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Well, this didn't go up last night like I was hoping, but it's nice and long. Has some touching moments, some mystery ones, and sets up some very bloody ones coming in Chapter 5.

Yet another plea for reviews, and another heartfelt thank you to those of you who have. Feed me, Seymour.

"Alex, I'll take fanfiction authors for 400 please." "Very good. The answer is: This person does not own World of Warcraft or any rights to it." Beep. "Is it 'Who is Joreza'"? "That's correct, for 400 points".

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Edelia walked back into the Blue Recluse around twenty minutes after ten in the morning, slightly late. Her meeting with Ireth – another immigrant from Darnassus to Stormwind, and the friend she'd mentioned to Gavren the previous night – had stretched on a little longer than intended. Ireth had been completely enthralled by the contents of the bottle and the story that accompanied them, and despite her lack of answers or insight, had been unwilling to let it go. Slightly disturbing, now that I think about it – she was going all giddy and research-happy over some poor man being turned into a sludgy goo puddle by a person who is probably very evil, and then the poor sod got slopped into a ale bottle. She could've shown a little respect. But at least I got her professional opinion.

Edelia's head was aching slightly due to lack of sleep. By the time she had gotten back last night it was past two in the morning, and her meeting with Gavren wasn't until ten, but she had to get up a few hours early to see Ireth. All in all, she wasn't running on as much rest as she liked. She hadn't even found the time to change her clothes, comb her hair, or really make herself any more ready for work than she had been the night before. I haven't even taken a bath, and contrary to what Mardant told me back when I was a novice, being a druid is no excuse for poor hygiene. I hope Gavren doesn't mind the smell. Then again, he is a human, and they certainly have their own peculiar stench at times.

He was already sitting at a table for two, starting into a breakfast of eggs and toast. She sat down across from him and ordered an omelet.

"Sorry I'm late. My friend was a little obsessive about the fate of Frederick here," she said, gesturing to the bottle.

He looked up from his eggs – the scent of them was making Edelia even more hungry than she already was, and making her desperately wish her omelet would come so her stomach would stop rumbling – and nodded at her. "That's fine. I didn't actually get here on time myself. I was held up over in Old Town, where I discovered the whereabouts of the help I called for last night."

Edelia frowned slightly. He was speaking quietly, distractedly, and he looked worse than she felt – and, she imagined, worse than she looked. His hair was disheveled and his eyes were bloodshot and deeply baggy. He seemed to have barely slept at all. "Where were they?"

Gavren looked up at the ceiling for a moment before he looked back down at her and sighed. Then he proceeded to pull out a clear glass flask. Edelia recognized it as the type used in the alchemy work that Ireth was so fond of. It was about half full of a white, opaque liquid.

A white, opaque liquid that looks very similar to the substance in my ale bottle...

Gavren nodded, confirming her first suspicion. "There was another one."

She winced involuntarily. "It wasn't one of the people you called for, was it?"

"No, no," Gavren shook his head emphatically, re-assuring her. He understood very well why the thought of someone working on investigating this crime becoming a victim would be extremely unsettling. "The lieutenant I sent back to fetch help – Katryna – she gave a description of the initial state of the body. She didn't see the goo phase, or whatever we have now, but she did see the melting skin and muscles that I described to you last night. Apparently, as the people she found to help were on their way here, a man in Old Town stopped them, screaming about his wife being murdered. The description of the body matched what Katryna saw, so they took some initiative and went in to look around. And sure enough, after an hour or so their body melted into this," he gestured at the alchemy flask. "All in all, they got less sleep than we did last night – they were up pretty late trying to figure it out."

Edelia quirked an eyebrow at this. "They got less sleep than I did, at any rate. But frankly, Gavren, I'd say you look like you're winning the over-worked and under-rested competition here." She eyed his disheveled and exhausted appearance again. He looked like he was about to protest, but she leaned in and cut him off. "I admire your dedication to this. I've been working with you for less than a full day and I'm already impressed, that says a lot. But we have two dead bodies here. We don't need a sodding third on our hands. That's all I'm saying." She gave him a meaningful look.

He found the energy to laugh slightly, which surprised him. "Don't worry. I won't work myself to death. If I start to keel over, just hit me on the head and I'll pass out for a bit."

She had to laugh at the nonchalance with which he approached his own exhaustion. She had been complaining to herself about her own state ten minutes ago, but Gavren was much worse off and was taking it in stride. It was simultaneously humbling and inspiring.

"Speaking of work ethic though," he leaned in, "I more or less told the two from last night they could back out of this. I think they both want to, and I understand. Neither of them had any particular insight into what was happening, so the expertise I was hoping for wasn't really there. And they're not bound to this." He paused, looking at her. Edelia stared straight back, unblinking. "I just want to make sure you know the same offer extends to you, is all. I appreciate what you've done so far, but I don't want you to feel as if you're under some obligation to help me."

She shook her head no, slowly but firmly. "When I first came here, I met a woman named Amy. I didn't have any friends and she helped me. I made her a promise that I would help the Temple if it was ever within my power and the Temple needed me. I think you need all the help you can get now. Besides which, I serve Cenarius every day of my life. Whatever is happening here, whatever happened to those two people – I don't think it's in balance. It feels wrong, unnatural, forced." She paused to run a hand through her hair, carefully pondering the implications of her next statement. She said it regardless. "I'm with you on this, all the way to the finish."

She reached out and took his hand, squeezing it in support. In that moment, the gesture of friendship meant the world to him. These murders were truly horrible in their own right, and the fact that Gavren's best lead still indicated that his former friend was responsible added extra weight for him. He'd been preparing himself mentally for Edelia wanting to rid herself of this mess, but he had been pleasantly surprised.

After a few seconds she let his hand go. Her omelet had finally arrived, and her growling stomach was making a very persuasive case that using her hands to eat was much more pressing than being friendly. Gavren simply smiled at her. "Thank you, Edelia."

She returned the smile, and then started in on her food.

His smile faded as an unpleasant thought occurred to him. She had committed to see this through. He owed her respect, or at least parity in their partnership. It was time to come clean.

"Edelia, when I told you last night that the family wasn't sure what they had seen, I was lying."

He paused to gauge her reaction. She looked up and stopped eating, but didn't say anything. The silence was becoming uncomfortable, so he continued.

"I know – knew – Frederick Latrielle. I was very close friends with his daughter when I was younger. Her name was Cathery. And her mother swears – convincingly enough that I believe her – Cathery was the killer. I was a little reluctant to tell you this before, maybe because I didn't want to believe it. I'm sorry."

There was a pregnant silence for about half a minute. Edelia took another bite of food. Gavren had just opened his mouth to speak when she finally cut him off.

"I'm sorry," she murmured softly.

His eyes opened wide. "I thought I was the one who had cause to be apologizing here."

"Of course you didn't want to tell me. It's your friend and her father. I can't imagine how horrifying that must be. You don't need to explain." Her voice was soft, understanding. She had taken his hand again. Gavren was being treated with sympathy, not scorn, and said a silent prayer of thanks to the Light for Edelia's empathy.

"Look, we'll get this worked out. Maybe the mother was mistaken, maybe there's some explanation. We can start by finding Cathery. Have you asked for help tracking her?"

Gavren blushed immediately at his oversight. "No, I haven't."

"It's alright. We can finish up here, and then you and I can go see someone at the Sanctum for help. You can send a request to the Temple for aid – see if anyone has seen her recently, using the mother's description. We'll see if we can find out the order of the murders last night, and where she went afterwords. It'll be okay, Gavren."

For the first time since seeing Frederick Latrielle's body, Gavren felt relieved.

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"It should not be this sodding difficult to get a little bit of help when we're on more or less oficial business," Edelia hissed under her breath. Gavren nodded emphatically – but not emphatically enough to draw undue attention – at her sentiments. They had been stuck in the Stormwind Arcane Sanctum for the better part of two hours. They explained they needed a mage to help them with an important question of magic, and the meeting had to occur in private. They had explained it four or five times, in fact, each time to a various low-ranking aide who had barely given them a glance. They had been assured an equal number of times that they would be helped soon.

"Soon" ended up meaning another hour of waiting before they were finally led into a small antechamber, where a hunch-backed man in grey robes sat behind a desk, glaring at them.

"I am Melare. I have been informed that the two of you sincerely believe you have something more important to show me than my studies. Please proceed to do so if this is the case."

Ten minutes later, they had given a notarized version of their lives for the past twelve hours, and Melare was examining both bottles of fluid.

"Damn shame, some bloke had this for his end..." murmured the mage, spinning the ale bottle in his fingers.

"Yes, it is. Nature's creatures were not meant to rest this way. Can you help us deal with this?" Edelia asked.

He stared at them both for several seconds.

"No."

He didn't simply say it, he announced it. Loudly. And then he was on his feet and scribbling furiously on a parchment in front of him.

"Wait, what do you mean?" Gavren rose to his feet also. "'No'? That's all we get? You barely even looked at the damn things!"

"I'm sorry, I just can't help you." Melare shrugged, still speaking loudly, still scribbling.

Edelia looked at his hands, rushing over the parchment. "What are you doi-"

"I am not doing anything, dear girl, except informing you of my utter unfamiliarity with whatever happened to the poor souls in these bottles, and escorting you out of the building." Melare walked around the desk and over to Gavren. He took the latter's hand, shaking it. "I thank you for your interest in our work here at the Arcane Sanctum, Gavren Tuldor. It was very nice to meet you. But I am very busy and can be of no use to you. Good day."

Two novices walked into the room and over to Melare. The three of them collectively offered to show Gavren and Edelia out. Twenty seconds later, they were both on the grass in the mage's district, outside the Sanctum. Edelia was livid.

"What the sodding hell just happened? He was looking at them, he was thinking, and he just stonewalled us! That useless sod! Gavren, go back to the Temple and get a damn army of Paladins. I have no idea why he rebuffed us like that, but one of these sods has got to know something - "

Gavren clapped a hand over her mouth, silencing her, and half-led half-dragged her away from the sanctum, towards the shadowy corner of a tavern.

He eyed her meaningfully. "Be quiet. I don't think he rebuffed us."

Gavren showed her his free hand. Clenched in it was a piece of parchment. The same one Melare had been scribbling on. The scrawl was haphazard and rushed, messy and hard to read.

Forbidden knowledge. Can't speak about it. It's why your meeting took so long to occur. You want Slaughtered Lamb Tavern. Turn right from Sanctum, go up three doors. People in the basement will help. Good luck. Don't come back here.

Gavren had forgotten he still had one hand clamped over Edelia's mouth, until she reminded him by pushing rather forcefully on his arm. He jumped back.

"Ow! That hurt."

She shrugged and took the parchment to read. "You made the point to be quiet fast enough, you didn't have to keep a muffler on me. Slaughtered Lamb Tavern... I've never heard of it, but it sounds close." She glanced up at him. "Let's go."

Minutes later they entered the Slaughtered Lamb. The tavern was empty as the bartender turned to face them. Edelia gasped, but stifled it quickly. Gavren made no noise, but was close enough she could feel him flinch.

The man was missing an eye.

He wasn't wearing an eyepatch.

Doing her best to avoid staring straight at his socket, Edelia opened her mouth to ask where the basement was, and try to come up with an excuse why she needed to see it, when the bartender proved infinitely more helpful than anyone in the Arcane Sanctum.

"Stairs behind the tables over there. Don't make too much noise."

He turned back around. As far as he was concerned, the conversation was over. Edelia and Gavren were staring at each other. "He knew we wanted the basement. What the hell is in the basement? Or more generally, what the hell is this tavern?" she whispered. Gavren just shrugged and guided her towards the stairs.

Once inside the stairwell, the soft wood paneling of a tavern disappeared. The walls were cold, hard stone, gray and lifeless – not just lifeless, but life-sucking, if such a thing was possible. Even the air in the stairwell felt dead. Except for the crackle of the torches that lit the way, it was deadly silent.

After walking for several minutes, they emerged in a large underground room. Both of them had to stifle another round of gasping.

The room was massive, high ceilings and arching circular walls. Everything was stone, and almost everything was black. The only light source was a single firepit in the center, flames high enough to illuminate the two men and one woman standing around it. All of them were wearing scarlet red robes, the color of blood. All three were watching Gavren and Edelia expectantly.

The man on the far left, by far the tallest and most imposing of the lot, spoke. His voice was deep, commanding, and slightly ominous. "We have been waiting for you. Melare may have left the circle, but he still stays in touch. It sounds as though we may have the wondrous opportunity in front of us to be of service to the great city of Stormwind." The way his voice inflected the word 'wondrous' left little doubt that he was being either sarcastic or condescending, possibly both.

He left the fireside and walked towards Gavren and Edelia, reaching his hands out expectantly. "Melare said you had things to show us, yes?"

Edelia procured her ale bottle and handed it over. Gavren did the same with the alchemy flask. Both were mulled over for a few moments by the tall man before he handed them back.

"Two distinct bodies. On the same night. Extremely rare." With this pronouncement, which neither Edelia nor Gavren comprehended, the man turned at walked back to his companions by the fire, where he turned to face them.

"I expect," the tall man began, leaning his head to the side, "that there were copious quantities of blood at both location? Or near them?"

Edelia just looked at Gavren. He had been to the first murder scene before her, and she hadn't ever seen the second. Gavren, for his part, was looking slightly taken aback. "Actually, there wasn't any blood at all. Neither of the bodies seemed to have any wounds inflicted on them. Both the floors were clean."

At this, the tall man and his companions frowned in concert. "Are you certain of this? It is extremely important," murmured the woman.

Gavren turned to her. "Yes, I'm positive. We didn't know – and still don't – what could have happened to these two people. We searched for blood trying to determine what injuries, if any, had been inflicted. There was none."

The tall man walked forward again. "What about the temple hospital? Any complaints of severe wounds that night? Anything unusual at all? Your answer to this is imperative," he stated quite dramatically.

Gavren thanked the Light for Katryna as his lieutenant. Her reports on happenings at the Temple were fairly thorough. "No, nothing like that. Why is this so important?"

The tall man gazed at him with disconcerting eyes, black as the shadowy stones surrounding them, for several moments before responding. "It is important because we believed we knew what had occurred. These types of death are extremely rare, but not unheard of, when powerful practitioners of the more, shall we say, shadowy magics are severely wounded in one manner or another. It is a complicated method of healing by feeding off the binding life forces – spiritual and physical – of the attacker. But wounds grevious enough to require sucking everything out of the body and creating this " - he gestured toward the ale bottle in Edelia's hand - "would certainly leave traces."

Gavren sighed. He understood the implications and what was not being said here all too well. They had been lead to a warlock den for help, and Cathery had probably become a warlock herself. A demonic and shadowy practitioner of warped magic. But there were more important matters to settle at the moment.

"So if it wasn't what you expected – because I can assure you there were no traces of wounds or any conflict, aside from the corpses, at either of the scenes – what did happen?"

There was silence for several moments, and then the second man, the only member of the three who had not yet spoken, answered. "This we cannot tell you. We are unqualified to explain the implications of these murders as you report them. Instead of turning to us for answers, you will turn to Booty Bay. Go there. Find a man known only as Kalaristo. Report to him this conversation and your findings. He will enlighten you about the nature of your dead bodies. Leave us now, this interview is finished."

With that, all three warlocks turned and walked through a shadowy doorway at the far end of the room. Even Edelia's glowing and darkness-accustomed eyes had missed it before.

Edelia and Gavren were left alone in the cold and disconcerting basement.

"Well," Edelia muttered, turning to face him, "that was less useful than it could have been."

"Yes, it was. But at least we have a lead of sorts now."

"Booty Bay. That's a distance from here. It's a damned inconvenient lead. But," she sighed, straightening up from a slouch she had inadvertently fallen into, "it certainly is something. So, to Kalaristo, then?"

Gavren nodded. "We don't have much choice. To Kalaristo."

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Cathery's hand rapped softly on the wooden door 3 times, and then checked to make sure her hood was hiding her face. It wouldn't do to be seen, not now. Not when we're so close to having everything we need...

She had found her Master's gift. It was everything she could have hoped for at her current stage, and if all went well, she would be using it very soon...

The door opened. A Blood Elf stood in its place, tall and broad shouldered, with long blond hair.

"Yes, uh..." his voice faltered as he saw her hooded and robed visage, but soon picked up. "May I help you?"

She took her time in responding, examining him, scrutinizing him, making him feel uncomfortable. Finally, she opened her mouth to speak. "Yes, I think you can... Kalaristo."

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Next update is promised sometime Saturday or Sunday.

Warning for the faint of heart: I will not be omitting the details of Cathery's visit to Kalaristo, and some of them will be fairly gruesome.

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