Chapter 9: All That Jazz

There really was no other term for her: exquisite was the first thing that came to Zackel's mind. Dressed in a simple farming outfit, as were about half of the people gathered in the Wizard's Sanctum, the young woman had closely cut red hair, jewel-like green eyes, and an almost perfectly oval face that looked like it had been carved by a sculptor. A touch of dark makeup around said eyes almost made them seem to flash whenever she turned her head. Which was not often, as she was paying close attention to the man speaking to the assembled youths. Zackel had only spared the girl a few seconds before turning his own attention back to the man.

"Let us get one thing clear immediately: none of you are special." Maginor Dumas said. Dressed in robes of purple, gray-green, and gold, and with his hair mostly gone, only remaining in two brown- gray sheets that covered his ears, a neatly trimmed chin beard complementing the look, the Maginor did not look like much on the surface. Zackel could tell there were a few of the fifteen or so gathered students who thought just that. Zackel also knew they were idiots: the Maginor, to him, pulsed with enough concentrated power to flatten them all with a gesture, and make sure none of them were ever getting up with two. "Perhaps in your communities you believed you were somehow exceptional, able to decide the rules that should be followed. That is not the case here. You were not brought here because of any innate wondrousness, you were brought here because all of you have demonstrated the potential to be a vital part of Stormwind's defense. The world has suffered much these past years, and new evils continue to crawl from the darkness. You WILL be made ready to answer it, or you will be cast out-"

Dumas whirled, smashing his staff down on the foot of a snickering youth. Said youth recoiled with a yell, his chair tipping over and spilling him onto the floor.

"Now, would anyone else like to try and undermine the gravity of what you are tasked with? I assure you the gravity will win." Dumas said, as the youth groaned over his injured appendage. "Lord Nefarious and Ragnaros are not going to defeat themselves. You will be needed to replace those that will give their lives to stop them, to protect those who were not given your gifts. Those gifts will carry you against whatever threats rise in the future. It is a lifelong burden, and I have tasked myself to teach you all to carry it. There have been far too many failures in the ways of those who have wielded magic, and it has brought the world much suffering. Such tragedy will not come from my class. It will NOT come from you. Do you understand?"

"Yes teacher." Zackel said with all the other students.

"You had best." Maginor Dumas said. "Go to your rooms now. Your first lessons begin tomorrow, at the crack of dawn. If you cannot get out of bed, you will be dragged out. Dismissed."

"Takes himself seriously, doesn't he?" The young man next to Zackel said.

"As should we, Daldion."

"What? Who are you, and what did you do with Zackel? You know, the guy who thought scaring people by pretending to swallow live chicks was a riot?"

"He's still here. He's just sleeping for now." Zackel said, looking at the muscular, brown-haired youth. "That gnoll attack could have been a lot worse, Daldion. A LOT worse. I don't want that to happen again."

"You and me both. Just don't let the Zackel I know suffocate in his box."

"Please. It's just like the sleight of hand that let me do that chick trick. I'm just making sure you're looking another way. " Zackel said, glancing around the room again. When he did, the girl was gone.

"You have exceptional eyes."

"Huh?" Zackel said, looking up from where he was sitting on his bed. He was mildly surprised to see the girl walking into his dorm room.

"Mind if I sit?" The girl said, taking a chair and doing so, crossing her leg as she settled.

"Sure." Zackel said. "Jasciona, isn't it?"

"Jasciona Core." Jasciona said. "We're in the same class."

"Yes, that rather goes without saying." Zackel said, closing his book. "Something I can do for you?"

"You're not like the others, Zackel."

"Pardon?"

"The other boys in our class." Jasciona said, leaning on her chair, her red hair a striking contrast against her white novice's robe. Both she and Zackel had been issued them on the first day of 'magic school': it was now a week later. Zackel had spared Jasciona a few more glances during those days, but had mostly been paying attention to the Maginor's lessons. He certainly hadn't expected her to come into his dorm room.

"I'm not?"

"I've seen you, looking at me." Jasciona said. "The boys look at me like meat. They drool and fantasize, and are poor at hiding it. You don't do that. You assess. You acknowledge. You have the eyes of someone who doesn't just seek what he wants, but seeks what is best as well, in all things."

"Um…thanks?"

"Want to go have a meal at the Blue Recluse?"

Zackel stared, feeling his mouth briefly go dry.

"Are you…asking me out?"

"I don't see how I could be more direct." Jasciona said.

"…I'm flattered Jasciona, but…why me?"

"Ah. Not all-wise then." Jasciona said. "This is rather lonely for me, Zackel. There's only one other female in this class, and she's apparently decided I'm her rival. With how hard teacher is training us, you need a friend. From all of the boys, you seem like the best bet for a friend, at least. Though if you want, I can always go try and find someone else."

"Well…uh, sure. I meant the meal! Not the finding someone else! I'll go!" Zackel said, reaching for his desk. "Let me get my money pouch…"

"We'll play darts there." Jasciona said. "Whoever wins foots the bill. And the next one."

"Right. Next one. I must warn you, I'm not bad at darts."

"I'm not bad at ANYTHING." Jasciona said, that brief glint flashing over her eyes.

As it turned out, her assessment was correct. As it also turned out, Zackel didn't mind paying.

"Wait wait wait, the girl just walked into your room and said hey, let's go hit a bar? Tell the real story. Make sure you include all the stalking and wearing down you had to do."

"Ha ha." Zackel said, without much humor. "No Rielle, that's really how we met. She came into my room and asked me out, I accepted, and we went and had fun. She wasn't wrong about the training being a lonely business. I had a few friends among my peers, she didn't, really. Mostly the guy's fault for being so damn obvious with their horn-dogging. She told me later she'd been asked out by four of them before she came to talk to me and she turned them all down, and three took it with the usual maturity young men have, if you catch my drift. So she decided to assess me, up-front, as a way to fix that. And we clicked."

"You also need to include all the awkward, terrible poetry you probably wrote those long nights thinking about her…okay okay, I'll stop. Continue."

"Well, we meshed well. We had similar mindsets, similar interests, and she was FUN. She embraced her learning so she could use her magic to enjoy life to the fullest. She had a great wit, a razor-sharp mind, and an ability to read people like no other. It's how she noticed me, after all. After our fourth date, we took the plunge from friends to lovers…and what we had maintained itself. Yeah, maybe it wasn't the most stable time, what with Nefarious, Ragnaros, those damn bugs over in Kalimdor, oh and of course King Wrynn was missing during that time as well. Yet it was great. Jasciona, or Jazz as she liked to be called, she and I thought we could do anything in the world. More Jasciona then myself.

That was the thing, you see. She wasn't just beautiful and smart. She was good. Really good. At the time, I didn't really recognize it…"

"Jagrafress…grafress…" Zackel said, struggling to read the tiny handwriting of the magical tome he was studying. "Fress, fress…hadro…ga…no, JA…"

"Jagrafess-Hadrojassic-Maxarodenfoe." Jasciona whispered into Zackel's ear. He'd heard her coming, and despite that fact still started a bit. "Still have a touch of nerves I see, Kel. That probably explains why you continue to owe me money."

"Maybe I let you win." Zackel retorted. That got his face gently shoved into the book. Zackel raised his head to emit another retort, only to start violently sneezing from the dust thrown up by the action. Jasciona, now sitting on his bed, laughed delightedly at the fact.

"I swear you bring something new in your wake every time. This time it's allergies." Zackel said, producing a handkerchief to blow his nose.

"Oh poor baby. Are you looking for an excuse to get out of class?"

"I might need one. This is damn hard, and I'm not sure I'm ready to be tested on it." Zackel said, peering back over his book. "You made it this far yet? Wait, stupid question, you knew how to say this stupid word which I am half-convinced is made up to confuse and frustrate me."

"I finished that book nearly two weeks ago."

"…really?" Zackel said, glancing back and forth at the book and his girlfriend.

"JAGRAFRESS!" Jasciona declared, a bouquet of flowers appearing in her right hand. A purple-pink shield swiftly surrounded it, and she hurled it against the nearby wall. It bounced off like a ball, and Jasciona guided it back to her hand, smiling.

"I'm also almost through the follow-up book teacher gave me."

"No fooling." Zackel said, looking back down at his book. "Yeesh. I knew you were pulling ahead, Jazz, but at this rate you're going to lap me."

"Jealous?" Jasciona said in a mock-prideful tone.

"In all honesty? Yes. Maybe more than I'd like to admit." Zackel said, looking up from his book. Jasciona's smile faded from her face. "But I'll live with it. I'm not going to be like Adaric and wash out in the first month just because the teacher won't 'admit how awesome I am.'"

"He was the second guy to hit on me. I knew he wasn't anywhere NEAR awesome after that." Jasciona said. "But hey. At least you get to be near someone awesome."

"Really? Who?"

Jasciona hurled her shielded flowers at Zackel, but with a quick magic word of his own he stopped them and brought them hovering over to his hand.

"I said I was behind, Jazz. Not THAT far behind." Zackel said with his own grin, and dispelled the shield and vanished the flowers up his sleeve in three quick motions.

"That's my man." Jasciona said, standing up and giving him a quick peck on the lips. "Keep studying. Because I'm not stopping. For you, or anyone."

Zackel knew it, as Jasciona left his dorm room. He knew, deep down, if Jasciona had thrown the orb at him with any real aggression behind it, he would have taken it square in the face.

"All that, girl. You certainly are." Zackel said, and resumed studying.

"So what happened? She tried to run before she could walk?"

"Not exactly. Maginor Dumas recognized her incredible potential quickly, of course. But he meant what he said when he spoke to us our first day. He wasn't going to be known as the one who taught the next Medivh." Zackel said. "He structured her teaching to make her remember that she still had limits, and that true mastery lay in accepting them and then defining them, rather then forever trying to cross over them. Even if he'd been a poorer teacher, I…think she might not have done so badly. She had…a good head on her shoulders. For someone as lovely and as talented as her, it was amazing. She was truly blessed. I tried not to forget that fact while we were together."

"Jealous rival perhaps?"

"Oh she left Gliven behind in the dust almost immediately. I think the poor girl was so humiliated that she actually became a better mage out of it. Didn't really know her too well." Zackel said. "Actually, if we're going to lay blame, I never met the guy who started the ball rolling. I believe his name was Vialin Snarljaw."

"What he'd do?"

"…well…maybe nothing that wasn't inevitable." Zackel said. "Considering what had just happened the day before he 'got involved.' It had been several months since we'd started training, and most of us were starting to go on controlled field missions. Serving as backup for Stormwind guards for disturbances, small stuff to get us acquainted with real combat. Well, Jasciona and I came back from separate ones the same night, and since we were both tired and didn't want to be bothered, we took a room in the Recluse's small inn instead of going back to our dorms…"

"So how did you make out?" Jasciona said, dropping her bags onto a stool.

"Oh just a little excitement. Some Defias set their dogs on some farm animals. I froze the dogs in place, the guards cut them down, the Defias ran away. They sent someone after the bloody buggers, I don't know if she caught them or not. You?" Zackel said.

"Oh, I had excitement." Jasciona said. "We were escorting a merchant. Said merchant decided to lie about what he was carrying, which happened to be gems by the way. A lot of them. Apparently he wasn't as careful guarding this information as he thought he was, because two-thirds of the way there we got ambushed by a whole PACK of those damn Defias. I think that your Defias actually ran to join them instead of away, there was so many of them."

"What? Shit." Zackel said. "Did you lose the cargo?"

"On my watch? Fel no. It was just a pain having to deal with all of them after the guards panicked and ran away."

"…you did what." Zackel said in a small voice.

"Well, I dropped three of them with one blast, and that made the REST of them angry, so they all tried to stick their pointy things in me, and since I had no backup at all I had to run around like a scared rabbit and dodge thrown knives and slingshots! Finally I tripped and fell in the damn mud, and the Defias decided to stop and laugh at me, which clustered them nicely so I could brain them all with ice from above. Then I had to wait for the guards to come back with reinforcements. These hands are not meant for tying thugs up." Rielle said. "And then I had to stay muddy all the way to Lakeshire when we started off again. Thank the light for said lake, or I'd still look a mess."

Zackel sat silently on the bed, trying to wrap his head around what Jasciona had told him. She'd…faced off a band of Defias thugs by herself? And come out just dirty?

"Jazz…how many were there?"

"Who knows, I lost count after eight of them."

"Eight of…"

"Kel, enough. It was a bad day and I don't want to talk about it." Jasciona said. Zackel's lack of response made her turn her head to face him. "What? Druid got your tongue?"

"…It's just…I…you…" Zackel said. "You're amazing. Just…amazing."

Jasciona let the honesty of the words sink in, and a soft smile appeared on her face.

"Yes, I suppose I am." Jasciona said, as she approached Zackel where he was sitting on the bed. "But…I know that well enough. Don't wanna be amazing…"

Jasciona pushed Zackel back a bit before she straddled herself on top of him.

"Wanna feel amazing." Jasciona whispered. "No more work. Time to play."

The kiss was deep and intense, Jasciona lowering herself and Zackel down on the bed. She broke it after several seconds.

"For your next trick, make my clothes disappear."

Zackel just kissed her again, drawing his hand up her robe and hooking the waist line of her pants…

"Whoa whoa whoa, stop stop. You can just fade to black, Zack. I don't need those details." Rielle said.

"Well, I was going to."

"Good."

"After the part where I literally charmed her out of…"

"LALALALALALALALA YOU ARE NOT IMPRESSING ME." Rielle said in a sing-song tone, even going all the way to stick her fingers in her ears. "I don't want to hear you lie about how good you are in the sack. Get to the interesting part."

"Lie? Hmph." Zackel said, placing his Thrust stone down before he continued. "Okay fine, we made some magic. Then…"

Some couples snuggled after sex. Some engaged in pillow talk. Some smoked, though Zackel considered that a filthy habit that dwarves seemed to have an odd fondness for. Zackel and Jasciona mostly did the first two, and something unique amongst a magical couple: post-coitus magical demonstration.

With the sheets loosely wrapped around him, Zackel was sitting in the middle of the bed, Jasciona leaning against the head of it and watching him. Normally her bare chest would have been a distraction, but with Zackel having already dealt with such things that would draw his attention in such a way…

("Several times."

"OH YOU LIAR!" Rielle said, lightly smacking Zackel in the head. "Don't bring this up again, because unlike you I really can 'hit it' several times!"

"I'm going to have a permanent soft spot on my head by the time we go our separate ways." Zackel said, rubbing where Rielle had struck him.)

…He was able to focus on what he was doing, which was summoning magic between his hands.

"Sycofrax….sycofrax…" Zackel said, cold energies gathering between his semi-wiggling, semi-clawing fingers. Jasciona watched, her cool green gaze both analytical and curious. Blue mist began forming between Zackel's hands, and with a grunt he slapped them together and drew them apart. On his hand, a small ice statue of a ballerina was now standing on one delicate leg. As Jasciona watched, it began to slowly spin.

"Dah-dee-dah-de-dah-dah-de…eh, I kind of suck as a music box." Zackel said sheepishly.

"You have other talents." Jasciona replied, reaching out towards his hands. The ice ballerina drifted over to her hand, and Zackel lowered his own as the small statue continued to spin on Jasciona's.

Jasciona looked at the statue.

A new surge of blue mist flowed up, even as the ice Zackel had already summoned began to shift its shape. Zackel watched, and swore he saw a literal spark of energies surge across Jasciona's eyes as her own product took shape.

A replica of a mother wolf sat on Jasciona's now, tiny puppies running around and playing around her. Zackel stared for several seconds, swallowing as he did so. She'd topped him, without a word or gesture. Maybe no one from this class would be the next Medivh, but Zackel honestly wondered if he was looking at the next Aegwynn.

"I can't even come close." Zackel said, shaking his head.

"Don't underestimate yourself, Kel. Maybe I can sprint and you can go the distance." Jasciona said, dispelling the ice creation she had made. "You haven't disappointed me yet."

"I should think not."

"Come here." Jasciona said, drawing Zackel in for another kiss.

The low, thudding boom coming from outside the room stopped it cold. It was one of the few times in Zackel's magical training that he didn't like something that could be considered that way (that is, cold).

"What was that?" Jasciona said.

"I don't know…" Zackel said, stealing out of bed. He located his underpants and began pulling them on.

The next thud was considerably louder, and Zackel could swear he heard yelling and screaming.

"Okay, nothing good." Zackel said, and headed directly for his staff, which was propped up against the wall with Jasciona's.

The door blew off its hinges and nearly took Zackel's head off in the process. Jasciona screamed, throwing up a sheet to cover herself, even as Zackel hit the ground in painful fashion with his own yell. He looked up with alarmed eyes at the hole in the wall where the door to their inn room had been, and once again felt his mouth go dry.

Filling the space was a giant mass of malignant shadow, two glowing embers serving as eyes being the only defining marks on the beast. It's clawed shadow hands could easily have wrapped around Zackel's whole torso, and it brought with it a chill that shot through Zackel both in its intensity and its unnatural nature.

A Voidwalker. Zackel had no idea where it had come from, why it was here, and how the hell it had gotten past all of Stormwind's guards.

He didn't really care. It was here. And Zackel's staff and mildly enchanted clothes, along with Jasciona's, were propped against the opposite wall and all over the floor, respectively.

"Accursed…FLESH…" The Voidwalker rumbled, starting to slide into the room.

Zackel had a feeling that whatever grudge the demon minion had against him, and his flesh, he really didn't want to know how the creature would act on it.

"Suffer…rend…"

Now he was sure of it.