Kalthor woke with a headache that would have floored even the most stout of dwarven drinkers. If, he thought, dwarves could even get drunk. The blonde grumbled all through getting dressed, stumbling twice into furniture that he cursed with the vehemence better saved and served by criminals and sailors. It was only when he pulled himself from the bathing room that he realized he wasn't entirely alone.
It was a strange feeling, a tickle in the back of his mind that was lingering beneath the lovely headache he had cultivated. He knew the feeling, like a bond that was being tugged to alert him to danger or worse. It was enough to give him pause, to make him grip the frame of the door to focus his thoughts as much as keep himself upright. "Xaydia..." There was a laugh, a pulse as a shard within his pouch fractured and the soul within escaped and tempted the demon he called for.
She came, as he knew she would. Xaydia could no more ignore him than he could ignore Triadae, and for the exact same reasons. He felt her hands wrap about his chest, the tight-fitting bodice she wore pressing roughly into his back as she nipped at his clothed body. "You so very rarely call for me. I half expected you to do so last night, when your lusts ran high..." That silken purr wrapped around his mind, pulling at him in the same way a lover might pull him closer.
"Stop that." He could feel her sigh, could almost see the pout and defiant flash of her blue-limned eyes before she pulled away. "What I do outside of the Twisting Nether is none of your concern, and what happened last night is to be forgotten and never spoken about again. Under pain of worse than death, Xaydia... I assure you, I am not tempting you with freedom."
The succubus dipped below his arm, her hooves tapping lightly on the stone floor beneath them while her fingers ran over the disheveled bed. "Yes, Master." There was disappointment in her voice, as easily read as her body language; the way she sat on the bed, coyly watching him from beneath thick ebony lashes. "If it was not to discuss the lack of your sexual experiences, for what reason did you call me?" Her eyes went to her nails, turning her hand this way and that while she examined them.
"Someone who consumes too much energy, your energy..." He staggered to a chair, seating himself in an attempt to make the world stop spinning for just a moment. His hands covered his eyes, fingertips rubbing at his hairline while he spoke. "Is it possible for someone to become a demon on that magic? Is it possible for someone to corrupt themselves past the point of humanity, and become something else entirely?"
Xaydia remained silent for a long time, her attention divided between playing at not listening, and flicking her eyes to the man who spoke. "Fel magic was brought to this planet by the Legion. It is, as you already know, arcane at the most corrupt stage. Which is why you yourself struggle to bring it under control. Your heritage claims the arcane and the power, but your choices have turned it corrupt. Choices like draining the demons as the others did.
Several of those you call demons were not demons previously. They were mortal races, like your own, changed and altered in exchange for power and glory. One who consumed enough of this energy, or was around those who did so, may also take on the demonic qualities. It would take a great deal of demon blood..."
"How much?" Kalthor's voice had gone hoarse, his hands shaking. "How much would be needed to make someone into something like that, and is it possible to change that once it is complete?"
The succubus seemed to think for a time, her shoulders finally lifting and falling in a slight shrug. A sexual creature to the bone, Xaydia had little understanding of the sentimental and emotional outside of lust. Yet her time with the warlock had given her an insight she would have generally lacked had she simply been one of the others. "It's a soul and body corrupting substance. Those who cast magic, arcane at least, age faster and risk calling attention to themselves by those who can feel the ripples made by a strong casting.
A week of staying away from demon blood could give the one who consumed a chance, if they are not already turned. If they are already corrupt to the point where they are changed..."
"She summoned incubi. Demons who have had their summoning rituals forgotten by even the most powerful of people. I don't know what else I expected from those portals, but even a Nathreziem wouldn't have surprised me nearly as much. How much power would one have to have in order to do such a thing? To wrench males from only Light knows where to bring them here?"
His vehemence startled her, violet tinged wings flaring behind her for a moment before she settled. "It would have been a vast amount of power. Enough for her to catch the attention of someone, and not someone she would want the attention of." Xaydia stood, closing the distance between them, her fingers reaching to brush through golden hair, only to stop. Her Master was a mess of emotions. Rage and anger, grief and sorrow, hate and guilt. Things she had never felt from him before washed over her like a torrent of rain, nearly knocking her back with the force. Amidst it all, she felt that same line that was being tugged, that same bond.
"Find her." Kalthor's voice was choked, and his fingers gripped his hair as if ready to pull it from his very head. "I did not save her from becoming Felblood to have her give in to the Legion, or anyone else. Find her, drag her from the hell she is caught in, and bring her to me. By any means necessary."
She watched for a moment, uncertainty clouding her mind. Just when it looked as if he might lash out at her for stalling, just as she felt his arcana begin to boil, she vanished from his sight and fled through the Twisting Nether, using only the distant bond between one and the other as her guide.
"I'm sorry, friend. None you describe have come anywhere near this portal." The broad shouldered druid released a sound that was quite bullish, but Kalthor wasn't about to mock the full-grown Tauren before him. "There is, if one chooses to travel it, still the path through the elven lands. If the one you seek did not come here, perhaps they decided to tread that instead."
The warlock cast his gaze to the sky, where the sun had already risen to the half-way point. In another hour, it would begin the descent, it would grow dark, and Kalthor was not a tracker by any stretch of the word. Triadae had more than enough time on him to be far gone. "The elven lands. Is the path to them from the side of this city still intact?"
"Of course. There has been little reason to close off a trade route, or so the newly acquired..." The bull grimaced as a green-skinned humanoid the size of a gnome blew by on a machine that left Kalthor coughing and hacking. "... If your compatriot left for Hyjal as you believe, I've doubts that they would have left by way of the front gate, or the gate that now leads into Azshara. Beware, the land has changed drastically. You'd be best served with a guide."
Kalthor recovered from his coughing fit in time to be beset by another one, the same goblin laughing and cackling madly as she raced by. When the warlock seemed able to breathe again, the rumble of the engine could be heard over the commotion. A slender finger was held to the Tauren in a request to wait, and as the goblin raced by once more, she was knocked from the machine. The trike went wild, crashing into a tent and tearing it apart. While others scrambled to control the runaway vehicle, Kalthor reached and grabbed the small woman by one skull-decorated pigtail, ignoring her screams of protest.
"The west gate, then. My thanks for your help. Winds be at your back, and other such nature-related nonsense." With his grip tightening, the man stalked off, dragging the insult spewing humanoid along behind him. "I am going to make this very, very clear." Another gem splintered in his pouch, and he was not surprised to see the form of his felhound beside him as he flung the creature against the wall. "Do you know what this is, imp?" He gestured towards the demon, his grin becoming almost manic.
"Imp! Do I look like an imp, you fel-sucking flea?" Her grey eyes flicked briefly from the threatening warlock to the far more valid threat of the felhunter, who was swinging the long, thick tentacles atop it's blind head to and fro, as if searching for her. "'Course I know what it is. It's a manahound, sucks the magic from a person and leaves them -..."
"Little more than a dried and empty husk." He was close, his hands going to the wall beside her head, his nose no more than an inch from her own crooked one. "Even now, he's sniffing you out for the magic you harbor, and it's only my word that will keep him off of you. So I want you to listen quite close, gnome." He blatantly ignored the angry red flush that came over her features, powering on. "You're going to accompany me into enemy territory as my guide, since you seem to find annoying me quite amusing. I'm in a bad mood, and very likely going to light your robes on fire at the slightest moment, or I might forget to keep Jnofril off of you. When I am content that you have done your job, you will be let go. Until then, I'd start walking."
"Walking! I just bought that trike! Cost me a fortune, too!" The goblin sputtered, poking Kalthor's nose with one crooked finger. It was an action she sorely wished to take back as her sleeve burst into flame, and she was reduced to tears while flailing her arm around.
When her screams of fright became those of pain, the warlock called off the flames, gathering them in his palm before they extinguished. "I believe I have made my point, have I not?" He pulled back, glaring daggers at a passing group. They hustled past, ducking their heads and going on. The goblin girl sniffled, lifting her sleeve and looking at her scorched and blistered arm for a moment before nodding. "Good. Onward, runt."
"Mixie Cobblepot. Not runt." The goblin glared for a moment, turning on a slipper-clad heel and making her way toward the gate that had been earlier discussed. Behind her, the felhound happily trotted, his sucker-tipped tentacles never moving from more than a few inches away from her skin. With a final glance at his surroundings, Kalthor followed as well.