, but Vamira was relentless. They crossed the stream into uneven ground, where branches slapped at his face and the underbrush grabbed his robe. "Planning to drag me all the way to Orgrimmar?" he grumbled.
Vamira stopped and let go. As far as Asric could tell, she said something that sounded like Far enough, so he began fumbling with the chinstrap of the leather helmet until she pulled his hands away.
As she pushed back the hood of his robe and removed the rag strip wrapped around his head, Asric squeezed his eyes shut against the scaldingly bright light. When she undid the strap of the helmet and pulled it off, blood rushed into his ears, replacing numbness with stabbing red-hot needles.
Asric bent over and pressed his fists against his mouth to muffle his groans. Fuck the Alliance, and double-fucks to that soggy-crotched shit of a warchief who'd ruined everything. Dalaran was working just fine before Garrosh came along.
As the pain started to subside, he cautiously opened his eyes. Blurry ruins surrounded them. Forlorn Woods, it seemed. Blinking and squinting, he could just make out the tower of Sunreaver Command in the distance. "Well, that was… exciting," he said, wiping away his tears.
"Aye, that's one word fer it." Vamira tucked the helmet under her arm, then began rolling up the fake bloody bandage. "Kin ye make it from here?"
"Yeah." He gingerly touched the base of each limp ear, wincing at the size of the blood-knots that had formed from the constricted circulation. It would take days for the swelling to go down and for his lobes to regain their posture.
"Are they broken?"
"No." He had to say something, even though it would be entirely inadequate. "Mira… what you did was amazing. Saying 'thank you' hardly covers it."
"Sure it does," she said, "an' I'd do it again in a heartbeat. I have no stomach for hooligans, no matter what colors they're wearin'." She put the rag ball into the helmet. "I'm goin' down south for a while, visit my cousins, but I'll swing through Dalaran first, let Jadaar know you're in one piece. Anything else I should tell him?"
Asric opened his mouth, and then closed it and shook his head.
"Not even someplace he should meet up wi' ye?" Her tone had more than a little wheedle.
"I'll… I'll get in touch with him." He fumbled under his robe at the latches of the cuirass. "Better take this armor back before he accuses me of stealing it."
"Would ye mind hanging on ta it for now?" Vamira asked. "I can't see any way of explainin' why I'm carryin' it that won't get me into trouble."
"Oh. Alright. Should I take the helmet too?" As Vamira handed it to him he said, "The dinner was very… it was very kind of you. The lights, the ambiance." He added, because he knew it would make her happy to hear it, "Very romantic."
"Any regrets?"
"No."
Vamira gave him one of her looks, the one that said that she was well aware of what he was about. "Well, take care of yerself."
As she turned and headed back toward the Violet Stand, Asric could almost hear Jadaar saying He always does.
...
It was ridiculous, he thought as he started to make his way toward the Sunreaver outpost, how many people attributed success to good luck. Good planning had far more of an impact than sitting back and hoping for the best. He hated sitting back and hoping for the best. Observation, analysis, decisive action… he prided himself on these skills. Which made it doubly irritating every time Jadaar accused him of being impulsive, because clearly the oaf was mistaking instantly-improvised plans executed to perfection for panicked flailing. In fact, as grateful as he was to Vamira, Asric felt slightly envious of how quickly she'd come up with such a creative solution to the crisis in Dalaran, and slightly cheated that everything resolved itself so quickly.
Asric knew he would have come up with something If he hadn't been exhausted from spending all night trying to figure out why Jadaar had accused him of misleading Vamira. Over and over, no matter how he'd approached it, the same conclusion kept slapping him in the face. Since Jadaar himself would never mislead anyone, the dinner must have been something that Jadaar had planned with Vamira, which implied that he was interested in Asric, which meant that Asric had completely misread him, which meant that the carefully-constructed explanation of what made Jadaar tick—previously very useful in predicting what what the ex-Peacekeeper would say and do in any given situation—was wrong. Asric had believed that Jadaar was immune to sexual wiles and flirty manipulation because he simply wasn't interested in romance or sex at all, with anyone. Including Asric. This had been an ideal situation: Jadaar's scowling disapproval added spice to the fantasies in which Asric imagined what it would be like to have a tumble with such a powerful and alien body, and also meant that there was no danger that Jadaar would actually sleep with him and thus force Asric to invoke the Redmourn Rule.
But now all that was ruined. Not just because the faction turmoil Garrosh had stirred up was making Asric flee for his life in a borrowed disguise, but because knowing that Jadaar had these feelings for him (how had he hidden them so completely?) had released a maddening swarm of gnats in his head, a stinging churn of doubts and longings and regrets that was making him feel deprived and resentful and nearly as miserable as he had been after—
He stopped walking and clutched his head. He had to stop thinking about Jadaar.
The branches of the crystallized trees around him swayed and creaked in the damp, chill air, but there was no other movement or sound.
Yes. Focus on the current situation. No one was pursuing him. Good. He needed to hole up somewhere safe, as far from the Dalaran shitstorm as possible. His usual haunts were out. The Tournament had hardly been a haven even before the jousting incident, and now was likely to be as chaotic as Dalaran. K3 was close, but compared to Gadgetzan and Booty Bay, it was too small to be interesting… and who knew how long the Alliance would continue to consider goblin towns neutral anyhow? The outposts in Zul'Drak and Grizzly Hills were closest, but they might not be willing to offer protection to sin'dorei.
That just left the capital cities. Thanks to the Sunreavers, Silvermoon would be the Alliance's first target. Orgrimmar was out too, because all it would take would be one honestly-expressed opinion about Hellscream—and what else was there for an elf to do in Orgrimmar but drink?—and he'd be impaled on a spike. Thunder Bluff was appealing, but getting there would require long jaunts across well-known routes in airships that were barely functional and without defenses. Then too, there had been that misunderstanding with the Taunka chieftain. Best not to take chances.
Which left Undercity. Best guarded, and not likely he'd run into anyone there who knew or cared about him. The downside was that it was Undercity, gloomy, humid, and foul-smelling. Still, the Rogue's Quarter generally had at least a few rooms available for discreet transactions, and the various escape routes to Tirisfal Glades meant that fresh air circulated more freely there than in the other Quarters. And he wouldn't be tripping over orcs everywhere he turned, which was a bonus. As long as he kept his mouth shut around the Kor'kron, he'd be fine.
So, Undercity it was. First step was to get to Vengeance Landing; once there, he could evaluate whether to risk taking a zeppelin the rest of the way.
He glimpsed a flash of red between the trees: Sunreaver's Command was just ahead.
He stopped again to think. News of the events in Dalaran must have reached the Sunreavers by now, which meant they would already have sent most or all of their forces to assist, using all their dragonhawks to bypass the Stand and get to Dalaran quickly. Then again, they might have left a token force behind with a single 'hawk. Had it been night, he could have snuck in and borrowed it, but with Crystalsong as bright as day at all hours he couldn't approach without being seen. Once they saw him they'd probably want him to join the fight; in fact, if any of the Sunreavers from the Tournament were there, they'd insist he fight. Not something he wanted to do.
So his options were to look as un-battleworthy as possible, or to hike the narrow, snowy pass that led from Crystalsong to K3.
K3 wasn't necessarily the safe option. Jadaar's oversized armor provided protection but no warmth, and though the yetis were noisy and easily dodged, it would still take hours trudging through the snow. Assuming that the Covenant's Alliance lackies hadn't taken control of the town, Asric wasn't sure he'd be able to access any of the Steamwheedle bank accounts anyhow without the various identification papers in the courier pouch in his room.
He sighed, then stepped off the path toward a snowbank, considering his options. He wished he'd thought to ask Vamira if there had been Sunreavers fighting at the Stand. She hadn't had to fight anyone, which might mean that no one had paid them much attention—and even if someone did recognize the greenish-brownish-gray sack as having been on a "human", they were more likely to think that Asric had looted it from a corpse than to pronounce him a Traitor to the Horde.
Jadaar's armor had to go, though.
It struck him, as he was shoving the leather-and chain chestpiece into the snowbank, that, aside from a few generals, Jadaar was the only person he had ever known who always wore armor to social events.
Next, Asric stripped off his shirt, trousers, and boots, and stuffed then inside the chest cavity. Being barefoot in the snow wearing only a thin robe would add authenticity to his pathetic refugee look. As he put Vamira's helmet inside the cuirass, the ball of 'bandages' gave him an idea. He tore off an especially stained section, wrapped it around his sword hand, then rubbed his knuckles bloody on the edge of Jadaar's armor. Satisfied with the effect, he wedged the spaulders in on top of the helmet, camouflaged the cache with branches and snow, and then turned, shivering, toward the Sunreaver outpost.
...
"Commander! Another one!" a sentry shouted.
Two elves in Sunreaver tabards ran down the path. The one who'd been addressed as Commander stopped before she reached him. "What did those animals do to him?"
The second elf, wincing, put an arm around Asric.
Asric leaned on him gratefully: his bare feet were so numb he was finding it difficult to keep his balance. "They knocked me around a little," he said, hoping he sounded like someone trying to be brave, and held up his hand. "But give me a sword, and I'll do what I can to repay them."
"You're in no shape to fight," a third Sunreaver said sternly.
"Let me at least go for reinforcements," Asric said, throwing in a weak cough for extra effect.
"We've already sent word to Silvermoon and the tourney." The elf helping Asric was talking to the center of his chest, apparently to avoid looking at his ears.
"What about Vengeance Landing?"
The commander shook her head. "We sent word, but I don't intend to rely on our allies in Undercity—"
"This won't end in a day," Asric said, feeling suddenly fervent. "We have to keep fighting! Dalaran's too strategic a location for us to give up!"
The commander eyed him. "Yes, we are well aware of that." She addressed the elf helping Asric. "Get him some boots, then take him to the portal."
"Silvermoon," the helper said. "Don't worry, you'll be safe there."
I doubt it, Asric thought.
...
The portal deposited him near the fountain in the Court of the Sun. To his right, a huge carved wooden frame three times the height of an elf supported an ornately-decorated spiked metal cylinder; whatever the massive structure was, it was surrounded by a half dozen tense-looking spellbreakers.
"Does it hurt?" A harried looking elf with a healer's insignia asked him.
"It's nothing," Asric said, casually moving his bandaged hand out of sight before he realized that they probably meant his ears. "Just few scratches."
He moved away from the portal into the crowd of unwounded onlookers, most of them all abuzz about Dalaran. None of them sounded as though they had actually come from there, though, so Asric kept moving, hoping to glean something new. He caught an interesting snippet as two mages walked swiftly by, something about a clash over a stolen something or other, but they were out of range before he could catch more of what they were saying. He stopped near the back of the crowd behind a pair of sleek nobles arguing about whether or not eyepatches were sexy, and was tempted to join the conversation and offer his opinion on the topic when two figures burst through the portal. One was Aethas Sunreaver; with him was a dark-haired mage in a high-collared red robe who looked like Grand Magister Rommath.
A ripple of excitement went through the crowd as a tall blond standing near the strange gateway sculpture turned and shouted, "Aethas! You're alive!"
Aethas stumbled over to the blond and knelt. "A few of us made it out of there, but many more have been sent to the Violet Hold."
Lord? Oh, right, the eyepatched blond must be Lor'themar Theron. He'd moved up in the world since his Farstriders days, it seemed, becoming—at least according to Dalaran and tournament gossip—an absolutely all-knowing all-perfect utterly dreamy hunk of a Regent Lord. He certainly wasn't dressed for his station: compared to Halduron Brightwing, whose blue armor and lighthouse spaulders were probably visible on moonless nights to ships at sea, Lor'themar's conservative black and red armor was practical and relatively modest.
"Anar'alash denal!" Lor'themar said. "Will someone tell me what is going on in Dalaran?"
"Proudmoore," Aethas replied. "She's gone and expelled the Sunreavers from the city, and vowed to purge the Horde from the Kirin Tor!"
Lor'themar's growl was audible even to Asric, and made him smile. "She's gone too far. Now the Alliance can move their war mages through the city at will. That human… witch!"
Lor'themar turned from Aethas, and the crowd gasped as, with one smooth movement, the Regent Lord sent one of the court's long wooden benches sailing through the air and into the fountain. "When will they learn?" he demanded of the splashing water. "When will they see that the Horde exists because of the Alliance? Because of their prejudice and their bigotry! They leave us no choice but Hellscream's Horde!"
This statement shocked Asric even more than the bench-tossing had (which had been damned impressive). If Garrosh had spies in Silvermoon—and he probably did—what Lor'themar had just said was nearly treason.
Lor'themar composed himself. "Hal'duron, summon the rangers," he said. "Rommath, assemble the Blood Magi, and add the Sunreavers' strength to your own. We Sin'dorei will take our future into our own hands." He gestured at the giant sculpture. "And get this damn thing out of my sight! Hellscream bought this treasure with the blood of my people. I hope it destroys him."
As the crowd broke into scattered applause and cheers, Asric slipped away. So Theron was competent as well as charismatic?
Well, Asric didn't intend to fall for that again.
...
It took longer than he'd expected to get out of Silvermoon. The bank at first refused to give him access to either his funds or the storage vault, claiming that the account had been closed due to inactivity. Once Asric began dropping names, however, the ledgers were found to be in error and a key produced.
The vault had been cleaned out, of course—it had been careless of him to leave the letters in there—but surprisingly there was more gold in the account than he remembered. He wondered briefly if it was due to generosity or guilt, but it didn't matter. He withdrew slightly more than half; no need for them to know he didn't intend to return.
He considered doing his part to support the rebuilding of the city's business district by paying three times more for appallingly unfashionable clothes than he would have paid in Dalaran, but decided against it and slipped into Murder Row instead.
...
"Digging through garbage? How appropriate."
Asric looked up from the used clothing bin. The elf glaring down at him was even more overly-muscled than Asric remembered.
"Nerisen. You've become quite skillful at padding your crotch. It almost looks natural."
The tips of Nerisen's ears turned red. "What do you want?"
"What does it look like?" Asric said. "Clothes." He sniffed a shirt. "Ugh, rude." He tossed it back, then pulled out another. "What's in this season, armpit stink or bloodstains? I'm so out of touch with the trends."
"I won't let you see Elara. Or Zel."
"I didn't plan on seeing them," Asric replied. "Was hoping to avoid them, actually." Nerisen wouldn't believe this, but it didn't matter.
"So you've found a new victim?"
Asric was tempted to tell him that he'd married a draenei, if for no other reason than to see his reaction. It seemed that he was still just as easy to bait as he'd been in the old days. "Why would I tell you?"
"Get out of here!"
"As soon as I find pants," Asric said, shucking off the robe as he stood. "I mean, I could wander the streets without any, but I prefer subtle advertisement for my ample charms." As Nerisen's eyes narrowed, Asric dug out a pair of rumpled black leather leggings from the bottom of the pile and pulled them on.
"You can't just take those clothes," Nerisen sputtered. "You've got to pay for them. They're for members in good standing. You haven't paid your dues in years."
Wrong again, Asric thought. "Tell you what. You look the other way, pretend you didn't see me, and I'll leave right now." He picked up a ratty black shirt that had nothing going for it other than being relatively clean and odor-free. "It'll work out, because I've already forgotten that I've seen you."
"You… you… arrogant… " Nerisen was groping for words. "Selfish… " His posture radiated fury.
"Come on, Neri, you can do better than that," Asric needled. "Surely you remember?" He ticked off the insults on his fingers. "Homeless. Friendless. Clumsy. Poor. Whore mother. Oh, and don't forget fatherless." He snatched up the robe, threw it at Nerisen's face, and darted out the door.
...
He expected to have to spend most of his gold bribing the Sunfury Spire guards for access to the Undercity translocation orb, but he walked past them without effort, and by the time his heart had stopped pounding from the fight with Nerisen he was traipsing down the cracked marble steps and into the gloomy haven beneath the ruins of Lordaeron.
...
He wasn't sure what the advantages of being one of the only elves in Undercity would be, but the disadvantage became apparent as soon as he stepped off the elevator.
He stood out.
"Lost?" A gray-jawed female Forsaken dressed in a red shirt and pants was leaning against the wall next to the elevator. A good third of her face was hidden behind oversized sunglasses.
"This is Thalassian Pass, isn't it?" Asric asked her, wondering if his wide-eyed rube face was wasted on her. "It certainly looks different than the last time I was through here."
She made a gurgling sound that he assumed was an amused chuckle.
"Or did I take a wrong turn and wind up in Orgrimmar?" he said, studying the scowling Kor'kron guarding the elevator.
"Follow me," the Forsaken said, pushing off from the wall and ambling down the corridor. "I'll show you the way."
"I know the way," Asric said as he followed her. "This hallway leads to the bank. Once I'm there I stand with my back to the bat handler, and then go a quarter circuit anti-clockwise, through the corridor to the outer ring."
"I'll just take you there." As soon as they were out of earshot of the Kor'kron she said, "You have a death wish, don't you?"
He shrugged. "So I've been told."
"Death's not all it's cracked up to be."
There was a shriek; the next thing Asric knew a sin'dorei in a slinky green dress was running toward him. She threw her arms around his neck. "Finally!"
Her body didn't feel familiar, so he tried to pull away far enough to see her face. "Do I know you?"
"Well, you're the only other elf I've seen here in days," she said. She stroked his face with a fingertip. "I think we should get to know each other."
"Perhaps some other time," Asric said, pulling her arms from around his neck.
Her expression faltered, and then got ugly. "Ugh, don't tell me you're here for one of them."
The gray-jawed Forsaken, who had been watching this little drama unfold, said, "Well, sweetie, they don't call it boning for nothing."
With an interjection of disgust, the sin'dorei ran off.
Asric couldn't stop grinning. "Thanks, ah—sorry, I didn't catch your name."
"I didn't toss it."
Asric raised an eyebrow. "And here I thought Forsaken whimsy was a myth."
"A sense of humor takes the edge off decomposing," she said. "Rogues' Quarter, right?"
"Yes," he said, then, "Wait—how did you know that's where I was going?"
She looked him up and down. "Black shirt, leather pants? Too easy." She pointed to an archway on the level below them. "Through there."
They descended the stairs to the lower level, then went through the arch.
"Why aren't you in Silvermoon?" she asked as they passed the auctioneer's station. "Do you dislike elves in general, or are you avoiding relatives?"
"Something like that." They had reached that point in the conversation where Asric either needed to offer personal details, or ask her about herself. "So, ah, what do you do?"
She did something with her mouth that he supposed was a smile; it was hard to tell when she had only one lip. "No point in asking me about myself when you're really not interested, is there?"
Asric was impressed at her elf-reading skills. "You don't know me well enough to say what I'm interested in. As a matter of fact, asking questions is what I do."
"Well, I didn't have the stomach for pointless chit chat when I was alive," she replied, "and now I really don't have the stomach for it."
Asric wasn't sure if she meant this literally or not, and shook his head. Forsaken always took some getting used to.
They started to cross one of the bridges that spanned the sulfurous green canal separating the middle and outer ring. "But I've never been able to say no to a redhead," she said suddenly, answering the question of whether or not she was blind. "And you are the prettiest thing to have crossed my path in ages." She stopped in the middle and turned to face him. "Here is probably good."
"Good for what?" Asric asked.
She reached out her hand toward his hair, pulling it back with her horrible half-smile when he leaned away. "Rebecka. And since you asked, when I'm not out digging up old bones, I do alchemical research."
"I'm not interested in being one of your experiments."
"Intriguing suggestion… but not what I had in mind. No, you're going to spill whatever's bothering you. There aren't any guards, and we won't be overheard by anyone unless they cross the bridge."
Why she had latched onto him he had no idea, but he had a hunch that she wouldn't leave him alone unless he told her something. He supposed the truth would do. "The Sunreavers—well, actually, all the Horde—have been thrown out of Dalaran. I barely escaped, but I have a friend who's still there. I'm worried about him."
"And he can't join you here?" she asked. When Asric didn't reply, she chuckled. "Oh, I see. He can't join you here, can he? What a naughty, traitorous elf you are! Befriending the enemy."
"Thank you for bringing me this far," Asric said, feeling a sudden dread, as if he'd noticed a second too late a trap that was snapping shut around him. He was an idiot; if there were spies in Silvermoon, there were probably spies in Undercity, too. "I can take it from here."
"Alright." Unexpectedly, she leaned toward him and said in a gravelly whisper, "I know someone who has a pet that will run errands. Very obedient. Good for mailing and retrieving letters." She slid her sunglasses down what was left of her nose; her eye sockets were filled with a white mist. "Interested?"
"I—I, no, no. Thank you. No." So, that was yet another thing he'd been wrong about.
Rebecka pushed her sunglasses back up. "Suit yourself. But if you change your mind, ask for me at the Apothecarium."
…
The Rogues' Quarter accommodations were cheap, and for good reason. The "inn" was a large room of with coffins open at one end. Stacked ten high, patrons were expected to slide in head or feet first, and to trust that the guards posted to ensure that no one's sleep was disturbed would not themselves disturb anyone's sleep.
Asric paid double for the option of sleeping atop the coffin honeycomb, but started the night keeping an eye on a Darkspear who had also purchased a premium spot. It was an old enmity, elf and troll, but recent events were overshadowing that history, uniting them in their hatred of Garrosh.
The troll stared back at him, his eyes black pools in the dim light. Asric wasn't an expert on the finer points of troll body language, but this one seemed willing to leave him alone, so Asric made a show of settling down and pretending to sleep.
And then, for the second night in a row, all he could find to occupy his thoughts was Jadaar.
He hated how his feelings had flipped from amused tolerance to anxious longing. If he'd known he was going to feel this way, he should have taken advantage of the opportunity and satisfied his curiosity, among other things, before Redmourn's Rule kicked in.
But now it was too late. No attachments. That's what the Rule demanded.
Still, wasn't he constantly bending the Rule nearly to breaking anyhow? Take Vamira. He was very fond of her, but because he very spent little time with her one-on-one, he could tell himself she was an acquaintance, not an attachment. Insulting, putting her in the same category as his goblin business contacts or the roster at Gallywix's who scratched various itches!
Jadaar, though… Jadaar was a different matter. It had crept up slowly, but there was no way to pretend that he and Jadaar were mere acquaintances. Acquaintances didn't look for flimsy excuses to spend time together. Acquaintances weren't so gleeful about thinking up new ways to annoy each other. Every time Asric could recall being truly happy since—well, since he'd defected to the Scryers—had been while he was with Jadaar. He still remembered their first trip to Pandaria. Drifting off to sleep back-to-back in a swaying hammock, Jadaar's reassuring presence pressed against him like a mountain… for the first time in years he'd felt safe, and accepted. Contented. And happy, damnit.
That was the crux of it, wasn't it? The stupid, illogical crux. At the same time that he wanted that feeling, that safe, happy, contented feeling, he was afraid of once again going through the pain of losing it, and so he'd hidden behind The Rule. The Rule made it easy. It insulated him from pain by keeping everyone at a distance, but he'd come to realize, even before Jadaar came along, that it insulated him from happiness as well. Shallow relationships drove away friends and potential partners alike. Ironically, his fear of being alone had led to... being alone.
Maybe it was time for a change. Maybe it was time to discard the Rule. In the end, all it had accomplished by keeping him from settling down was to keep him from settling down with the wrong person. Only one person alive cared if Asric carried on the Desgarux family line, but as far as Asric was concerned, it was far better if it died out. So sure, why not settle down with Jadaar? He'd embrace that grumpy blue bear, and find out if there was anything that could soften up the perpetual scowl.
The only problem was that such an ending might now be impossible.
A lump rose in his throat. He hugged his knees and blinked, spilling silent tears, and buried his face in his arm.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when something touched his foot.
It was the troll. He had moved closer, crouching an arm's-length away, and was holding out what looked like a dirty rag. He pantomimed wiping his eyes.
Asric took the rag and dabbed at his face just enough to be polite, then handed the rag back.
The troll then pantomimed something else.
What the hell, Asric thought. At least it'll take my mind off Jadaar.
...
Asric had never been to the Apothecarium before. He decided that once was enough. The humid, stagnant air was thick with the stink of decaying flesh, burnt hair, and the acrid tang of chemicals. The randomly-placed lights lit up far too many horrifying sights, while the sound of creaking chains was not nearly loud enough to cover the faint moans of test subjects and the frantic scrabbling of caged animals.
The two Royal Apothecary Society chemists arguing in Gutterspeak over a bubbling retort paid him no attention when he entered, but a Forsaken who seemed to be their assistant hurried over when he appeared.
"Yes?" Her voice was deeper and raspier than Rebecka's. "What can I do for you?"
"Rebecka said I could find her here?"
"Oh." She didn't so much speak the word as exhale it, with what seemed her last breath. She pointed a skeletal finger at a chair near the stairs to the upper level. "Wait there."
Asric went and sat, breathing as shallowly as possible.
The two RAS chemists, still ignoring him, finished their discussion. One went to a table and began making adjustments to a complex tangle of glass tubing that was distilling various liquids; the other disappeared out of sight down a hallway guarded by two exceptionally burly Kor'kron.
A moment later, Asric was startled to hear cursing, in fervent and exceptionally eloquent formal Thalassian.
The Kor'kron guarding the hallway watched him with beady, baleful eyes, daring him to investigate.
Though he was burning with curiosity, he let his head drop to his chest as if he were dozing off. After a few moments of this, he turned sideways, resting his arm on the back of his chair as a pillow for his head—all the better to eavesdrop on whatever was going on in the hallway.
"Now, now," he heard someone—presumably the chemist—say faintly in echoing Common. "You should know better by now! If you don't drink it, I'll get the hooks. You remember the hooks, don't you?" There was some groaning, the sound of breaking glass, a scuffling, rattling noise… and then an agonized scream that went on and on and on and chilled Asric to the bone.
A few moments later, the chemist came out of the hall and returned to his colleague. The two resumed their Gutterspeak.
Asric let several minutes go by, then yawned and made an extravagant show of stretching his arms over his head. He nodded to the assistant, then stood and began to amble around the room, pretending to examine the various apparatus. "What's this for?" he asked.
The assistant rasped, "Tincture calibration station."
He moved to another table. "And this?"
"Distillation analysis station."
At the third table he positioned himself with his back to the assistant, in such a way that he'd naturally get a clear view down the hallway as he turned to talk over his shoulder to her. "And this one?"
"Organic substrate precipitation test station."
The short hallway ended in an alcove lit by a single overhead lantern. In the alcove was a small iron cage; in the cage was a gray-skinned, white-haired elf. The elf's back was to Asric, but by the ears it wasn't kaldorei. He really hoped that it was an Alliance high elf, because if it wasn't, it meant that the Kor'kron—and maybe the Forsaken as well, including his new friend Rebecka—considered blood elves cageable.
"Morning," Rebecka said cheerfully.
The chemists and the assistant mumbled greetings as she came over to Asric.
"Changed your mind?" she asked. She was dressed today in a high collared black tunic and black trousers that ended just above her knees, and wore heavy boots and gloves. Her greenish hair was slicked down and the sunglasses were gone, as was the mist in her empty eye sockets.
Asric decided he much preferred the sunglasses-and-mist look. "I'd like to continue our discussion from yesterday," he said quietly. "Could we take a walk?"
"This place too much for you, huh?"
Asric looked around. The elf in the cage hadn't moved. "I don't much care for the screaming."
"Aw, you'd get used to it." She said something in rapid Gutterspeak, and the two chemists nodded without looking up from their work. "Let's go." She slipped her arm through Asric's.
He tried not to flinch. "What are they doing to that elf?" he asked once they'd left the Apothecarium.
"So, this is how it works," Rebecka said, "The priest's pet is a human. For a price, he'll have her walk to, say, Chillwind, and mail letters. You can arrange to have her pick up mail from there as well."
"And—hypothetically speaking—how much would the priest charge for something like that?"
"A few hundred per trip, I think. No more than seven. Just a guess."
"Seven hundred gold?" Asric pulled his arm away from Rebecka's and turned to face her. "That's outrageous."
She shrugged. "Well, it would take her most of a day to walk there and back. Her time is very valuable to Gerard."
"I can imagine," Asric said. "Look, Rebecka, I appreciate the information, but I don't have that kind of money." He'd have to risk going to one of the Cartel towns and hope that it stayed neutral long enough for him to get in touch with Jadaar.
"Which is why," Rebecka re-possessed his arm, "I've worked out a sweet deal for you. You're going to trade your blood and maybe some skin samples to Gerard in exchange for Theresa time. That's a good deal for something you'll regenerate naturally, don't you think?"
"But—" Asric rubbed the headache blooming in his forehead. "Why would this Gerard want my blood?"
"Because," Rebecka said, "he can sell it to the RAS. That elf you asked about? His physiology has some unusual properties. Being able to compare your blood and skin samples to his should be very useful."
"You never told me what they're doing to him."
Rebecka shrugged. "Research. Torture. I didn't ask."
She didn't care. "You're going to handle these transactions?"
"Yes."
"So that you can take a cut."
"Of course."
Asric sighed. "Alright. How do we do this? What do you need me to do?"
Rebecka pulled a gleaming, wickedly large syringe from her pocket. "Let's go find you a pen and some nice writing paper first, and then go from there."
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~ To be continued ~
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First post 31 August 2017; rev 15 September 2017